Old Love

He came bearing jam from a dead woman's hand,
found at the bottom of a freezer he was cleaning out
and when he handed it to me,
like a ruby artifact dug up from the bowels of Pompeii,
I could only think of her bones in the cemetery these two long years,
rain and snow and sun falling on silent gravestone,
and yet still she will serve us jam
and still we will thank her and lick our lips,
tasting the sweetness of love.



But it took weeks before we finally broke the jar's seal,
(who could bear to? lid with her handwriting that made me hurt),
before we popped that lid open that she had screwed tight three summers ago,
and I stared a long time before I dipped knife in,
before I took my toast to the porch,
to watch the sun rise over our patch of strawberries,
all dangled in dew, and there I ate her jam spread thin,
and think of her with cancer, still arched in morning light, picking,
her thick Dutch hands stained red with the afternoon hulling,
her wiping counters spotlessly clean, always, in evening,
line of jeweled jars dazzling in fading light... fading light.

I eat berries ripened by a long ago sun,
picked and plucked and mashed by a hand
long ago ripened and picked,

and yes, I choke out thanks,
And yes, I taste sweet love,
And yes, the jar sits still in the fridge,

No one daring to spread the last of her out.





Photos: of my mother-in-law’s jam found still at the bottom of her freezer, Dutch Opa giving it to us with a scratched explanation on a sticky note : “From Grandma yet”…. Yet.
Her flight exit was two years ago this month….

Journaling as a Spiritual Discipline: 8 Reasons to Journal (& some inspiration)

My longings lie open before you, O Lord; my sighing is not hidden from you." ~Ps. 38:9

1. Because journaling is a place to be unmasked and meet God

So we lay ourselves out on the page....

“A journal can become a sacred place,” writes Magaret Feinberg. “Mere blank pages are transformed into a site where you can record the most intimate parts of your soul. A place where you can travel with your deepest thoughts and confessions. A place where you can slip off the mask of who you are supposed to be and slip into something more comfortable: who you really are.”

We lay who we really are before Jesus, hiding nothing ... open books... and He takes us to Himself.

2. Because journaling lets us see soul areas the Holy Spirit is growing

“Journaling focuses mind and heart on the issues of growth with the aim of discerning what God is doing in one's life," writes Richard Peace, author of Spiritual Journaling: Recording Your Journey Toward God . "By using a journal, we come in touch with our cutting edges of growth, those areas where questions exist or where there is need or longing. These are areas where the Holy Spirit seems most active.”

3. Because journaling strengthens other disciplines

“Journaling is also an aid to other spiritual disciplines,” says Peace. “Writing down your insights is helpful in Bible study. Writing out prayers helps you to communicate with God. Creating a poem that praises God is an act of worship.”

(An Inspired Journal.... a place for photos and collages, verses and poetry, dreams and prayers)

4. Because journaling is a way to visually examine our thought processes

"I begin these pages for myself, in order to think out my own particular pattern of living, my individual balance of life, work, and human relationships," writes Gift from the Sea author Anne Morrow Lindberg. "And since I think best with a pencil in my hand, I started to write…"

(A Travel Journal -- for photos and captions, memories and thanksgiving)

5. Because journaling cultivates deep honesty and authenticity

"At first it was difficult. I felt self-conscious. I was worried that I would lose the journal or that someone might peek inside to see what I’d said," writes Gordon MacDonald concerning his practice of journaling. "But slowly the self-consciousness began to fade, and I found myself sharing in the journal more and more of the thoughts that flooded my inner spirit. Into the journal went words describing my feelings, my fear and sense of weakness, my hopes, and my discoveries about where Christ was leading me.

When I felt empty or defeated, I talked about that too in the journal. Slowly I began to realize that the journal was helping me come to grips with an enormous part of my inner person that I had never been fully honest about. No longer could fears and struggles remain inside without definition. They were surfaced and confronted…" (Gordon MacDonald, Ordering Your Private World)

(A Fear-to-Faith Journal -- for chronicling one thing each day (or week) that we were afraid of... but jumped out in faith to do anyways)

6. Because journaling is a way to see God in the dark

"There have been times when I have thought I was lost, completely lost. Later, on the other side, looking back through my journal, what I found was page after page of praise of God's glory. In the midst of the darkness, pain and confusion, He was there, ever faithful...and I was not really lost.

