Joylight

I am loving this time of year.  So much.  I've got me some Joys going on.  I love all this dark that makes the light so necessary, that has me watching so closely for new light to sneak into all that early-arriving, slow-to-leave dark.  The light comes in the morning, red and orange and pink. It arrives saphire with hints of green in the early evening.  It arrives in an explosion of bright at the end of a match and then shares itself with the short wicks of my Ikea tea lights.  It reflects off unexpected surfaces and every time, it makes my heart glad.  And oddly, it leaves me loving the dark.  Because of course, without all this dark, how would I see the light?

At the very same time, I find myself slowly crawling out of the darks, or did I call them the Bleaks? Whatever their name, it is that dank and dingy spot at the bottom of my soul where it's hard to see what good or right or worthwhile.  So often it's just horomonal residue that blocks the light, but always - heavy and awful.  And temporary.  I think at the time I even said, I mostly know, so temporary.

But now, as we inch into Advent and train our hearts to prepare for The Light that is coming, all that dark creaks and cracks and the light starts to sneak back in.  And it is the best kind of magic.

There is light sneaking in to being mom this week, little spots of light that illuminate their hilarity, their sweet kindnesses to each other, their okay-ness. There is light sneaking into church-life, cracks in the wall I built between me and community for a few years, cracks that light wiggles through, landing on love and togetherness.  Light is sliding under the door to our marriage, and the room becomes brighter with gentleness and gratitude.  Light is bending around the corner of my journey from wanting to being, and I find myself being a bit more disciplined, a bit more active, a bit more faith-full.

All this light. It's Jesus coming! Jesus is coming and we get to spend days and days remembering together what a good gift that is, all that Light showing up right in the middle of the darkest dark, right when we all thought all was lost, that there was not another reason to squint at the was-it-always-dark horizon.  Right then, Jesus showed up, and keeps on showing up.

It is joy for me. Every time. 

Growing Up

Most of my life, I walk through the day feeling about 17.  Then sometimes, 27.  But mostly 17. 

I was in line at the liquor store this week, and the woman in front of me was asked for ID.  And as she pulled out her drivers license and smirked at her date, it hit me: "I'm not going to get ID'd."  Like not even close. One wine store has a sign that says "We ID anyone under 30."  That was 10 year ago.  Ten.  Okay, well, nine.  But nine is basically 10, so yeah, TEN YEARS.

One thing about 30 being 10 years ago is that even though I feel all 17 and inexperienced and not to be taken seriously and beginnery, in fact, I do kind of know what I'm doing.  There are not too many situations left where I am completely clueless.  And I forget that feeling capable is one of the benefits of all that experience I've accumulated. 

I am capable of raising children and registering them for swimming lessons and helping them when they aren't capable themselves. I am capable of apologizing when I am wrong and I am capable of redress and restoration. I am capable of research and answer finding and more importantly I am capable of recognizing when I need to do some research and answer finding. I am capable of saying how I feel in a big-girl voice. I am capable of letting things go and holding on to what matters.  I am capable of knowing the difference.

The difficulty is the gap between being capable and feeling capable. Walking through this life feeling 17 means that I often bump into situations where I ought to be capable, but I've forgotten that I am and so I act as though I am not and then chaos ensues. Or at least misery for someone near me.

As I edge to being more of who I have been hoping I might one day be, I bet remembering that I am capable is going to helpful.

Prolific

Right now, this is all about volume. Just getting words down. Because sometimes wanting to be a writer is no substitute for actually you know, writing.

There is much in life that is like this. Maybe all of life is like this.

I have heard before about how we ought to stop with all the thinking and really get down to the doing. I am saying it differently for me this year: I want to stop with all the wanting and really get down to the being.

Some of this is about living in the moment and being present and all that mumbo jumbo.  But a lot of it is about figuring out the nature of change.

It is really, really, really difficult to convince someone else to change their minds. It turns out most of us want to stay just the way we are.  Fucking Mr. Rogers - look what he's created.  All of us sure and certain that what we think and how we act as a result is perfectly fine.

