They Left Their Nets Behind

 

From that time Jesus began to proclaim, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” As he walked by the sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea - for they were fishermen. And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him. . . Matthew 4:18-20 

Inheritance is the word we use to describe the things, tangible and intangible, that are handed down from generation to generation. I imagine a fishing net, in the time of Christ, was one of those things cast down from father to son. A son didn’t choose to be a fisherman so much as he was caught in the net, entangled in its destiny like his father and his father’s father before him. 

I imagine the women in each family – wives, daughters, sisters – mended the nets, perhaps winding linen fibers into rope. Everyone’s hands worked the family nets; everyone’s mouths fed on their harvest. The net, like the sea and the fish in it, stood at the center of life – a mingling of the past and the present, a clear path leading to a predetermined future. 

Simon and Andrew’s hands likely bore the mark of their nets. Their faces and hair were shaped by the wind and sun on the Sea of Galilee, and so also their hands would have been calloused and scarred from gathering and tossing the heavy, wet fibers. Yet when Jesus came, announcing the kingdom of heaven, Simon and Andrew left their nets behind. 

It’s almost as though Jesus, walking along the shore, saw them struggling there like a pair of fish tangled with no means of escape. Then, with ten simple words, Jesus cut them free. “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” 

The possibility of a break with the past emerges. 

The door to an unimagined future swings wide open. 

They left their nets behind. The callouses, the scars, would stay to remind them. But, they left their nets behind. 

Questions to Carry: What fixed ideas or practices have you blindly inherited? What might you be called to leave behind as you follow Jesus? Ask God to help you discern what no longer serves you well. Listen for Jesus’ own words or invitation to you.

In the Place Where You'd Rather Not Be

 

Learn from the things that are already in the place where you wish you were not. – Padraig O’Tuama in The Shelter, (p.9) 

A dead lightbulb has been sitting on our kitchen island for more than a week. Before that, it was in the light fixture above our dining room table for more than a month, dead. I unscrewed it in a burst of this room is too dark and depressing, I’m going to do something about it energy. That was at least a week ago and it now sits on the kitchen island waiting for someone who’s going to the store that sells the right kind of bulb to remember to take it along for comparison and finally buy a new one. 

That lightbulb is driving me crazy. 

That lightbulb is revealing things about the place I’m in that I would rather not know. 

(Don’t worry, the lightbulb isn’t telling me I’m a failure, it’s not that kind of bulb.) 

When I listen closely, though, the lightbulb has a lot to say. It tells me there’s a lot going on in my life right now. So much, that little details are certain to have to be let go. It invites me to pick my priorities, again. It helps me to see that having food on the table is a triumph in itself and one good conversation that invests in the future shines a light brighter than any bulb. 

I’m in a place I don’t want to be in, again. A place of many and much, a place of I didn’t realize we were going to have to deal with this now, but here we are in the middle of it anyway.  

Following Padraig’s advice, I feel my heart muscle stretch to open to this new place, this new challenge, this here and now. Once it's open, once I accept what is, I can begin to learn. I can begin to welcome the belief that even in this place, what we need is here. And so I begin by listening to the lightbulb, by “listening to the things that are already in the place where you wish you were not.”

Ashes and the Season of Lent: Maybe It's Time

Maybe

it’s time

to let it all

fall apart;

to stop holding on,

holding together,

that which is broken

beyond repair.

Let it burn to ash.

Let it crumble

and collapse,

decompose.

Is this not

the way of all things?

Maybe ours

is a season of death.

Then, so be it.

Let it all fall apart.

Let it burn.

Maybe this

is the bravest thing,

the one thing necessary

to live a life of faith.

- K. Chripczuk

I'm thinking, still, about ashes and this season of Lent.

I'm thinking of the devastation of this past year - for churches, for communities, for families and individuals. I'm also thinking of the tendency to hold our individual and collective breath, to hold on tight until the storm is past, and we can return to some semblance of normal.

