A Graceful Conversation

"So how long do you get for God to forgive you?" I hear him ask softly, just as I am pulling the door closed.

"What, honey?" I ask, peeking my head into his darkened bedroom. "What do you mean?"

I didn't get the question.

"Well, like, how long?" he repeats. "How much time does a person get for God to forgive him?"

I walk back into his room, sit on the edge of his bed. "Do you mean does God give us a deadline?" I ask. "Do you mean does God only give us a certain time to ask for forgiveness?"

Noah nods. He looks a little worried.

I smooth the comforter with my hand.

"God gives us our whole lives, as long as it takes," I tell Noah. "He loves us even when we don't ask for forgiveness right away. Even if it takes us our whole lifetime. He still loves us and waits for us. God doesn't give up on us, honey."

I pause for a minute, look into his eyes. "Is that what you mean?" I ask again.

Noah nods yes again.

"God doesn't give us a deadline," I assure him again. "He loves us no matter what."

I look into Noah's eyes, at my own reflection in their gentle brown. I rest my palm on his head and lean in for another goodnight kiss.

Talking about grace with Emily and her peeps over at Chatting at the Sky.

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Sunday Snapping

We set out on a walk late Sunday afternoon, cameras in hand as the sun dips rich below chartreuse-tipped leaves. We have one tree in mind, a mountain maple, Noah informs me, tucked against the neighbor's grey shingled house up the street.

Who knew a single tree could display so much at once? Citrus-yellow, burning-bush red, blood orange, each leaf a tie-dyed sunset tapestry. We click cameras, wait for the breeze to ebb, for fluttering leaves to settle, then click again, dancing around the trunk, leaves crisping beneath our feet.

We can't stop with just one tree. Another summons from two houses down – green aspen festooned in emperor's burgundy.

Across the street a purple leaf plum tree dressed in ruby stands stately on the alley corner, like a debutante draped in crimson velvet for the holiday ball.

Around the bend the elegant gingko catches our eyes, beckoning with ocher-emerald fans.

We stay the longest in the sumac grove, their autumn glory past, spindly trunks and branches stripped nearly bare. A few leaves cling hard, saffron pendants tenacious.

 Prayer flags waving autumn gold.

Earth's crammed with heaven,

And every common bush afire with God:

But only he who sees, takes off his shoes.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh

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Memorizing

Last January I chose a Bible verse to use as a mantra-prayer of sorts throughout the year. I’d been reading John at the time, and came across these lines:

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me.” (John 14:1 )

They seemed appropriate at the time. I’m a worrier, a fretter. My heart is frequently troubled, often over circumstances I can’t control or silly, inconsequential issues. At the time I chose that verse, I’d been frustrated and dismayed by the publishing process – or, more accurately, the lack of publishing. I fought to control a situation that was in many ways completely out of my control. The verse about trusting God, resting my troubled heart in him, seemed right.

Little did I know, at the time, what troubles lay just a few short months ahead. As my mother-in-law lived out her final weeks this past September, I turned to that verse again and again, praying to God to give her peace, praying that he would give us all hope and rest. Praying that I could, and would, trust him through the heart-wrenching grieving process.

So last week, inspired by what Ann Voskamp wrote about memorizing Bible verses, I decide I’ll try my hand at the one I’ve kept close to my heart these long months. Why not go a bit further, I think? Why not memorize a few more verses? Maybe even two passages.

I jot two passages onto a piece of scrap paper and slip them into my car visor (a trick I learned from another Ann). At every stop light I slide the paper out and recite the verses, peeking when I fumble the lines. I sit in my office parking lot before heading into work in the morning and recite the verses. I sit in the driveway when I get home and recite the verses.

Still, when I try to recite them straight from memory, I can’t do it. The phrasing of one particular line feels awkward, antiquated. My mouth wants to say the words in a different order. I add a word that isn't supposed to be there.

I’m out of practice. I haven’t memorized anything since my grammar school days, when I recited Robert Frost’s Stopping By the Woods on a Snowy Evening from memory over the PA one morning. My brain is old and tired. I think I need to start doing crosswords or Sudoku.

I sigh. Glance down at the paper on the seat next to me, then out the window across the the parking lot. A fierce Nebraska wind sends leaves careening across the asphalt. I can hear the scratchy rasping through the closed window.

"How in the world does she memorize so many at once?" I wonder, recalling the photograph of Ann’s verses tucked into the apple bowl above the kitchen sink. And didn’t she mention something about her father-in-law reciting a whole chapter from Ephesians? A whole chapter? Good grief.

I wonder if I am trying to conquer these lines, control them like I try to control everything else in my life. I wonder if I am trying to master these verses, rather than let them master me. I wonder if this is, in fact, how I always read the Bible.

I try again.

Two more lines flow.

"In my father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you." (John 14:2)

It feels right. I peek at my scrap paper to check.

It is right indeed. 

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Picture of Grace

Emily Freeman over at Chatting at the Sky has dedicated the month of October to a series called 31 Days of Grace. Have you read it? If not, drop everything and make a beeline for Chatting right now – her prose is gorgeous and her photos are out of this world. And who can get enough of grace?

When Emily asked us to post an image that represents grace, I thought, "Great! I have a bahillion photos. I can do that!"

