Justin's Friends

 

From the Episcopal hymn book

 

{Hymn #142}

 

Lord, who throughout these forty days for us didst fast and pray,

teach us with thee to mourn our sins, and close by thee to stay.

 

And through these days of penitence, and through thy Passiontide,

yea, evermore, in life and death, Jesus! with us abide.

 

Abide with us, that so, this life of suffering over-past,

an Easter of unending joy we may attain at last!

 

This morning Annie wanted to get out her beads and make a bracelet, so I got her set up, put Meg in her booster to finish breakfast and got out my sewing machine so I could finish a pillow cover I was making.

Just as I was giving myself a big pat on the back for being such an awesome, crafty mom, Annie lost interest in the the bracelet (5 beads in) and Meg lost interest in her breakfast.

And then this happened.  All 509 million miniscule beads got dumped.


I'm pretty sure we'll be finding those things for the next 6 months.

Baby size: avocado! 4.5 inches


Thirdly, when I was able to track my doctor down, I asked her about my anatomy scan and she had already scheduled it - for the day I left for China. Instead of re-scheduling it for the day before, she scheduled it for A WEEK later! I understand that the later you wait, the more likely to know the sex, but I don't understand why one day would have made a difference? It's probably not that awful, but I'm a little upset about it still.

Lastly, I had my blood drawn for part two of a genetic screening, and the lady scratched me with the needle afterward! Agh.

Movement: I felt baby! Just last night when we were watching tv, I was laying on my side with my head in Bryan's lap and I felt something like a muscle spasm on the right where baby is. It was crazy! I can't wait for more movement and in a few weeks, the first kick.

Gender: We find out on Thursday, March 15 on my lunch break. It's another week and three days than I previously expected, but I keep telling myself that it's better than my grandmother's days when you found out after 9 months. I'm still hoping for a boy! I will begin taking bets as soon as I return from China.

Best moment of the week: Buying all my groceries for the week (at $49, no less!) and making Bryan a delicious meal of pesto chicken over angel hair pasta with alfredo sauce and homemade garlic bread. He was so happy that he made my homemade ice cream that wasn't finished until I'd already fallen asleep. Tonight, I'm eating it up!

What I’m looking forward to: Lunch tomorrow with our future nanny. I can't wait to get to know her better, share our plans and hear her rate (*fingers crossed for something reasonable*).

What I miss: Being in a bigger city with access to smarter doctors and nurses
I'm feeling great, and I feel more like the old, non-pregnant me but with a cute bump. I hope I continue to feel great, that I stay calm and that I keep Bryan's life as normal as possible during this pregnancy. I love that guy.

How far along: 15 weeks and one day
Total weight gain: 6 pounds (eeek!)
Sleep: I am sleepy after lunch and right after dinner. Most nights I fall asleep with my head in Bryan's lap. To be fair, he does pet my hair which puts me to sleep anyway. And I think he loves having complete control of the remote...and playing video games for three hours.
Maternity Clothes: All my jeans are gone. I'm left with my maternity jean and maternity work trousers. My shirts are a mix of both regular and maternity. I also got new bras (two sizes bigger) with detachable cups, so hopefully this will be the size for my nursing.
Food cravings: Gummi bears, sour patch kids, Kazoozles. I officially am over fast food, Kraft mac-n-cheese, burgers and all that stuff I used to like. This week I had a restaurant take a crab dip dish and put it on bread, so I could have a crab dip sandwich. Bryan wanted to crawl under his chair.
Food aversions: Nothing really grosses me out, but there's a lot less that I'm craving lately.
Symptoms I have:

• Fullness: it takes a lot less to fill my stomach lately.
• Forgetfulness: I am constantly writing myself notes because I cannot rely on my short term memory anymore.
• Still smelling everything!

