"Healing" (#SmallWonder Link-Up)

Early this week my lower back popped, some inward tension caused it to explode in pain, twisting and curling my hips, shoulders, even the arches of my feet.  Monday it was bad, Tuesday worse and I started wearing a back brace.  By Wednesday I knew I was in serious trouble and texted a friend, “Do you have any muscle relaxers?  Ibuprofen isn’t cutting it.”

She replied, “No.  Maybe you should go to the doctor.”

“I know,” I said, “but they’ll make me get a scan and probably go for physical therapy.” 

My husband had my vehicle that day and a trip to the Dr. would involve a ride in his rattly old pickup truck, waiting, and then a second trip for a scan of my back.  Walking and standing brought real pain and the thought of such a trip was overwhelming. Instead of heading to the Dr., I pulled out all of my back care tricks.  I rubbed pungent Tiger Balm on my clenched muscles, wrapped my brace tight and threw back 1000 mg. of Ibuprophen. Then, I laid down on the floor, flat on my back, which seems to be one of the simplest ways to relax and realign my muscles.   

This is what I know I need to do when my back gets bad.  But there’s so little I can do in that prone position.  I can’t write, can’t be online, can’t clean, cook or do laundry.  I can read for brief periods of time until my arms grow weary, I can scroll through Facebook on my phone.  It’s humbling, it’s frustrating.

But I laid on my back as much as I could on Wednesday, I took a two hour nap and did slow, gentle stretches.  By Thursday things were a little better, by Friday another bit improved.

Every time this happens (once, twice, three times a year?) I think, “I have to work on my abs, my back needs more support.  It wouldn’t hurt to lose a little weight either.”  But these thoughts arrive at a time when I’m in too much pain to embrace them, by the time I’m up and able I’m too busy with life to make good on my own commitments. 

And so the cycle repeats.

//

I’ve heard a lot of talk about healing this past week in the wake of the election.  “The time for arguments is past, the time for healing is begun,” the rhetoric goes.  I believe that’s what we heard four years ago too and four years before that also.  Yet we continue to run ourselves, every four years, through a gauntlet of vitriol, hate and ideological (as well as actual) violence.  I'm not surprised that the nation of America is trapped in this cycle, but I'm dismayed that the church in America is also. 

Something about this repeated cycle tells me we’re not really that interested in healing after all, but more interested in rearming and preparing for the next round like boxers gasping for breath, dripping sweat in the corner of the ring between rounds.

How often can we keep repeating this injury before the whole body is beyond repair?  How long can we limp along?

Despite chronic and sometimes debilitating back pain for ten years I don’t take muscle relaxers because I need the pain to tell me to make a change.  Maybe it’s time we as a country starting listening to our pain and the pain of those around us.  Maybe it’s time we stop rushing to heal when we’ve yet to identify the wound, to cleanse it and seek amends.  Maybe its time the church took the lead in this activity.

//

I’ve been thinking about this passage in Isaiah 1 this week,

“Hear, O heavens, and listen, O earth; for the Lord has spoken: I reared children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against me. ³The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s crib; but Israel does not know, my people do not understand. ⁴Ah, sinful nation, people laden with iniquity, offspring who do evil, children who deal corruptly, who have forsaken the Lord, who have despised the Holy One of Israel, who are utterly estranged! ⁵Why do you seek further beatings? Why do you continue to rebel? The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.⁶From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but bruises and sores and bleeding wounds; they have not been drained, or bound up, or softened with oil.”

The prophet calls creation to bear witness against the people of God who, though reared by God have become “utterly estranged.”  I love the prophet’s use of image after image to convey the absolute discord between what is and what should be.  According to the prophet, the people of Israel lack the basic common sense of an ox or donkey, they’re utterly tone-deaf, wracked with delusion. 

Isaiah is addressing the nation of Israel – God’s people - and so the accurate parallel to us is to hear this as a word for the church, those who identify themselves as the people of God today.  What I hear in this passage is a pleading, lovesick God seeking to speak sense into a people who no longer see, no longer comprehend the peril of their situation. 

