The gift of 45 minutes alone, unplanned, unspent, un-agenda'd.
The pressure of 45 minutes alone, unplanned, unspent, un-agenda'd.
Today I read somewhere, The Christmas you struggle with is not Christmas at all. And my heart said Amen. Because my Christmas, the one I love, is the one where we work at watching for Light. We watch for it in all the dark places of our lives and we really devote ourselves to spying the spots twinkling in the distance and if grace allows, perhaps we even realize they are not all that distant after all. The Christmas I love is the one where Hope is promised and The Wait is the point. It is one where we remember that the end will be the end - all there is is right now and what we are hoping for right now. Our Hope is the Present.
The rest - the frenzy and the consuming and the dreading and the pushing and relating and the pressure... none of that is Christmas. All of that is just a box with the wrong label on it. That is something else altogether. That is a big mess of ugly that has nothing to do with Christmas.
Waiting for that part to be over... well, that is part of it too. We move through it full of Hope that we will not be ruined. That goodness may rise from the ashes of a burnt out relationship, that the gift given will in fact be a gift needed, that our generosity will be spent in the right directions and that at the end of it all, our real Christmas will be bigger and more memorable than the rest of whatever was packed in that box.
The gift and the pressure - always wrapped together. But grace is seeing the gift and smirking at the pressure.
Thursday, December 03, 2015
Wednesday, November 04, 2015
Wishes
"May this year be one of alignment, heart-fuel, and gentle courage."
Today I was given ostrich socks and a coupon for a hug a day. Someone bought me lunch and Starbucks bought me breakfast. I have a new-to-me-Pokemon card and only somewhat misshapen Mars bar.
Yesterday was the last day of 41. It was the last day of hoping for firetrucks. It was the last day of pretending not to be ambitious at work. Some big things ended yesterday, and there were tears and tender, weary togetherness and a subtle adjustment of the compass heading.
This morning we woke with puffy eyes yes, but maybe clearer vision. I went to yoga and moved through surrendered heart to the sweet balance between the mystery of what lies beyond our sight and the certain support of what lies beneath our feet. So much balancing - half moons and eagles and warriors; so much aligning left and right, above and below, heart and body, soul and sole. A practice that last week left me rageous (!!), this week left me joy-full and rested.
The rest of the day has been quietly lovely. Kindnesses at every turn, and of course the Facebook love that is a sweet gift. The last message has been from my friend Lisa who wished me the wish above. Alignment. Heart-fuel. Gentle Courage. They were today's words but I didn't have them until she gave them and once I got them, I knew they had been with me all day. They were the heartbeat of my practice this morning. They are the words for the year ahead. They affirm and confirm our best hopes about how this world works, about who the Creator might be and how we are loved.
As one year gave way to the next, I was reminded over and over and over again that we are not forgotten. That somehow, in some way that matters, we are noticed and known. We are not alone.
Happy Birthday to me.
Today I was given ostrich socks and a coupon for a hug a day. Someone bought me lunch and Starbucks bought me breakfast. I have a new-to-me-Pokemon card and only somewhat misshapen Mars bar.
Yesterday was the last day of 41. It was the last day of hoping for firetrucks. It was the last day of pretending not to be ambitious at work. Some big things ended yesterday, and there were tears and tender, weary togetherness and a subtle adjustment of the compass heading.
This morning we woke with puffy eyes yes, but maybe clearer vision. I went to yoga and moved through surrendered heart to the sweet balance between the mystery of what lies beyond our sight and the certain support of what lies beneath our feet. So much balancing - half moons and eagles and warriors; so much aligning left and right, above and below, heart and body, soul and sole. A practice that last week left me rageous (!!), this week left me joy-full and rested.
The rest of the day has been quietly lovely. Kindnesses at every turn, and of course the Facebook love that is a sweet gift. The last message has been from my friend Lisa who wished me the wish above. Alignment. Heart-fuel. Gentle Courage. They were today's words but I didn't have them until she gave them and once I got them, I knew they had been with me all day. They were the heartbeat of my practice this morning. They are the words for the year ahead. They affirm and confirm our best hopes about how this world works, about who the Creator might be and how we are loved.
As one year gave way to the next, I was reminded over and over and over again that we are not forgotten. That somehow, in some way that matters, we are noticed and known. We are not alone.
Happy Birthday to me.