Stretchmarks: None yet.
Doctor’s Appointment: Tuesday. I'm excited to schedule the anatomy ultrasound!!
Movement: Nothing yet. I do check on the heartbeat twice a week. Baby is hanging out on the right.
Gender: We find out in two and a half weeks! I can't wait!
Best moment of the week: It's been a great week. Yesterday, I didn't spend any time in the office: I spent all day with our visiting international scholar from Thailand and it was fun being her first American friend, taking her to her first American lunch and answering questions about Oklahoma culture. On Tuesday, we talked to Mom and she's feeling great even though she's started her chemo. She was feeling so great that she even went shopping for baby and maternity clothes!
What I’m looking forward to: This weekend. We perform tomorrow, see all our comedy friends and get to watch Molly Buckley get married!
What I miss: my flatter stomach, being able to stay up late with Bryan
What I've bought this week for baby: The most adorable Disney onesies! Baby only had three outfits (two of which were gifts), and I bought a pack of three 101 Dalamatians onesies, a Mike Wasowski (Monsters Inc) onesie and a pack of four solid onesies. They can be for a boy or a girl...though I think buying boy clothes is pretty cute!

EDIT: Sorry for the late post - it was written on the right day and the picture from 15 weeks 1 day.

Some days
one needs to hide
from possibility
      {Kooser and Harrison}

Recently, Wyatt pronounced a liberating confession. "Dad, I'm going to start watching TV instead of Netflix."

"Why?" I asked.

"Well, Netflix has a 1,000 choices, and I can never choose. But the TV only offers three choices. That's better."

We were not made for vast infinity. We were made to be creatures with limitations. Some resist this axiom and pursue a dogged determination to contravene the fact that our body is sagging, our energy fleeting, our years narrowing. What are midlife crises other than a panicked effort to wrench every conceivable possibility from the past and ride it wildly into the present? I speak as a man who has moved into that mid-life shadowland.

But it is a grace to know our place, to know that we are not defined by our possibilities, whether missed or exploited. We are defined by the one who has loved us – and by the love that, having settled into our heart, eeks out meagerly and lavishly to the ones we are uniquely able to love. To live with perpetual options is to never settle into gritty and particular living, into gritty and particular love. Only God is able to truly love the whole world. And we are not God.

To try to live everywhere is to never truly live anywhere. To try to love, with equal fervor, all things is to never deeply and generously love anything. To attempt to live another person's expectations is to surrender the one true thing you have to give. Let the young have their limitless paths – there's a grace in that too. Yet the hope is not to roam eternally, but to find the place of belonging. And then belong.

Lent is a grace because it strikes at the idol of endless possibility. When, on Ash Wednesday, we are marked with burnt soot, we hear the words from dust you came and to dust you will return. Dust doesn't have numerous options; its trek is pretty much complete. Of course, dust isn't the end. There's Resurrection and new creation and all the truths that kindle our faith. But first: dust.

There are many (in the church as much as anywhere else) pushing endless visions of all we might accomplish, but Lent asks us to take an honest look at all that. Lent asks us (could we please, just for this stretch of 40 days) to be more discriminating, more present. Sometimes to seek your one truth thing, you have to hide from hundreds of others.

What does it mean to create beauty? If I ask 10 people, I will likely get 10 different answers. I'm certain each would be accurate.

Tonight I was told,
you need to create beauty around you.

It was not a demand. Since when can you demand beauty from another? It doesn't work like that.

It was an invitation to step into something new and risky, said with a certainty which cannot be denied. Hence the impact it left on me tonight.

Creating beauty is active. It requires something of us, a movement of sorts. We cannot think beauty into being because it is not left up to us. We must be open, ready to rid ourselves of what stands in the way of beauty bursting forth.

Sometimes by simply saying yes to those nudgings within us, we create beauty. Of course we don't know it at the time, but trust me, beauty is lurking.

So, listen and look. And when you find it, weep and rejoice for beauty.

I know I missed my 15 week update - it's in draft form. As soon as I can upload pictures from my camera, it will be posted albeit late. 16 weeks is Wednesday.

My weekend in North Carolina was awesome. Bryan and I had a really great show, with solid laughs and applause throughout. We saw some great shows and some okay shows. We got to hang out with old friends from DSI, from college, from Philadelphia and the newbies in MTS. We got to Molly get married and spend some time with another of our favorite couples: Colette and Bryan. It was all that I wanted it to be.

Everyone knows that I'm pregnant now. It's funny to see people's reactions. Some want to touch my belly, some want to give advice, some just laugh. I'm dealing with the pregnancy much better now. It's still scary but it's less terrifying and more just unpredictable. I wasn't able to drink, but I was able to party, tell jokes and hang out until 4am. I STILL GOT IT!