//

I'm convicted this week by my own failure to comprehend the reality of my situation physically in regard to my aching back.  And I’m prayerfully wondering the degree to which I should feel convicted of a failure to understand the reality of my situation spiritually, by which I mean, as the prophets always meant – in regards to righteousness and justice.

Isaiah isn’t asking people to come back to church, in fact a few verses down he slams their religious practices altogether.  He isn’t asking them to pray more or attend Bible study more faithfully.  God, through the prophet, is calling people to a faith that bears fruit in the arenas of justice and righteousness, particularly on behalf of the poor and marginalized as Isaiah 1:17 makes clear. 

//

This week has revealed the depth of my back issues, I would be foolish to continue to ignore them just because they lessen for a day, a week, a month.

This election has revealed the depth of our issues as a nation, but more importantly as a people who claim to seek God’s face.  We would be foolish to ignore them even if they lessen for a day, a week, a month.

Let us not hurry toward healing that is merely hiding.

Let us listen to voices around us, but particularly those of the poor, the weak, the marginalized.

Let us pray and examine our hearts, where is our own justice, our own righteousness lacking?

Let us seek to love not merely in words, but in deeds.    

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Thank you to everyone who participated in the Rafflecopter last week.  The winners of a free copy of "Chicken Scratch: Stories of Love, Risk & Poultry" are (drum roll . . . ) AMY HERTZLER and JACOB LONG. Congratulations!  I'll be emailing you soon for a mailing address.

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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!  

Open Heart : A Sneak Peak and a Giveaway (#SmallWonder link-up)

This is it, friends, Monday, Nov. 7 "Chicken Scratch: Stories of Love, Risk & Poultry" officially launches into the world.  It's exciting and a little bit scary and so, in honor of that, I want to share an excerpt from the book - a story about love and risk, pain and joy.  Enjoy and when you're done reading scroll down to see my free launch-day giveaways.

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Cold winds and thunderstorms settled into the area over the weekend.  Saturday came and went in a fog of post-birthday-party exhaustion, and the sunny morning turned dark and windy by late afternoon.  In the morning, our sleepy kids stayed inside playing on the Wii, and I walked down to the fence, hoping to talk awhile with our neighbor Ann. 

I spotted her husband, Don, in the yard first, closer to the fence.  Based on two years of over-the-fence observation, I’ve reached the conclusion that Ann and Don’s yard is governed by a neat division of labor – Ann tends her teaming flowerbeds and Don putters in his vegetable garden.  Both the beds and the garden put ours to shame, but John and I comfort ourselves by remembering that the Ann and Don are retired and not raising four young children. 

I’ve noticed a similar division of labor in their approach to the neighborly business of fence-side small-talk – Ann engages freely in extended conversation over a wide range of topics, and Don does not.  Drawing Don to the fence to even ask a question is like pulling teeth.  Attempt more and he’s clearly uncomfortable.  

One day last summer, when we were integrating our second round of chicks into our well established flock, the twins discovered one of the chicks named America, trapped tight in the far corner of the run.  “She’s dead!  America’s dead!” they cried, running into the house and pulling me out into the yard.  Bending down to examine the chick I discovered a large bloody gash in her neck.  It looked, in fact, like she’d been decapitated.  I wasn’t sure what to do, and, more importantly, I didn’t want to deal with the dead bird alone while Isaiah and Levi ran enthusiastic circles around me. 

Standing up, I looked down toward Ann and Don’s yard hoping for help.  I caught a glimpse of Don and approached casually under the guise of commiserating but seriously hoping to convince him to take care of the dead bird.  Don, however, proved resilient in the face of my woman-in-distress ploy. 

“Oh,” he said, “that’s too bad.”  He didn’t offer to help, and, knowing it wasn’t his responsibility, I couldn’t bring myself to ask.  I would deal with the bird myself. 

