The Second Presidential Debate and Who I'm Voting For

They came out like boxers in the ring, like two dogs in a back alley street fight, ready with a snarl, lips curled at the slightest hint of aggression, straining at their leashes.  There were rules, as there often are, but each was prepared to ignore the rules relying instead on instinct and the ability to get ahead with a well-aimed, well-timed punch below the belt.  They out-numbered, out-weighed the referee and even the audience.  They believed the fight was theirs to win or lose, to make up the rules as they went.  Who could blame them, really?  So much was at stake.  They came out, their pockets filled with stones, each hoping to bury the other. 

In the balance, America sat like a juicy bone tossed on the ground between two dogs.  Still, it wasn’t the bone the fighters cared about, but what it stood for, what being top dog would mean, things more elusive than a bone, things like power and control and ideology.  But power and control and ideology rarely fill the empty stomach, rarely warm the family huddled together under layers of shabby quilts for warmth, and more rarely yet provide adequate answers to the deepest hungers, the deepest needs of the human heart. 

So, as the fight grew, as the two circled, bobbing, swaying and throwing their stones, America walked away.  She turned off the screen and laid awake filled with the adrenaline that comes from watching a fight, almost wishing for a chance to throw a punch or two, to take a bite out of something, someone.  November sixth still promised the opportunity to have her voice heard, but there in the darkness of night, with the chill of winter creeping in, a different kind of cold, that of disillusionment and fear found its way through the door cracks and moved in through windows covered-over with plastic sheeting.  America shivered and turned out the light, not knowing what tomorrow would bring.

*   *   *   *   *

As a parent, a homeowner, a citizen, I understand more fully now than ever before the importance of voting.  In college and even graduate school my attitude toward politics veered between cynicism and naïve optimism.  I cast my first ballot for Bush during his first term and then later voted for Kerry when Bush ran for reelection.  I voted on a whim, I voted as a right of passage, a way of becoming an adult and distinguishing myself from my parents.  I voted despite the feeling of futility regarding the outcome, despite not fully understanding the issues. 

My attitude toward voting has changed in the last two elections.  I can see now more clearly the cumulative effect of the decisions we make regarding the economy and the environment and foreign policy.  I can see how a deduction here, a tax incentive there can place a family ahead or behind by several thousand dollars which can really add up for people who spend their lives in tens and twenties rather than trillions.  I look at my children and wonder if wars are in the making now that will steal away the brightest years of their lives, of our lives.  I can appreciate more deeply that how I vote matters, not just for me and mine, but for millions of other Americans, millions around the world. 

At the end of the day, though, one will win and one will loose and in the span of four years progress will be made in some areas and grave mistakes will be made in others.  We’ll all be back at it again in four years, gathered around our viewing screen of choice, carrying the baggage of four more years of hopes and dreams, four more years of life and death and everything in-between.  We’ll be watching the fight, putting our money on whoever the top dog appears to be, hoping that some small fraction of the prize will be ours if we manage to vote well.      

*   *   *   *   *

I came across a quote the other day that, for me, sums up the calling of Christ in us and, conversely, the problem with so many facets of Christianity today.

                    "If am not careful, I can decide that I am really much happier

                    reading my Bible than I am entering into what God is doing in

                    my own time and place, since shutting the book to go outside

                    will involve the very great risk of taking part in stories that are

                    still taking shape. Neither I nor anyone else knows how these

                    stories will turn out, since at this point they involve more

                    blood than ink. The whole purpose of the Bible, it seems

                    to me, is to convince people to set the written word down

                    in order to become living words in the world for God's

                    sake. For me, this willing conversion of ink back to blood is

                    the full substance of faith."

                                Barbara Brown Taylor in Leaving church: A Memoir of Faith

I love what Taylor's saying here, "we are living words" and I wonder if I might stretch the idea a little further to say, "we are living votes."  Stay with me here for a minute.  What I want to say is that we vote with our lives.  It’s true that we come together every four years to vote and the decision we make is important, but we also vote every day with our lives – our time, our money, our words, our touch, and our deepening capacity to multiply love and joy and hope in the world or, conversely, our tendency to multiply fear. 

So here it is, friends, I’m voting for YOU. 