But the longer we wait, the clearer it becomes that normal is unlikely to return - not in the ways we knew and took for granted. The quieter we get, the clearer it becomes that normal - as we knew it - was deeply flawed.

What are we to do?

//

Cliff Hanger is a character in a clever sketch series from the children's show "Between the Lions." Every episode begins with Cliff hanging from the edge of a cliff, hands desperately wrapped around a small breaking branch. Hanging there, mere moments from falling to his death, Cliff ekes out the same phrase in every week, "Can't...hold on . . . much …longer...!" Every episode begins with the desperate Cliff being rescued only to, in a series of events less than a minute long, end up back in the same dreadful position.

The other day, I described our current mid-pandemic position to my husband using Cliff’s strangled refrain: Can’t…hold on…much…longer….!

All of us, it feels, have been hanging here for quite some time. Our arms are tired. The top of the cliff – that once safe, familiar place – feels a little further away with each day that passes. Hanging here, we’ve had plenty of time to think about what life was really like on that high precipice, to determine whether we were really as happy as we said we were, to clarify which essentials remain essential from this vantage point.

//

One of the things I like about Ash Wednesday is that is welcomes, under the umbrella of God, the very worst of what can happen in the human experience. Ash Wednesday offers the opportunity to affirm the piercing truth that, eventually, we all fall. “Death will come, bringing a return to dust,” Ash Wednesday declares. Yet, even still, God is with us – even here, even now. Like the Psalmist reminds us, there is no place too high or too low, too dark or too bright or too far away that God’s great love cannot find us, catch us, even there.

This year, looking back at a year of losses, a heap of smoldering remains, I feel my own desire to hold on tighter, to salvage what I can. But, underneath my attachment, I hear Ash Wednesday whisper, “Why not let it ALL fall apart? Let it burn, completely.”

This is the season we are in – Lent – a time in which we follow the darkening trail all the way to the cross and beyond, to the very tomb itself, where hope lay down its weary head and wept. This is the journey of Lent, this invitation to follow, as we can, believing there is no darkness or death that can out-maneuver God’s capacity to create life anew.

Maybe it’s time to let it all fall apart.

Let Me Know (On Letting Go and Taking Flight)

 

Let me 
know
when you
are ready
to go.

I've 

taken

that leap 

before.

I know,

the fear,

the lies

that bind you

to the edge

of that prison

wall.

They 

boast such 

certainty.

"This

is all

there ever,

was, all  

there ever 

will be,"

they say.

But, 

if your heart 

whispers shadows 

of another land, 

let me know.

I will

stand

at the edge

with you.

I, too, 

know 

the fear 

of falling,

of landing 

in a wilderness

far beyond

settled lands.

But, 

I also know

what they will never know:

the rush of wind

on your face, the feeling

of taking flight; the courage

it takes, the love.

- K. Chripczuk

As a new year approaches, I'm pondering the things I have left behind this year and wondering what more might need to go. Letting go is never easy, but it's worth the work it takes. Perhaps, you are facing a difficult letting go. Let me know, I'd be happy to "stand at the edge with you." I can't wait to see your life take flight. 

Keep Showing Up

I found myself in a bit of a funk last night. After mowing the front lawn, I sneaked into my office to pray for awhile. It helped. And then I saw my daughter outside and decided to join her because the hot humid day had finally turned cool and breezy. We road our bikes in lazy circles on the driveway and I noticed, again, the red roses blooming like fireworks along the side of the little house. I realized the Queen Anne's Lace was in full bloom too. After I parked my bike, I ran in for a vase and scissors and Sophia and I cut the first bouquets of the season. I felt immeasurably better then, I felt returned to my home, my self.

I painted this little plaque last year, based on a note I had taped above my painting station, "Keep showing up." My kids asked what it meant, and I said, "It means keep trying, keep being willing to be where you are, to start again in whatever moment you find yourself in."

