Tackling Transitions

Next week, a new series of blog posts will begin to be published on the site Off The Page, a ministry of Our Daily Bread. I am excited about this opportunity to reach a larger audience and hope that the posts are engaging, inspiring, and thought provoking-- sincere and maybe even a little funny now and then.

My first series with Off The Page was about transitions and what it's like to change jobs, change communities, and change churches. Here are a few excerpts:

Changing Directions
I recently did one of those things you do in your twenties and thirties: I changed jobs. The job change was a package deal and included a new town, a new commute, a new house, and a new school district for my kids.

I wasn’t really looking to change jobs. It’s rare to think that you’ve found the job you are made for when you are twenty-five, but I was certain I had: administering a graduate writing program, managing a small press and literary journal at the university I had graduated from four years earlier, working with faculty members who had mentored me when I was an undergraduate … I was in happy spreadsheet, literature, and poetry heaven.

Everything had fallen into place to make it happen too. My husband, Brandon, and I had prayed through the job offer and acceptance, the house sale and moving plans, the birth of our second child … every single little detail that summer. And it was good. Read More...

Church Hunting

I hate trying to find a church.

The last time we moved, Brandon and I fell by mercy into a community of believers that met our deep need for friendship and community. We only visited one other church in the land-of-a-thousand churches before we found 5 Stones Community Church.

5 Stones is filled with people who praise Jesus for his extravagant grace, make no claims of perfection but aspire to become the truest versions of themselves, and drape other people in that same outpouring of mercy and forgiveness. For realz, I know that was a lot of church-y talk and all, but I’m serious. Like all churches that exist here on earth, it has its battles and bruises, its history and its weaknesses. It’s made of a bunch of broken people covered by God’s grace, so that’s to be expected. Read More...

Life Together

I started the new year feeling a need for some meaty inspirational reading, so I picked up a book that’s been sitting on our shelves for a while now, Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Hangin’ out with other believers and talking about Jesus is one of my favorite things to do, but deep and sustaining relationships in the church are sometimes hard to come by. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Christians can be kind of judgmental and easily offended. Whaaaaaat?! I know. Crazy. Because of this and my incapacity for small talk, I don’t find it easy to jump right into faith communities. I’m not always sure if they’re going to get me, and I don’t want to offend them by my sarcasm, self-deprecation, wide laugh, and loud grace. Read More...

Bringing the Word

You should know that I didn’t grow up reading the Bible—though we did have a basic illustrated Bible stories book floating around among the Dr. Seusses.

One Thanksgiving Day, I paged through a King James Bible looking for the section on Thanksgiving prayers, resolved that I would provide the most eloquent of blessings on our meal. This made perfect sense to me; after all, I had found the proper formal place setting arrangements for Thanksgiving in the cookbook. Surely there would be an index of holiday prayers in the Bible.

Later still, my mom bought me a red-letter, black, leather-bound, New International Version study Bible for Christmas. I was sixteen, and the hunger and curiosity from internal and external sources burned. I wanted to know: Is there a God? Is he real? Who is he? How do I reconcile all I’ve learned in sixteen years with this book? Can I?

I started reading at the beginning, like you do with most books. Genesis wasn’t so bad, and the start of Exodus is eventful, but then you get Leviticus and Numbers and Deuteronomy all up in there, and my interest waned. Read More...

Tune in beginning May 13 for the next series on Off The Page: The Desire to Be Desired.

April Showers

It is the end of National Poetry Month today, and while I wrote not a single poem for the month, I have been busy chiseling away at my memoir-in-essays, which has its own sort of lyricism and poetic turns, and that totally counts, right? I have done much to celebrate poetry in April, however, giving readings and talking enthusiastically about iambs and line breaks to ever-patient audiences.

I'm also celebrating the end of the spring semester today. There were many leaps forward made this semester in the Ashland MFA Program for me. I even have the first draft of my memoir-in-essays all saved in one Word document. This is a slight hazard to my health, because every time I make a change in an essay, I then have to go in and make a change in the book-length document, which drives me slightly batty.

I was thinking about "book-length" the other day. A few summers ago, I posted to Facebook or Twitter how daunting the idea of writing a book seemed. I told myself, better to write a sentence. And then a paragraph. And then maybe a couple of paragraphs. And then maybe an essay. And then start over. And then see what happens from there.

So that's what I did. Little bites. Just like every single other thing in the world, just take it in little bites.

More things happened this month-- I went to my best friend's Orthodox Church for a service during Holy Week that was lovely and refreshing; the kids and I tagged along with Brandon to South Bend, IN for Easter weekend; I spent a hilarious weekend with writer friends in Grand Rapids at the Festival of Faith and Writing, where I twisted my ankle dancing to American Pie; I read loads and loads of poetry to people.

And I've been thinking about a lot of things. I've been thinking a lot about bravery and bearing witness in writing and the power of vulnerability. I've been thinking about how my garden needs to be tilled. I've been thinking about how I'd really like to write some poems again someday. I've been thinking about how I'd really like to go to yoga or maybe even exercise again. I've been thinking about how I am changing to a nine-month contract beginning June 1 and what that means for our family financially and what that means for our family's health. I've been thinking about how we teach our children faith and hope and love and mercy and patience and how those methods differ from teaching them to study the Bible. I've been thinking about budgets and patience and stability and contentment and when you feel called to a place and how to tell when you've been released. I've been thinking about friends and community and large backyards and sandboxes and neighbors. I've been thinking about grilling out and being barefoot. I've been thinking about what a great winter and spring it's been, and how the tree outside my office window is sucking up the precipitation and pushing out leaves right now, right this minute, dripping and growing and greening up as if it takes nothing at all to do these things, nothing at all to recover from winter, to grow and to thrive.