In truth, God votes for us; God voted for us in Christ and continues to vote for us still.  Even as the disciples stood staring dumbfounded at the sky as Jesus ascended, the very words, “But, Lord . . .?” forming on their quaking, dry lips, even then I picture Jesus looking back at them filled with love, filled with hope saying in effect, “It’s OK, you got this, we’ve got this one.”  God votes for humanity by instilling in Christ's followers the very power of God that raised Christ.  God votes for you every day, votes for the power of Christ in you. 

Let me be clear here, lest this come across as some form of progressive optimism and faith in the ability of the human spirit to pull itself up by its boot straps.  When I say I’m voting for you, what I mean to say is that I’m voting for Christ in you.  Because, otherwise, let’s be honest, a vote for me or you would simply be another wasted vote.  I know me and if you’re anything like me, we’re all still struggling to figure out what a boot strap is, never-mind pulling ourselves up by it.  

I’m placing my vote for Christ in you, for that growing power of the resurrected Christ that now lives, breathes and moves in you.  I’m voting for the power of Christ at work in the woman who just quit her job to help care for a sick family member.  I’m voting for the man who’s working with the Mentoring Project to match positive male roll models with at-risk youth in our town.  I’m voting for the power of Christ at work in a friend who faced down her fears of the unknown and traveled to Haiti and found a deeper calling to compassion and service through time spent cuddling a needy child.  I’m voting for the many in my small church who're slowly learning that where our potential ends, God’s begins and who are slowly taking leaps of faith in hundreds of big and little ways.

I’m voting for the power of Christ at work in a woman I baptized not long ago who’s trying to quit drinking and for single mothers I know and new moms who’re struggling to negotiate a balance between the desires of career and home.  I’m voting for this silly sale of dresses to benefit displaced Syrians and for my kids who collected cardboard to feed hungry families and for Orange Korner Arts whose programs are bringing light and life and healing to inner-city Philadelphia.  I’m voting for my neighborhood that, like so many others across America, is sitting on the edge in need of a healthy dose of light and life and hope. 

I’m voting early – I’ll be there on November sixth, but I’ll be voting every day up until then and every day after too.  I’m voting every day from here on out, voting with my life, my faith and trust.  I’m voting for me and for you and for Christ in us all, because I understand now more deeply than ever that every vote matters.

Maybe if we all keep voting every day from now until the next election, we’ll find that it matters a little less which two dogs we have to bet on, matters a little less who the winners and losers are, because we will have voted, with our lives, for the power of Christ at work in the world, the only One who has the power to heal, restore and redeem us all.     

Reading Rilke in the bathroom, this is what the things can teach us . . .

I first encountered Rilke in seminary.  His book, Letters to a Young Poet, was required reading for a class I took on the sabbath, though the connection between the book and the topic completely eludes me at this point.  The introduction told of his bizarre childhood and how his mother, in her grief over the death of a daughter, dressed and raised him as a girl, calling him by his middle name, Maria, until the age of six.  At ten Rilke's father sent him off to attend a military academy for which his temperament was ill-suited and where he endured intense bullying and loneliness. 

My copy of this little book is filled with underlining and dog-eared pages.  At some point I loaned it to our friends (the some ones we used to share a TV with, but more on that in another post) and they kept it on a little shelf in their bathroom, almost as a decoration.  One of my favorite quotes from that first book holds sage advice for the life of the spirit,
                      
                          "Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and
                          try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms
                          and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue.
                          Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you
                          because you would not be able to live them. And the point is,
                          to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will
                          find them gradually, without noticing it, and live along some
                          distant day into the answer."

Later I was introduced to "Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God," by a woman I was meeting with for spiritual direction.  I'll confess that I was impressed with the idea of the book and thought it lofty and impressive reading, so I ordered it quite quickly from amazon.  I was disappointed when it arrived.  First off, it had those annoyingly uneven edges that are meant to lend an air of artistry, I suppose, but otherwise make a book impossible to flip through.  Also it failed to transform me into a more interesting or insightful person over night, though I did think that, with its rough cut edges and delicate silvery cover, it might be just the right kind of book to leave laying about for company to see (insert sly smile here). 

I now keep it tucked away in my room on my bedside table or sometimes in the upstairs bathroom so it's there waiting for me when I flee the tumult of life with four kids for a brief time out. The poems have grown on me over time and I've found bits and pieces that speak into whatever questions I find myself facing. 