Work is insanely busy right now as recruiting for the fall is at its peak. My China trip is only two weeks away, and I'm furiously trying to finish all my projects before that day.

Our college team really took charge this weekend while we were gone, running their own practice and planning for the sketch meeting on Tuesday. I'm so impressed with the team, their cohesion and their commitment to good comedy. Their show next Friday should be really great.

We got to see Bryan's parents this past weekend, and it was really nice. Mom bought me some cute maternity shirts and an adorable blue owl burp cloth (she's on my I-hope-it's-a-boy team). Sadly, she's not doing well. The chemotherapy is really taking a toll on her body, and it's painful to watch. She is optimistic yet tired. She did really love our show, and I loved being able to eat most of our meals with them this weekend, sharing our baby plans and talking about her visit when the baby is born. She has another intense day tomorrow, and I hope that all the pain and exhaustion means that the treatment is working. If you pray, please pray for strength for Mom (and for her hunger to return) and patience for Bryan's dad.

We're still recovering from the weekend. Our house has no food, so after work, I'm hitting the store. Hopefully, it's a pretty uneventful week, so we can recover!

Pictures to come tomorrow if I can get my pregnant brain to remember that SD card.

Last week I received an email from Save a Child's Heart, an NGO working in Haiti out of Israel. I had been in contact with them in October of 2010 as you can see below. According to the emails my friend Kensia will finally be receiving a life-saving heart surgery. I was under the impression that the entire case had been dropped with no one to follow up. I was wrong.



From: Jessica Scott
Sent: Sunday, October 03, 2010 10:52 PM
To: Save a Childs Heart
Subject: Child in Haiti needing treatment

Hello Dawn,

My name is Jessica and I am a Registered Nurse currently working in Port-au-Prince, Haiti following the earthquake in January. I am an American here for 6 months helping to reorganize a hospital. I have come across a 15 year old girl named Kensia. She was evaluated by a retired Cardiothoracic surgeon volunteering here last month and has been determined to need an aortic valve replacement. I am not very experienced with hearts but here are some of his notes...

I have been looking for an organization such as yours for several weeks now and I wondered if this specific case is the kind of thing you take on. From what I have read and seen there is no heart surgery in Haiti at this time, so I have been seeking options in the US, Dominican, and elsewhere.


Thank you so much for your time,
Jessica Scott, RN
Hopital Adventiste de Haiti



On Thu, Feb 9, 2012 at 7:16 AM, Astrid Celestin wrote: you were cced.

Dear Dawn,

Below please find original email where you referred us Kensia.

Jessica, in the meantime, we obtained visas for Kensia and her mother, they should be traveling at the end of this month. The surgery is paid for...

Thanks,
Astrid and Emmeline


Praise God.

1. Loneliness is a precious gift. The Christian life does not take it away but cherishes it. Christians know deeply and intuitively that there will never be a friendship, community, man or woman that can satisfy our desire to be released from our lonely condition. Loneliness can be claimed as a source of human understanding because, "It is very difficult if not impossible for a healthy young man to realize what it means when nobody cares whether you live or die."  It connects us with the human condition.


2. "A Christian community is therefore a healing community not because wounds are cured and pains are alleviated, but because wounds and pains become openings or occasions for a new vision. Mutual confession then becomes a mutual deepening of hope, and sharing weakness becomes a reminder to one and all of the coming strength."


Henri Nouwen is unafraid to bring the personal, gritty parts of life to the surface because he fully believes that, "what is most personal is most universal." He made his life available through his writing and he is the only author I have read that rivals my dad in the amount of grace, poetry, and humility woven throughout writing.

The essential ingredients for any epic weekend.

On Friday we had to drop off some stuff at my parents' house and then head to the library because Annie is all desperate to know about ants right now.  "Do they have noses?  Then how do they know if I eat in my room or not?" (She has spent loads of time searching the walls in her room for the "invisible cracks" that they might get in through.)  My parents live on top of a big hill and it was a rainy day and on my way back down the hill the car started hydroplaning, I lost control and we did a giant 360 and slid into the curb on the other side of the road.  It really scared me.  I turned around expecting the girls to be screaming and crying and scared out of their minds, but no.  They barely looked up from the games they were playing on my phone and the iTouch.  I think Annie mumbled something like, "What was that Mom?" without even moving her eyeballs from the screen.  We continued on our way to the library with our bodies, automobile, and Angry Birds games unscathed. 

