When I’m still brushing my teeth and the kids, all ironed and parted and combed and waiting, scuffle loud at the door, he pokes his head in near the mirror, says it quiet, that we are almost too late for church now anyways, that it’s nearly 10:30 already and there isn’t much point as we’ll be at least 15 minutes late, and I huff ridiculous, snap sharp and say, fine then, you can well stay at home, the whole lot of you, but I’ve got to, my name typed out neat for this week’s nursery supervisor, and I slam the door on my way out.
The children all scatter.
I drive to church alone and wildly sad.
The nursery is empty. The ache in me is emptier.
Sometimes the most impossible person to live with is yourself.
In the babyless nursery, I turn up the volume knob to hear the pastor. It’s the next chapter in our study of 1 Peter. I rock. A baby, then two, collect on my lap. I rock. I can hear the pastor reading this week’s text:
“In a similar way, you wives must submit yourselves to your husbands.”
I heave a sigh, close my eyes. Rock. One baby tugs at my beaded bracelet. I feel the Spirit’s tug. I’m undone. I don’t know how I’ll go home.
He already has lunch on the table when I walk in awkward, slow. I don’t say anything. I’m always surprised at how hard it is to open the mouth and admit you’re a fool.
I go to change out of pinching black shoes. He slips in soundless, sits at the end of the bed, one foot resting easy across the other. I find Birkenstocks.
And I sit down beside him, uncomfortable, staring stock straight out the window. Two starlings flap about in the top of the cherry trees. Why do I blow everything, again and again?
Will I ever grow up and will I ever be a witness and will I ever become what I claim to be?
My chest hurts. I know what I have to say. I turn towards him and my throat’s raw sore and our eyes meet and we search for a flicker. And in that moment, the Spirit flame descends and I feel its tug and it comes unexpected, a relief that he is too: we both smile sheepish.
Our eyes light.
And our lips both offer it in that same moment and we speak in one tongue speaking one word: “Sorry.”
We hold hands when we pray at lunch. We’ve been reading slow and repeatedly and deliberately from Acts through the season of Easter and today it’s the seventh chapter and The Farmer reads,
“You stiff-necked people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are just like your fathers: You always resist the Holy Spirit!“
I close my eyes, bow my head. Grace rocks, comforts the impossible. He lays his hand on my shoulder and we pray.
We submit to one another. We wash the dishes together.
After the last plate’s stacked, I go for a walk, the stiff-neck softening to receive on Pentecost what I’ve been huffing and scuffling and waiting all Easter at the door for.
I walk and Littlest One comes and she does a dandelion run. She laughs and the dog chases and they spin across the globed fields.
She runs and I watch and I ache and I don’t know where time goes and why I obliviously slam the holy moments with frustration and resist the sacred beauty that falls unannounced.
I feel that pang in my chest again.
And when she lies right out in the grass and holds a whole orb close, I come close. And I nearly step upon it.
A bird descended in the alfalfa, a starling stock still.
I stand still.
We peer into the other’s eye.
I search for the flicker.
I feel the flame.
And then it flies.
I will blow it but I’ll turn and I won’t resist and I will submit to the Spirit blowing in again and always again, and there are wings to show the way Home.
“Are you coming?” she calls.
I come and I kneel in the green beside her. She waits. Bated breath before the delicate sphere. And then her wind and she blows everything again and again… and...
Worlds blow apart.
Mine opens.
Straight to the centre.
The Spirit falls on the earth’s fields and there is a wind that blows the blessings and I might kneel and receive both, the impossible made possible by Grace.
When she’s ready to go, she takes my hand and I’m wildly happy, filled. We rise and thousands of dandelions take to the sky, to the outer most ends of the earth. We walk across the fields.
I know the way home.
the Spirit wind blows on the undeserving … and I count more of the endless blessings….
#1613 – #1634
My mama handing out chocolate kisses right at the door
Old aprons
laying in long grass, talking soft with her
Lawrence Welk reruns
four-year-old running laughter
dandelion tufts caught in her eyelashes
Grilling dinner
transplanting sweet peas with Levi, us talking dreams in the twilight
Sunday afternoons flipping through old photo albums with my Mama
Exam week
Kids tapping at the window while The Farmer and I kiss on the back stoop
Smell of dirt in May
Belly-laughing with my brother over memories of long ago summers and us-escapades
Hilling up the earth for potatoes
happy pant of the dog
Hope whipping up a batch of fudge
sun flare and her freckles
The Farmer murmuring prayers for me as he drifts off to sleep
The Spirit really coming
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Photos: I’d said I was going for a walk but she came for a dandelion run and oh, how she laughed and I couldn’t believe I was still smiling an hour later and we decided we’d do it all again tomorrow
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