Out of the Mouths
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morewhen life leaves you with more questions than answers
On Thursday, September 06 th, 2012Only a few more weeks left now. That is what the Farmer says at dinner, what he says as we clatter dishes off the table, the enamel plates all stacking and clapping for the cook. Only a few more weeks left and August will dip the beans fields bronze and the leaves will reluctantly fall off the beanstalks and just the pods will then dangle, the only rattling ornaments hanging of...
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moreWhen You’re Broken & Don’t Know Where to Go:
On Thursday, August 30 th, 2012When she was standing there in the spring, under the blaze of the blooming trees, I could remember 13. I could remember the burn of the unfurl, and how the becoming sears, and how does a mother help a daughter light? How does a woman be a light? We had walked down to the water’s edge. ...
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moreThe 1 Reason Why You have to Slow Down
On Monday, March 19 th, 2012We hear them far off in the woods, just as the sun sinks further down. And I stop. Because who doesn’t stop when the world slips up behind and surprises you? So we stand there and listen long and neither one of us can stop smiling and I almost forget to breathe. The frogs have return...
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moreWhat to Sing in Your Storms
On Tuesday, June 21 st, 2011‘If God really works in everything — then why don’t we thank Him for everything?” She asks me this straight out. My daughter, Hope, and I, we sit in the truck on the field’s hem, waiting to give the Farmer his lunch. The Farmer’s planting bean seeds into earth’s dark bed. The sky’s rising darker in the west. He races rain. “For ev...
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morewhen it all feels a bit like a mismatched mess
On Monday, May 09 th, 2011It was at the end of it all that I held it, how the smallest of gifts can most enlarge a heart. On Mother’s Day, I’m the mother walking out of chapel with the son who is wearing shoes. It’s just shoes that don’t happen to match — one brown and one green. And the son smirks and I’m the messed up mother hanging onto a singular thread of unbreakable grace. ...
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moreWhat if more than celebrating Easter- we lived it?
On Wednesday, April 27 th, 2011When dead bodies walk, who can not talk? When the Farmer reads Scripture aloud, what he does for us at the close of every meal, turning the thin pages of the Gospel of Mark right after Easter — I hear the whisper of wild hope. He reads Scripture and the words make me see it — what had happened, after Christ arose. The eyes widening white in black ...
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moreThe Way a Mother Can Make Peace with Time
On Wednesday, February 16 th, 2011He’s out in the deep vast white, a hooded smudge of color trudging through the deep. I watch from the window, watch the golden lab spring behind him, ahead of him, beside. Malakai turns sharp to the north, tromping out into the field’s markerless sea of white. His hood turns to see: is Boaz following? Then a sharp turn to the west, and a glance to see if the dog is trac...
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morewhen life leaves you with more questions than answers
On Friday, August 06 th, 2010Only a few more weeks left now. That is what the Farmer says at dinner, what he says as we clatter dishes off the table, the enamel plates all stacking and clapping for the cook. Only a few more weeks left and August will dip the beans fields bronze and the leaves will reluctantly fall off the beanstalks and just the pods will then dangle, the only rattling ornaments hanging o...
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How A Child Shows the Way to Do Hard Things
On Monday, May 03 rd, 2010I drive backroads clear round a Great Lake, from the Ontario farm, around Lake Huron, to that jut of Michigan Thumb pointing skywards saying everything’s all rightward. Late at night I’m welcomed by good farmers with good souls. And on the first day of May, the magnolia trees all in bloom, the p...
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How the Kids & the Neighbor-Next-Door Might Really Become Christians?
On Wednesday, April 28 th, 2010I‘m brushing my teeth, flecks of white spraying the sunny mirror, confetti celebrating new morning, when she crawls up on the toilet, leans into the mirror to find my reflection and ask me straight up, “How do you become a Christian?” I’m Crest-foaming. Which is slightly less than conducive for a theological treatise. I rinse, wash the pearly whites cl...
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let the children be thankful
On Monday, March 08 th, 2010‘From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise… (Psalm 8.2) We share the table and the space but they are the teachers forthis Mamahas much to learn. And whenover the hillsI hear joya comin’the simple becomesdivine. (As...
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moreDiscovering the One Thing You May Have Long Forgotten About You
On Friday, February 05 th, 2010When it’s time, I know, I can tell in my bones, the ways the knees ache, those joints with a clock of their own, and I drag my fingers through the hair, back from the temples, and I survey the room of the sprawled out legs, the stacks of books, the balls of yarn, the half deck of Rook scattered, and I smile and chime the hour quiet. “I think it’s time for bed, folks.” T...