We are unstoppable in our quest for ant knowledge.

Jeff let me pick the movie to rent Friday night:


Don't worry, my movie choosing privileges have been revoked for a month, possibly forever.

The Sawyers are coming to visit (wahooo!), and that means it is time to hurry up and order a rug, so baby Max can have a soft place to play.  I spent lots of time combing the internet and then presented the rug choices to Jeff.  He said he didn't really care for the yellow one.  I of course then became convinced that only a yellow rug would do.  Jeff decided that not only did he not care for a yellow rug, but yellow was his least favorite color ever.
We got this one:


We had a super time at Luc's robot party.  Annie was so proud of her robot creation.



Then we got to be at Baby Makafui Will's naming ceremony.  It was beautiful.  Maybe we'll have a naming ceremony if we have another baby, but... probably not.  My inability to keep secrets is fairly legendary.  I don't know if I could keep the baby name to myself for a whole week after her birth!  It sure would be fun to build up the anticipation though.

No cupcake stands a chance put up against the Meg-inator.

Another house warming gift arrives today, from my friend John Blase. John is a poet and storyteller. Basically, he makes words dance. John is one of those men who, through his writing and his way, helps keep me sane (or at least slightly less off-kilter). You’ll want to read John over at The Beautiful Due, and you’ll want to snag his latest book, All is Grace, co-written with Brennan Manning.

In A Good Idea, John continues the tale of the rich young ruler and how, he believes, he did eventually come ’round via the fidelity of his poor young wife.

 

Sell all you have and give to the poor.
His rich young ears took Jesus literally,
causing a domino of shock and recoil
until finally the grievous turning away.
It was so sad. So young and so close.
Jesus thought to pursue the lost sheep
but knew if literal was the cause
literal could never be the salvation.
So with reined-compassion he chose
another way, a chance happening to
pass by the olive grove where the
poor young wife paused daily to feed
the sparrows. He stood at the edge
of her aloneness as she pitched crumbs
to the beggars. His voice still until she
had given all she had to them and only
then he dared speak: Life is a good idea.
She smiled, sensing unfamiliar patience
in him that roused the same in her.
It was merely a scrap but yes -
my husband might ease from striving
and seek my face once more, and
consider the birds fed without trouble.

Riyadh International Airport

 

In January, I spent two weeks studying in Oman through a graduate program partnership between Hartford Seminary and Al Amana Centre. This is a narrative dispatch.

{Day 1} Where we arrive

On the journey-by-air from Frankfurt to Muscat, I landed in Riyadh on New Year’s Eve. As the plane touched down, a beautiful, serene hint of dusk appeared in the partial vision of the plane’s windows. It was—indeed—the last evening of the year, according to the Western calendar. And surely it was the last evening this American evangelical could say: I have never known the Arab world.

For me, this Arabian moment marked a first trip to the Peninsula—into the cradle of Islam. Looking out through the plane’s windows, I was lost in one of those unconscious reveries. Soon enough a loud voice overhead snapped me back to reality, Saudi Arabia-style: [Paraphrase] If you have any pornographic materials, turn them in, and if you have any alcohol, turn that in as well. I did not have either contraband item on my person, but this was Lufthansa Airlines and the announcement came in a German-accented English, so, somehow, it sounded serious and seriously funny. Ah yes, the long Saudi arm called the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice was reaching out “to stop the sinning,” as British historian Robert Lacey has characterized it in Inside the Kingdom (2009).

As we departed Riyadh for Muscat, a young man named Ali and I sat beside the exit doors. Ali hails from Salalah, Oman, and teaches Arabic as an adjunct professor at a small college in Iowa. He was on his way home for the semester break, and he was brimming. Eventually the plane took us over Bahrain and near the Strait of Hormuz. Given Iran’s blustery threat to block the strait, pondering U.S.-Iran relations became a foregone conclusion high above land and water. Meanwhile, Muscat was nearing, and I was brimming.