Just the other day I came across the poem below while hiding in the upstairs bathroom.  It makes an nice followup to my previous post on the implications of God's work in creation and leaves me with much to think about, so I thought I'd share it.  This poem is from the middle of the book in the section titled "The Book of Pilgrimage."  It's listed as poem II,16.
 

How surely gravity's law,
strong as an ocean current,
takes hold of even the smallest thing
and pulls it toward the heart of the world.

Each thing -
each stone, blossom, child -
is held in place.
Only we, in our arrogance,
push out beyond what we each belong to
for some empty freedom.

If we surrendered
to earth's intelligence
we could rise up rooted, like trees.

Instead we entangle ourselves
in knots of our own making
and struggle, lonely and confused.
So, like children, we begin again
to learn from the things,
because they are in God's heart;
they have never left him.

This is what the things can teach us:
to fall,
patiently to trust our heaviness.
Even a bird has to do that
before he can fly.

Beautiful Things (a grain of sand, a bit of bread and wine, and we are recreated)

                      Magnified images of single grains of sand taken by Dr. Gary Greenburg

I came across this beautiful picture a few weeks ago in a magazine I picked up at the library.  It turns out sand isn't brown or "sand" colored at all - holding a handful is like holding a rainbow as each piece is composed of tiny pieces of coral, lava and shells, among other things.  Isn't it crazy, so much beauty right in front of us, beneath us, clinging to our clothes and sticky kids, pouring out of our shoes and socks every time we stand at the ocean's shore - all of these tiny, broken bits of beauty right on the edge of all that chaos - who could imagine such a thing? 

*   *   *   *   *

I spoke at my church last Sunday on the Doctrine of Creation and the whole talk consisted of two simple points regarding what it means to say we believe in "God the Father, Almighty, creator of  heaven and earth."  First, God is CREATIVE and second, this gives us HOPE. 

The God we find in Genesis 1 is too creative to look out over the dark primordial chaos and say, "Yeah, I ain't got nothin' to work with here."  Instead God looks and pauses as a smile starts to spread and the creative juices get flowing.  All that nothing gets God thinking, imagining and soon all that's good is flowing out of his words, out of the same wide-smiling mouth of God. 

The fact that God is creative tells us that dust and darkness and death are never what we fear them to be.  Some of the most beautiful people I know are the one's who've been most deeply broken by life, but who cling to and allow their belief in God's creative power to recreate them.  They, like the trees and rivers and mountains, become living, breathing proclamations of God's creative power.  Gungor's song, "Beautiful Things" says, "You make beautiful things out of the dust, you make beautiful things out of us."  What if we really believed this?  What if we believed God sees more than dust and darkness and death when he looks at us, when he looks at our world?  What if we started seeing this way too? 

This past Sunday we practiced our hope by writing the areas of our lives that need to be recreated on slips of paper and burying them in a sandbox as we came forward for communion.  Silly, right?  We all know nothing much grows in sand and that a little bread dipped in wine is just that.  But the invitation remains to see beyond the chaos, the darkness, to trust in the One who causes streams to flow in the desert and transforms bits of wine and bread into that which promises to transform us all.  

We swallow the bread, we sip the wine and something new begins to spring up through the dry, dusty cracks of our lives - we are being re-created.  Hope begins its work in us - the hope that things are more than what they seem, that even here, even now, the creator God is speaking goodness into being.

I know it's hard.  Some days I could swear that everything I see is covered with dust, layers of brokenness, layers of not-good-enough and never-amount-to-nothing-ness.  The world seems so entrenched in its deadly ways and I choose too often to linger in the valley of the shadow of all this death; choosing life comes hard and often flies in the face of rationality.  Sand is just sand after all and we do our best to shake it off and move on.

The world we live in is starving for hope, for something to believe in, that's why we fight so hard for our little brands of right and wrong, for anything that promises power and control.  Maybe, though, if we were to look through the lens of Christ we would find that everything we're waiting for, longing for, has already begun, right here in the midst of us.  The mystic poet Rumi says,

                       "Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
                        there is a field.  I'll meet you there. 
                        When the soul lies down in that grass,
                        the world is too full to talk about."   

Maybe the world isn't a battlefield of data and sound bites, an endless round in the race to control and interpret information.  Maybe it's a field full of wild flowers sprouting up defiantly, daringly in the midst of all this chaos and darkness - can you make the time to see them?  There's one at your feet just now, waving and swaying in the sunlight, exuding the scent of life and hope and love that overcomes fear. 