Just hidden in His tender care." ~ Connie in B.C.

"I personally find that writing is the only way I can concentrate on praying..." ~Sophie in Wales

(A Family Quote Journal -- for documenting memorable quotes, creating a family history)

7. Because journaling is a way to leave a legacy

"My grandmother Mary passed away at age 36 in 1941, leaving my dad and his brother and sister orphaned. After my dad passed away in 2000, mom gave me a tin that belonged to him. I didn't look in it right away. However, in 2001, as I still actively grieved my dad's death, I was drawn to it.

When I opened it, letters came bounding out as if they had been waiting for release. All in all, these told the story of my grandmother's losing her home and land to the U.S. Forest Service (KY is notorious for bad deeds!), her struggle with her husband who had to be institutionalized after he was gassed in WWI, letters from family in Oklahoma who wanted her to "come home," and an assortment of notes, grocery lists, prayers and hymns written on rough paper.

As I organized these letters by category and by date, I began to *know* my grandmother. What a gift her writing has been to me! I love her even though I didn't know her. This is what writing can do." ~Denise

(A Daily Image Journal -- look for an image and sketch it, adding date, time, location... let poems come too...)

8. Because journaling is a way to continually remember the character of God

"My journals are my lifeline, among many other things. I have sticky notes and little jibblets of paper that I carry around throughout the day and I go back to my journals and record His awesomeness. It brings me closer to God because I am always thinking of Him. I also know that when I write it down, or print things off and paste them in, I remember His words to me and claim them and that reminds me, too, that the one who makes the promise, keeps the promise. ~ Debra at The Morel Family

And finally... if you're thinking journal just really isn't for me: why it really is okay if you do not journal ... really.

Lord, today... even just one line, somewhere, scribbled down... a place to lay myself open before You.

:::

Related: Every Wednesday I post about the living out of a spiritual discipline. Currently, the Wednesday series is focusing on the practice of journaling.

Part One:Journaling as a Spiritual Discipline: Light Catchers
Part Two: Journaling: Being Real with Jesus
Part Three: Journaling: As Family Worship
Part Four: Journaling: Burning Bush Conversations
Part Five: Journaling: How to Set Up and Organize a Journal
Part Six: Journaling: Many Creative Ways
Part Seven: Journaling: As an Act of Prayer

Next Wednesday: BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS and more Journal Inspiration --- a potpourri of your stories, the fragrance of your notes. If you'd like to share a glimpse of your journaling story, or a photo, with this quiet community... consider this your warm invitation to slip a note into the inbox.

Photos: Personal journals... and photos from a July 2007, Real Simple Magazine article -- that I cut out and tucked into an envelope in the back of my visual journal ~smile~

Conversation: How Can I be a better Wife?

I ask him at the end of the trail, the end of the weekend, the end of fifteen years. I ask him before we set out again.

We sit under the oaks, green banners flying in the wind. There had been a pause in our passing of words back and forth and it was what I was really wondering, so I’d stepped out into the fear (who knows how’d he answer?) and just released the words, slow and quiet, one at a time.

“How could I be a better wife to you?”

His eyes hold me. Like he knew we were coming to this. This bare, unashamed place. Intimacy is only a possibility when we slip out of small talk and gently peel off a layer of the heart. The leaves wave.

I wait while he gathers thoughts, watch the trees in June blue. The curve of his hand cups mine, a sure warm wrapping.

And then he speaks softly, wind in leaves.

“’’How could you be a better wife?” I take a deep breath, ready to cup his heart exposed.

“When I tell you that you’re beautiful, hear me.” I look away. Hide behind some fig leaves.

His voice finds me.

“When I tell you the things I love about you, accept what I’m saying. Don’t shrug it off.” I want to shrug it off.

This is how I can be a better wife?

He knows me. He’s right. Accepting the caress of grace can terrify. Why is it hard just to let love?

We take a new trail out, out into the next fifteen years.

The ugly ducklings out on the lake glide gracefully.






God, is that how Your Bride unintentionally rebuffs You too?
Self-condemned as too ugly, we shirk off Your love whispers...
Today, we turn and let You love...
love us into beauty...

Related:Best Beauty Tip
Radiate Beauty
Best Beauty Tip Proven

Photos: from our anniversary retreat

Multitudes on a Monday

Counting the multitudes on a Monday... the best way to begin a week!