But of course, we're not perfectly fine.  Most of us could use some fine tuning. Many of us could use a major overhaul. And yet we're so reluctant, so reticent to make any adjustment at all because to do so would require first the concession that just the way we are is maybe kind of... crappy.

But to change how we are being, we have to change how we are thinking. In case that's not clear, we have to change our mind.  Which brings it back to the part where it's really, really, really difficult to convince someone else to change their minds.  The only thing harder is convincing our own selves to change our own minds.

Right now, I'm trying to change my mind about a few things:  writing, exercise, marriage, parenting, church.  I have tried for a few years now to read new things and talk to new people and even write new things on all of these, but so far my mind is mostly still the same.  So this time, I'm going with being differently.  I'm starting with writing to see if writing more often will change my mind about whether or not I'm a writer. Next week I'm going to try exercising to see if being someone who strengthens her body will actually make me strong.

I'll let you know how it goes.  If my mind can be changed... well, maybe I'll be friends with Mr. Rogers after all.

We're Richer Than We Think

Today the kids and I stopped at our snack spot for some smoothie and banana bread.  I paged through the local daily and the boy asked what I was reading about.  As it turned out, the teaser was "The Vanishing Middle Class" and the article was summarizing a recent study that shows that since 1970, poverty and affluence have each and both deepened and moved, with poverty suburbanizing and affluence taking over city centres and of course, all the nice parts.

Once I explained what the word "vanishing" means, I then I had to reassure the boy that we weren't going to disappear: no matter what, we're still visible, our little family.

Next was giving the preschool version of class divisions: the rich are the people who have more than they need and the poor are the people who don't have what they need and the middle class are the people who are just right.  And then I did my quick sermon about how the world works best when the people who more than they need can share with the people who dno't have what they need.

And then my girl said, "We're rich, right mom?"

Right.

Here

One friend is celebrating the 10 year anniversary of her first child's birth-death.  Celebrating seems like an awkward word for such a day, and yet, celebration it is.  A celebration of a life needing to be remembered and a celebration of all the good life that has been lived ever since that day when it seemed certain there could be no good life left.

Another friend is hunkered down with her beloved, grieving a death in which he is too entangled, a death that came from nowhere but is now taking up all the space everywhere. 

It is a day that feels a bit heavier than usual - November is full of them I guess.  There is a lot of hard that happens for people I love in November and maybe it's a grace that the days are short so there is less daylight to be ruined by the ugh of it all.

Right in the middle of all this dark and bleak though, is my favourite holiday - American Thanksgiving. Right in the middle of being certain that the sun is not be seen again, right in the middle of reliving the deaths of dearly beloveds and the birthdays of newly-gones, right in the middle of all this dark is a day of thankfulness and celebration. 

Thank God.

I'm going to make a turkey this year. I'm going to celebrate it, the one holiday left where gifts aren't exchanged but where every American person I know goes out of their way to be with the ones they love to share a meal and then play.  Or relax. Or play then relax.  But always a meal, and always with, and never gifts.  I'll ignore the part where they're polluting it with Black Fridays and Target being open on Thursday.  I'll ignore the ugly so that my heart can enjoy the goodness of being Thankful right in the middle of this mess.

And then the day after? the day after I'll start my advent advent.  I'll bring out a few more candles.  I'll hang the Advent calendar on the wall.  Maybe put some green on the mantle.  And we'll start easing our way to the the darkest night that brings with it The Light.  And I'm going to sink into all of it with my freshly grateful heart and let the dark be so that I can see The Light.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Saturday

I want to write about a sermon I heard today that was so familiar and good newsy.  I want to write because I think that just the writing of it would make me a better person, being all disciplined and all.  But I've got nothing to say that doesn't sound trite and awful.  So I'm posting something in the spirit of discipline, but that's all.  Not going to go wrecking a perfectly good sermon with my shit writing.

Life Comes

Life comes.  I said that today to a friend and then remembered that it's true. It's true in my life, over and over, that life comes.  Chasing after things, deciding to worry things into being, forcing doors open... this is not how life works for me.  I know because I've tried all those things, over and over.  And they change nothing about what ends up happening.  What comes comes no matter how I spend the time between.  Or just, no matter how I spend time.

So free me. I'm so free.  Free to let life come. And life with what arrives.