I think that's part of what happened last night. Thanks to prayer and a cool breeze, I stopped worrying about what comes next and showed up to what was right in front of me - a riot of flowers, a lovely daughter to share the task of cutting the season's first bouquets.

In her book, An Altar in the World, Barbara Brown Taylor says, “No one longs for what he or she already has, and yet the accumulated insight of those wise about the spiritual life suggests that the reason so many of us cannot see the red X that marks the spot is because we are standing on it. The treasure we seek requires no lengthy expedition, no expensive equipment, no superior aptitude or special company. All we lack is the willingness to imagine that we already have everything we need. The only thing missing is our consent to be where we are.”

Today, friends, keep showing up, consent to be where you are, in whatever you are in. And, when you do, I hope you find flowers, or a friend, or even just a moment's peace and quiet that helps you move gently, hopefully, into the next moment and the moment after that.

Because (Mysticism and Math)

Photo by Chris Lawton on Unsplash

Because my husband and I reached a moment of clarity when his truck, again, needed extensive repairs we couldn't afford.  "Something needs to change,” we said, together, and the words set like concrete, solid and steady beneath our feet. 

  

Because, the job opening was posted online within a day or two of our decision.  

Because, it had been six months or more since I looked for any kind of job and this kind of job only appears once in a blue moon.  What are the chances we would reach this decision, that I would start looking for a job, the day after my dream job was posted?

Because, my references all said, "Yes, of course, we think you'd be great."  

Because, the timing is perfect, with the kids ready steady in a new school year. 

Because I want it to be so. 

Because, because. 

//

I ticked these signs off one by one in my Spiritual Director's office, laying them out like bread crumbs I've gathered amidst the wilderness of my life, crumbs I hope might form a trail.  

“I want these things to add up,” I said.  “I want them to mean I will get this job.  But I know, it’s one thing to know what is – to be aware – and a much more difficult thing to know what it means.”  

Here, she nodded, knowingly.  

“I want to be able to say these signs mean God is doing this," I continued, "but I know God too well by now to place God in that kind of box."  "I’m not sure where God is in this,” I concluded.

“It seems to me,” she said, “that you’re being invited into a more mystical way of being.  Invited to dwell, not in the meaning of things, but in what you know to be true in each moment.”

//

In high school, I always did my math homework first.  For the most part, for me, it was easy.  More importantly, though, it was solid, clear, concrete.  There was only one answer and when you found it and checked it, you were done. 

Writing homework, though, was another beast.  Writing an essay is so open-ended.  There are so many words to choose from, so many ways to shape a sentence, a paragraph, a thought.  There is no clear ending; there are many was to frame a correct answer, so many ways to sculpt ideas across a page.  I never finished my writing assignments until just before they were due.  

//

Mysticism is not math.  It is the homework I have saved for last.

//

I immediately recognized the truth in my Spiritual Director’s words and, inwardly, I sighed.  Giving up my clumsy attempts to discern the meaning of things felt like a loss – a loss of knowing, to be exact.  

What do we have if we can't add events of our lives up one after the other, if we cannot trace a simple path through the woods of where we are to where we think we want to be?   We are left only with the present in all of its fullness and fragility.  

I told my director this, how I value the easy math of knowing, nailing down, what God is or is not doing.  How letting it go feels like a loss.  But, I realized even as I spoke, that by letting go of what is not, we enter, more fully, into what is.  We are free to stop hoarding and trying to find our path via the breadcrumbs of our lives.  Free to enjoy each crumb as the much-needed manna it is.  

What do we have if we only live in the present?

We have nothing.  We have everything.

We have God.

    

Fear is a Fox (#SmallWonder Link-Up)

(This isn't the fox I drew, but rather one I found online to work from - isn't it charming delightful?)

Last week I started work on a painting I planned to give to a friend.  Standing at the old sink in the Little House (where my office is) I covered a small, square, wooden canvas with a mixture of turquoise and dark purple paint and left it to dry.  The next day I added one or two more layers of the same colors.  I liked the combination and was happy, so far, with my little project. 