Advent Day Nine: Divorce Her Quietly

"This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly. But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, 'Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.'" - Matthew 1:18-21

Even though our culture's marital practices have evolved since the days of Christ, listen to any radio station and within a song or two, you'll hear someone sing about having been cheated on or betrayed by a loved one.  As a society, it seems to be built into our moral code that mutually committed, monogamous relationships are important, and betraying that trust and commitment is grounds for separation or divorce.

Joseph had every right to "divorce her quietly."  He could have divorced her loudly.  What greater evidence could he have that his soon-to-be wife has been unfaithful?

And yet, here comes another angel to help show the people that our ways are not God's ways.

So far, nothing about the way Jesus is coming into this world is conventional.  This is a God of against-all-odds.  This is a God of surprise and mercy, faith and redemption.  He chose for his son to be raised by Mary and Joseph; he must have known that Joseph was capable of a measure of faith and mercy uncommon among men and women alike.  

We all can use a little nudge in the right direction from time to time, especially when the right direction is surprising and much more challenging: "Joseph, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife."

Advent Activity: Read the Nutcracker (And Open a Special Gift)

Can I just say a quick, "OH NO."  I forgot this was supposed to happen tonight.  I haven't wrapped the nutcrackers yet.  Guess what I'll be doing on my lunch break!  

It's also Lydia's basketball practice night.  Lord, help me.

Advent Day Eight: Mary Hears from Gabriel

"In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, 'Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.' Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, 'Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.'

"'How will this be,' Mary asked the angel, 'since I am a virgin?'

"The angel answered, 'The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. For no word from God will ever fail.'

"'I am the Lord’s servant,' Mary answered. 'May your word to me be fulfilled.' Then the angel left her." - Luke 1:26-38

There is the way you think your life ought to go, and then there is the way it actually goes.  Mary didn't plan to have a baby before being married to Joseph, let alone the mother of the Son of the Most High.

Mary seems like the type of young woman who heard the voice of the prophet Isaiah, saying, "Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, 'This is the way; walk in it,'" even when that way might seem riddled with unknowns, even when that way likely will be shadowed by condemnation and rumors.  Mary took a deep breath and answered, "I am the Lord's servant."

Advent Activity: Bake Christmas Cookies
You have Henry to thank for the fact that this is a short meditation today.  He is clinging to my pant leg waiting ever so impatiently for me to finish so we can begin mixing dough for cookies.  So, off I go!

Advent Day Seven: Questioning Angels

"Zechariah asked the angel, 'How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well along in years.'

"The angel said to him, 'I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news. And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their appointed time.'

"Meanwhile, the people were waiting for Zechariah and wondering why he stayed so long in the temple. When he came out, he could not speak to them. They realized he had seen a vision in the temple, for he kept making signs to them but remained unable to speak.

"When his time of service was completed, he returned home. After this his wife Elizabeth became pregnant and for five months remained in seclusion. 'The Lord has done this for me,' she said. 'In these days he has shown his favor and taken away my disgrace among the people.'" - Luke 1:18-25

Here's an instance where I just don't understand what's happened.  Why is Zechariah's question a problem?  Why is it so offensive to the angel that he makes Zechariah mute until Elizabeth's baby is born?

As my husband said, if an angel appeared to me and told me something was going to happen, something miraculous, I'm pretty sure I'd take him seriously.  It is an angel, after all.  But characters in the Bible have been asking questions of God and his angels forever to the point of disputing the point (Moses) and outright disobedience (Jonah).

Maybe it isn't that Zechariah questioned the angel; maybe it is the nature of the question.  Zechariah asks, "How can I be sure of this" given the circumstances of my life? Another person will question the angel Gabriel in a few verses.  She will ask, "How will this be, since I am a virgin?"  Zechariah's question is one of certainty.  Mary's question is one of possibility.

An angel of the LORD appeared to Zechariah.  An ANGEL of the LORD appeared to Zechariah.  

"How can I be sure of this?"

It is a question of faith and the reliability of God when he makes promises.  Like it or not, faith is not a business of verifiable facts and tangible evidence.  God's business is mysterious, miraculous, strange, counter-intuitive, the unlikeliest of outcomes from which springs forth joy, love, peace, mercy, and redemption.  

Given the fact that Zechariah was a man and Elizabeth a woman and married, their background in Jewish history probably should have been a clue that God is capable of miraculously moving a woman's womb back to childbearing years - there's Abraham and Sarah, Jacob and Rachel (and Leah), Hannah, to name a few - women and men who begged God for children, couples who went barren for decades before new life blossomed inside.  Zechariah would have known these stories - he was a faithful and committed descendant of the priestly order (in today's terminology: he was a pastor's kid).  Despite what Zechariah knew about God's history of making the less likely to conceive give birth to nations, he still asks, "How can I be sure of this?" Don't give me hope.  I want certainty.