1026. It had been too long since I stretched out and watched leaves dance.
Lures on the ends of twigs, bobbing in blue, they caught me and I floated.



1027. In early morning still, our words unfurled at water's edge over glasses of orange juice, a long conversation blooming a delicate memory.



1028. When he slammed it over the fence, I squealed louder than the kids, and we all wildly cheer him in over home plate. I feel eighteen again when he flashes that grin.




1029. He's always wanted to fly. Come summer, he takes to the sky. The heights are his and he skims the trees.



1030. I remember when we picked dandelions in the ditches together. Now little brother's man hands picks me a bouquet of scarlet from his rhubarb patch, sends me home to arrange a pie.




1031. It was like Christmas in June, all green and red, a pile of love.



1032. The oldest boy-man cut and carried it in, his muscles hauling in spinach, to me all smiling. He asked if I could make that chicken salad, the one he said he could eat every night of the week, and I happily obliged.




1033. You careened into summer, crashed into me with laughter. It was the happiest of accidents.



It took months, days of months of paying attention, feeling the caress of His heart, to number 1000 gifts. The intimacy of the counting changed me. I knew Him, the way only skin can know SomeOne.

And then, after the 1000 gift milestone, I simply began to record the gifts as endless, innumerable .... but He, he never stopped the numbering, having more thoughts for me than the sand on the seashore. He numbers even each strand of hair on my head, again and again...

So could I not feebly try to number even some of the gifts with which He woos?

So I return to the numbering. These, a few of the multitudes on a Monday....

"With the voice of joy and thanksgiving,
a multitude keeping festival..."

~Ps.42:4

Care to pay attention to His gifts that you might spend your life in praise? It changes a life.
Prayerfully consider joining the The Gratitude Community.

If you'd like to work on a case of Soul ADD by counting the multitude of your blessings today, just slip a note into the inbox...

Might you take a moment to warmly wave a welcome to the newest members of the Gratitude Community. They join the congregating of His people to give Him thanks -- a multitude keep festival!

Jessie
Charlotte
Melanie
Sheri
Faith
Leah @ A Very Sweet Life
Lydia @ Living Peculiarly
Kelly @ The Hallahan's
Angela at Unveiling Radiance
Debbie at Debbie's Art Works
Katie @ Seeing Him & Knowing Him
Tabitha @ I Choose Bliss
The Pastor's Wife at The Real Me

State of the House and Poets' Dreams

I think of it every Thursday, our cleaning day. We dust and pick up and scrub down and toss out and tidy up all our creativity still in process, the necessary trail of our 10,000 hours (the legos, the wood, the paper, the nails, the books, the paints, the material, the pots and pans) and I think of words from the novel, The Diary of a Country Priest:


"A parish is bound to be dirty. A whole Christian society's a lot dirtier. ...

"Some filth! Which all goes to prove, boy, that the church must needs be a sound housewife -- sound and sensible. My nun wasn't a real housewife; a real housewife knows her home isn't a shrine.

Those are just poets' dreams."

~ The Diary of a Country Priest

So Thursdays -- well, everyday --- I'm learning to take a deep breath, exhale, take up the Joy Habit... and happily clean, simply accepting we are messy people, inside and out. No, this home, the church, will never be a shrine.

Those are just poets' dreams.

Lord God, You know how a poet dreams up a house. Cause me to live knowing that You have far more creative dreams for our home....

Related:
Loving the Beautiful Mess
Make a Messy Life Art
Photo: kitchen counter's waiting cleaning... and me seeing just a bit of art

Permanence

How could we have known 15 years ago today how He would enlarge our love circle?

We bought the table with gifts from my mama, your parents, my dad. The circling chairs' paint crack with time's lines. Little Shalom, Peace Child, has nearly outgown spindled high chair. And you, oh you, my Farmer Husband, brought the crock there full of peonies from out at the mailbox, you brought it home for me, twinkle in your eye, gave me the pair of crocks, one too for the wooden chest before the hearth. Furniture vases. Permanent.

And when their handpicked flowers fade, a child, or me, you, one from the love circle, goes looking for beauty somewhere, gathers, and fills again. The crock vase always remains, always sits at the center. Always awaits the finding, the filling.

Beauty's everywhere.