(This, often, is the beginning of the problem.)   

Next I played with some tulle netting, painting over it like a stencil to add layers of texture and depth.  Now I liked the painting even more and the more I liked it, the more my progress slowed.  

Love for what was made me hesitant to move toward what might be. 

But the painting was nowhere near complete.  With the background finished, it was time to add an image and words.  I already had words in mind and thought a fox would be a fitting image, so I looked online for a few samples to work from.  With luck, I easily found a sketch I loved.  I printed it and prepped my canvas board with a glossy gel layer that would preserve and protect the background while also allowing me to ‘erase’ my drawing at any point if I made a mistake.

Then my progress stalled for several days.  I loved the background, loved the fox, but I was afraid to mess up either one.  I was afraid to start, afraid to try, even though the gel coating meant I could begin again at any time.

I hemmed and hawed, I set my work aside and did not look the sly fox in the eye.

//

Maybe it wouldn’t be worth writing about if it wasn’t such a common occurrence – the way fear creeps in, cloaked in perfectionism and I, a creature of habit and instinct, caught between fight and flight, freeze like a deer in headlights. 

Again, maybe it wouldn’t be much if it hadn’t happened also last week when it came to updating my book files, and if success updating the print files had (as it should have) given way to confidence to deal with the e-book files.  Instead, each step ran up against (and temporarily stalled out in the face of) its own wall of fear.

I see this pattern again and again in my creativity and, if I’m honest, in my life.  I prefer the known to the unknown, even when the known is not particularly good, but especially if the known is good and filled with delight. 

How much time, how much energy, do I waste in this fearful pause? 

Why do I fail to believe that the grace of one step might carry over into the next? 

Maybe I need to become like the desert monk, Abba Paul, who worked all year long weaving baskets only to burn them and begin again each year - maybe I need to learn again and again the art of detachment, the gift of faith beyond sight.

//

I talked with a college student about this the other night, one who’s currently taking a drawing class.  We trotted together across the cold, dark campus on our way to a Bible study and I confessed how fear had me frozen.

“It’s ridiculous,” I said. “What am I so afraid of?  Especially when I could just erase it, just paint over it and start the whole thing over?”

She offered no answer, but confessed to witnessing the same tendency in herself and we continued through the crisp winter night together until we reached our destination – a small house aglow with warmth and light.

//

The next day, having voiced my fears aloud into the frigid night air, I pulled the fox from its lair beneath a stack of papers on the kitchen counter and looked it in the eye.  With a white gel pen, I sketched the outline on my canvas first, then filled in the fur.  I kept a bowl of water and q-tips nearby for erasing mistakes, but truth be told, I got it on the first try and barely erased a line.  Then, emboldened by success, I added low-lights in midnight blue to bring the fox alive. 

I was happy with the drawing, happy with my success.

Yet, I stopped, again, frozen in the face of the next step - hand lettering the words.  How would I space them?  What fonts should I employ?

I set the work aside, because now I was even more invested, had even more to risk, even more to lose.  Against the purple and blue background, the white fox sparkled silver and fixed me with its shining eye.  

//

Every wall of fear has a door.  The door cracks open, for me, when I recognize fear as an invitation to examine my own intrinsic attachment and perfectionism.  

Now, when the wall rises up in front of me, I imagine stretching out my empty hand and opening the door.  On the other side stands the fox, staring.  Then, in a flash of beauty, she turns and runs off into the night. 

Every day that I create something, I bump up against fear’s wall.  And, faster now, I hear the fox's sly whisper, “Look for the door.”   

How do you experience and deal with fear in your creative life?  In your faith life?

*   *   *

Welcome to the #SmallWonder link-up.  

What if we chose to deliberately look for small moments of wonder, the small sparks of presence, of delight or sorrow, of true humanity in which we meet God?  