How, exactly, did I arrive here?

My interfaith encounters and relationships with Muslims formally began in 2007, when, as a pastor in a university church in Clemson, S.C., I initiated a meeting with a group of Muslim leaders at the mosque of the Islamic Society of Clemson. Our initial conversation—over Domino’s Pizza—would evolve into a weekly Qur’an study at the mosque. There, on Old Stone Church Road in the relatively deep South, I cut my teeth on Christian-Muslim dialogue and interfaith friendship. Now, I was landing in the so-called Middle East—further inside a continually hoped-for understanding.

nfe

The Song of Machpelah is an interfaith writing project borne out of Christian-Muslim exchanges, experiences and ongoing study. At Machpelah, God willing, in small, medium or large ways a living song will arise. And it is a composition being put together by both Christians and Muslims. Peace by piece. For more on the project, go here.

 

 

in that liminal space between day and evening
when the mysteries flame forth,
catch fire with the blaze of the dying sun,
then burn down into a smoldering blue light,
i was walking the circuitous, ancient path of the prayer labyrinth,
soul-deep in silence and offering my heart’s prayer to God
with the fervor of one who is seeking yet has already been found,
when i heard the voices; sadly, not of angels
but of humans.

i looked up at the noise and saw them
coming along the bamboo-lined path.
the little boy broke away from his mother and
ran out onto the stones of the labyrinth with me.
irritation surged up,
my agenda altered and
my centering meditation fractured.

but remembering the enticing words i’d heard earlier—
the call to walk through my moments and days with
uncharacteristic leisure, relaxed, unhurried,
present—i was chastened. . .
and reminded of my life back home with two young boys
who disrupt my quiet, prayerful spaces
with uncanny regularity.

“aha, a metaphor of my life,” i smiled to myself
as i watched the child trying to navigate
his way to the center of this unicursal path.
and i, reluctantly, let go of my original purpose
for being in this space.
i have been asked to love whatever comes,
to take it all “with great trust” in the words of rilke.

my soul’s labyrinth toward divine union,
the perpetual enchantment, the persistent invitation,
is to see and touch and taste God in the ordinary
everydayness of all things and in all places,
and to lay down my solitary visions and my ecstasies,
to find the Sacred
here, now.

Many of you already know that South Sudan is one of the newest nation's in the world. They split mainly because they wanted to be a Christian nation. We have three Sudanese missionaries over there currently and they are walking from village to village helping to build the Church. We just received word from our pastor last night and so far they have received titles to 8 pieces of land that will be used to build churches so the South Sudanese can gather and worship together. Imagine this, those pieces of land were given by the government. How sweet it is! Keeping praying as there is still much work to be done.

I again got the privilege this morning to teach at our church. We looked at Deuteronomy 8:3 that says, "man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord." God has been using this passage in my own life to remind me that only he can satisfy me. For 40 years the Israelites woke up every morning and had to trust that God would send them bread from heaven -- every day I want to wake up expecting God to act, to supply for my needs, to give me eternal bread that will last.

Feel free to listen online or download and listen in the car (or at the gym or while you climb or while you bake, anywhere really).

I've had conversations with both my mom and Mermis about this.

Mermis told me about how sad she was when Jeff went off to kindergarten and she no longer knew all the little details of his day.

My mom told me how hard it was when she realized that her kids were grown up and she was no longer intimately acquainted with all of our ways.  All of our little sad and happy moments were no longer hers for the sharing.

I think they both told me to savor these years when I'm the most important person in Annie and Meg's world, this fleeting time when I know all the minutia of their days.

So I thought I would post the ridiculously long list of instructions I left for my parents when they kept the girls last week.  I told myself I wrote this not because I didn't believe my parents perfectly capable of taking care of Annie and Meg without my instructions, they did, after all, raise three children to adulthood, (two of whom turned out perfectly normal) but because Annie and Meg are most pleasant when they are kept to their routine.

I'm afraid the truth of course is that I am a complete and total control freak.

Someday I'm sure I'll read this and have a good laugh at myself.

