The Longest Night (Winter Solstice and Grief)

The Well is Deep

It is a long journey
down into the deep well of grief,
but there are gifts too,
along the way.
Bright and shining stones
that line the path
guiding us into the heart of things.
These appear before us
one by one
like stars across
a darkening sky.
The journey is long
and the well is deep,
but these stones sustain.

- K. Chripczuk

*   *  *   *

I feel caught this week between real grief and desired joy as I tend my little flock and run and rush between holiday concerts and parties.  I've fought the urge to tear-up while waiting in line to drop my six-year-old off at her elementary school, noticing the newly stationed policeman watching over her small, bobbing frame as she disappears through those wide doors.  And I've felt a guilty pleasure every time I get to bring her back home with me at the end of the day. I've sat through too brief moments of silence unable to wrap my mind around a single word or a prayer that might suffice, which are followed by halting renditions of Jingle-Bells and tiny voices squeaking out memorized lines of "good news of great joy for all people."  

Tonight as I stood in the kitchen finally mixing up the long-awaited Christmas cookies it occurred to me that this is the longest night of the year - the winter solstice.   Here we are just a few short days before Christmas experiencing the longest night and to top it all off it's windy and cold here and I'm walking around tossing in ingredients and stirring up cookies with a blanket wrapped around me like a toga. 

If ever there was a time to pause and feel the weight of the darkness of the world we live in, then maybe this is it.  Before we turn to solutions and be-and-do-better-isms, before we take one more step down the road of blame or we allow our hearts to be darkened any more by the deadly poison of fear, maybe we can stay, just a little longer with our grief.  The words of Alice Howell ring in my ears tonight, "In the midst of death, there is life!  In the midst of despair, there is a future!  There is a purpose to all grief - the fruit to come of it is wisdom." (Sacred Journey)

There's much to be missed if we move too quickly out of this darkness. 

Maybe, if we give this night its full measure, we will be ready for the rays of light, the bright shinning forth of joy to come.  

Where Mary Meets Us (Did You Know Mary Had Five Boys?)

But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. Luke 2:19

I noticed her as I passed through the small chapel on my way back to my room where I would pump milk for the two babies I’d left at home. She was standing at the front of the chapel space cradling a child and as our eyes met I felt a moment of recognition and thought, “Now there’s someone I can relate to.”

This was during the first of nine mini-retreats I would be attending for a program on contemplative silence. I was disappointed to see that my fellow participants were older than me by a good twenty to thirty years. As a young mother I felt woefully out of place, painfully aware of my fear that I didn’t fit in, and afraid of the hunch that this was the wrong time in my life to embrace contemplative spirituality—to pursue a call to prayer and silence that stood in such stark contrast to the daily realities of my life.

It was with relief that I noticed the statue of Mary. There she stood, a young woman holding her young child smack-dab in the middle of that holy space and my eyes were suddenly opened to seeing Mary as a mother like me, Mary as a woman who pondered, who prayed in the midst of an everyday, ordinary life.

Continue reading this post here at shelovesmagazine.com.

They are Eating My Prayers (the hungry are filled with good things)

I stand over the small wooden table gazing at the meal, my eyes taking in its beautiful simplicity.  The host ladles me a generous scoop of steaming, creamy soup and I shuffle slowly around the table in silence with my fellow retreat participants.  I fill my plate with a simple fresh salad, top it with nuts, and move on toward the bread.  Reaching my hand out to pick up a slice I notice that each piece is generously buttered.  It's enough to make me want to weep.

To me, that butter is love and I see immediately how buttering bread can be an act of love - generous, simple and true.  With the sweep of a knife and the smooth gliding-on of glistening yellow goodness that bread became a sacrament, a means of grace, that butter yet another expression of the love of God in the world. 

*   *   * 

James Martin’s book, Becoming Who You Are, includes a discussion about Andre Dubus, an author who became a paraplegic in mid-life: 

In his essay, Dubus, a devout Catholic, describes the laborious process of making sandwiches for his young daughters to carry with them to school. As he maneuvers his large, bulky wheelchair around his cramped kitchen, as he reaches for the utensils, as he tries to open cabinet doors from his awkward position, and as he cuts the sandwiches, he realizes what he is doing for his children.

             Each moment is a sacrament, this holding of plastic bags, of knives, of bread,
             of cutting board, this pushing of the chair, this spreading of mustard on bread,
             this trimming of liverwurst, of ham. All sacraments . . .

