The trees are losing the leaves here this week.
We went to the woods and watched and waited and swayed and swirled, trying to catch leaves as they fell.
Wise and gentle Michelle wrote me a note. I read her words. And her words took me back to the woods and the way our feet moved and pranced and we laughed — even as the trees lost leaves and everything was letting go.
Sometimes a dance of loss can be a thing of grace.
Today, this quiet place marries Michelle’s words and my photos.
It’s Monday. And we begin the week again with our songs of gratitude, regardless.
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The dance of new life—each mother knows the steps, and when colic grips her wee one, those steps become ingrained deep down.
The swaying, the bouncing, the cradling all seep into her core and become an automatic answer to the desperate little cries. When the wailing starts in the dark after a few moments’ slumber and weary tears mingle, what is there to do but dance?
And when school books pile up because the words can’t be heard over the screams, matronly feet take to their rhythms. Such mothers know to start dinner in the ten minutes’ peace at 10:00 am, and we dance through the day, coaching the five-year-old on how to help the potty-trainer with his pull-up. Our arms are always full.
My husband and I gave our new son Emmaus for a middle name (sandwiched between a poet and our Hungarian surname), not knowing then how many times we would walk a similar confusing road in the very near future. When the colic-cries came, we purposed twofold: to enjoy all these moments to cling to our new one (how many fourth children get cuddled so often?), and while cuddling, to let go of other tasks and pray.
Calvin claimed that prayer is “a discipline by which our weakness is exercised and stimulated.”
If that is the case, cannot our lives become a prayer? If we are continually weak, may we not become prayers unceasing?
And through each small death of our flesh, God furthers His kingdom of life.
Voices came echoing from wise men we’ve heard and read—two in particular—and now we put feet to their lessons. Henri Nouwen compares us to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus:
“Somehow, in the midst of our mourning, the first steps of the dance take place.Somehow, the cries that well up from our losses belong to our songs of gratitude.”
This too, words of Bill Thrasher
The two ideas meet in this consummate truth (that Thrasher
Even defeats like the wrong of anger… Thrasher connects that anger with prayer
The hurt may be legitimate—sleep deprivation, for example—but do we demand to be understood, or put ourselves in the arms of God?
Do I think I have license to unravel when I trip over train tracks that were supposed to be put away an hour ago? Sometimes I do. But the Everlasting Arms find me again when I go back to apologize. Four-year-olds can be quite gracious.
How a simple “I know you’re tired, Mommy” can incite tears of repentance. Such sweet words are an offering of grace that soothe sleepless eyes like salve. Soon the feet are retrained. The prayers that are breathed during shuffling steps take wing. When I ask God to put His healing hand on the little lives I’ve hurt, He spills His grace from my lips.
Thrasher
Cares come to mind easily while I’m minding our small screamer—his future, the laundry, our unmade dinner, our school-less days, my lack of communing time with my husband. I learn to cast them up, to whisper thanks instead.
I give praise for the baby’s first smile at 3:30 am one night,
for four-dollar bargains on new little fall-wear,
for farmers’ market meals,
for rainy days when we propped up The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe on the arm of the couch so I could bounce our baby and read simultaneously,
for soft words whispered while my love and I drift off (finally) to sleep.
Into this messy life of mine, I invite Him in, asking Him to shine through the chaos.
And when I can’t see why my children can’t see that the baby is wailing and it is not a good time to empty the silverware drawer, I sit them down, and I pray on my feet.
I beg grace for other mothers I know with children to tend to and books to work through and houses to clean and husbands to adore. May truths drip like honey from their lips; may they humble themselves when frustration wells up; may they give thanks in the midst of the mess.
My feet prance lighter, the little ones quiet a moment even if the wee one does not, and in other homes, too, small victories take wing. My arms bear up this tiny frame of pain. I grieve (Again? Now?), but my feet start their motion. And I hear His voice as I sway.
Christ communes with my weakness, shows Himself the Broken One risen, and in my joy I cannot help but seek to bless others, murmuring dear names.
We have been blessed. We dance.
Post Text: Michelle Szobody
Photos: Ann Voskamp
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Photos: a dance of loss
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