I never dreamed the vase of these fifteen years could hold so much.

Related Love:
A photo of us 15 yrs. ago today: a barefoot bride, up in the barn...
I do
Love, Smiles, and Strawberry Pies

Journaling as a Spiritual Discipline: An Act of Prayer

This is praying time, and the act of listening in prayer is the same act as listening in writing."

~Madeleine L'Engle

I read Scripture. I listen. I pray.

I pick up pen. I listen. I pray.

This writing becomes prayer, heart stretched right out, poems laid bare.

One of my held-close, always-come-with-me journals is my Prayer-Poem Journal. It is, like nearly all endeavors, rather derivative, and I'm indebted to Walter Brueggeman for the inception of this journal...

For 42 years, Walter Brueggemann began his seminary classes with prayer. A prayer awed to Heaven, echoing heaven's Words. A prayer that read as a poem; a psalm of sorts.

Whatever passage of Scripture was to be studied by that day's class, Mr. Brueggeman incorporated that Scripture into His prayer, either directly or topically. At the bottom of each written prayer, he noted the Scripture out of which that prayer-poem grew. Also, he noted any happenings of import that day in the headlines, or in his heart. He rooted the prayer-poems in earth.

After 42 years of praying Scripture before each class, these prayers were collected into Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth: Prayers of Walter Brueggemann. (You can read a lengthy preview of "Awed to Heaven's" moving prayer poems here ~Highly Recommended).

For example....

The Din Undoes Us

(written in anticipation of reading 1 Samuel 2-3: [Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening])

Our lives are occupied territory…
occupied by a cacophony of voices,
and the din outdoes us.

In the daytime we have no time to listen,
beset as we are by anxiety and goals
and assignments and work,
and in the night the voices are so confusing
we can hardly sort out what could possibly be your voice
from the voice of our mothers and our fathers
our best friends and our pet projects,
because they all sound so much like you.

We are people over whom that word shema has been written.
We are listeners, but we do not listen well.

So we bid you, by the time the sun goes down today
or by the time the sun comes up tomorrow,
by night or by day,
that you will speak to us in ways that we can hear
out beyond ourselves.

It is your speech to us that carries us where we have never been,
and it is your speech to us that is our only hope.
So give us ears.

Amen.

~ Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth: Prayers of Walter Brueggemann.

How to Journal Your own Prayer-Poems that are Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth:

1. Read passage of Scripture.

2. Listen for the verse God whispers directly to your heart.

3. Pick up pen and write the date down in journal.

4. Copy out the specific Scripture

5. Now, listening, write a prayer founded in that Scripture. And let it line itself up slowly, word upon word, like a poem, repeating itself if need be, creating patterns, reflecting the gritty details of your life with naked honesty. Look full into the face of God and speak your heart in regards to that verse. Respond to His Word to you through prayer...

And again --- no comparisons regarding quality of words or concerns of doing it "right". Your only work in journaling, which is to pray, is simple, honest communion. That is all. Let the words lead you closer.

6. At the bottom of the page, note one significant event happening in your life currently, general or specific, that ties into this prayer-poem (e.g. As I pray that our children will hear directly from You.)

(For more models of prayer-poems, consider reading here)

We are rooted in earth, us of dust with these feet of sod.
But with His Word and our inked ones,
these penned prayers of a dialogue of listening,
we are Awed to Heaven.

:::

Notes to the inbox about the Spiritual Discipline of Journaling...

Why I Journal -- Jerri Phillips

I write with brutal, tear-stained honesty the agony of right now because when the path is easy, it is also easy to forget the pain so deep that one cannot breathe....

I journal because one day someone will follow behind me, and when they are in the place of such pain their very being is filled with it, I don’t want to forget where they are or how they feel. I don’t want to forget the desperate need of a kind word, a soft shoulder, and a loving touch.

I never want to add wounds because I have forgotten the pain of my own.

I journal so I can understand where people are by where I’ve been and recall the hand of God in my heartache to I can be His hand in theirs.

~ Jerri

And cheering for Cathy's who is, for the first time, faithfully journaling as is Heather. And Christin shares a discovery fom her journal that testifies not only to how journaling sets up markers that we can later revisit, but of a stunning encounter with God....
:::

Related: Every Wednesday I'm posting living out a spiritual discipline. Currently, every Wednesday focuses on the practice of journaling.