Dubus wrote about this in an essay entitled “Sacraments,” where he also says the following, 

A sacrament is physical, and within it is God's love; as a sandwich is physical, and nutritious and pleasurable, and within it is love, if someone makes it for you and gives it to you with love; even harried or tired or impatient love, but with love's direction and concern, love's again and again wavering and distorted focus on goodness; then God's love too is in the sandwich.  (Meditations from a Movable Chair)

*   *   *

There are so many days when I feel it to be true – the fact that I simply don’t have enough to do this job of mothering well.  Not enough patience, not enough compassion and curiosity, not enough LOVE.  I am so busy.  I am so tired.  I am running on empty.

But still, I feed them, even if that feeding only consists in the tearing open of a bag full of salty, fatty carbohydrates; even if the meal was bought with money we didn’t have because for once I just wanted to sit down and relax together, gathered around these few moments of guilty pleasure. 

I chop, I peel, I dice and slice.  I sauté, bake, simmer and spread every day, three times a day or more.  I ladle, scoop, and dish it out.  These rituals I perform day in and day out, like a liturgy of love, each stroke of the spoon a prayer, each flip of the spatula an amen. 

These days, when feel I don't have enough, I trust, I hope and pray that these simple acts of love, these sacraments coming as they always do in broken ways will be transformed as they’re consumed.  Sunbutter and jelly sandwiches, gold fish and juice-filled sippy cups transfigured into love so that even on the days in which I have so little to give, they are being filled with good things. 

These children of mine, they are eating my prayers, being filled, bite after bite, with love. 


How to Use a Runaway Truck Ramp (An Excerpt and A Review)

 

I was only a few weeks in to blogging when I stumbled across Shawn Smucker's blog via a friend's site.  His was one of the first blogs I ever followed, probably the first I commented on, and I continue to look forward to his posts each day.  Shawn's newest book, How to Use a Runaway Truck Ramp, came out this week and is available in multiple formats on Amazon and at Shawn's website, shawnsmucker.com. 

The book follows Shawn and his family of six on a four month cross-country adventure.  Having dreamed of traveling the country in an RV "someday" Shawn and his wife Maile move their plans up by a few decades as they find themselves faced with a failing business and a simultaneous call to move into writing as a full time career.

 

Maile is also a writer and blogger and both contribute to the book that's both funny and reflective.  Shawn and Maile capture the excitement and anxiety of adventure while continuously giving glimpses into the deeper workings of God and grace in their lives. 

 

I'm please to share an excerpt from the book below and encourage you to check it out on Amazon or click over to Shawn's blog to find more reading.  This excerpt is a little more serious than much of the book, but is a prime example of the depth of insight with which Shawn and Maile explore life.   

 

*   *   *   *   *

 

One night I called my mom. Within a few seconds of hearing her voice on the other end of the line, I knew something was wrong.
 

“Shawn, I have some not-so-good news,” she said in a quivery voice reserved for funerals and personal catastrophes.

 

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

 

“Your aunt has cancer,” she said.

 

It’s rather shocking, actually, to discover something like this. It felt like discovering there was a traitor in our midst. I found myself wondering which nearly invisible cells in my own body were planning a revolt. Which tree was going to fall on our bus. I started seeing death behind every oncoming car, or hiding in every shadow.

 

Then a few weeks later I found out that some very close friends of ours were miscarrying their baby. I didn’t know the details. But the sadness was recognizable and reminded me of standing next to Maile at a routine doctor’s visit when she was pregnant with our third child. The doctor looked up at us with pursed lips and confused eyebrows.

 

“I’m really sorry to tell you this,” she had said. “But something isn’t right.”  A few weeks later, Maile miscarried. Friends hugged us. We walked around our house quiet and empty.
 

There is something devastating about hope unattained. The unexpected diagnosis. The bright candle that turns into a smoldering wick. The “something isn’t right” speech. Sometimes, just sometimes, it makes me wonder if hope is worth it. Makes me want to live a life where I always expect the worst, keep my hands closed, my eyes on the ground in front of me. Too much looking out at horizons exposes one to the possibility of disappointment.

 

Then on a Tuesday evening during our time in Nashville, I went outside to help Maile’s brother till his garden. He and I took turns pushing the rototiller around, pushing all the old dead grass and hay under the rich brown soil. Then I raked out the dead stuff to the edges and piled it all into the wheelbarrow. The soil went from looking barren and rather unwilling to expectant. Open.

 

It takes a lot of turning over to reach that point. A lot of pounding and tearing and grinding of the soil. The rototiller grasped at the ground like giant claws. Our shovels bit into the ground and formed the edge of the garden.

 

As I worked the soil and the sun dropped behind those Tennessee hills, I thought of my aunt with cancer. My friends losing their baby. They were being tilled. They were being churned up.