Given the choice between hope for things unseen and certainty, I think most of us would ask, "How can I be sure of this?" But every unknown I've ever stepped into with faith and hope has unfolded in beautiful and surprising ways.  I didn't know how it would work out.  I didn't even know if it would work out.  That's part of the adventure and the delight: stretching out a hand to reach for that which has promised to lead you through.

Advent Activity: Tuba Christmas

Today is Ashland's Tuba Christmas concert at noon. It should be an adventure in sitting still and listening. :)

Bad People Go to Hell and Other Parental Panic Moments

My lovely blue-eyed seven-year-old daughter giggled. "Bad people go to the devil when they die," and my charming bow-tie and button-down-shirt wearing son giggled, too, "Yeah, but we're going to heaven because of JESUS."

I stuttered and stammered, "Well, it's true that Jesus saves us," I said, "but I'm not sure about the devil. It'd be a bad place to go, that far away from God.  I don't know about the devil." Or something like that. Yammer. Stammer. Pause. Continue eating pizza. End of theological discussion.

Oh, Lord.  Lord, Lord, Lord.  It's moments like this that cause my adult brain to short circuit. What do I say?  What do I believe?  How do I say what I believe without oversimplifying to the point of error?  Can I even communicate a non-deistic, grace over deeds, mercy over judgment concept to my children?  

Can I just hand them some Popsicle sticks and glue?  Here, stick these together. They make a cross! Wee!

I've thought about and pondered the existence of God for twenty years, ever since my best friend scribbled, "At least I know where I'm going when I die," in a folded and creased sheet of notebook paper, ever since I asked my mom, "Do you believe in God?" and I thought to myself, Of course she does, everyone believes in God, but she sat on the beach blanket next to me and said, I don't know.

I don't know.

It's possible that the greatest gift my mom ever gave me was this uncertainty.  Maybe that sounds crazy.  Maybe if she had said, "Of course I do," I would have nodded and thought, "well then, there you have it. There is a god."  

But wrapped in that single, simple, honest answer was this: permission. Permission to doubt. Permission to seek. Permission to question. Permission to believe.

Freedom.

She could have said, "Of course I do," her heart racing, ready to deliver the sinner's prayer to me right there on the shore of Lake Erie, right there, perform the accept-Jesus-into-your-heart prayer, and maybe it would have meant something to me.  She could have said, "No, I don't. I think it's ridiculous to believe in god," and I might have nodded, okay, that takes care of that, Lisa can eat her perfect cursive handwritten note.

But no, with one sentence a door opened, because paired with faith is always doubt, and what is the good news of Christ if not freedom?  Freedom to question?  Freedom to wonder?  Freedom to demand answers and freedom to rest in mystery?  

And then there was that note.  I think about that note often, how it's hot poker burned and I flinched.  Where will I go when I die?  Is there an afterlife?  Oh, the many ways I've answered this question, heaven, hell, dust, earth, eternity, purgatory, asleep in the ground, awake in the clouds... and yet even today Idon'tknowIdon'tknowIdon'tknowIdon'tknow.  

Oh, I believe in an afterlife.  I believe in heaven, the love of Christ, ever-presence in a place as good as and better than this world, a place of wholeness and healing.  But also there is (or can be) heaven on earth, healing and redemption here, now.  That is a message I can hear and understand with more clarity and immediacy than any eternal heavenly location - that which is unfathomable, mysterious, but no less real... or possible.

But the question of the devil, well, maybe?  Why not?  I don't know anything about hell, its physical location, whether a loving God would condemn a mortal being to burn for all eternity, but I know there is (or can be) hell on earth, a life spent in bitterness and ruin, destruction and vanity and greed, a life spent entirely separate from God, serving one master, serving one's own interests, or maybe even serving the burning desires of Satan who wants to kill and destroy, to drive people away from God.  Maybe?  

"At least I know where I'm going when I die."  My best friend's note was a catalyst.  What do I know?  What do I believe?  That note was followed not by condemnation but by invitations, to Bible studies, dinners with her parents praying, the Billy Graham revival in Cleveland, our shared college dorm room, worship services we attended together, prayers we uttered together, and Bible verses we exchanged. All of the merciful, miraculous, and mysterious ways our paths have intersected these twenty years are an entirely other kind of testimony to the grace and power of Christ.

Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.  Grace.  Permission.  Freedom.

So what do you give your children?  I want to give them an open hand.  I want to invite them into "Here's what I believe, but."  Yes, I believe in a huge, loving, powerful, merciful, just, faithful, mysterious God of the universe.  Let me show him to you as best I can.  I hope that you will see him and feel that presence in your life, that faith will surpass doubt.  I hope that the love of Christ will be real to you, that it will ever change you, ever humble you, ever shape you into a fuller version of yourself, the very best version of yourself, and that the same love of Christ will compel you to love others deeply and fully, so they too may experience the love of Christ.

And when you ask me a question I don't yet know the answer to, please dear God let me have the humility to simply say, "I don't know," and may the mystery be enough to keep both of us searching.

Tragedy and Faith

Every tragedy is like a defibrillator to faith, something that shocks my system and leaves me needing to work out the circuits all over again, to try to reconnect and return to a healthy rhythm.  It resurrects the same doubts and questions about good and evil, faith and fear, that humankind has battled for all of time. 

Tragedy is a jolt out of apathy that slingshots me right back into the complex myre: What do I believe?  Do I believe?  How now shall I live? 