Friday, July 10, 2015
Jack
Jack died.
Jack is our neighbour across the lane. He died last week at the age of 69, not enough years but years lived fully. His wife Rosa is heart-broken, and surrounded by her daughters and their children, but still so, so lonely.
Yesterday there was a mass for Jack at the sweet little Catholic church down the road. I had a nice cry of gratitude that the church offers so much solace and rite and ritual for grief. There are words and actions for everybody to follow as they work their way through the loss and get to the other side of death, where Life continues for all, even Jack if we've guessed right.
For most certainly, a funeral reminds me that we are gazing into a darkened mirror, and all of this is guessing. We're of course reminded that we do best to guess in the direction of love. We've got hope, faith and love and love is the very best of the three. We can hope like crazy, and choose faith like we're crazy, but in the end, loving is where we'll lose our crazy. Oh, love.
Raising kids on love is some damned hard work though.
This week, I'd have preferred to be raising kids with JOY!! or FUN!! or AWESOME!! But those have been in such short supply around here. We are in the depths and we don't know up from down most days. We hope like crazy that this isn't going to sink us. We are faking faith when we can't summon up the real thing. And we're choosing love as often as we can. But love is... steady. Sturdy maybe. But not necessarily light-hearted. Not hilarious particularly. Our worn-out, tired love feels a bit threadbare.
The hope and faith is that the love remains. That it is fuelled by source that is eternal and unending.
I just kind of wish that instead it was fuelled by cotton candy and Red Bull. We need some of that too-sweet-love. The kind that rots your teeth, but feels so good.
The thing is, it isn't cotton candy, Red Bull love that Rosa is weeping over tonight. She's not missing how FUN!! and AWESOME!! Jack was. She's missing the sureness of him. The slow, steady certainly that he was hers.
Sigh.
Jack is our neighbour across the lane. He died last week at the age of 69, not enough years but years lived fully. His wife Rosa is heart-broken, and surrounded by her daughters and their children, but still so, so lonely.
Yesterday there was a mass for Jack at the sweet little Catholic church down the road. I had a nice cry of gratitude that the church offers so much solace and rite and ritual for grief. There are words and actions for everybody to follow as they work their way through the loss and get to the other side of death, where Life continues for all, even Jack if we've guessed right.
For most certainly, a funeral reminds me that we are gazing into a darkened mirror, and all of this is guessing. We're of course reminded that we do best to guess in the direction of love. We've got hope, faith and love and love is the very best of the three. We can hope like crazy, and choose faith like we're crazy, but in the end, loving is where we'll lose our crazy. Oh, love.
Raising kids on love is some damned hard work though.
This week, I'd have preferred to be raising kids with JOY!! or FUN!! or AWESOME!! But those have been in such short supply around here. We are in the depths and we don't know up from down most days. We hope like crazy that this isn't going to sink us. We are faking faith when we can't summon up the real thing. And we're choosing love as often as we can. But love is... steady. Sturdy maybe. But not necessarily light-hearted. Not hilarious particularly. Our worn-out, tired love feels a bit threadbare.
The hope and faith is that the love remains. That it is fuelled by source that is eternal and unending.
I just kind of wish that instead it was fuelled by cotton candy and Red Bull. We need some of that too-sweet-love. The kind that rots your teeth, but feels so good.
The thing is, it isn't cotton candy, Red Bull love that Rosa is weeping over tonight. She's not missing how FUN!! and AWESOME!! Jack was. She's missing the sureness of him. The slow, steady certainly that he was hers.
Sigh.
Sunday, April 05, 2015
Indeed
Our wandering away from the habits of church and Christianity is almost always a peaceful wander. Our settledness with being Jesus-y at our best, and vaguely hopeful at our worst is almost always fine. Except for the days when it's not. And Easter Sunday is most assuredly a day when it's not.
I am not dying to be at church. I do not miss my messy judgey heart at the beachside baptisms. My faith in the resurrection would not be strengthened by passing a basket - a basket of bread, a basket of eggs, a basket for tithes. In fact, all of those make me angry.
And yet. And yet. And yet.
I am sad, so sad, that I don't have it in me to be giving my smalls what I was given: the storybook faith that grew and evolved to this place. For how can they get here, a place I love being almost every other day of the year, if they don't first travel through there? Through all the places I went first? How will they know about light overcoming dark? How will they know that death has no victory, no sting? How will they know that Life Wins, every time, because Jesus won, that one time?