That's my proposal - that we gather here each week to share one moment of Wonder from each of our days.  You're invited to link-up a brief post about a small moment of wonder.  Don't worry if your post is too long, too short, or not just right - you're welcome to come as you are.  

While you're here, please do take a look around and encourage at least one other blogger with a comment.  Thanks for being part of our community!  

At the End of this Swaying, Fraying Rope (#SmallWonder Link-up)

Matti Mattila

(This is a re-post from January 2012 when the twins were just six months old and my older kids were 3 and 5.  It was a crazy time.  This January I'm working full time and my kids are sick (as is par for the course come January) - it is also a crazy time.  In light of all the craziness, I thought pulling something out of the archives might serve me well.  Enjoy!)

There’s a level of desperation around our house these days.  Winter's arrival has us cramped and snotty, sneezing and feverish.  My husband and I make daily trips to the store for things we forgot and debate who should go to the Dr. next as we shuffle endless loads of laundry from basket to washer to dryer and back to the basket again. 

It feels like an endless game of “whack-a-mole.”  

One day, between phone calls and drop offs and trips to the library, I turned to see one twin chewing on the now-empty bottle of infant Ibuprophen.  Running to call poison control, hurdling the baby gates with Olympic precision, I realized I don't know for sure who drank the medicine.  I doubled-back quickly to check both boys over, frantically searching for tell-tale sticky hands and berry-flavored breath.  Thankfully, it was "not a toxic dose."

I called the Dr. the other morning about our son who’s running a high fever after two days of antibiotics and left the wrong birth date on the message.  I thought it was wrong as I said it and tried to correct myself on the phone.  In the end the message went something like this, “His birthday is 8.11.2011.  Or wait, that’s not right, it might be 8.10.2011.  I’m sorry, I really can’t remember right now.”

I'm at the end of my rope, you see, hanging here white-knuckled with fingers grasped tight. As I dangle, gasping for breath, waiting for things to stop spinning, I'm reminded of Eugene Peterson's translation of Jesus' first Beatitude,

“You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule."

How can this be?  

Blessed, right here, right now, dangling, struggling, sagging with nowhere to go.  Blessed because the end of me is not the end of everything, only the beginning of something more, Someone more. 

Peterson's words remind me of something I read a few months ago in Scott Cairns' book, Short Trip to the Edge.  Cairns is an Orthodox Christian and writes briefly about the role of a prayer rope, a string of 33 square knots used to focus the fingers and mind during prayer.  As Cairns puts it, the prayer rope "does its bit to re-pair the inherent schism within the human person, [it] helps to  . . . bring the mind into the heart (36)."   

Reflecting on this image I wondered whether prayer itself might be like the weaving of a rope leading us deep into the heart of God - where we're anchored and at rest.  

The rope woven through prayer is so different than the one I work to climb most days.  I struggle along the rope of my own striving like a scrawny adolescent in gym class trying to perfect the hand-over-hand technique necessary for upward momentum.  This rope, the end of which dangles before me daily, is one of my own making, my striving, my success or failure. 

But the rope of prayer begins where that one ends and leads downward out of myself or perhaps deeper in to the place where Christ now dwells in my heart as I asked him to all those long years ago.  This rope of prayer, when I tend it and mend it, leads me to the places of deep blessedness and true security.

Once again I lower my expectations and ease myself down off of so many cliffs of my own making. I sit down, sink down into grace and love and with every prayer I find the courage to let go one more time, to lean-in to the blessedness. 

Here I am, again, at the end of me; here I am, again, blessed.

*   *   *

Welcome to the #SmallWonder link-up.

What if we chose to deliberately look for the small moments of wonder, the small sparks of presence, of delight or sorrow, of true humanity in which we meet God? 

That's my proposal - that we gather here each week to share one moment of Wonder from each of our days.  

You're invited to link-up a brief post about a small moment of wonder.  Don't worry if your post is too long, too short, or not just right - you're welcome to come as you are.  

While you're here, please do take a look around and encourage at least one other blogger with a comment.  