I wrestle and squirm a while until I'm once more preoccupied with and consumed by my own small life, abandoning the big and unanswerable questions until the next time something shocks me out of my complacency, and again I question.

God?

God?! 

God! 

God.

Sometimes I never get past the question.  Sometimes I advance to unbelief and then fall back into the arms of grace.  Sometimes I slip from belief to hate to disbelief to mercy to love and back again to hate, over and over.  And all of it is okay because there is a wrestling, because there is a questioning.  What is faith without doubt?  What is hope without the unseen?  What is there to believe if the truth is always right in front of me, within my reach and easy to grasp? 

Tragedy is a defibrillator that scares up the same fears and doubts so that we can be honest about our uncertainties.  It is an opportunity to see God, who is and will always be mysterious and out of reach and yet makes himself accessible and intimate in these moments. Or maybe he doesn't.  Maybe he is silent and we have to wrestle with that, too.  Maybe we just don't see him because we don't know how to see, or maybe we're blind for this time and unable to see past grief, or anger, or pain. 

Mercy is the time given for us to process and to run and to yell and to heal and finally, to turn and keep walking.

Visiting Ghosts: Writing about the Past

One of my current writing projects is an essay (or longer something... book? eep.) about faith and identity.  I can't write about becoming a Christ follower without writing about an ex-boyfriend I dated for almost two years during college, a guy I expected to marry someday.

It's hard to go back to journals and memories about this time of my life.  Things with E were never really bad.  He didn't abuse me or cheat on me.  We fell in love fast and hard and made each other the centers of our worlds.  It wasn't a horrible relationship, but it was an incredibly formative relationship.  In fact, as cooky as it sounds, I think if God hadn't intervened in his mysterious way, I could have married him, and I could have made it work.  I loved him so much  that he held the place of god in my life, for a long time.  But as my faith in God grew and expanded into the rest of my life, his lack of belief became an increasing source of conflict for us, among other differences that surfaced during the time we were together.  Eventually I had two worlds: There was my life when I was with him, and there was my life when I was not with him.  Things gradually unraveled for us until we finally split up.

It is easy to demonize people who have loved us--and hurt us--deeply.  We are quick to remember the times of conflict, the tragic and the painful, because to revisit the memory of when it was good is risky.  It's uncomfortable.  Remembering when you were happy with this person who is no longer a part of your life feels dirty.  It feels like you are cheating on your spouse, the person you've chosen to love for over a decade now, the person with whom you have built a real and true love story, a story of living through many trials already, and survived.

But in order to write the whole story, to give that person on the page three dimensions instead of the one dimension you remember best, I have to remember how deeply I loved.  Without remembering and writing out how great I felt when I was with him, why I loved him so much, the impact of that loss and the brokenness that trailed me afterward sounds artificial, sappy, melodramatic.  I want to be fair to E and in doing so, I will be telling a true story, not just a wounded half-truth.

E is a person who has never left my conscious.  People who have that deep of an influence on your formation as a whole human being leave deep indents, like the meteor that just cracked into Earth.  That impact might be traumatic, impossible to refill or repair.  But over time, that crater will be transformed and healed, never erased, just redeemed.  One of my best friends calls these seasons of life our "grace-bearers"-- a reminder of the grace and mercy extended by the Lion that never leaves our side.

And that's the story I want to tell.

What Chamomile and Honey Can't Do

I'm pretty sure I've had a cold/sinus infection since December 1.  It has backed off a little here and there as some kind of bacterial mercy move, but for the last two weeks (or something like that), it's been no nonsense, in your face (and nose, and eyes, and ears, and chest), Die Hard with a Vengeance.  It even persisted beyond the power of the almighty z-pak, which I finished off two days ago.

So tonight, after going back to work for the first time in two and a half weeks, I wasn't really up for much of anything with the kids.  Unfortunately, they can't bathe, feed, or put themselves to bed yet, so I couldn't just burrow into bed with an electric blanket and call it a night.  I at least had the foresight to pull a big pan of macaroni and cheese out of the freezer and ask my awesome Henry-sitter to pop it in the oven this afternoon so that we could eat before 6:30.  And there's the Blessed DVR to entertain two of the three little people. 

The usual bickering and silliness ensued throughout the night.  Nothing new, really.  And the dog, that ridiculous dog that I liked so much a month ago, kept getting into the trash and eating Elvis's Legos and whining to be let out and then barking incessantly at the front door to be let back in and THEN trying to eat diapers and tissues and all other sorts of disgusting.  And then bathtime with all three kids, water everywhere, Beans trying to drink the bathwater and lick Henry's face and drink out of the toilet and chew on the towels.

"I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." John 16:33 -- Yeah, trouble. T-R-O-U-B-L-E. It ain't just a Travis Tritt song. Or a Ray LaMontagne song.   I've had more serious seasons of trouble and worry, for sure.  These little things, like sinus infections and being alone a few days and needing to take care of the business of life on my own, they are nothing really, but sometimes the little things catch me and I get downhearted. The world hands me a little trouble.  But, thank God, he's overcome the world.   And you want to know how he did that for me tonight?

I was ready for bedtime tonight.  Normally, each kid prays and then I pray, and then each kid picks a song.  I thought I'd speed things up a bit and skip the whole kid-praying thing and just wrap it up with a quick "God, thanks for everything.  Please help me feel better.  Give us sweet dreams.  Amen.", but after I finished, Lydia asked if she could pray for a couple of people really quick.