The corner of my heart that believes in a God that notices each of us, that notices me - that corner believes that God notices my smalls, knows them and loves them and will bring them to where they need to be. But the corner of my heart that scoffs at that other corner is certain if not me, then... then they're fucked. Oddly, that corner is also the corner where the faith I am glad I outgrew lives. The corner where I've packed away the part where we believed we could somehow get something so catastrophically wrong that eternity would shift. Why do I unpack that box? Ever? Sigh.
This weekend, we celebrated the marriage of a friend. She has married her beloved, another woman we have come to know, and for whom we are thankful. And as they agreed in front of us, and their friends and their family, I cried as I so often do at weddings. But I cried, not just moved by the hope that each twosome brings to each wedding, but moved by the miracle that these two women could choose each other, and in public, in front of anyone who cared to join, be legally married. When I was my children's ages, this was impossible. Impossible. But yesterday it wasn't.
Those who chose not to celebrate with our friends - people who should have been in the middle of it, dancing with their daughter, cheering this love - they chose not to believing that's what God thinks they should do. They missed out on the sweet joy of yesterday because... because in their time and their world, God would rather they quit on their own sweet girl than carry on with her if she's going to love another sweet girl.
This isn't why we don't do church or Christianity anymore. Not exactly.
And yet. And yet. And yet.
It is the part (a part) of the story I don't want my smalls to learn. A part of their inheritance that they'd best not be bequeathed.
This weekend was all kinds of light and dark, all kinds of dead and nearly dead. And so today, I cling to my heart's belief that the resurrection is real, that Life Wins. That whoever Jesus is, his story is still True (if not accurate), and therefore, the story I'll build my hope around. The story I'll hope my own life finds a way to tell to our smalls, in its own small way.
One way or the other, this Sunday, it still matters: He is Risen.
I am not dying to be at church. I do not miss my messy judgey heart at the beachside baptisms. My faith in the resurrection would not be strengthened by passing a basket - a basket of bread, a basket of eggs, a basket for tithes. In fact, all of those make me angry.
And yet. And yet. And yet.
I am sad, so sad, that I don't have it in me to be giving my smalls what I was given: the storybook faith that grew and evolved to this place. For how can they get here, a place I love being almost every other day of the year, if they don't first travel through there? Through all the places I went first? How will they know about light overcoming dark? How will they know that death has no victory, no sting? How will they know that Life Wins, every time, because Jesus won, that one time?
The corner of my heart that believes in a God that notices each of us, that notices me - that corner believes that God notices my smalls, knows them and loves them and will bring them to where they need to be. But the corner of my heart that scoffs at that other corner is certain if not me, then... then they're fucked. Oddly, that corner is also the corner where the faith I am glad I outgrew lives. The corner where I've packed away the part where we believed we could somehow get something so catastrophically wrong that eternity would shift. Why do I unpack that box? Ever? Sigh.
This weekend, we celebrated the marriage of a friend. She has married her beloved, another woman we have come to know, and for whom we are thankful. And as they agreed in front of us, and their friends and their family, I cried as I so often do at weddings. But I cried, not just moved by the hope that each twosome brings to each wedding, but moved by the miracle that these two women could choose each other, and in public, in front of anyone who cared to join, be legally married. When I was my children's ages, this was impossible. Impossible. But yesterday it wasn't.
Those who chose not to celebrate with our friends - people who should have been in the middle of it, dancing with their daughter, cheering this love - they chose not to believing that's what God thinks they should do. They missed out on the sweet joy of yesterday because... because in their time and their world, God would rather they quit on their own sweet girl than carry on with her if she's going to love another sweet girl.
This isn't why we don't do church or Christianity anymore. Not exactly.
And yet. And yet. And yet.
It is the part (a part) of the story I don't want my smalls to learn. A part of their inheritance that they'd best not be bequeathed.
This weekend was all kinds of light and dark, all kinds of dead and nearly dead. And so today, I cling to my heart's belief that the resurrection is real, that Life Wins. That whoever Jesus is, his story is still True (if not accurate), and therefore, the story I'll build my hope around. The story I'll hope my own life finds a way to tell to our smalls, in its own small way.
One way or the other, this Sunday, it still matters: He is Risen.
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