Trying and Letting Go (#SmallWonder Link-Up)

(#SmallWonder friends, this post is late!  My apologies.  We will be taking a break from linking up next Monday (12/28) and I'll see you back here again January 4th.)

I tried to make Christmas cookies twice this December. 

The first was a batch of chocolate covered peanut butter balls.  I mixed the no-bake batter quickly before the buses brought the older kids home, then I shaped them into balls while all four watched TV.  Lining a tray with parchment paper, I put them in the refrigerator to chill, thinking we would roll them in chocolate after dinner.

Then my oldest son threw up. 

The next day he stayed home sick and by the third day the moment had passed.  The peanut butter balls sat naked in the refrigerator, stale and shrunken.  “Just eat them,” I said, at last.

Yesterday, a week after my initial attempt, I mixed two batches of cookie dough – classic cut-out sugar cookies and Martha Stewart’s chocolate peppermint cookies.  I put them, covered, in the refrigerator to chill. 

And then, yes, my older son threw up again. 

Baking cookies lost its appeal and I pulled the last bags of Thanksgiving’s turkey-barley soup out of the freezer to thaw for dinner.  Today he’s home sick again and I completed my first “professional” interview in years over the phone while he sat watching TV.  The call was dropped once and a visitor came to the door mid-conversation.  This afternoon we’ll head to the pediatrician’s office, again.

//

Last week I met with my Spiritual Director.  She told me, in the nicest way possible, that I’m not the center of the universe.  Also, when I complained about not being able to do. it. all., she asked me, “What is most important to you during this season?” 

“Attending to the mystery,” I said, “staying alert for all the ways Christ creeps in among us.”

Of course, that means I might need to let go of some other things. 

Like baking cookies. 

What do you need to let go of this week?  What's most important for you to hold onto in the midst of the holiday rush?  

*   *   *

Welcome to the #SmallWonder link-up.

What if we chose to deliberately look for the small moments of wonder, the small sparks of presence, of delight or sorrow, of true humanity in which we meet God? 

That's my proposal - that we gather here each week to share one moment of Wonder from each of our days.  

You're invited to link-up a brief post about a small moment of wonder.  Don't worry if your post is too long, too short, or not just right - you're welcome to come as you are.  

While you're here, please do take a look around and encourage at least one other blogger with a comment.  

To Wait in Darkness (Advent Week 2) #SmallWonder Link-up

(Our truck isn't nearly this old, but some days it feels like it . . . )

See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight—indeed, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?  For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap; he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years. - Malachi 3:1-4

By the tender mercy of our God,
   the dawn from on high will break upon us, 
to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.’ - Luke 1:78-9

  

The rattle-trap, red, Ford pick-up squealed out of the driveway Tuesday morning and something broken inside of it gave voice all the way to my husband’s work and back home again that night.  He was kind enough to offer to help with dinner and the kids before buttoning up an old shirt and heading out to the garage to pop the hood. 

Before heading to bed, we decided he would call off work the next day to try to wrangle a repair. 

In the morning the older kids climbed into their yellow buses and the twins buckled into the van.  John was going to drop them off at preschool before heading to the auto parts store.  I headed out to the Little House to twiddle my thumbs as us artist types like to do, grateful to be excused from the thrice-weekly chore of drop-off. 

Minutes later he burst in the door.  “Can you come try to start the van while I look at the engine?” he asked.  “I can’t get it to start.”

Out into the cold winter rain I went to turn the key.  The van whined and moaned and finally I pumped the gas enough to give it a coughing start.

“I guess I’ll leave it on at the parts store,” he said, “I don’t want to get stuck over there.”

I stood in the driveway and watched him pull out. 

We couldn’t leave the van running all morning and how would we pick up the twins if we couldn’t get it to start?

//

I dread preschool drop-off because parents are instructed to pull-in under a carport where a teacher approaches, opens the door, and helps the kids out.  Sounds simple, right?

Except when your door handle's broken. 