 

But I know them, and I know their hearts. And while it will not diminish the pain they feel now, I marvel at what rich soil they will become.

*   *   *   *   *

 

Shawn Smucker is the author of How to Use a Runaway Truck Ramp and Building a Life Out of Words. He lives in Lancaster County, PA with his wife Maile and their four children. You can find him on Twitter and Facebook, and he blogs (almost) daily at http://shawnsmucker.com/  Maile blogs at mailesmucker.blogspot.com.   

Nothing Will Be Impossible (Where Mary Meets Us)

"For nothing will be impossible with God." Luke 1:37

I can't do this.
I am doing this.
Both. And.

This is where we live,
where Mary meets us.
And we all cry out together
to the angel and the blinding light,
"How can this be?"

Then comes the reply,
"The spirit of God, my friend,
the spirit of God."

And we all cry out together,

and we all cry.
Both. And.

*   *   *   *   *

 

I wander around the house these days, treading water, trying to stay afloat while crunching layers of cheerios under my feet and endlessly ferrying dirty glass bowls from one room to another.

 

I tell myself I’m the least likely candidate to be in charge of what feels like a small daycare. I think to myself, “This is not me. This is not possible. How can I be a mother of four kids?” 

 

Click here to cotinue reading this post titled: Impossible.

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What impossible thing are you facing today?  May Mary's question and the angel's answer be a guide and a comfort to you.     

Where the Wild Things Are (and where Good News begins)

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God . . . John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Mark 1:1-4 adapted

I met my friend in the wilderness the other night. Well, it wasn't exactly the wilderness, but it was a bar of sorts, which for me still qualifies as a real and somewhat alarming wilderness, being the good Christian girl I was raised to be. She was late and I sat there in the dim light trying to appear busy on my phone and constructing to-do lists on the white placemat in front of me.

She arrived full of unnecessary apologizes which I quickly brushed aside and we dove in head first. Between us there's little need for small talk and right there in the middle of that noisy wilderness we each pulled open the layers of our lives and sat back, listening through tears as our hearts talked for awhile.

This is the friend who tells me how her marriage really is, tenuous and struggling, and shares how she slapped her son in a moment of exasperated rage that has melted now into a messy pile of regret. She is the one I can tell how I yelled at my own son, threw a royal tantrum of rage that scared him and me and how we all ended up on the couch in tears trying to figure out how that day could be redeemed.

*   *   *
 

I have to admit that I never really liked Maurice Sendak's book, Where the Wild Things Are.  I tend to like books that are warm and pretty, books that affirm my need for a world that's safe, orderly, and predictable. But, it’s possible that the fact that I don’t particularly like the book is an indication that I do get it, a little bit at least. What I do understand is that Max is struggling with the wilderness, with all that is wild and untamed both inside and outside of himself.

Something about the unrelenting, all-humbling job of parenting leaves me all too familiar with this wilderness. If my life were a children's book, then one might notice a forest of sorts growing in my house most days right around four pm or any other time that happens to be about an hour before my husband is due home and a half-hour before I lose it.

Too often by that point the day is been played out - patience is gone. I'm wresting dinner onto the table while kids are whining, fighting, hanging and swinging off of my legs like the little wild things they are. By then we're all wearing our wolf suits and if the windows are open the whole neighborhood can hear the roaring, gnashing of teeth and rumpus that ensues. As a parent, as a human, I'm well acquainted with wilderness and wild things, within and without, but it doesn't mean I like it.

*   *   *

It's significant that the gospel of Mark places the advent of the good news of Jesus Christ right smack in the middle of the wilderness. This gospel has no time for angels, places no stock in genealogies or other such small-talk as a means of introducing the striking, challenging figure of Christ who emerges in the pages that follows. Mark begins like my friend and I do, by peeling back the layers and starting not in the skies full of stars and angel choirs, but on the bare, dusty, rocky ground of the wilderness.

Something about this gives me heart, gives me hope, as this first week of advent is designed to do. Something about it resonates with the prophecies of Christ and the prophets who spoke them, those craggy ill-kempt men and women who lived on the edges and thereby lived and spoke that much closer to the heart of things.

The good news begins in the wilderness. What a challenge, what a hope.

*   *   *
 

The friend I met with told me how she'd shared with her counselor that she has few real, close relationships, few relationships where anything beyond the bright cheery small-talk of this season might be appropriate. Her counselor said, "Yes, but what about this Kelly? It seems like you have a real relationship with her, why do you think that is?"