This is today's good news.

*Edit: I published this entry, flipped over to twitter and found this: C. S. Lewis ‏@CSLewisDaily

To know what would have happened, child? No. Nobody is ever told that. But anyone can find out what will happen. #Aslan  God makes me laugh.

Chickens are Always Funny

I have never had the above proven wrong.  Ever.  If a person knows to include chickens at the beginning, I know they're going to be funny my-people people.

Apparently, my recent spate of pasting have been a tad... bleak? dark? heavy? Things aren't as bad as I've made them seem though. I mean, they were terrible for a few days there, but not Send-Drugs-and-Ham bad.  Just regular, too-bad-about-all-that-estrogen bad. 

So tonight, as I try to keep up this new discipline up, in lieu of me, I give you some of my favourite writing in a long while.  My friend Laura sent it today, and it made me laugh and then groan with envy that I didn't write it myself.

Nope, not failing here.

Breathe In, Breathe Out

I may love funerals too much.  Although to be clear, I love Jesus-y funerals, not just any old funeral.  Same as weddings - I'm always a bit sad when Jesus isn't in the mix. But that's a rant for another day.

Today, we celebrated Auntie Irene's life. Hers was a long one.  Half-a-decade shy of a century. She was lovely and sweet, a knitter of sweaters for every single cousin and aunt and uncle I have on that side of the family.  Even T-Bird had an Auntie Irene sweater.  They were legendary. 

And now she has died.  After a long life, full of the good and the hard, and the impossible and the so sweet. She did all the things this life required and died as we all will.  And it was good and right to spend an afternoon remembering the stories of that life, hearing her children love her, and seeing yet again that I am part of a family that passes down faith.  We get blue eyes and faith in our family and sometimes I forget that it's not just me that looks in the mirror and sees a light-eyed Jesus lover.  There are dozens of us.  It's takes the edge off the lonely, you know?

There was some young whippersnapper leading the service and I was tempted to look down on him because he was young but then he started talking and said one of those things that tucks itself in a corner of me and lingers.  "Irene would breathe in the nutrition of God and breathe out a life of service and the rhythm just repeats itself over and over and over."  Poor man. He said it much more poetically I think - I most certainly have a word wrong, so the quotation marks are a lie, but maybe we can call them gist-of-it marks?  Regardless, he caught a truth about my great-aunt but a better truth about this life of ours:  breathing in and out is about all that's required in this life of ours and if we keep breathing in Jesus, we can not help but breathe out love of our neighbours.  When we start breathing out anything less, we should probably check what we're breathing in.

My Auntie Irene's life was a picture of faith - loving her neighbours as herself, all the time. She could not do otherwise.  And that is our inheritance.  That it would not be squandered.

The Darks

I don't like when I can't see straight. I find it difficult to remember what is true and I start to believe the voice that tells me all the things that leave me feeling like shit.  The difficulty is that the voice isn't telling untruths: I am after all, flawed. It's just that most days, I can also hear the voice that tells me that my flaws aren't the only part, and I'm able to remember the part where it's better to live in the gooder truths than in the shittier ones.

But on the days when I can't hear it all and only hear half... those days are dark.  I am old enough now to be able to remember that these days don't last. But while they're here, they're long.

We Forgot

I'm watching a show about Hiroshima. It's horrifying what we've done to each other, we humans.  But we have photographs and film and paintings and words to remind us. We keep track and we organize it all into bits and pieces to show each other and remind ourselves of the deep, deep evil we have made.

And yet, still humanity repeats and remakes and reshapes our evil into new, newly awful versions of itself.  We can meet in the streets for two minutes of silence once a year but that is not enough to keep us from giving life to the violence of our hatred and un-love. It is hope-less making.

It is equally hopeless-making that year after year that evil is redeemed and still we despair.  Good lives, long after the evil dies, time after time, and still we believe that evil is the truth and goodness the lie.

This week I begged the heavens that what was not could become What Is.  And now What Is is what I thought could not be.  Not in any way that I thought it should be, but most certainly in a way that I thought was not to be. And so I write it down, that our God is good and is the creator of all that is, and that all that is is Good and As It Should Be so that I will have a place to look when I forget.