When I got back to the chicken tractor I bent down again for a closer examination.  The twins, bored already with death, had wandered off and in their absence, I noticed the rise and fall the chick’s fluffy feathers.  She was still breathing, a clear sign she had not, in fact, been decapitated.  I walked into the run and reached into the far back corner where she was huddled.  Pulling her out and tucking her to my chest, I realized she was pecked up pretty badly but likely to survive.  After a few days of isolation and over-the-counter antibiotic ointment, she was on the mend, and I had learned not to expect Don to play the Knight in Shining Armor.   

So I wasn’t looking to talk to Don Saturday morning, I was looking for Ann.  I spotted her on the far side of their yard wearing shorts and tall black polka-dotted rain boots.  Easily forgetting she’s close to 70 years old, I watched as she pushed a wheelbarrow full of mulch around to her flower beds.  Seeing my approach, she made a bee-line to the fence, and we chatted about summer and the gigantic addition being added to a house on the hill behind our house.  While we talked, Isaiah and Levi ran over yelling, “Miss. Ann!  Miss. Ann!”  They climbed briefly up and down the fence, lapping up her attention, then trotted off to play again. 

The reason I walked down to the fence was that I needed someone to talk to.  The night before John and I had found out that dear friends of ours were separating, and our hearts were broken.  When our chit-chat wound down, I told Ann about it.  She affirmed the real pain of a marriage ending and how sad it is for everyone involved, sharing stories from her experience with the divorces of people she knows. 

So many of the married friends John and I share got married at the same time we did.  We knew, even then, that the odds were high that many of us would not stay married.  And yet now, some 15 years later, it still seemed impossible that some of our friends were entering into a post-marriage stage of life.

“Maybe we’re naïve,” I said, “I’m almost 40.  I don’t understand how these things still catch me by surprise.”  What I really couldn’t understand was why it hurt so badly – hurt to see our friends in such complete and utter pain, hurt to be unable to fix it for them, to only be able to stand by watching, listening, and praying. 

Turning back to face our yard, I noticed the Polish hens and asked Ann if she’d seen them.  She said she had but couldn’t really tell much about them since they were penned up in the run on the far side of our yard.   “Do you see the fluff-headed ones?” I asked, my eyes following the Polish hens as they pecked along the perimeter of the netting. 

“Yeah, kinda,” she said, “but not very well.” 

I described them for her in detail, painting a picture of their fluffy white pom-pom heads and lacy gray-black feathers.  As I talked, I felt love for them rise in my chest despite the distance between us. 

Later in the day, I told John about my conversation with Ann, about how I thought maybe we were just naive.  But I also told him something I had realized while standing at the fence watching those baby hens from a distance.  “I loved them,” I said, “even from all the way across the yard, and I guess if you’re the kind of person who can fall in love with a Polish hen, then life’s gonna hurt.” 

“What do you mean?” he asked. 

“There’s no separating the two,” I said.  “It’s like the words on that painting hanging in the upstairs hallway, “Love wide; make your way with an open heart.”  Loving a Polish hen is loving with an open heart, and an open heart’s gonna get hurt.  But an open heart also has access to the kind of joy that helps in the middle of the hurt.”

Some days, I think that’s the most we can hope for – enough joy to carry us through the hurt.  Maybe also, if we’re lucky, we might find a sturdy fence to lean on and a neighbor willing to listen for a few minutes or more.

(Like this story?  Want to read more?  Pop over now to order a copy!)

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Today, I'm giving away two Prize Packages.  Two lucky winners will receive a signed copy of "Chicken Scratch" AND a "Chicken Poop" lip balm.  (For the record, the lip balm contains NO poop and only natural ingredients like avocado oil, beeswax and jojoba oil.)  Check out the Rafflecopter below to enter to win.  Winners will be announced next Sunday.  

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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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!  

I Died 100 Deaths That Halloween (#SmallWonder link-up)

(This is one of my favorite old posts from year I started blogging. The twins were just over a year old, Solomon was four and Sophia was six.  Enjoy!  And my you find hope for your own moment by moment journey from death to resurrection.) 