Part One:Journaling as a Spiritual Discipline: Light Catchers
Part Two: Journaling: Being Real with Jesus
Part Three: Journaling: As Family Worship
Part Four: Journaling: Burning Bush Conversations
Part Five: Journaling: How to Set Up and Organize a Journal
Part Six: Journaling: Many Creative Ways

Next Wednesday: Journaling Potpourri --- the fragrance of your notes. If you'd like to share a glimpse of your journaling story, or a photo, with this quiet community... consider this your warm invitation to slip a note into the inbox.

How to Nurture Geniuses

Dormant geniuses lie sleeping down the hall.

They eat across from us at the breakfast table, sit next to us in mini-vans taxiing to soccer fields, even look back at us from our bathroom mirrors. What if genius is the normative intent of what God’ bestows and our own lack of faithful stewardship results in malnourished gifts?

László and Klara Polgár, parents of three daughters, understood exactly that. Homeschoolers in Hungary who were harassed by armed police to enroll their daughters in public school, Klara and László believed that any child could be nurtured to flourish, and exceedingly so. It was simply a matter of faithfulness. The Polgar’s were.

Faithful hours of considered study and practice were invested in the Polgar home. By 2000, these home educated daughters were at least tri-lingual (one daughter could speak seven languages), each had achieved top-10 ranking in the world of female chess players, and their youngest daughter, Judit, shattered the previous record for the youngest person, male or female, to earn the title of chess Grandmaster. She was 15 years old. While Susan would later be the number one female chess player in the world, Judit would be the first woman to be rank in the top ten chess players worldwide. How did the Polgar’s raise three geniuses?

It wasn’t a function of I.Q. or genetics. (László concedes he was a mediocre chess player at best, being regularly beaten by his oldest when she was five years old; Klara didn’t even know the rules when their daughters began playing. Current research clearly indicates that the top achievers are rarely high-IQ geniuses or former child prodigies.) It was simply the same way Mozart, Benjamin Franklin, Tiger Woods found their way: by faithful , wholehearted stewardship.

By diligent, attentive nurtuing of the gifts God hands out liberally to far more than a select few. It’s dangerously tempting to think that geniuses are exceptional products of blazing, divine intervention.

Because then we don’t have to closely examine how we are stewarding the gifts He’s given us. Are geniuses really only better stewards then the rest of us? Recent research suggests that rather unnerving possibility.

Hope picking June Rubies in the kitchen garden's strawberry patch

Shalom and Malakai sculpting and imagining and shaping ideas between fingers

Hope carefully stitching up old rugs

Malakai spontaneously setting up paints in the study to copy a local artist's vibrant hues

Joshua's most recent motorized, dual speed, self-engineered creation (oh, the legos here!)

Joshua testing a propeller's wing design with a blow dryer

Caleb painting his self-designed, two tiered (only just a tad, but hardly, wobbly) roadside stand

Carefully arranged boquets of blooms awaiting their sale in Mason Jars,
alongside vegetables from Cale's garden
and some fresh baked goodness he and Hope have rustled up

1. Geniuses are stewards who Faithfully Practice

Geniuses make it look effortless only because they’ve faithfully practiced. Anders Ericsson, a professor of psychology at Florida State University, posits that "extended deliberate practice" is the ultimate key to successful use of a gift. "Nothing shows that innate factors are a necessary prerequisite for expert-level mastery in most fields," he says. Ericsson’s interviews with 78 German pianists and violinists discovered that by age 20, the best musicians had spent an estimated 10,000 hours practicing, twice the average 5,000 hours the less accomplished group practiced.

Genius is a long faithfulness.

So fingers stretch across ivories here, shoulders hunch over Latin, brows knit in mathematical quandary. Just two hours a day of concentrated practice over a decade stacks up to 7,000 hours of faithful stewarding.

What would happen if every Christian used the 4 hours daily spent in front of the television a day (more than 126 hours a month!) or the near hour a day the average American surfs the internet and spent two of those hours developing their skill in a particular domain ( woodworking, quantum physics, photography) and one hour more on the spiritual disciplines that lead into a deeper relationship with God, (prayer, memorization, Bible meditation, fasting) – only repurposing three hours a day from the five we spend on passive entertainment --- and in one decade, our entire culture – and the world at large – would be entirely revolutionized. How are we being faithful stewards of our 10,000 hours?

