The Hairs of Our Heads

Look at that beautiful fuzz!

My friend posted on facebook that she was planning to take her little boy for his first hair cut and since our boys are the same age I felt a wave of maternal anxiety at the idea. 

My youngest arrived with a precious layer of strawberry-blond silk that glowed in the sunlight and stood out around his head like a halo in every photograph we took.  But now, like his little friend, his hair is getting a bit untidy.  It still curls charmingly at the nap of his neck, but it also hangs in his eyes and is frayed with split ends.  The thought of cutting it, though, nearly breaks my heart. 

When my oldest son was little he would sit perfectly still on my lap as I ran my fingers through his hair.  Now, at four, he stands on a dining room chair once every few weeks as I painstakingly snip and trim.  As he squirms, all itchy and twitchy, I watch large swaths of thick dirty-blond hair falling floor.  His wiggling wears me thin, but when I threaten to stop half-way through he stills himself immediately, relishing these rare moments of maternal attention. 

My daughter doesn’t let me play with her hair, but nearly every day of kindergarten she asked for two braids and stood hopping from foot to foot as I wove the strands in place.  After years of trimming her long locks at home I now take her to Holiday Hair and sit in the empty chair beside her watching her watch herself in the mirror.   

Sophia's first day of school braid.

I number their hairs, these children of mine.  I scrub and rinse, watching the water as it pours down over them.  I chant “look up, look up, look up,” begging them to tip their heads back so that the soap won’t run into their eyes.  I pat their heads and trim as needed, watching bits of their childhood fall to the floor with each snip of the scissors.  These are some of the many little ways I care for them – brushing and combing and smoothing down – some of the many ways I express my love. 

The intimate relationship a mother has with her child’s hair reminds me of the place in scripture where we are reminded that God numbers the hairs on our heads.   As I marvel at the little curls that form on their sweaty heads during nap time, I hear the passage anew as yet another picture of God’s great love for us; God who knows and loves us with something like the intimacy between a mother and her tow-headed children. 

It won’t be long until they’re cutting and combing and numbering their own hairs, but on days when they feel lost or alone, I hope they’ll remember the feeling of my hand on their head, my voice saying, “Look up, look up,” as the water runs down.  I hope they’ll remember the One who loves them even more than their mother does, the One who numbers the very hairs of their heads.     

My boy's beautiful locks.

This post is linked with Playdates With God and Hear it on Sunday, Use it on Monday.

'Ope

Isaiah stands at the low wooden shelf of the changing table with his chubby hand tugging on the handle of a basket that's stuck.  Unable to get to the books trapped inside, he turns to me whining and fussing to communicate his desire.

Seizing the teachable moment, I prompt, "Help, Isaiah. Say, 'help.'"

"Ope," he says, copying my dramatic drawn-out inflection to perfection, but missing the 'h' and 'l.'  "Ope," he shouts, pulling on the basket for emphasis.

*   *   *

Levi stands at the gate that divides the living room from the rest of the house. He's fussing to get my attention, while also checking and rechecking the lock on the latch. He wants to be set free, he wants the run of the house.

Walking over and looking down into his face I say, "Open, Levi. Say 'open please.'"

'Ope," he says, rubbing a quick circle over his bulging belly, the baby-sign-language gesture for please.  'Ope," he repeats for good measure, relieved to have the verbal keys that unlock the door to his desire. 

*   *   *

It’s the day after Easter and my husband and I have an appointment with the bank set for the following day.  We have dreams for our lives, our family, our ministry, dreams this beautiful little house doesn’t seem capable of holding.  So we’re starting to lean into the future, starting to speak of our hopes and dreams and as we do, I can feel the desperate, hungry flocks of fear gathering like vultures.  

As people of the resurrection, we’re called to dream, to imagine and move into our dreams, but too often I find myself stuck when the dark clouds of fear and disappointment roll in.  How does one find a place to stand between control and resignation, between taking a dream upon your own small shoulders and abandoning it in the dirt? 

*   *   *

Levi and Isaiah are waiting at the gate again and as I approach Levi flashes a look of inspiration.

“Ope,” he says and his brother chimes in too so that they form a small chorus, a flock of sweetly singing birds.  “Ope, ope,” they chirp while rubbing their bellies in little circles of politeness. 

But through some blend of forced breath and mispronunciation, the word I hear is “hope” and it’s then that my eyes and ears are opened to these two chubby-faced messengers sent by God. 

“Hope, hope,” Isaiah says as he tugs at the basket.

“Hope, hope,” Levi pleads as he stands at the locked gate.