Or maybe the world is a sandy shore, a million pieces of beauty and light laying there beneath our feet.  Can you see it?  "Lay down here on the shore," God says, "Let your body rest, here, in the sand.  Let these millions of pieces of broken beauty hold you until you can see them, feel them for the truth they are; until you can see yourself for the broken bit of beauty you are.  Let the water wash over you, don't be afraid of the chaos.  I'm creating you anew, even here, even now." 

Leaning Into the Space Between (of Gliders, Covers and Computer Chairs)

My husband and I have been known for our quirky household habits.  We're not big on cleanliness and our home organization system is highly intuitive at best.  For example, early in our marriage we kept our microwave in a cupboard which meant we had to get it out any time we wanted to use it.  It was a hulking thing, tan and brown with a knob for setting the time, no fancy buttons or stainless steel.  I think we were trying to conserve countertop space while also being embarrassed by how it looked, but even we had to admit that keeping a microwave in a cupboard ate into the efficiency of its use.  Plus sometimes one of us would forget to put it away and the other would say, "Ok, who left the microwave out?" and saying it out loud made it sound pretty silly.   

Quirkiness is expected at our house and lately I've noticed a new habit - we've started getting rid of things we need before we have their replacement.  For example, we had two ancient glider rockers in our living room for a long time.  As an introvert at home with four children, I grew to hate those chairs; the added motion of one or another of the kids constantly bopping back and forth on them was often a tipping point for me in terms of outward stimulation.  This summer we sold the oldest rocker at a yard sale thinking we'd surely make enough to be able to find some "new" seating on Craig's list.   The rocker sold for $4 after my husband was bargained down from the $5 price tag we had on it.  Not exactly enough to buy a replacement, so we went several weeks without enough seating in our living room.  This made for an awkward situation when guests came and we all crowded together on the couch or I crouched nonchalantly on the living room floor. 

More recently, when our computer chair broke, but was still usable, I hauled it out to the curb.  I now sit typing in the other glider rocker, which has become our computer chair, which means that when we watch shows on the computer (sold that TV at the yard sale too) one of us sits in the glider while the other hunches in a little wooden chair borrowed from the kids' room. 

Eventually we'll make our way over to Staples to buy a new chair or find one on Craig's list.  In the meantime I'm beginning to enjoy the space created by letting go of things before we know what will take their place.  There are other areas in my life, too, where I see this happening, where the no's are coming more easily, where there's more trust in the open space, the yawning divide between commitments.

I had an on-line conversation with a friend recently who said he was "learning to trust."  I replied that maybe "leaning into trust" would be a more surefire approach; circumventing the rational process of "learning" and replacing it with well-timed free-fall into the arms of the One who catches us.  I know not having a computer chair is a small thing in a world where many don't know where their next meal's coming from, but I have to wonder if even these little leanings aren't somehow helping me learn to live and lean more freely as though the net that catches me each time is as sure and wide as the Father's love for us. 

There's a segment in the video, Home At Last where Henri Nouwen talks about his interactions with a trapeze group he followed and observed for a period of time.  Here's what Nouwen has to say about the group,

          One day, I was sitting with Rodleigh, the leader of the troupe, in his
          caravan, talking about flying. He said, 'As a flyer, I must have
          complete trust in my catcher. The public might think that I am the
          great star of the trapeze, but the real star is Joe, my catcher. He has
          to be there for me with split-second precision and grab me out of the
          air as I come to him in the long jump.' 'How does it work?' I asked.
          'The secret,' Rodleigh said, 'is that the flyer does nothing and the
          catcher does everything. When I fly to Joe, I have simply to stretch
          out my arms and hands and wait for him to catch me and pull me
          safely over the apron behind the catchbar.'

          'You do nothing!' I said, surprised. 'Nothing,' Rodleigh repeated.
          'The worst thing the flyer can do is to try to catch the catcher.
          I am not supposed to catch Joe. It's Joe's task to catch me. If I
          grabbed Joe's wrists, I might break them, or he might break mine,
          and that would be the end for both of us. A flyer must fly, and a
          catcher must catch, and the flyer must trust, with outstretched
          arms, that his catcher will be there for him.' (emphasis mine)

I can't watch that clip, listen to Nouwen's excited commentary, without tearing up.  Nouwen goes on to say that he used the image at a friend's funeral as a picture of the surrender in death.  It's a beautiful image, but if death is indeed a surrender, then might not life also be an on-going rehearsal, a moment by moment opportunity to practice the art of surrender - the art of leaning, falling, trusting the open space, stretching our arms even before we see the One who waits to catch us? 