Three times a week I cruise into the carport in our ancient burgundy minivan and lean back over the seats to pop the door open from the inside before whatever teacher happens to be on duty can make a fool out of herself wrestling the finicky handle. 

Three times a week I watch the twins climb out while silently hoping the teacher on duty won’t slide the door far enough open to cause it to latch.  Most days they do.  Then I’m stuck climbing over the seat again to unlatch the door and slide it shut.

It’s embarrassing. 

Wednesday, the day my husband stayed home and the vehicles went on strike, he didn’t know he needed to preemptively pop the door.  Instead, he sat calmly in the driver seat while one of the boy’s teachers yanked and pulled on the handle, trying to get the door to shut.   

With a mighty yank, the handle broke right off in her hand. 

“I broke your handle,” she said passing what was left to my husband.

//

The truck ended up being an easy fix and it appears the van was faking.  In the end, I had more time to write and work than I would have otherwise. 

All’s well that ends well, right?

I will say that Wednesday morning I wanted to cry and nearly did when I couldn’t figure out how we’d get the twins back home.  My mind bounced between righteous indignation, (This is Christmas!  This sort of thing shouldn’t happen at Christmas!) and self-pity (Of course!).

Somewhere between the opposing poles of control and resignation I found a tenuous place of surrender.  I clung to it in a way that seems in contradiction to what is essentially a posture of “letting go.”

//

Making wreaths at the dining room table the following today, I thought about this thing we’ve got going on, this month-long season of Christmas in which we feel sorely offended if the world appears to be coming apart at the seams.  We’re torn between demanding more - of the world, our children, ourselves - and a death-embracing resignation. 

Let me tell you what I know after wrangling evergreens and wire – it may be Christmas and you may want something more, but #$^% is gonna keep on keepin’ on. 

Red trucks will scream their way to work and back.

Minivans will embarrass and fake their own deaths.

Children will run wild through your house and you will be forced to play the “You’re father’s uncle died from falling down the stairs” card in a vain attempt to scare them straight.  But rather than accepting the logical conclusion that one should not play on the stairs, they will blame the victim because everyone knows if you’re falling down the stairs you can stop yourself before you hit your head.

You will accidentally step on the dog and scare the cat who will then claw the dog right on the nose and those two tiny drops of blood on that dear sweet nose will make you want to weep.

But worst of all (or is it?) someone, somewhere will take a gun and shoot one or two or twenty and the seeds of evil that dwell hidden in the human heart will again seem to block out all rays of light.

You will be tempted between control and resignation. 

You will want to decry the forces that be – the cat, the kids, the world in which “awful and terrible things happen.” 

You will want to throw your hands up in the air and walk away because someone somewhere has again ruined this yuletide season with their crimes and failures big and small.

But then you will remember.

We don’t celebrate Christmas because the world is perfect. 

We celebrate Christmas because the world is broken. 

It’s screaming to and from work, pulling apart at the seams, liable to break off in your very hands, broken.   

Advent is waiting with open hands, open hearts for the One who will sift through it all, cleansing, purging, until only what’s good, what’s pure and golden remains.  Until then, we stand strong, we endure, we hang tinsel and plug in the lights because, for now, it may be as close as we can get to that for which our hearts so long. 

*   *   *

Welcome to the #SmallWonder link-up.

What if we chose to deliberately look for the small moments of wonder, the small sparks of presence, of delight or sorrow, of true humanity in which we meet God? 

That's my proposal - that we gather here each week to share one moment of Wonder from each of our days.  

You're invited to link-up a brief post about a small moment of wonder.  Don't worry if your post is too long, too short, or not just right - you're welcome to come as you are.  

While you're here, please do take a look around and encourage at least one other blogger with a comment.  

   

Slow Down

“Slow down.”

These words rise from heart to head each morning as I wake. 

I hear them walking away from a networking meeting at the small, brick café down the street. 