“Please,” their small hands say as they circle their bellies again and again.

*   *   *

These two little birds are teaching me the language of God-sized dreams, teaching me to sing the songs of desire and how can I help but join the chorus? 

Standing at the gate to the future that I can't unlock on my own, I sing the song of hope, adding in a gesture of "please" for good measure.  I throw back the shadows of fear and doubt with this small word that escapes my lips like a breath of fresh air, a mighty wind that chases the gathering clouds away.

“Hope, hope,” I say as we move forward, leaning, listening to the Whisperer of dreams, the Giver of gifts, the One who sent this beautiful flock of birds to settle in my nest singing their lovely song of hope.  

Linking with Emily and Jennifer.

Outlaws and Rebels, Every One

"They crucified two rebels with him, one on his left and one on his right." Matthew 27:38

*   *   *   *   *

 

My 18 month-old boys saunter through the house with swaggering bravado like two black-hats straight out of the lawless west.  Working together they form a mafia-esque crime-ring, a rebellious conspiracy against law and order and decency.  Trafficking in black market goods pilfered from the pile of floor-sweepings in the kitchen corner, they gather on the back of the love seat, perched in the window to inspect and trade their haul. 

They rip the heads off of their sister’s dolls and leave graffiti on the living room walls and every time I kneel to zip Isaiah’s coat, Levi circles around behind me and roots through my purse.  A gifted pick-pocket, he snatches my wallet and phone with such speed, stealth and precision that even I, the victim, have to marvel. 

When one is finally caught red-handed, and placed in solitary (ie. the corner) the other comes quickly to the rescue, crouching down beside him, chattering what I imagine are plans of daring-escape and revenge.  Like true accomplices, though, they quickly turn on each other when caught together at the scene of a crime – a mutually enjoyed destruction turns all finger-pointing and tears when the fuzz shows up.

The other day I watched Levi running through the house with what appeared to be a little shiv.  It sported a jagged, plastic tip and appeared capable of inflicting real harm, so I quickly confiscated it, tossing it into the trash.    

As we lay in bed at night my husband and I hear a “scritch, scratch, scritch” on the bedroom wall near our heads.  Levi’s crib sits just on the other side of the wall so we sleep head-to-head, divided only by a few thin inches of plaster.  We tell ourselves he’s rubbing the nubby bottoms of his footed pajamas against the wall, but as I lay listening late into the night, I think of that little shiv and wonder if he isn’t tunneling his way to freedom one tiny scratch at a time.  I picture him tumbling through into our bed some night, his face full of surprise and disappointment to find us there or, more likely, delighted. 

These boys are outlaws, I tell you.  Even so little, so cute, they have a rap sheet a mile-long.   Looking at their round little faces, their hair all downy-fluff, I'm reminded that we’re all thieves, all outlaws of one sort or another, every last one of us.  We’re all Davids and Delilahs, Judases and Peters bent on greed and self-preservation.  We're all convicted, but not condemned, chiseling our way toward freedom, one tiny crack at a time, until at last we fall through the wall to Love.   

This post is linked with Playdates With God and Hear it on Sunday, Use it on Monday.

Holy Saturday's Work

Holy Saturday's Work

(for that which is already but not yet)

Go outside and kneel

beside still-sleeping beds.

Strip away all that's dead;

the leaves, brown and curled,
and the dry, empty stems
of last year’s blossoms.

Straighten, one-by-one,

the scallop-edged bricks
that have stood, leaning,  
all year-long
like forgotten gravestones.

Roll the giant flowerpot aside

and wonder at the sound of
stone scraping against stone.

- K. Chripczuk

Photo credit: Here

The Tears and the Garden

From The Jungle Book, after Mowgli fights off the deadly tiger Shere Kahn and the wolves who betrayed the pack:

"At last, only Akela, Bagheera, and about ten wolves who had been loyal to Mowgli remained. The boy's knees began to weaken, and a hurt began to grow inside of him, a hurt he had never known before. Sobs lefts his throat and tears ran down his cheeks. These strange happenings in his body frightened him, and he cried out to Bagheera, "What is this? Am I dying?"

"No, Little Brother," replied the panther, gently. "These are tears, which only [humans] use. Let them fall, Mowgli. Let them fall."

Mowgli sat and cried as if his heart were breaking. He had never cried before in his life. But then he had never been forced to leave the jungle before."

* * *

Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”

                                                                                                          Matthew 26:36-38 

*   *   *

They come as I am bent, hauling sleepers and socks from the dryer, gathering the whole lot into my arms in a wide, sweeping motion.  They come too in the kitchen when no one's looking and I want to slide to the ground and hide behind the counter and let the damn river flow. 