Last night as we went to bed we were forced to admit it's beginning to get cold; it's time for a warmer blanket.  The funny thing is, as we lay their accepting the change of seasons, moving into the newness and familiarity of fall, it dawned on us both that we're pretty sure we threw out our down comforter last spring.  It was old, stained, and the down was forever winging its way toward the edges, leaving us thinly covered, shivering in the middle, so we tossed it in a fit of cleaning and ambition.  It was time, that's for sure, but here we are in mid-October snuggled together for warmth under a thin coverlet. 

The handle of the door on the van came off in my hand the other morning, the oldest has outgrown all her shoes, and our wardrobes are wearing thin.  All of this to say, a new comforter isn't really in the budget.  But, it'll work out somehow.  In the meantime we'll enjoy the excuse to cuddle close. 

I'm starting to enjoy the wide open space between letting go and being caught, to lean into the in-between, into the small discomforts of waiting and needing.  One thing I know for sure is that these spaces - the spaces made by our letting go, the wearing thin ones, the crowding together on the couch or floor ones - are the ones that open us to the possibility that we're learning how to fly.  "A flyer must fly, and a catcher must catch, and the flyer must trust, with outstretched arms, that his catcher will be there for him."

A Day in the Life (with Twins)

Our boys in their sweet little handmade bonnets about a year ago.

Pretty much everyone I know has said at some point in the past year, "I don't know how you do it."  By "do it" I assume they mean manage the day-to-day needs of a family of six while still managing to, ocassionally, show up in public wearing clean clothes.  One of the ways I've found to cope with the intensity of parenting four children five and under is to step outside of the situation and observe things with a sense of humor or absurdity.  This skill provides plenty of facebook fodder and continues to help me get through the nitty gritty of life with two one-year-olds.  

In honor of my friends Tom and Sarah who welcomed twin girls on Monday (whoot!), here's a glimpse of my life last fall, when the twins were about two months old.  It was a typically intense day and I decided to "enjoy" it by recording how simply absurdly chaotic things were.  For the sake of clarity, the twins are Levi and Isaiah, and Solomon was four and Sophia five (and now that you know my children's names, I will probably have to kill you!).     

4:21 (am) Wake up and try to think of ways to get John to get up and give Levi a pacifier.  Look at the clock  and realize the twins have slept 6 hours; I guess we need to feed them.  Get up and nurse the babies, change their diapers and nurse them some more. Ask John to set the alarm for 6:30 so I can get up before the kids.  Ask John to set the alarm again because I can’t remember if I asked him yet.

6:30 Wake up with the alarm, think I’m hitting snooze and turn it off.

7:00 Wake up to Solomon calling on the monitor.  Look for and find glasses.  Turn off the monitor.

7:12 Wake up, with glasses in hand, to the sound of fussing babies and hear the older kids calling and banging on their door downstairs. Check on babies – still technically sleeping – then head to Sophia and Solomon’s room.  Solomon says he’s sick and demands medicine – a brief fight ensues.  Head to the kitchen for coffee and to warm up milk for Solomon.  Groggily sit in the living room and beg-off of reading books until the caffeine can hit my system.

7:30 Read a book with the kids, find clothes for Yellow Day (Sophia) and Blue Day (Solomon).  Get cereal for Sophia and a cereal bar for Solomon.  Run up to check on the babies – give Levi a pacifier. 

7:45 Pack Sophia’s lunch, write a note for Solomon’s teacher.  Urge the kids to get ready. Remember that I need to take vitamins and cold medicine.

8:00 Grandpa comes to take the kids to school.  Make two trips upstairs to bring the babies down.  Nurse the babies and change 4 diapers.  Find spit-up on my shoulder. 

9:30 Try putting Isaiah to sleep in the bouncey seat.  Try holding him.  Lay him in the cradle (eyes pop open).  Lay him in the swing.  Change Levi’s diaper.  Wrap Levi.  Lay him in a boppy. Turn off Isaiah’s swing, so he doesn’t get addicted.  Turn it back on because he wakes up.