It was rainy and cold and we were keyed up and worn out from being trapped indoors for two days by Hurricane Sandy.  I woke up late and squeezed in a shower while the twins, still in dirty diapers from the night before, wandered around the living room.  

Their whining amplified to full pitch when my shower cued them in to the possibility that I’d be (gasp!) leaving for the morning.  The preemptive separation anxiety continued through breakfast and packing everyone into the van to take Sophia to school. 

After drop-off I carted the remaining three kids back into the house.  We mulled around, waiting anxiously for the babysitter who was coming to stay with the twins while Solomon and I went to his preschool class's Halloween party at a local nursing home.   

The twins settled for a few minutes, their anxiety lulled by the fact that I had yet to leave them and Solomon's anxiety about the party simultaneously rose in direct proportion to their calming. Following me through the house, he peppered me with nervous questions, 

“Will there be people from the nursing home in the party?” he asked.

“Um, I’m not sure, honey,” I said.

“Will they see me in my costume?” he asked.

“Yes,” I replied.

“Are you going to dress up?” he asked.

“No,” I said.

“Then, I don’t want to wear a costume,” he declared. 

I had been dreading this party from moment it was first mentioned, knowing that my son, so robust and cheerful at home, would be shy and clingy surrounded by strangers in a new place.  Committed to accompanying him, I had hired a babysitter for the twins, despite my own teeth-clenching, foot-dragging antagonism toward it all. 

“Solomon,” I said, “what if I wear a costume too?”  Then I emerged from the back room wearing the fuzzy black antennae from my daughter’s ladybug costume.

“Ok,” he said, brightening, “you can be a black beetle.”

Then, I felt myself giving in, letting go a little more.  “What if I’m a ladybug?" I asked.  "I can steal Sophia’s costume.” 

He approved of my decision and I had just enough time to gather the red and black-dotted wings and my camera before the babysitter arrived.  Isaiah dissolved into a raging stream of tears, protesting my impending departure.  I ran in circles grabbing the rest of the things we needed, carrying Levi in my arms and nearly made it out the door with him, but the sitter stopped me just in time, grabbing him from me with the words, “This one’s staying here.”

Then we were off, on our way to a party I don’t want to go to, but also don’t want my son to miss.  We drove through the rain to the nursing home and found his classmates in a large room coloring at a table while elderly people in wheelchairs sat in a wide circle around them.  The residents watched the children, their eyes hungrily absorbing the beauty and innocence, the luxury of so much youth in one small space.  

Solomon was clingy, shy and tired, overwhelmed by the noise, the crafts, the games.  But I did my best to get into the spirit of things.  I helped with glue and tore bits of tissue paper for a craft.  I assured a child that it didn't matter where he put the eyes on his pumpkin.  I laughed with the other Moms over the resident who rode in on a wheelchair, pretending to scare the kids with a mask, all the while giving a growing peep show as his robe slid further and further open.  I posed for a smiling picture with my son, a little Iron Man snuggled up on a ladybug's lap. 

By the time we returned home, though, I was over-stimulated and frustrated at my inability to love Halloween, to love loud parties and candy.  The twins were exhausted and hungry and when I walked in the door they flew to me like magnets, pressing their tiny bodies onto mine in desperation.   

It was all I could do to untangle myself from them, causing more tears and desperation, as I headed to the kitchen to make lunch.  Solomon started sorting and dumping the morning's haul of candy, dancing and singing and blowing the whistle from his party bag while the twins screamed from their highchairs, desperate to convey how deeply my had absence wronged them.   

Then I yelled, “Stop it!” and threw an apple-peel all the way across the kitchen.  It hit one twin and bounced off and they both sat staring, shocked into silence and my son, that sweet four year old boy, offered to play his whistle to settle them down.  

//

There are days when being a mother feels like dying a hundred tiny deaths.  One hundred letting-go's, a thousand surrenders to more noise, more movement, more demands than I feel capable of handling. I’m not complaining, I just want to be honest about the stretch of motherhood and how quickly, how fiercely, I shrink back from it.   