Why not tenderly unfurl a gift?

2. Geniuses are stewards who Faithfully Pioneer

The flesh tugs towards the path of least resistance. Even if we practice, we’re tempted to keep practicing what we already know. But geniuses steward the gift by faithfully pioneering into unknown territory. Committed stewards continually forge ahead by asking: what weaknesses need strengthening? what skills need extending?

Faithful stewards fight the flesh and mind’s inclination to sloppily automate a skill, by careful analyzing the parts of the whole skill and altering their practice accordingly, which forces the brain’s internalization of an improved pattern of execution. Like Benjamin Franklin who would rewrite his favorite articles from memory, then closely compare it with the actual, we too stretch minds and skills with challenge of new ground.

How can I gently stretch a gift?

3. Geniuses are stewards who Faithfully Pursue

Geniuses steward the gift by, practice, pioneering and finally, pursuing a mentor. A coach or teacher is necessary to flourish a gift, to grow it into pioneer territory. And pursuing a supportive environment is paramount for fostering a gift. Parents can be mentors. Parents can be the positive environment. When Carol Dweck, professor of psychology at Stanford University, praised children for "how" they did a task—for undergoing the process successfully --- most children wanted to take on increasingly challenging tasks. The children wanted to pioneer. Generally, such encouraged children’s performances improved, and when it didn't, they still deemed the experience enjoyable.

How might we pursue a mentor and *be* a strengthening, affirming for others stewarding a gift?

Children slip out of beds, and another day dawns with its hours. I'm not so sure anyone here will ever be deemed "a genius", or if that is really even a worthy goal, but stewardship clearly is. And it’s clear that God’s far more generous in placing truly great gifts into our hands than we’ve ever realized.

It’s our hands that need be faithful with the talents.

I reach out and squeeze the young hand next to mine.



Related: (Outside Articles) Developing a Growth Mindset
Genius, The Modern View@ NY Times
The GrandMaster Experiment

(Articles from the archives...)
Pros and Cons to Homeschooling
If you are considering homeschooling
Seven Daily Things to Do for Holistic Homeschooling

Choose Your View

A post I'm revisiting... and choosing.
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She bought it for the view.

Moving to town was hard for Mama; everyone who’s lived in places where you witness the sun rising and setting over earth’s rim knows. You ache to watch sky come close to land and breathe green life into her. You still listen for gravel’s crackle under tires going down the lane.

Mama needed to still reach out and feel a bit of that country when she drove down her long lane, drove away in a dust cloud to town. So she bought on town’s hem, where the stitch of asphalt falls way to a long skirt of green grasses swaying.



Screws hold street numbers to the bricks over the garage door now and the mail slot next to the front door clangs open, shut, every day around two, but Mama still got to wash dishes overlooking Herefords grazing in the dappled shade of the willows, clumped close there where the river bends. Cars drove down her street, and sometimes she hears sirens blaring, but she eats mashed potatoes, meat and gravy, looking out at a singular white mare chewing slowly by the willows, tailing swatting flies, the woods fringing a field of leafy soybeans. Mama still felt the land, felt close to us, felt those soiled roots where she came from.

She hadn’t heard of the building permit till she had washed three weeks of meals at that sink. I was there the day the man who applied for the permit walked by, met her on the driveway, mentioned that he was going to build a shed behind her, cutting off that green skirt.

I stood in the doorway, leaned hard against the wall. Mama managed words, something about living 30 years on the farm and that view making the move to town manageable. Choked out that she wasn't sure she would have come if it weren’t for those fields comforting, calling.

“Money can’t buy a view.” Mr. Perkin shrugged his shoulders, turned toward the neighbor’s door and the next breaking of the news.

Wasn’t long before the neighbors passed a petition. Mama decided instead to bring cookies, flowers, to the elderly Mr.Perkin and his wife, offering her best wishes. She stayed while they showed her the plans, nodding, smiling.

She sat through the hearings at town council, and the appeal to the provincial level, the briefings of how Mr. Perkin could build in three other locations on his land at the other end of the street without interfering the view of any of the neighbors, how no other property owners had implement sheds for RVs on their lots, how Mr. Perkin had sold these lots twenty years ago with the promise he would never build behind the owners. Things change, and so does a man’s word.