How do you say no to the request of a five year old to pray?  Okay, so I thought about it.  I mean, come on, the space between my ears is hollow and I can't close my mouth without whistling through my nose.  Let's get the show on the road, here!  I got trash to take out and a couch to get to.  I let her pray, of course - a kid who wants to talk to God should not be stopped from talking to God. 

"Dear God, please help **** walk.  She's already starting to walk some.  And thank you for..." (There's a girl in her class who has a disability.)  Lydia prayed for all her family and friends, and then Elvis asked to pray, too, singing a song they learned at preschool: "Thank you God, for our food, and our many blessings, thank you God, Amen."

The prayers of my children shore me up against weariness and bitterness. They help lubricate the gears that need to keep moving until the trash is taken out, the dishes are in the dishwasher, the laundry is folded, and the kitchen is tidied up, until I can sink into the couch cushions with a blanket and a few Bible verses and ruminate away about faith and the power of praise.

So the other verse that has me doing my own praising tonight, even with my runny nose, is this one: "Through the praise of children and infants you have established a stronghold against your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger." Psalm 8:2  That's right.  Through the praise of my little ones, the enemy and all his trouble and worry is kept at bay.  There's power in those prayers.  I'm reinforced. Encouraged. Blessed.

Aaaand, ready for Nyquil.

Baby Spoons and the Crust

A lot of thought-provokers happened today during my 30-minute lunch break, and I can't help but take a few minutes to reflect on them here before settling in with transcripts and info sheets and all of the other important tasks I have to do.

Are kids you know picky about sandwich crusts? Lydia is. Unless she's starving and there's a good deal of peanut butter smeared to the very end of the bread slice, she isn't interested in crusts. Today she polished off her PBH and left the crusts on her plate, asking if she could eat something else. We suggested the remaining pieces of her sandwich, but she wasn't THAT hungry. Meanwhile, Elvis sat staring at his plate with a PBJ cut in half, no bites taken and that face that says, "I really, really don't want to eat this, but if I make any move like I don't, I'll get sent to time out, again, so I guess I'll just sit here and stare at it." So Lydia asked if she could eat Elvis's sandwich, unaware that Brandon had used the ends of the bread to make his sandwich - only one side visible. We handed her the sandwich and she wolfed it down. All we could say to one another was, "Hilarious." And then, of course, the fact that Lydia had half of Elvis's sandwich was enough to send him into fits and sobs, even though (as previously stated) someone was about as anti-sandwich as vegans are anti-pork chop. We gave him back half of the sandwich and he went at it with the same enthusiasm Lyd had demonstrated over her quite crusty PBJ.

We don't really know what we want. Crusts or no crusts. Sandwich or no sandwich. A little bit of both. We're clueless, envious, subjective creatures.

After the PBJ episode, the kids were back to behaving like normal human beings. And then they began a conversation about heaven. We talk about heaven often--their day care place talks about heaven occasionally, and we've told them that Great Pop and Tex and the baby that was in mommy's belly (see previous post) are in heaven, so it comes up. Today's conversation started with Elvis saying, "Baby in heaven," and Lydia followed up by saying, "When the baby comes back from heaven and it grows up a little, it'll need baby spoons." Then they discussed between the two of them whether they wanted a baby boy or a baby girl.

I've often wondered whether children who do not make it to term have another go-around. It's all speculation what goes on, anyway, and why, and how, and when. Do I have four children hanging out with Jesus in heaven, waiting to meet me? Who knows? Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we cannot see, and probably this area of life--death and loss--requires the greatest amount of faith. And I believe - not in my own fantasies and musings about happy little people clinging to the robes of Christ, but in a loving, compassionate, patient, merciful, just, mysterious, and powerful God of the universe. I stand in awe of him. And because I believe these things and hope for what I cannot see, I can trust that whatever the circumstances, he is the great redeemer.

This past weekend was the first time Brandon and I talked about "the future" and "our plans" (God knows the plans he has for us... plans to prosper us and not harm us, plans to give us a hope and a future... and he chuckles at "our plans" all the time, I'm sure) since the miscarriage two weeks ago. I'm not ready to give up on more children, and he's not ready to say let's keep trying for more children, which leaves us contentedly undecided for the long term. This is our fourth miscarriage, and he's tired of this. I certainly don't enjoy going through this, either, but I guess I'm just less prepared to say enough. I can't retire my vision of our family as more-than-the-four-of-us. It is kind of nice to return to my own self - I like being able to exercise and feeling physically fit, and I like being able to have a drink now and again, and I like not being tired or anxious about whether everything's okay. But I'm happy to sacrifice the comforts of possessing my own body for nine+ months in order to have another little person in our family.

I had no response to Lydia and Elvis's dialogue, so we both just smiled and watched the two of them, and we hovered there in our land of indecision and longing. There's no real way to answer the question, "Why do you want to have more kids?" Is it because I'm wired to want to be fruitful and multiply? I don't know. I don't know why I want more children. I've heard it said, "You have a boy and a girl - that's perfect! You can be done!" as if that's the only reason people keep trying to have more kids - in order to have one of each gender. I could list off reasons why I want to have more and also the advantages to only having two. But would it really provide a solution or give additional clarity, like weighing the pros and cons? I don't know if it would. I think if I were told, you really shouldn't/can't have any more kids, I would be able to let it go, but no one has said this, except for the occasional insensitive person.