I died a hundred little deaths that Halloween morning.  But I know, thank God, that this dying, this surrender, makes me new again.   

I may die a hundred times a day, but I'm just as often made new, reborn in the face of a chubby, gap-toothed grin, a gentle hand seeking mine for reassurance.  That morning I was resurrected by Solomon's voice calling cheerfully from the back of the van as we made our way home, “I can’t wait to be old so I can go to the nursing home to live.”

//

Later in the day I made chili to share with friends who're coming trick-or-treating with us.  While the twins again stood whining at the gate that divides them from me, my Dad called with the news that my maternal grandmother had died that morning in the nursing home where she lived for years in North Carolina.  

Standing over the stove, stirring the chili, I found myself surprisingly grateful.  Grateful that, although I couldn't be there with her, I was visiting a nursing home here with my son, the very same morning.  I thought of my Grandmother's life and the many little and big deaths she endured.  I thought of the ways I get so focused on what I'm giving up, that I nearly miss what I have right here, right now in front of me.  It occurred to me that I live such a grace-filled life, full of opportunities for surrender, continually pressing me toward the edge.  

//

I finished dinner and the older kids and my husband came home, and poor Isaiah, who just couldn't seem to pull himself together, sat crying on the floor.  I scooped him up and settled into the rocking chair and watched as he drifted into a heavy sleep.  I loved that moment - the rocking, the sleeping child so sweet. 

Then Isaiah lifted his head and looked around, disoriented, before throwing up all over both of us.  Leaning forward, exhausted, he laid his head back on my chest with the pile of warm, smelly goo spread like a layer of glue between us.  I died again in that moment and rose again to hug him tight until my husband came to help us both get cleaned up.  

//

Every day of the dead, every Halloween, gives way to all saints day and I wonder if we too, dying in our little and big ways, aren't also being moved, continually, from death to new life.  This dying is a surrender, a stripping bare until all that remains is love.  

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Hey-all!  The kindle version of Chicken Scratch: Stories of Love, Risk & Poultry is now available for pre-order on Amazon!  The launch date, November 7 is just a week away!  And here's a fun little chicken meme for you to share.

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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!  

Podcast: Writing, Wonder & Discovery

Last week, my friend Karen Weiss from Waterworks Ministries in State College, PA, came over to interview me for her podcast.  We had a great time sitting in the sunlit Little House on my property talking about writing as a way of paying attention to life and as a Spiritual Practice.  

If you've ever wondered how I started writing, how I decide what to write about or where I find God in the process, pop over to her website and have a listen.  I also give a shortish-long description of what my forthcoming book, Chicken Scratch is really all about.  

The proofs of Chicken Scratch (final rough drafts) arrived yesterday and my older two children carted two of them off to school to show their friends and teachers - I think they're more excited than I am.  This next week I'll be working hard on editing and re-submitting my files and by November 7th we should be ready to go!  Last, but not least, here's a little bonus meme that gives you a sneak-peak at the heart of Chicken Scratch.  Feel free to download and share the image online.  

Doing It Scared (#SmallWonder Link-up)

Thursday morning I printed off a how to manual for formatting the inside of a book and sat outside highlighting the parts I thought would apply to the job ahead of me that afternoon.  It was a beautiful fall day, enough to warrant (in my mind) printing the 70 plus page manual.  Looking up, I caught this picture of our rooster, Joker silhouetted by the sun.  You can see the farm stand in the background.  

I started formatting around noon and by three o'clock I really wanted to go into the house for a drink of water or cup of coffee, but I made myself stay put in the Ikea chair in my office.  If I pushed, I could finish formatting the inside layout of my forthcoming book before the kids’ bus rolled over the hill to drop them off, and I really wanted to be done.

Thirty more minutes and I had done it.  All eighteen sections of my book were copied, pasted and formatted into the layout template I purchased online.  I felt like my eyes were going to fall out of my head and I had spent the last four hours struggling to breathe for fear one finger-stroke would blow the whole book out of the water.