Because it turns out we forget.

I forgot.

Muscle Failure

There is a big space between who I want to be and who it turns out I am most days.  It's not a terribly unusual problem I don't think, and doesn't set me apart from anybody who thinks just a tiny bit.  I think that gap is often the source of ambition and drive and hope even.  It is the negative space that allows imagination to imagine the next positive space. Or something like that.

A problem I'm having is that a lot of who I plan to be next I've said I'll be when I turn 40. I won't bore you (or embarass myself) with the list, but it's pretty lengthy and is going to require some significant overhall of several major systems if I'm going to pull it off. 

I was innocently reading the North Shore News today and some personal trainer dude got to write a whole column about how he's going to the world finals or something for the Tough Mudder. He's pretty excited. But anyway, as he's explaining how he started tough mudding, he says something like, I decided I wanted to be in the best shape of my life when I turned 40. 

Oh fuck me.

I have realized tonight that I may have to actually prepare for the many, many things I intend to having going on for me in my 40s.

I start feeling a bit hopeless and overwhelmed right about now.  It feels impossible to add more to this life of mine, although I'm not altogether sure why.  I have time and space and even sometimes some money.  But adding things just requires a More of Something that I just don't think I have.  So then I try to reframe it so that I'm not adding anything but just adapting things that already are.  But that still asks for that More of Something I just don't have.

And it occurs to me that that Something is a courage-thing.  It's a willingness to be brave and do something differently. 

It's unlikely.

I'm not sure what will come, or what 40s will look like. But I'm going to pretend that writing more often is the beginning of a discipline that might strong up whatever muscle it is that I need to do the next thing.

I'll let you know.

Why Can't We All Just Disagree?

It's going to be Rememberance Day this weekend.  It's a really big deal in Canada, not so much in the United States.  I always missed it when I lived in New Jersey - the shivering cold and rain making us all stand a tiny bit closer to honour the many who over the course of history have had to be part of war-making in all its horror and grimness.  The solemn applause of the many gathered as those men and women march by moves me, every time.  The deep quiet of the moment of silence seems like the only quiet left in this loud world of ours.  I don't think everyone there knows it, but the groaning of our hearts remembering the cost of war is prayer and it seems right and good to come together in the street to pray and beg God to bring peace.

Watching the US elections this week, I was very thankful to be home in Canada and not still in the political shit show that is America.  I was struck that America really, really loves war.  Sure there is the whole military-industrial complex gorging itself on as many conflicts and police actions and terrorist-seeking melees as it can get.  But more upsetting is what appears to be every citizen's desire to be at war with their neighbour.  I watched people who share communities and counties and states say terrible things about each other because of a disagreement on the best way to proceed for the next four years.  I read stories written by people I know and care about congratulating themselves for shaming and ridiculing people who align themselves differently on questions of policy.  Policy.  Good fuck.

It may be an over-statement to call this war.  But it is most certainly not peace-making.

My not-cheering self knows that there is no prize for Being Right in my marriage.  It is clicheed but nevertheless true that it is always better to choose Relationship over Right if we want to stay in that relationship.  I find it painfully difficult to let go of my fondness for being right though, and thus 10 years later, I'm still quick to undermine Relationship for the cheap thrill of a well-timed See?! I was right... 

There is no life in Right but there is the promise of life in Righteousness.  Jesus says that people who are hungry for righteousness will be filled right up.  Not rightness so much though.  People who hunger and thirst for being right - they're never full.  They'll never be satisfied or at rest or content.  But righteousness? righteousness is on offer - we can know peace if we're on the hunt for that one.

Righteousness is tricky though - it's hard to even pin down what it means.  Whatever it is exactly, it isn't something that we do; it's something that we are given (if you can stand Paul, try reading Romans 9, right at the end). And then having received it, we live it and do some justice and act with mercy and walk humbly.

And if we get it, and then live it, we probably don't worry about much else.  We don't worry about who's in charge of the American government because whoever they are will be as broken and wrong as we are most days.  And we don't worry about who was right about how to handle that dude at work because whoever was right is still as broken and wrong as their spouse is most days.  And it is better and good to live together chasing down righteousness and living out justice and mercy in humility than it is to live alone. Right?