The Girls' Schedule:

5:45-6am - meg usually wakes up and jeff takes her downstairs and gets her some milk and they watch tv or she plays on the itouch

7-7:30 - annie wakes up and usually likes to get dressed right away.  she needs to wear leggings under her dress on school days. and they watch the end of sesame street and curious george on PBS

breakfast - annie has been having oatmeal (made with milk) and sugar free syrup, meg usually just eats a bunch of fruit (strawberries, blueberries, grapes...) sometimes she will eat a scrambled egg with shredded cheese

pack annie's lunch in the four sectioned container - pirate booty, cheese cubes, fruit, and then either left over pizza, leftover plain pasta with parmesan cheese, or half a pb and honey sandwhich cut small, also a sippy cup of water with a half a packet of crystal light "pure" in it. i put the lady bug ice pack in her lunch box to keep it cold.

8:35 - leave to take annie to school, she is in ms. m's class, the last one on the right at the end of the hall, code to get in the door is ****, school starts at 9am

11am - meg's lunch, she likes leftover pasta, mac and cheese, cheese quesadilla, or a scrambled egg with shredded cheese (sometimes she'll eat two eggs, but you have to feed them to her)

12:45 - leave to pick annie up from school.  i have to work to keep meg awake in the car, if she falls asleep for even 5 minutes she won't nap. i try to get annie around 1:10, so she has time to finish her lunch. her backpack, lunch box, coat and any papers to take home should be in her crate outside the door.

1:45 ish - meg down for her nap, i give her a cup of milk while i read her three books and then let her take it in her crib with her for her nap (i know she acts sleepy before this, but i really try to hold her off because i need her to wait until after we pick annie up from school.)

2-3:15 - annie has "room time", i give her her "water juice" and just let her play in her room, i don't make her lay down

3:30-4:30 - annie watches "word girl" and "wild kratz" on PBS, meg usually wakes up sometime between 3:30 to 4:30, annie likes to have a snack, usually cheese toast and pirate booty and fruit

4:30-5:30 - we go outside to ride bikes and check the mail, if it is too cold or rainy, they like to paint or color or do a craft or take a bath

6p - dinner (but they will eat earlier, i'm sure dad probably likes to eat earlier than 6), they like cucumbers, mac and cheese and broc, pasta (no sauce for annie, just parmesan cheese), pizza, stir fry, black beans and avocado and cheese, french toast, cheese quesadillas, i usually take meg's clothes off of her before dinner so she doesn't stain them

6:30- 6:45 - start reading books, brushing teeth, put on pull up/new diaper and pajamas, meg likes to have socks put on and we also rub that amlactin lotion on her upper arms and upper thighs, annie gets "water juice" while we are reading books, and then whatever she doesn't finish we dump out and refill with plain water for her to have in her bed with her.

7p - meg is in her crib asleep (we give her a cup of milk to have in there), annie usually plays quietly in her room until 7:30 or 7:45, she likes for us to leave a stack of books to read on her bed for when she is done playing

if meg wakes up at night, jeff goes in.  he doesn't pick her up, but tells her it's still night time and time to go to sleep.  she usually will lay back down and let you cover her up with a blanket and tell you "night night".  sometimes she needs a milk refill, she'll usually be holding the empty cup if that's the case.

Annie's Valentine's party at school is on Tuesday. I will take the napkins I signed up to bring and the Valentine's she made up to school before we leave so you don't have to worry about it.

i will bring the little white table for them to use.  i'm nervous about meg falling from those stools at your kitchen table.  she has fallen twice from our chairs onto the carpet.

we will bring annie's bike and helmet and the stroller for meg.

food wise we will bring: cubed and shredded cheese, the eggs we use, pirate booty, the crystal light we use for annie's "water juice", whole milk, the organic mac and cheese brand we use, some fruit
any other food you want us to bring?

anything else you don't want us to forget to bring? i guess you guys can always come over to the house and pick up anything we forget.