10:00 Make a bagel for breakfast.  Eat a brownie while waiting for the bagel.  Scarf down breakfast while checking facebook.  Get a shower (don’t forget to lock the front door so no one steals the babies!).

10:30 Hear Isaiah start to fuss.  Quickly try to empty dishwasher before they wake up.  Remember that I still haven’t taken vitamins and cold medicine.

10:40 Isaiah has one arm out and one eye open.  Offer the pacifier. Pacifier is rejected. Quickly finish dishes.  Walk around the kitchen looking for the tissue box that’s usually on top of the refrigerator.

10:45 Find tissues on top of refrigerator.

10:52 Finally take medicine while holding Isaiah who drifts back to sleep. 

Look on craigslist for a swing with a timer (don’t want to babies getting addicted!).

Marvel at Isaiah’s skin.  Watch as his eyes pop open.  Converse with Isaiah on the couch while waiting for Levi to wake up.  Feed Isaiah who’s mad because I cut his fingernail too short.  Wake Levi who’s still sleeping peacefully. 

11:30 My friend brings Solmon home from preschool and asks if I need anything from the store.  I would LOVE a Diet Coke, but it seems too frivolous to ask for.

11:35 Get into argument with Solomon who comes home from preschool like a bear fresh out of winter hibernation.  Change two diapers.  Consider beating Solomon – give a stern talk and hug instead.

12:10 Make bagel pizzas with Solomon while running to the living room to reinsert pacifiers.

12:20 Eat mini pizza while holding a gassy Levi.  Isaiah is in the swing.

12:24 Wonder why Solomon’s face is red and itchy while I bounce a now awake Levi. 

12:36 The sun comes out after about 10 days of rain!

12:42 Swaddle Levi and try to get him into the Baby Bjorn so we can go outside.  First have to resize Baby Bjorn and eject Sophia’s teddybear from its straps.  Insert Levi who commences to scream like a banshee.  Attempt to lay Levi in the swing.  His eyes pop open.  Insert Levi into the sling (ahhhhhh . . . .) and head outside to pick peppers with Solomon.

12:45 Solomon helps pick peppers for about 3 minutes, then demands to be pushed on the swing.  We talk about “when we grow up” and I explain why he can’t marry his sister or his cousins.  We walk around the house picking some weeds while I make several trips to peek in the window on Isaiah who’s asleep in the swing. 

1:12 Back inside to read for Solomon’s Quiet Time while he eats a pepper.  Put sleeping Levi into the bouncey seat.  Grab frozen dinner out of freezer to thaw.

1:40 Turn off the swing and send Solomon to his room for Quiet Time.  Spend a few minutes on facebook and checking email.

1:46 Levi is awake again and in my lap.

1:52 Admire Levi’s bright blue eyes, gummy smile and pretend to eat his sweet baby cheeks. 

I'm pretty sure things must've descended into pure chaos at this point, because I stopped writing it down.  I do know I called John on his way home from work and asked him to pick up some Diet Coke for me, a girl can only hold out for so long! 

All I know is that I don't know how I "did it" either, nor do I know how each of YOU tackles the many things you do each day.  I do know that each moment gives us a grace all its own if we're able to open ourselves to it.  And, a year from now I'll be tackling raising two two-year-old boys which may well make all of this look like child's play in comparison! 

Also celebrating my friend Joni, who welcomed her little girl into the world this morning - can't wait to meet you Maggie!

People Who Shine

Lighthouses don't go running all over an island looking for boats to save;
they just stand there shining. - Anne Lamott

I was surprised to see her checkout lane was nearly empty, as it’s often full.  I quickly jumped in although I had no pressing needs.  She was talking with the customer ahead of me, an older woman who was digging through her purse for God-knows what.  The purse was huge, the typical kind filled with little pieces of crumpled paper and various plastic cards held together by rubber bands. 

I overheard bits of their conversation as I loaded my few items onto the belt and then stood staring somewhat obviously and impatiently at the purse.  I absentmindedly wondered how one’s purse gets to be like that. 

The talk was of a diagnosis and surgery delayed.  Possible cancer on the customer’s part and the cashier moved the conversation easily between jovial joking and caring concern. 

“Where is it, in your lungs?” she asked. 