The next door neighbors went west for weeks, right after the hammering began. Watching those stud walls slowly go up in front of the windows and brick up over land and trees and sky smothered. They beat a (temporary) escape.

I wasn’t expecting what I saw when I drove in sometime last week, came directly around the back of Mama’s house, wanting to see if any frayed green still clung.

Within steps of the property line, an eight foot grey fabric vapor barrier sheared off 30 feet of verdant life that just last week rolled from here down to the river and away the other side. The asphalt roof poked another 15 feet into the blue. I raised a hand, wanting to brush it all way, shake out leaves and blade and emeralds growing. I grieved for Mama.



I found her in the kitchen, at the sink. I don't have words, really. “Well, Mama...” She turns. “I’m sorry… I saw it, and I’m sorry. ” I’m searching her eyes.

Mama smiles, grabs my hand, and pulls me towards her and the kitchen window.

“See?” She’s beaming. I look out the window, confused. From in here, looking out the kitchen window, I don’t see a barricade clipping off life. The only view’s out on a blooming profusion of pink fuchsias.

She's giddy. “I can’t take away the shed. But I can choose my view!”



I lean in over the sink, closer to the glass, and try to figure this. “You stood on top of the deck railing? And leaned all the way over there to hang a hook? How did you get it into the overhang?” I crane trying to see better. “And then you balanced up there to hang that flower basket?” I can’t quite envision it.

Mama happily nods. Affirmative.

“Why look at a wall when I can choose flowers?” She laughs, radiant.

She’s right. And I’ve chosen walls. Do I count the times I have chosen to stare out at obstacles, chosen obstructions as my spiritual landscape? I have to ask: Why ? Why choose that soul view?

· Do I like fuming over things I can’t change?
· Do I like being sad, distraught?
· Do I like ugly vistas?

What if I went home and hung the true vine, the bright morning star, the radiance of God’s glory, in front of some unsightly walls I’ve been looking out on?

Looking out at Mama's profusion of blooms, I realize I have forgotten: I choose my own view.

The fuchsia erupts close to Mama’s window pane, little sparks of pink falling, lighting, and I remember.

I choose joy.

I choose Jesus.



For when I choose to “look full in his wonderful face… the things of this earth grow strangely dim in light of his glory and grace.”


Lord, remind me, that I choose my view. And cause me to choose You. "But my eyes are fixed on you, O Sovereign LORD..." Psalm 141:8

Photos: Mama's old view, new view, and the view she's chosen

A repost from the archives, July 2008

Weekend Wanderings: The Summer Reading Edition

Why Should Christ-Followers Read Fiction @ BreakPoint

8 Tips to Remember What You Read@ Sharp Brains

Library Elf -- an email service that reminds you when your library books are due -- so sign out books without fear!

How Reading Changed My Life by Anna Quindlen -- a plethora of fascinating Top 10 book lists

Fiction that Every Christian Should Read -- 10 Classic must-reads from Christianity Today -- Have your read all of them? Maybe there's a title in there calling your name this summer?

Randy Alcorn's Favorite Book's List

Honey for A Child's Heart with Gladys Hunt
(blog posts include

How to Encourage Preschool Literacy,

Boys and Books,

Why Reading Fantasy Literature Matters for Children)

And the perfect summer read and what I'm digging into:

Just 12 pages a day is all it takes to read the Bible in ninety days.
Let's read it together!


Bookmark with Reading Schedule


(For stretches, I'll be "reading in audio" with The Bible Experience)
(Post coming next week: Books currently on the stack and books we've loved this year.)

May your wanderings this weekend, kind friends, lead you into some good, wide open pages... and the rest of good Words...

All's grace,

Photo: little delicious toes, 6-year-old Malakai reading his little sister's favorite book to her...

Journaling and Parenting

(If you've been following the recent series on Journaling...
And you're a parent...
You really don't want to miss this post.
Because her best parenting advice to new (and all) parents? Write it down. )

Heart Beats: The Past Goes Nowhere

Like a woosh in the womb, you've turned, and now you are four.
When the waters broke, did time gush too, a rush, a deluge sweeping you out and away?



I can't catch you. Can't hold on to slippery you, and these days all slipping through my fingers, and that babe who slept first hours in our bed, between the beating of our hearts, two loves having mingled into one flesh, formed into this pulsing never-been-here-before heart, now you've been four long turns around the sun and I miss you.