I hear them when the kids whirl around the kitchen like snowflakes in a blizzard and it’s all I can do to keep from blasting them into submission with a giant stomping shout. 

“Slow down,” the voice says.

//

In seminary we ran intellectual marathons – punishing races in pursuit of excellence.

In the hours when the kids are at school and I am my own boss, I feel myself pushing again in that old, familiar pattern. 

Run hard, run fast.  Do more.  Do it better.  Move, move, move.

//

And still, the small voice whispers, “Slow down.”

//

Last week we had the twins’ four-year-old well-visit at the pediatrician’s office.  John and I met at the office and the boys stripped down to their underwear and clambered around the room while we waited for the Dr.    

We asked about their speech, which the preschool seems to think needs fixing. We got caught up on necessary shots.      

With their birthdays falling in August, the appointment was well overdue. Between the well-visits, the eye dr. and the dentist we, it seems, are falling behind. 

“I can’t keep up,” I say to my husband, to myself, to anyone who is still long enough to listen. 

The thought of the dentist appointments needing to be scheduled and adding speech therapy for two into the mix?  It causes a panic in me, like water rising around someone who cannot swim. 

“Hurry, hurry,” life screams. 

//

Last year, coming off of a weekend of panic attacks, I took the twins to their well-visit by myself.  In the exam room panic rose around me.  My heart pounded, skin flashed hot and cold.  Two half-naked boys perched, one on each knee, was all that kept me from rising, running from the room. 

Maybe this is why the voice tells me, “Slow down.”  Because we can only spin so fast before we lose our balance and start to fall. 

Sometimes slow is the only way to be.  

Sometimes slow is the one necessary thing.  

//

Sitting with those words, "Slow down," and my markers, I found a few more words - maybe you need them too in this too often frenetic holiday season.

Slow down.  Just be.
Be still.  
Be present.
Listen to and dwell in what is
here, now, this moment.
What love? What fear?
And what possible doorway between the two? 
(Grace, always, is the door.)

  

Love Leads (#SmallWonder Link-Up)

Photo Credit

In the rush between dinner and dessert, in the harried press to Get-These-Kids-to-Bed, four-year-old Isaiah remembers.

Running through the house, he shouts, "Guys! We need to do our yeaves!"

//

My family is growing leaves again this Thanksgiving. 

Last Tuesday I cut contact paper into the shape of a large, barren tree and stuck it to the wood paneled wall in the living room.  Then we cut a bowl-full of leaves.  Every evening we each write what we’re thankful for on a leaf and stick it to the tree.  By Thanksgiving the tree will be full and green, vibrant. 

//

Isaiah doesn’t remind us to do our leaves because he’s so very grateful.  Most of his leaves proclaim anticipatory gratitude for the handcuffs he hopes to receive for Christmas (heaven help us).  He reminds us because after the note’s written, he gets to color his leaf and Isaiah is a big fan of coloring.  He’s been known to spend a whole afternoon coloring at the kitchen counter.  He loves it.

And his love leads us, even if it has nothing at all to do with gratitude. 

That’s the way love is. 

Love opens doors, makes way and helps us remember what we set out to do, who we wanted to be, when we ourselves have forgotten.  And if we don’t have enough love of our own, all we need to do is follow someone else’s, to sit for a while in the glow of their passion and delight. 

I don’t love coloring like Isaiah does, but his love for it cuts through the evening rush, spurs memory and reminded, we follow in its wake. 

Do you have special family practices for the season of Thanksgiving?  I'd love to hear about them in the comments!

*   *   *

Welcome to the #SmallWonder link-up.

What if we chose to deliberately look for the small moments of wonder, the small sparks of presence, of delight or sorrow, of true humanity in which we meet God? 

That's my proposal - that we gather here each week to share one moment of Wonder from each of our days.  

You're invited to link-up a brief post about a small moment of wonder.  Don't worry if your post is too long, too short, or not just right - you're welcome to come as you are.  

While you're here, please do take a look around and encourage at least one other blogger with a comment.