“No,” the customer replied leaning in closer over the conveyor, “my uterus.” 

Without missing a beat the cashier responded, “But you don’t smoke there!”

They burst into peals of laughter over the shared joke, then the conversation moved on to wondering how long she would have to wait for test results and concluded with the adage that “no news is good news.”      

*  *  *  *  *

Grocery shopping can be a stressful experience for a mother of young children.  By the time we get to the checkout lane, I’m often nervous as the sand in my hourglass quickly shifts from patience and obedience toward anxiety (on my part) and melt-downs (on the kids’ part).   I’ve often picked Joyce’s* lane, not only because she’s fast, but because she’s caring.  I don’t think I’ve ever been through her lane without her making a kind comment, asking a question about one of my often fussing children, or offering a sticker to each of them. 

I told her this once, how I sought her out in the checkout lanes, and she told me she hears that a lot from customers; that the elderly and infirmed, those with disabilities of all sorts, seek her out.  I’ve had glimpses of what grocery shopping might feel like for those with disabilities during times when my back has gone out or near the end of my pregnancy with the twins.  In these times the idea of walking from one end of the grocery store to the other, much less waiting in line to checkout, was nearly overwhelming.  When just getting to the store is a challenge, finding a quick and caring cashier can make a world of difference.  

I could tell Joyce was a little embarrassed, seeing that I overheard her off-color uterus joke.  As if to ease my possible discomfort, she went on to tell me that she’d worked at this store for nine years and in doing-so she’d learned a lot of things about people and found that sometimes a well-timed joke is exactly what’s needed.  She told me she used to keep a journal about the people she meets, minus their names, just their stories and then she said, “Someone could write a book just standing here.”  I told her she should start a blog and she looked at me with embarrassment saying, “I don’t have a computer," then, "What’s a blog?”  I tell her it’s like an on-line journal that everyone can read.  Conversation shifts then as my groceries are bagged and she moves on to joking with the elderly couple in line behind me.  Laughing again and caring. 

*  *  *  *  *

Joyce’s one of those people who shines.  It’s such a blessing for me to see her there in what’s clearly not an easy or well-paid profession.  I’ve worked many similar jobs without really putting my heart, my self into them because I was embarrassed or thought the work was somehow beneath me.  But Joyce brings her whole heart to her life, where it is, and by doing so creates a ministry out of her gifts of efficiency and compassion, her willingness to see and respond, to be moved by the circumstances of those in front of her. 

Matthew tells us, “When he [Jesus] saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.  Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest (9:36-7).”

I don’t know if Joyce is a follower of Christ, but I see her reflecting Christ in the way she continues to “see the crowds” and have compassion for them.  Here’s hoping that we might each do the same today and everyday, wherever we find ourselves, by the grace of God.

So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. (Romans 12:1 The Message)

Maybe you've noticed someone who "shines" in their everyday ordinary life?  If so, I'd love to hear about it.  Please feel free to comment here or join the conversation over at A Field Of Wild Flowers on Facebook.

* not her real name!

Slowed to the Taste of Blue

My daughter and I are back to school shopping.  We sweep through the big red-framed doors into Target, into the coolness and light and open space that smells like newness and popcorn mingled together.  We stop for a cart and I take off long-striding into the belly of the beast, pushing, pulling my daughter who’s half-walking, half-riding on the cart, half-child that she is. 

It hits me as we charge past the dollar bins that I’m going to have to slow down if I want to be with this girl.  This girl who takes so long to answer a question that you begin to wonder if she heard you, so slow that I’m often tempted to answer for her.  This girl who I too often push and hurry along, my hand on the small of her back.  This girl who is so like me at her age. 

Near the end of our trip we stop by the pharmacy to pick up a prescription.  The pharmacist pulls the large hot-pink plastic platter of dum-dum lollipops out from under her side of the counter and sets it down.  My daughter stands in front of it, her face less than a foot away from the wide spread of sugary sweets.  She’s motionless apart from a slight shifting of her head as she gazes at the bowl.  Time pauses.  We wait.  I shift my feet, make eye contact with the pharmacist, and shift my weight again.  My daughter stands still, lifts her right hand toward the bowl as if having decided, then drops it again.  I meet the pharmacists eye.  We wait some more. 