Thought I know I shouldn't, the words too often bubble up, spill out. I tuck tendrils behind your ear and whisper into the curl of you, "I'm missing you."

And you always look up at me with those bottomless blues and wonder, "But I'm right here, Mama." Yes, child, yes....

But I've been here before, held five other babies, and I know how this goes, how you too are leaving me and I'm missing you already, missing who you were then, missing who you are now and us in this space and this place I can never hold on to, never find my way back to. Sometimes the ache scalds the insides of a mama. Time is no respecter of persons.

There are days, I hardly dare whisper, when this mothering almost feels like a death watch; watching the slow death of now and you here. New-You continually rebirths and I laugh, marvel, awe... and finger the beauty of all these husks left behind. Is mothering this endless coupling of crazy grief, wild joy? Mourning the child who is no more and never again will be and embracing this new and wondrous child just now becoming.

But when you crawl up into my lap, and I pull you up close and your little heart beats hard against mine, I can almost hear it's thrumming rebuke:

Where can the past go, but remain right here?
What was, still is, and always will be.

Lying underneath this moment, under the strata of time, is then, the past as the foundation for now, and this now will be the foundation of what is still to come. The past always remains. Bits of artifacts, who you once were is buried within who you are now. Maybe this too is true.

And I run my fingers through your hair and touch all that once was and know that now will always be here, same heart thrumming next to mine.

Lord God, when I'm missing what was, remind me that it is still here, carried deep within.

Related: Shalom's Third Birthday -- how a Mama leaves two
The Day a Child is Born -- a birth story
Three Simple Words -- the sick green of my last pregnancy, with Shalom, and three words that can get a Mama through hard days of pregnancy

Photos: on Shalom's fourth birthday, wearing her cow dress, because her daddy was raised a dairy boy

How to Support a Friend

It's in the queue for salads at our country church's picnic, that's the first time I have seen Mama since she told me on the phone.

“Hey Mama.” I lean over her shoulder, let the words gently tap.

She turns my way, smiles from under her khaki bucket hat. “Hey, girl.”

I wish my hands weren’t full of plate heaped with three bean salad. To cup that brave, dear face in hands. Mama. I hold her with my eyes. She looks… tired. But she sounds better than she did Thursday on the phone.

She’d left a message first, words only a bit flat, chopped a tad too short. Later, I would remember that.

I had called her back, receiver between neck and ear, while I made dinner, minced the garlic, buttered the split loaves. I made small talk. About the possibility of a new ladies’ ministry in our faith community, about some creative ideas a few women and I prayed over at the meeting she had missed. She said little and when she did, the words staccatoed, edgy, abrupt.

“You okay, Mama?” I had whispered, laid down my buttered knife.

“No.” The silence on the line filled with tears. Oh Mama… Loneliness? Fears?

Tears lubricated and finally the words slipped out. “I went to the doctor’s today.”

An unexpected turn. I had closed my eyes, waited, braced.

And then in a fluster, a flurry, “Oh, he says I have diabetes.”

I exhale.

“It’s just that Grandma….” Mama’s words break up in the sadness.

Yes, Grandma…. Grandma Ruth, that little old lady I loved fiercely, Mama even more so, had had diabetes my whole life, every day stabbing herself for a dab of blood, everyday checking her blood sugar levels, every day slamming cupboards over menu plans, every day huffing over the unfairness of this disease that she felt drew heavy boundary lines all around her life.

“I don’t want to be like Grandma.” Mama chokes out the words. “So angry about diabetes.”

“We only loved her more dearly.” I can feel the soft wrinkles of her arms, pressed against mine, when we went for a walk, the way she rummaged through her purse for a stick of Trident.

Mama looks a bit like her, standing here in the line-up for a medley of potato, pastas and bean salads.

Has she started the medication yet? Talked to the diabetic nurse that runs the community support group? Began the dietary restriction? I don’t look down at her plate. And I don’t ask those questions. In front of a jello salad, I only look in her eyes and ask the one thing that matters. “How can I stand beside you through this, Mama?”

And she looks me straight through and cuts it all back.

“Just help me find the joy.”

Lord, just help me find the joy,
You here
How could I help others find the joy,
You here?


Photo of Mama, by daughter and budding shutter bug, Hope Voskamp, used with permission