Cheerleaders

Shortly after we got married, a person who saw our early-marriage up close told me I needed to be my beloved's cheerleader. I'm pretty sure it was her way of saying, "Stop being such a bitch!"  I lean to the corrective and fault-pointing-out-ish and that can look kind of... mean.

It probably is.

Almost 10 years later, I find I am quick to chastise myself for not being that cheerleader.  I think I actually believed her at the time. But I could never do it. There seems to be no part of me willing to take on that role. Tonight I figured out why.

Cheerleaders are idiots.

They may make great wives, but cheerleaders to me are the girls interested in being decoration instead of participants. They're the ones who chose their "sport" because they get to wear short skirts in front of boys. They're the ones who don't care what the play is, as long as they can spell it between clapping sequences.  It's possible I have them filed wrong, but alas, it's my filing system so fuck it.

So I don't cheer. And often I don't even do those little golf claps. I'm the one on the sidelines with my arms crossed, shaking my head slowly and saying "Really? Realllllly? that was your best effort?"  It's a miracle he hasn't quit actually.  And likely that he won't let me attend any of our children's sporting efforts.

But know this: my unwilling as I am to cheer, I am unrevocably on his side. Maybe too much. I want him to win.  I want other people to admire the awesomeness I said "I do" to (and then frankly, admire me for being smart enough to say it).  I want him to get the blue ribbon, the gold medal, the highest spot on the podium because I'm so sure that he is the best one out there. But he doesn't need me to cheer him on for that does he?

Does he?

Caesar's

"Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's."
 Matthew 22:21

I'm not sure exactly how, but I'm pretty sure this is the verse I'm meant to meditate on tonight as I watch the US elections results roll in on TV and Facebook and Twitter.  I am getting second by second updates that threaten to overwhelm me.

But truly, there is no wrong outcome here. Deep in my heart I know this. All of this is Caesar's.  And my heart worries about God's stuff, not Caesar's. My job is to live loving God and loving my neighbours while Caesar does what Caesar will. I will give Caesar what is (his): my vote, my taxes, my respectfulness.  But that's kind of all.

So vote on my American friends. I will be here thankful that no one expects Canadians to go out and gather for election results - we're usually too busy watching American TV.

Miracles

I've spent the morning begging the God I love to make what is not possible Possible. It requires my brain to bend in a direction that kind of hurts a bit.  On the one hand, I need things to be other than they are and there is no way that they can be other than they are short of a supernatural intervention. On the other hand, it is not possible for things to be other than they are so why set up God to let me down? Why ask for what one can not have? Is it not better and wiser and more strategic to ask for what will be, or at least to want what will be? Of course it is. 

And yet my heart begs.  All morning, beseeching and nagging and murmuring. Because it turns out that if the Bible is to be believed, the Creator of All Things does a side business in the Not Possible and has been known to intervene. Or has at least been given credit for intervening.

Oh, heart, what to believe?

Only that if what is not possible becomes what happens, it will be to God's Glory as all of creation is intended to be.  And if what is possible and so not wanted is what remains, then that too is apparently going to be to God's Glory and my heart will find a way to be thankful still.

And so I will keep on with my beseeching and nagging and murmuring, all the while holding the outcome loosely.

Oh hope, what a tricky journey this is...

Turnin' Round the Sun

I'm never sure if I'm meant to celebrate what I've survived the previous twelve months or what I hope the next twelve will bring.  Either way, I sure do love my birthday. I love all the good gifts the day brings - extra love from the ones I love, special treats and mostly just warm gratitude for all of it. Really.  I am most often thankful on my birthday and that is my favourite thing - a day when it's easy to see the good is pretty great.

Over the course of the last year we have done lots of hard things. Really awful hard, and oh my word why do we have to do this hard.  But we also got to do lots of great - lots of great play and lots of great togetherness and lots of great stooping.

We are surrounded by goodness.  Our kids, our friends, our neighbours, our work, our home, our boat, our faith.  Our hope.

It's all really good.

On this next turn round the sun, here's hoping I can see it all this clearly more often.