I’m tempted to interject, to offer a question to prod the moment along and suppress the urge not once, not twice, but three times.  The time that passes feels like an eternity to me and the pharmacist finally does interject asking, “Is there are certain kind you’re looking for?”  My daughter doesn’t reply, except to raise her head slightly as though the pharmacist has woken her from a dream, startled her awake somehow.  Her eyes remain fixed on the bowl.  Finally, slowly and specifically she chooses two lollipops, both green, one for her brother at home and one for herself. 

As we head for the exit and the parking lot beyond I wonder what she was doing during all that time.  Then I wonder when it was that I stopped seeing the bowl of lollipops, really seeing it, in all of its color and variety and options.  I wonder what I’ve lost in the incessant stream-lining and fast-forwarding of my life. 

*   *   *   *   *

When my husband first told his mother we’d started dating she asked him three questions.  “Can she cook?” to which he said “Yes.”  “Can she clean?” to which he also said “Yes.”  And, “Is she fast, can she get things done quickly?”  Here my husband paused and thought awhile before replying, “You know, Mom, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Kelly do anything fast.” 

I have long legs, impossibly long strides and life has taught me to run while walking.  I don’t know when I became so fast, but I think it had something to do with the never-ending to-do list of motherhood.  The weight of family life pulled on me like so many people drowning and I learned to kick and paddle quicker and quicker, treading water to keep us all afloat.  Or maybe it has to do with the fact that our culture doesn’t put much stock in slowness.  We want a quick fix, we pay for speedier service, fill ourselves with fast food and divide and shuffle our time like cards in a deck trying through every slight-of-hand imaginable to add one more moment to an already full day. 

In some strange, nearly inexplicable way, the addition of the twins has proven to be an invitation to slow down even as it increases the already whirling pace of family life.  We have a large, double-wide jogging stroller and since I can’t carry two children for long we take it almost everywhere.  Suprisingly, I’ve had several moments of awakening, of slowing while pushing that stroller, like the time I felt the blessing of my children rising up around me, as well as other times I’ve yet to write about.  

When I wonder why that is, how it is that I’m somehow more attuned to the realities of the world within and around me when pushing that great, wide stroller spilling over with children, I can only conclude that it’s because of the way it slows me down.  It’s a big stroller, easy to push, but wide.  At the grocery store I joke that I’m pushing a Big Mac and it takes the help of several parents to open the doors in our path as I plod my way in to preschool pickup.  Added to this is the slowing weight of the hands of my four year old and six year old, each perched on the opposite sides of the stroller’s handle so that our width is extended by two more bodies, our pace slowed by the addition of two more souls. 

I wonder, though, if this slowing doesn't somehow also involve the hand of God resting gently, heavily on my life, awakening me to the voice that says, "Slow down.  Life is a meal too rich to be choked down in the back of your van while running from one thing to the next.  Savor it, my child, like the slow melting of a sweet treat on your tongue."  Tradition often describes God's touch as a "quickening of the spirit" but more often I experience God's presence as a slowing and deepening that stretches and broadens the moment, expanding it in beauty and breadth until it resembles a small and fleeting taste of eternity. 

*   *   *   *   *

Just yesterday we were at the doctor again and back to the pharmacy, this time for my daughter who, like her brother the day before, tested positive for strep throat.  My daughter who causes anxiety among the nursing staff as she pauses for an un-godly minute to decide which of the five or more choices of stickers she would like.  My daughter who unfolds slowly like a flower to my questions in the van and finally, by the time her father is home is ready to proclaim that her visit to the doctor was “Brilliant!” 

We again faced the platter of dum-dums.  The pharmacist again is anxious about the waiting and I am too, though I’m trying not to be.  As I wait and the pharmacist sifts through the lollipops to be helpful, I find myself awakened to the moment, my eyes widening in the space my daughter’s slowness creates.  The platter of lollipops lays before us like a rainbow, inviting me to stop, slow down and see.  My eye catches on a blue and white wrapper.  It’s a picture of blueberries in a day-glow color straight out of the eighties.  My hand shoots out of its own accord as if in answer to a question posed by that blue wrapper.  My fingers close in around it just as my daughter finishes picking hers and I look up as if awakening from a dream and meet the pharmacists eye. 

“I’m taking one today, too,” I say as we push off from the counter and head toward home, grateful to be slowed, grateful to be awakened to the taste of blue on my tongue, tangy and sweet, that lasts the whole way home.