On Sundays, they rise in the in-between spaces, as I walk to the restroom or stand looking for a seat in a sea of familiar faces.  Snuggled on the couch with my son reading the stories of Ramona I feel their gathering tide and as I read this passage from The Jungle Book they crash into me like waves breaking against a sandy shore.

This winter has been a season of tears, a rising, salty sea as my family and I find ourselves between what was and what will be and I'm reminded again and again that growth itself often involves surrender; dying to what's familiar and opening our empty hands to embrace what's new.  The gift of new life is preceded by death, the birth foreshadowed by pain and the fact that Christ struggled so in the face of his own great transition brings me hope.        

The tears of Jesus in the garden, like the tears of Mowgli in the passage above and the tears I have felt this winter long, are tears of transition.  They are the heavy, disoriented cries of pain that come in the dark cloudy pass of life in-between. 

“What is this,” Mowgli says, “Am I dying?” 

“My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death,” says Jesus.

To be human is to feel pain and sorrow, to sit breaking and broken as the tears roll down.  We hold-on for as long as we can, clutching tight to the old, the known, and then finally, letting go at last, we feel the fear of falling as the thin skin of safety, the strong walls of that which holds us give way to something more. 

And all along the dark, dry and narrow passage that leads us continually from death to life, the gift of tears comes to water us, to nourish our thirsty souls and the seeds of life within. 

“Let them fall,” says the good, wise friend, Bagheera, "let them fall." 

*   *   *

Oh Christ, who surrendered through great heaving tears of sorrow and loss, guide us please, through this narrow passage-way, teach us to breathe through the pain as we wait for the gift of new life.  Grace us, please, with the tears of surrender, those salty, sacred streams that water our souls.



Spring Snow (Remain here, stay)

Then he said to them, "I am deeply grieved, even to death; remain here, and stay with me."

Matthew 26:38

Snow fell during my March retreat, swirling, driven white upon the spring-green and brown world.  Flat and thin, large flakes like communion wafers dissolving on the sun-warmed tongue of the earth.  It lay in patches, queen-ann’s-lacing the woodland path where the first shoots sprung up and tiny, white flowers dotted. 

I couldn’t help but smile, for surely God was laughing – laughing at our springing forward eagerness, our expectation that the turning of the seasons might be rushed along through impatience.  We were ready for spring, but the stillness of winter crept in among us, bringing its gentle silence and heavy, dripping ice. 

As snow fell, heaven whispered, “Stay here, just a little longer.  There’s more to be found here in the depths of this silence, more to be gathered.”

*   *   *

I know this snow won't last, it's here and gone before the day is done like manna, so much bread falling from heaven's cloudy eye.  But there’s nothing more painful to me than being asked to stay where I would rather not.  Give me the command to “get up and go” and I’ll be ready, bags packed, at your beck and call.  But ask me to stay and watch awhile and I, like the disciples, would prefer a dark and restless sleep to the tearful wrestling with that which I did not, would not, chose. 

Yet here we are, days into spring, and snow is falling still, heavy and wet, pillowing everything under gentle curves.  The birds don’t seem to mind, busy as they are and singing too, confident in what’s to come.  They believe, as all earthly creatures must, that the world will turn again, rolled back like a giant stone as life emerges. 

*   *   *

Stay awake my friends, stay awake and watch awhile.  Do not fear the long dark night for even now the world itself is tilting, leaning toward the edge of winter and the end of our waiting.  Outside my window the trees’ heavy white robes of snow are sliding to the ground where they lay, like burial shrouds, cast off, empty. 

Remain here, stay and listen awhile and you too might hear the moment the melting begins; one single drip followed by a chorus of dripping, dropping, living waters as death is again defeated, transformed, until all that remains are the shining droplets, a million sparkling crystals hung like jewels on the tree of life.     

Photo source here. and here.

This post is shared with Playdates with God and Hear it on Sunday, Use it on Monday.

Filled With Compassion

"But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion . . ."
                                                                                                                  Luke 15:20

First comes the divestment,

the division of all you have,
blessed, broken and given,  
like bread.   

Then the wait begins,

the long, empty hours and days

wherein you wander the vacant

halls of your life,

emptied of all that owned you.
 

Your life is a bowl now,

open,

hollowed out,

exposing a growing

breadth and depth of love,

a willing humility.  

Then and only then

may you be filled

with compassion,

filled with that which reaches out

beyond the borders of you,
beyond emptiness,
to embrace
one come home.