Like many forms of loss and grief, a miscarriage dominates your thoughts for an indeterminable period of time. For days, weeks, and sometimes months, the mom-to-be is focused on being a mom-to-be -- eating right, exercising right, sleeping well... and then, just like that, all of the energy put into thinking about being a mom is channeled elsewhere, and the first place it goes is into loss and grief. And that turns into questions and hypothetical situations, which turns into hunting for answers as to why this happened and sometimes evolves into blame - self, God, others, etc. And then we struggle and flounder about, gradually find other areas to channel thoughts, wrestle with God and what we believe about him and his involvement in our personal affairs, whether we believe him to be a good God or a cruel one, and what does that mean for the rest of my life? Sometimes we find rest and resolve and healing. I wonder how many of us just pack that grief into our hearts and hope that the wound will scab over if we bury it deep enough.

Easter Saturdays

Easter Saturdays (tentative title because I stink at titles)


Cars full of people split the swamp where my creek flows.
They must not ponder, pause, stare at hollowed logs,
branchless trunks and wonder about the end of winter,
spring still a whisper in the trickle of cold water through the culvert.

What does all this dying mean, this surrender
after striving for three seasons? Grasses have been shedding
locks for decades, climbing out of caskets, grow and grow
over all their flawed history. We are all eating ourselves,

regurgitating what we thought was digested,
disposed and left behind. But it heaves back,
the crunch of gravel chip and seal, the steady rain falling
after having traveled the culvert just yesterday,

when I straddled the guard rail, cold metal creasing my thighs,
watching every season of my life die and be reborn.

Stealing Ideas and Old French Language "Roots"

Dent-de-Lion

In the words of a poet friend of mine, *poof!*

So, I have a secret I need to spill. I rob Wikipedia, Google, and the Bible of all their good ideas. I am a thief. I admit it. This poem is a good example and an easy entrance into confession.

First, I have been trying to write all. Day. Long. Well, here and there anyway - it has been really busy at work lately and SURPRISE SURPRISE there hasn't been time for me to fiddle with my own poetry. I know, sad story. But even though I can't actually sit at my desk and type the poems, I usually have something I'm writing simmering in my head, or trying to latch on to an idea that could become a poem. I'm not pleased with either of the two versions of "A Voice in the Crowd at Capernaum," but I think it's probably a little bit because it was forced inspiration. I don't do well when I try to tell the Holy Spirit to inspire me.

On that note, I decided to try a new activity and opened the Bible to any random section. The first verse I read began, "Can a mortal be of use to God?" (Job 22:2). I thought, "How fortunate! I didn't land in Leviticus!" But this got me thinking about whether we can affect God - with worship, with prayer, etc. In one of my small group Bible studies, we just read about David and his fervent prayers for his infant son who God struck ill because of what David did to Bathsheba's husband, Uriah. The discussion guide (Beth Moore! Woo!) led us to think about why we pray - if God can be swayed by prayer - and the short answer is, yes, but it is up to God if, when, and how he will answer.

So I started to think about what my prayers feel like sometimes, and for some reason, I decided that it's like blowing the seeds off of a dandelion head. I don't know why. It just is, okay? Which made me look up dandelions. I found this one website - on the Common Dandelion - that gave me some really good facts to build a poem on. A few of my favorites that I "stole" --

They're so deeply toothed, they gave the plant its name in Old French: Dent-de-lion means lion's tooth in Old French.

And, this:

Each flower head consists of hundreds of tiny ray flowers.

And...

The flower head can change into the familiar, white, globular seed head overnight. Each seed has a tiny parachute, to spread far and wide in the wind. The thick, brittle, beige, branching taproot grows up to 10" long. All parts of this plant exude a white milky sap when broken.

How great is, "the thick, brittle, beige, branching taproot?" Thank you, "Wildman" Steve Brill, for your uber-descriptive dandelion webpage. I could not resist, of course, the lion reference.

So that's how this poem came to be. If I ever win a Pushcart for it, I will stand behind the podium in my living room and thank God, Google, and Wildman Steve Brill publicly for their generosity.

Version 2 - A Voice in the Crowd at Capernaum

John 6

What I really need to know is how the callouses
blossomed on your fingers. I want to feel
the bristle of your beard on my cheek,
place my hands around the feet
of the man who feeds. You know

why I've come here: to make the impossible
become miraculous, to turn your vengeance
into grace, to learn the difference between bread
and sustenance, to be the bride for whom you'll die.
How can you bear to know these things?

Who can accept this? Lord, to whom can we go?
Give me this bread in flesh and blood always.


(I think I like this version better, but since it is late and it is draft two, I decided to save both.)

A Voice in the Crowd at Capernaum

John 6


I have come up with a hundred reasons why
you are unbelievable – you are, after all, just a son
of some carpenter, the illegitimate offspring
of a teenage mother. I know where you’ve come from.

Still I’m intrigued – I want to know more
about the man who fed five thousand,
his mysterious disappearance across the lake
without a boat – when did you get here?

You know what I really need to know –
why you matter more than the ceramic Buddha
made in China, more than the 6 a.m. yoga,
more than some cross necklace from my grandmother,

more, even, than the law you claim to have written.
How do priests prophesy about you,
dead fathers walk with you – why do you divide
bread and fish, why turn water into wine?