//

This is how a lot of self-publishing has been.  I was scared and overwhelmed by websites like Createspace and Canva (Never heard of them?  I hadn’t either.) but I found them and set up accounts.  I didn’t understand book formatting lingo and the specifications necessary for designing a cover layout, but I googled instructions, read them, and did it.  Every week brought a new skill to learn, a new figurative blank page that terrified me to the core. 

Making dinner in the kitchen while the kids watched TV in the afternoons, I would sense my fear and anxiety.  Why am I so anxious?  I wondered.  

Because I don’t know what I’m doing, came the reply.

It turns out, I don’t like not knowing what I’m doing. 

But I also tried to find perspective, You didn’t know what you were doing a week ago when you designed the cover, but you figured it out.  You can do this too.

I thought of all the times I’ve walked blind into new challenges, and although I don’t like it at all, I kept on groping my way along the path of self-publishing.  I think this is what some people call, “doing it scared.”  The idea of doing something despite your fear and not allowing fear to be the boss.  Maybe “doing it scared” is the secular version of “walking by faith, not by sight.”

// 

This is one side of my self-publishing story - I've done it scared. (Although I think the term 'terrified' would be a more accurate descriptor.)  There’s been value in the challenge of learning new skills and overcoming hurdles.  But it’s also been exhausting.  

  

Friday night, I finally submitted all of my files to Create Space (Amazon’s self-publishing site).  This was the one step I was most nervous about.  After submitting, I felt a breath of relief.  Then, I laid down on the couch and fell asleep at 7:00 pm and slept straight through until the following morning. 

I think it’s important for others to be aware that there’s a real cost to doing it scared.  And, because of that, I’m not sure it’s a value I altogether promote.  It’s ok to be scared and important to not let fear be your master, but sometimes our fear and stress are telling us important things too. 

“Doing it scared” can only take us so far without things like, “doing it together” and “doing it with grace and a heaping dose of help.”  Although I’m proud of myself for the work I’ve done these past two months, I’m not unaware of the cost.  

Also, I’ve not, by any measure, done it alone.  I’m grateful for those who’ve come alongside of me to offer advice, encouragement and support.  I hope my experience will help me remember to take notice when others around me are doing it scared.  Those are the times when we need to lean in and offer  help and support.  

What have you "done scared"?  What was it like for you?  

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It's official!  My book, Chicken Scratch: Stories of Love, Risk & Poultry is coming on November 7th!  Feel free to share this image on social media and stay tuned next week for more info one ways you can help get the word out.  

One advance reader gave me a great compliment today.  "It felt like sitting down with you over a cup of coffee and listening to you tell stories.  I didn't know how much I needed it."  

*   *   *

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!  

The Awakening We Seek (#SmallWonder Link-Up)

#SmallWonder friends - I set the linkup to automatically post last weekend since we were out of town, but it didn't work!  I missed connecting with you all. Today I'm re-posting something from October, 2013, back when the twins were just two years old and we were living in a small rental apartment and waiting to find a home.

*   *   *

To see the world in a grain of sand,

and to see heaven in a wild flower,

hold infinity in the palm of your hands,

and eternity in an hour.

- William Blake

The whole world is dripping and gray; water runs through the streets and pools in the Quick Stop parking lot across the road.  In this light, the apartment walls are dingy, ashen, crisscrossed with shadows.  Every corner of the house is filled with piles; it feels like the stuff in our house is also pooling together mirroring the puddles outside.  Here I sit, waiting for a miracle that will move us into a brighter space.

//

The twins threw noodles down through the cast iron vent in the floor the other day, noodles from a box they scrounged from the pantry and tore open like the little wild things they are.  Laying on their bellies now, peering through the grate that leads to the basement below, they're pleased and excited to recall where the noodles have gone. 

"Hot-hot," they exclaim, "Noodles!"