My friend, God bless her, said, "Kelly's real. I mean, she told me she threw an apple peel at her children, for goodness sake, so I feel like I can be my real self with her."

After telling this story she looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, "Why is it so hard to believe that our humanity is what's most attractive about us?"

*   *   *
 

Oh, my friends. How deep and wild is the wilderness within you? Who do you have who's willing to meet you there?

*   *   *
 

This is the beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ - the One who came and dwelt among us, who meets us in the fullness of humanity. Christ, who "sailed off through night and day and in and out of weeks and almost over a year" to meet us here, "where the wild things are."

 
I'm so grateful for my friend who gave me permission to share from our conversation - she's one of the flowers in this beautiful field.

Dostoevsky 's Cook (An Angel, an Onion, and a Pair of Boots)



It's only a story, but it's a nice story.  I used to hear it when I was a child from Matryona, my cook, who is still with me.  It's like this.  Once upon a time there was a peasant woman and a very wicked woman she was.  And she died and did not leave a single good deed behind.  The devils caught her and plunged her into the lake of fire.  So her guardian angel stood and wondered what good deed of hers he could remember to tell God; "She once pulled up an onion in her garden," said he, "And gave it to a beggar woman." And God answered, "You take that onion then, hold it out to her in the lake, and let her take hold and be pulled out.  And if you can pull her out of the lake, let her come to Paradise, but if the onion breaks, then the woman must stay where she is."  The angel ran to the woman and held out the onion to her.  "Come," said he, "catch hold and I'll pull you out."  And he began cautiously pulling her out.  He had just pulled her right out, when the other sinners in the lake, seeing how she was being drawn out, began catching hold of her so as to be pulled out with her.  But she was a very wicked woman and she began kicking them.  "I'm to be pulled out, not you.  It's my onion, not yours."  As soon as she said that, the onion broke.  And the woman fell into the lake and she is burning there to this day.  So the angel wept and went away.  - Fyodor Dostoevsky

*   *   *

There was a time about eight months after the twins were born that I felt like I really needed (ie. wanted) a pair of rain boots.  I scoured the internet for weeks on end, I watched e-bay like a hawk and finally I bought a beautiful pair of lime green boots - they're the happiest boots I've ever seen. 

When they arrived my children swarmed the door as they do any time the UPS man approaches.  I grabbed the box, declared it MINE and quickly set it aside to open later. When I finally opened them I was greeted by their heavy rubbery smell and marveled at their beauty as my children stood by, their eyes glowing with excitement and anticipation.  I looked the boots over and set them aside. 

My children gasped in astonishment, "You're not going to wear them!?"  They immediately clamored around my precious new boots and began man-handling them in a wide variety of ways. 

In that moment something rose up in me and I blurted out, "No, these are MY boots.  You MAY NOT touch them."  My children looked heartbroken, confused, as I gathered those boots and hauled them off to my room where they stood in line like soldiers awaiting the call of duty, waiting until I was good and ready to enjoy them. 

*   *   *



It's strange, I know, but I rather like Dostoevsky's onion story.  I like the way it captures the impulse of human greed in such a recognizable way, how cleverly and simply it reveals the way that greed hurts not only the greedy, but all involved.

I love this story in the same way I love the story of Jonah for it too is a story of greed and jealousy to the point of hatred and Jonah too is willing to die rather than let go of his righteous anger.  These stories catch me and I glimpse myself in them as one does in walking by a mirror or store window; in a flash something is revealed in me that I know to be true but am not often willing to recognize. 

I value this story for the way it catches me unawares and raises questions about my possessiveness, the way I protect me and mine and the cost of the things I keep.  No one could truly be as "wicked" as the woman was said to be, but that impulse is something we all know. 

I'm a giving person, as a mother of four one could argue that I give of myself all day every day and it's good and right that a few things should be saved for just me alone.  I would say you're probably right on most accounts, but the next time my husband reaches over into my bowl of chips and I slap his hand away with a snappy, "Get your own bowl," maybe I'll remember this woman and her onion. 

When the words "It's mine, not yours," rise so easily, so reflexively, and in such contrast to the mercy and joy and grace of the moment, I want to notice them, to sit awhile and consider their source, to notice the cost they bring to bear on my own soul and the souls of those around me. 

Help me to remember, God, with grace, the cost of MINE.  Help me to discern what to hold tightly lest I be held, imprisoned by that which I hold. 



*   *   *   *   *

 



I read this story last month in preparation for a retreat on Giving and Receiving.  It stayed with me, captured me, and rolled me around in its images and irony, its extremes and it's still not finished with me yet.  So here I am, sharing it with you.  What do you think?