I need to know how the impossible becomes
miraculous, what turns vengeance into grace,
how to differentiate between bread and sustenance.
who are you to decide when I must swim and when to walk?

But what I’ll ask, instead, is – When did you get here?
What do you mean? How do you know these things?
Who can accept this? Lord, to whom can we go?
Give me this bread in flesh and blood always.

Psalm 40

Boots
Psalm 40


These boots by the door are still caked
with hardened clay, their leather darkened
by water, still swelling, absorbing,
the flannel lining damp and pungent.
Clumps of mud stick to the kitchen floor,
discarded here and there from the field
that pulled and sucked until I was stuck.
I will not use the broom - I like the imprints
left behind, the way that visitors trip
on my oversized steel-toed boots and gasp –
how high the line of mud rides up,
how great the crumbs of dust.

Let me tell you about these boots,
I will say, about the field, the mire, the muck,
the slow, steady suction, the way I reached
for branches, the way the grasses bent and broke
when I pulled. Let me tell you again how I trembled,
how my hands hung idle, how a farmer
saw me, bent down to loosen my laces,
stretched out his hand, how I stepped from the sludge
in just my socks, mud oozing between my toes,
found a protruding rock, breathed deep,
“Thank God you came by when you did.”
I leave them here to remember the swale.

(Companion piece to The Swale)

Jesus Walks into a Bar

(This is for Sean Lovelace, who insists there ought to be more poems about Jesus walking into a bar.)

It is always darker than it should be,
but over the pool table, a halo
of florescent light. My father, his brother,
like weathered sailors, dock at the bar
with other tired shipmates, hunched,
feet propped on the reflective footrests,
haunches resting heavy in the seat.
Through the haze of Winstons
they watch Nascar. The rules on bar stools
are simple: buy a round, put some quarters
on the table for a game of pool,
pick a tune or two on the juke box.

A shaft of light splits the cloud of smoke
when the door swings open, and a man
not so unlike the deckhands lined up at the bar
walks in. Heads turn and nod, weary hands lift
a slow acknowledgement as he orders up a Miller
then tromps to the juke box in mud-caked boots
and hovers, punches in his number, and Hank sings
There’s a tear in my beer and I’m crying for you dear…

“Rack ‘em up,” he grunts. My father
and the stranger call corners, waltz around the felt
taking shots and drinking rounds, shake hands
when the eight ball drops, leaving the chalk-smeared
cue to idle on the table. Dad lays five dollars
on the bar, “This one’s on me,” and they drink –
to peace, to love, to redemption.
The men at the bar tip their caps and turn
to watch the man descend the stairs
before the door closes. “That guy’s
all right,” Dad says, taking up his bottle,
“I hope he returns someday.”

Cashing In

Okay, it must be divine appointment weekend here in Chicago. After ANOTHER great night out with some really interesting and intelligent writers, I got off of the el (how cool am I to use the lingo of Chicago?) at Harrison Ave. and begin walking back toward the hotel. It's a crisp 30ish degrees out, and I am feeling alive. Alive, feeling the ache and wear of three days walking around the city, breathing in clarity and exhaling exhilaration. Next to a fenced parking lot (and underneath a streetlight, for all of you paranoid and worried mothers out there), a woman asked as she began to walk past if I was familiar with the city, to which I promptly replied, No, sorry. The poor lady was almost in tears and shaking like it's nobody's business to shake. She started going on, sobbing and hiccuping, about how she drove into the city and parked her car somewhere, and the car had been towed to some lot on 18th street, and she needed to get to it, had a driver's license and wallet to prove she wasn't some nut, and just needed $20 dollars more or so to get her car out of the impound.

I prayed with the lady, whose name turns out to be Patricia, and she praises Jesus all over the place, shouts a hallelujah and says she will repay me, asks for a name of a church or something so she can send something to me care of so-and-so. I wasn't going there so I just said you go ahead and give to a charity to take care of whatever she needs. And then we hugged and she cried and I gave her some money (how I am going to appropriately reconcile all of the expenses for this trip is going to be an adventure, let me tell you - I will not be getting reimbursed much once I factor in cash) and off she went.

All this time the fear and panic meter is ticking steadily around low to medium gauge, somewhere about the caution rate. I keep thinking some guy is going to run across the street and snatch my purse as I'm closing my eyes and putting my arm around the woman in the long coat with a fur-lined hood to pray that the Lord would protect her and ease her fears. Ease my fears, ease my fears. All this time, I'm weighing the cost - does she really, truly need my help to get her car out of the impound, or is she one very gifted actress working the out-of-towners at the Hilton Chicago? Is this her way - walking the block with nervous hands - to con skeptical but trusting tourists into generosity without begging? And does it matter which scenario is true?

As I'm typing this, it occurs to me I heard a similar version of Patricia's story earlier this week, told by a friend at the conference, and I suddenly feel douped. Was this a divine appointment or merely a scam artist? As I read an article on Snopes.com that sick feeling of douped-ness settles in my stomach. SCAM! Did she not have one credit card? Claiming to have driven six hours into the city and then to have her car towed, she successfully eliminated a nearby friend or relative option, but no credit card?

I feel taken advantage of in some ways and then just plain silly, walking away from her feeling as if I've just connected with another human being at her point of need, smiling and light. How does one pull such a fantastic trick, such fraudulent faith and hope, such an orchestrated deceit?