Everything, to them, is an exclamation point, everything extraordinary - the sun, the clouds, the rain, the discovery of their own shadow following their every move.  In their eyes all the world is a miracle, the finite infused with the infinite.  To us, they are the miracle, these little beings whose minds see no clear divide between the ordinary and extraordinary.  I envy their capacity for wonder, their openness to the love of what is.

//  

All our lives, I think, are spent seeking an awakening, a return to that same unity of vision.

*   *   *

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!  

In Defense of Fun (#SmallWonder Link-up)

I had coffee with one of my former college professors a few weeks ago.  I walked down the road to the little corner café and we sat for a while talking about life and direction.  We’re both in the midst of a murky time of transition – his post retirement, mine at the end of the season of parenting preschool aged children.   This friend, a retired professor Christian Spirituality and Ministry who’s penned a biblical commentary for a well-known series, likes to tease me about the fact that I went to a “better seminary” than him.

When it came up that morning in the coffee shop I smiled and shrugged.  “Yeah,” I said, “and look where it got me – selling flowers and eggs along the side of the road!”

He smiled and shrugged. “Well,” he said, “that’s important too.”

He’s right.  It is.  And I knew it even as I sat there making light of it.    

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John built the farm stand early this summer and I started out trying to sell eggs and produce, but sales were slow, by which I mean nearly non-existent.  But then the two seed packets of Zinnias we planted grew and started blooming in a wild array of pinks and oranges.  I soon added cut flower arrangements to the stand first in old glass canning jars, then in recycled soup cans.  I called them “Tin Can Bouquets” and sold them for $1 each. 

In late August, a friend of mine discovered the bouquets and posted a picture of them online, sales picked up dramatically.  Some days it felt like I could hardly keep the stand stocked with flowers.  All in all, I’m confident we made more money in flowers this summer than in produce and eggs combined. 

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I realized something amazing this summer when I sold my first carton of eggs to a stranger who happened to stop by because of the sign in our yard.  When you sell something to another person – in this case, eggs – you’re in some small way, entering into their life.  The woman who stopped by took my eggs into her home, put them in her refrigerator and they became part of her meal planning and dinner, lunch or breakfast.  A product of mine became part of her life and I don’t even know her name.  The same goes for writing a book, I guess, or selling flowers, each product offers a chance to impact someone else’s life. 

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A few weeks ago I told a small group of friends about my plan to self-publish Chicken Scratch this November 7^th.  After taking time to think about my goals for the book and how I would measure its success, I had found I was surprised by my own answer.    

“What I most want,” I told them, “is for it to be fun.” I shrugged my shoulders at the word fun, like it was a small thing.  Then with my face scrunched up, almost as if in apology, I added, “I think it’s really important.” 

My friends agreed.  

We talked about how fun can seem frivolous, unimportant, when compared to the serious work needing to be done.  These friends work in the non-profit sector, they know a thing or two about serious work, and yet they agreed, we do need more beauty and joy, more fun in our lives. 

I used to think being a good person meant doing all of the serious work first.  Then maybe, if I was lucky, there would be a few spare moments at the end of the day or the end of a productive life to do something “just for fun;”  to travel, to rest, to play.  I still find myself thinking that way when the list of good and important, even necessary, things that must be done is long.  (Is it ever not long?) 

But I understand now that fun belongs on that list too.  Fun is good.  Fun is important.  Fun is necessary. So necessary that we may even need to practice at it until we learn to engage in fun, not as a form of escapism or entertainment, but as a way to refill our souls, giving us hope, energy and courage to continue on in the rest of the good and serious work needing to be done.   

“It kinda blows my mind,” I told my friends that day.  “Of all the things for sale at the farm stand, all of the useful, practical food items, what people bought most was beauty.” 

I like to think of those tin can bouquets -  the ones my friend bought two and three at a time and took to meetings all over town, the others bought by people I never met or even saw - those pink and purple happy Zinnia faces are smiling all around Boiling Springs and Carlisle, on kitchen counters, dining room tables and goodness only knows where else.  What a joy it is to spread a little fun into pockets of the world I would otherwise never reach. 

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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!