I sat in a coffee shop last week, within listening distance of a chiseled man in a grey suit and perfect hair. He was interviewing another man for a job. This second fellow obviously brought his A game to the poker table: I’ll see your $800 suit and immaculate hair and raise you one power tie. After a firm shake and a “hello,” chisel man’s first words were to tell power-tie man how he’d been at the gym at 4:45 that morning. I’ll admit it, he said, I’m intense. He couched it as confession, but I’ve never seen a man so eager to step into the booth. They talked numbers and mergers and acquisitions. After another firm (and slightly awkward) handshake, they parted ways. With all that exchange, I’m not sure if they shared a single truly human word.

It’s easy for me to be smug. I’ve never owned an $800 suit, and hell will freeze over before you find me in the gym at 4:45. My mercury refuses to acknowledge – much less rise to – that intensity level. Yet I’ve had many a conversation where I neither asked for nor offered anything truly real or truly human. I can breeze in and out of a space with the best of them. But what do I miss with that shortsightedness? I hope I see chisel man again. I’d like to ask him what he finds so fascinating with pre-dawn sweat and how he keeps that beautiful jet-black mane in impeccable shape.

Since I’ve moved into my new digital home, I’ve asked a few friends to come by and offer me a house warming gift. Over the next week or two, we’ll have a few posts that come as gifts to me, and I’ll share them with you. The first arrives from my best friend in this world, though she’s so much more. Miska is my wife and soulmate, the one person I’d want with me if ever I were shipwrecked – and the one person who has most helped my soul not be shipwrecked.

 

{Here Now}

In that liminal space between day and evening
When the mysteries flame forth,
catch fire with the blaze of the dying sun,
then burn down into a smoldering blue light,
I was walking the circuitous, ancient path of the prayer labyrinth,
Soul-deep in silence and offering my heart’s prayer to God
with the fervor of one who is seeking yet has already been found,
when I heard the voices; sadly, not of angels
but of humans.

I looked up at the noise and saw them
coming along the bamboo-lined path.
The little boy broke away from his mother and
Ran out onto the stones of the labyrinth with me.
Irritation surged up,
My agenda altered and
My centering meditation fractured.

But remembering the enticing words I’d heard earlier—
The call to walk through my moments and days with
Uncharacteristic leisure, relaxed, unhurried,
present—I was chastened. . .
And reminded of my life back home with two young boys
Who disrupt my quiet, prayerful spaces
With uncanny regularity.

“Aha, a metaphor of my life,” I smiled to myself
as I watched the child trying to navigate
his way to the center of this unicursal path,
and I, reluctantly, let go of my original purpose
for being in this space.
I have been asked to love whatever comes,
To take it all “with great trust” in the words of Rilke.

My soul’s labyrinth toward divine union,
The perpetual enchantment, the persistent invitation,
Is to see and touch and taste God in the ordinary
Everydayness of all things and in all places,
And to lay down my solitary visions and my ecstasies,
To find the Sacred
Here, now.

There was this beautiful, gracious woman that helped raise me. I lost her to disease over ten years ago, but Tuesday we will put her body in the earth and I am realizing, for the first time, how deeply I miss her. And how blessed I was to love her.

When I think of my grandmother, my mind first flashes to a rest stop, somewhere between Birmingham and Atlanta, where my parents handed me off to my grandparents for a week. I remember there was banana pudding and I remember knowing I was safe.

My grandparents' house was pretty much made for kids. Acres of land and woods with two large vegetable gardens, a chicken coop and a stream cutting through the middle of it all. The first thing I'd do once I arrived was run down to the stream to see if it had been raining and the water level was high. Floating boats down the stream was the best way to spend the afternoon.

There were sticky pads in her tub the shape of flowers. The carpet in the living room was orange and all the appliances in the kitchen were avocado. She kept potato chips, bread and ice cream sandwiches in her freezer and we never left her house after a visit without a bag of skittles and m&m's for the car ride. She used to say with complete conviction that ice cream is good for you because, of course, it's dairy. And she is the without a doubt the reason I love coffee ice cream.

I've never thought much about legacy. How when we die we leave a little of us behind in the people that we love. But she definitely did - children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren that long for the Lord largely because of the beautiful way in which she loved Him.

It's hard to write about her and feel like my words hold any meaning in regards to how deeply and how fiercely I miss her. She was there at the beginning of me and she is part of the reason I've known love. But for ten years I've longed for this day, in a lot of ways. And finally, the disease hasn't won. My grandmother is Home.