Or is the skeptic in me rising up, vaguely aware of the depravity of mankind, ready to harden her heart to any pleas for help for fear of being taken advantage of.

I think what I need to settle in, because it's 11 p.m. CST which means it's midnight EST (and we all know what happens at midnight), is that my motives were sincere. My concern and prayer was sincere, though cautionary, senses on alert. Perhaps my business is not to know the outcomes of tonight but to know that I had an opportunity to be a light to a lady in some way, and if she got the better of me - it's on her soul. I hope she was true and authentic. But if not, I hope she finds a warm place to sleep, eats a filling meal, and works toward a day when she can use her theatrical talents to glorify God rather than trick a tourist.

Telling People How Much You Suck...

....so that God can be glorified. That's the point of testimonies, at least to some degree. And Sunday, I get to do that in front of our church body and a bunch of college students who want an iPod. I'm pretty darn excited. And a shade nervous - I haven't done this in a while, and while I am great at making myself vulnerable (here is my sleeve, and pinned to it, my heart...), there's something particularly nerve-inducing about sharing how God has made His presence known in your life, often through your flounders.

Flounder is a really cute fish in The Little Mermaid. It is also a tasty fish. But mostly, it's me flopping around on stage, blathering and bumbling. Get me back in my fishbowl, man!

For those of you who read this and won't be at 5 Stones Sunday morning for the sweet iPod promo, ("and you thought only your mom would bribe you to come to church...") here's my shpeel in writing. It will likely not come out of my mouth this way, (oh if I were only so eloquent in speech!) but this is what I'm going for. It is just the beginning of my God-tale. There's so much more he's done and continues to do. I could write a whole series.

---------

I was a sarcastic, self-conscious, introverted, egotistical, over-achieving high school band dork. I strived for perfection on every turn. I was angry that God would even consider loving someone like a murderer or rapist or popular person in my high school – He should be the righteous judge and condemn them all to hell. Obviously, the concept of grace was foreign to me.

I also struggled to merge what was taught in science classes about evolution with what was taught in church about creation. These are two specific roadblocks that Satan used to try to deflect me from meeting the true God. As a senior in high school, I had been studying other religions, reading books about evolution and creation, and trying to resolve this battle. One day, a switch was flipped in my brain, and I went from saying, “Psh! Those creationists are nuts!” to looking out the window of my car as I drove down the highway and saying, “How could there not be a God?! Look at the trees! Look at the sky! Look at the birds!” All the research I did helped me know about micro-biology and evolutionary principles, but only God can open up eyes like that. The scales fell away.

The third distraction came in the form of a boyfriend I met and fell madly in love with after graduating from high school. Eric was romantic and exotic, a Parrothead in search of his very own Margaritaville – the perfect distraction in my hunt for the real God dwelling in the real Paradise.

By random draw and God’s providence, I ended up roommates with my best friend from high school. She invited me, yet again, to Bible studies, the Well, and FCA on campus. She was a persistent little evangelist! I remember the first time I went to the Well – I could FEEL a presence in the room like I’d never felt before – that calm, peace, and strange movement of the Holy Spirit. It was breathtaking.

Eric and I got physically involved really fast. By October of my freshman year at AU, I thought I might be pregnant. While I worried and fretted that everything I had ever strived for was all for nothing, it finally occurred to me that I am out of control. I do the things I do not want to do. I cannot do life the right way on my own. I have no control over my plans, my future, my life, and there is only one person who does – Jesus Christ. At a Bible study one night, I confessed all that had been happening with Eric. For the first time in my life, I understood grace. I understood mercy. I understood forgiveness. As Paul says in Romans 7:24-25 – “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

Like any other new believer, I expected all things to be better immediately. But I still loved Eric, I wanted to be with him even though he wasn’t a believer and had no interest whatsoever in Jesus Christ. Through His gentleness and firmness, God gradually removed Eric from my life, first moving him to North Carolina, then sending him off on some wild trip to Thailand and Vietnam that did not involve missionaries in the mountains... like he said it was going to. In the end, God made Eric fall out of love with me, and that is what it took for me to let go, and let God be God of my heart.

About six months or so after God ended my relationship with Eric, I had finally felt like I was okay with being single. About a week later, I met my husband. Brandon and I have both been down similar roads with our scarring relationships, but most importantly, we both believe in a God who is merciful, just, loving, forgiving, constant, mysterious, and real – and without that foundation, our relationship would have been destroyed fast. Enough evil and unfair events happen in our lives to turn people with common interests against each other in a heartbeat, but if you have faith and have faith together, God who “began a good work in you” will carry it on to completion, together.

During my tumultuous relationship with Eric, a friend of mine gave me a verse to rely on. So often I have felt bewildered at where I am in life or where I was going. My anxiety levels were high – should I transfer colleges to be closer to Eric, should I move, should I marry, should I take this job, should I stay at home with my kids – and this verse among so many others like it in Scripture has kept me grounded. From Isaiah 42:16 – “I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, down unfamiliar paths I will guide them. I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them.” This is a promise God makes to each of us if we’d just let him take over. It will be okay. We will make it through this, one way or the other. And it’s probable that the end results will be the most unlikely place you ever thought you’d find yourself, but better and more amazing than you could have imagined.