Alas, easier said than done. To pick just one photo to represent God's gift of grace? To pick just one shot to represent His gift of light over darkness? Egad!

So here's the shot I chose:

At first glance you might think, "That's grace? Four dirty sandals, four scratched, bruised legs, a sappy tree limb and a common fly?"

Yup, that's grace.

Always a sucker for a good metaphor, for me this picture symbolizes the perfect beauty of God's grace: a sturdy foundation of love, forgiveness, peace and hope on which to stand...and the freedom to climb, knowing God's got our back.

Bruises and scratches, dirt and grit along the way – but always light over darkness in the end.

What a gift. What grace.  

"For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord." (Ephesians 5:8).

Visit Chatting at the Sky today for more pictures of grace.

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The Dentist

"No! No!" The groans burst from the back seat of the mini van. "We hate the dentist, why do we even have to go? We brush our teeth – our teeth are fine!" protest the boys.

"Going to the dentist is a privilege," I lecture, my eyes on the road. "You're lucky that your teeth are taken good care of. Plus, you shouldn't complain. Your dentist is like a trip to the park compared to the dentist I saw as a kid," I add self-righteously.

This gets their attention. "Why? What was wrong with your dentist?" asks Noah, concerned. So I tell them the story of Dr. Mallard.

His office was tucked into the first floor of a ramshackle two-story house. I would sit in the dark-paneled waiting room, absently paging through Highlights magazine, dreading the moment the receptionist called my name.

Tucked into the reclining chair, pallid green paper napkin clipped around my neck, Dr. Mallard would lean in, big belly pressed against my arm, cigarette dangling between his lips.

That's right. My dentist smoked. In the office. While he cleaned my teeth. He even had a floor-stand ashtray where he'd set his smoking cigarette when he had a particularly taxing procedure, something that required two hands, like a tooth extraction.

Worse yet was the "fluoride treatment." While my kids get the "tooth vitamin," as their dentist calls it, delicately painted on each tooth with a swab, I suffered through a Styrofoam tray, always a size or two too large to fit properly in my mouth, filled to the brim with supposed bubble-gum-flavored goop.

Dr. Mallard would jam it into my mouth, tabs protruding from my stretched lips, and set the timer, while the noxious fluid dripped down the back of my throat and I wretched and gagged.

I kept my eyes on the cuckoo clock high on the wall in front of the gurgling fountain, the spit sink and the swish cup. Finally, at the end of those excruciating five minutes, Dr. Mallard would lean in, grab the tabs and pull the goopy mess from my mouth, leaving a trail of pink-colored spittle draped onto the napkin. Then I would lean over the spit sink, drain the water from the Dixie cup and rinse the foul fluid as the pirouetting dancers sprung out of the cuckoo clock and spun back through the engraved doors again.

My kids are transfixed in the back seat as I relay the details of my dental experiences, the look on their faces simultaneously aghast, thankful and entertained.

While I'm telling my story, though, another vision flashes across my mind: images from my church's dental missions to our sister church in Honduras. A few times a year a team of dentists and assistants travel down to La Ceibita, Honduras, where they perform dental work on hundreds of impoverished people.

I'm always struck, when I see those photographs of grinning children and adults, many of them missing several teeth, by how happy they seem. Joy radiates from their faces. And for what? For a tooth extraction? For a filled cavity? For a root canal?

Their joy makes sense, of course. These are people for whom dental care is a luxury, like a trip to the spa or the nail salon for us. These are people who have suffered through hours and days and weeks of excruciating pain. These are people for whom a tooth extraction, by a capable, trained professional, is a gift from God.

They are happy and grateful for procedures we dread. They are joyful about a visit to the dentist, a visit so much less comfortable than ours.

"They don't even have TVs on the ceiling," observes Noah, when I show him the Honduras photos [my kids watch Sponge Bob from televisions suspended from the ceiling as they lay in reclined chairs for their cleaning. I prefer Oprah during my visits.]. 

"And why is everyone holding those paddles?" he asks.

"No TVs, that's right. No TVs anywhere in their village, not just in the dentist's office," I remind Noah.

And those paddles? They are paper fans to provide a tiny bit of relief for the dentist and the patient from the stultifying heat.

It's a matter of perspective. My kids think they have it hard. I even think I've had it hard, recalling the fluoride and my cigarette-puffing dentist. But we don't. We don't have it hard at all. We are the lucky ones. And we don't even realize it.

Celebrating Global Missions Sunday at Southwood Lutheran Church. Photos by Lori Buchmann, from Heart to Honduras dental mission trip, 2010.

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Bones

My grandmother had osteoporosis.

We didn't know the name of the disorder back then, but we observed her stooped, bent frame. She sat hunched at the kitchen table, cigarette curling smoke from the gold ashtray, Good Housekeeping spread open on the floral oilcloth. A hump bulged between her shoulder blades – not huge, but discernible through her thin cotton housecoat.

My mom swallows calcium three times a day – white horse pills. Her shoulders round forward; she doesn't seem as tall and stately as she once was. Where we used to stand eye to eye, I am a bit taller now. But her doctor assures her they have caught it in time.

...I'm writing about osteoporosis of the body and soul over at my dear friend Emily's place, In the Hush of the Moon. She is an amazingly talent writer and artist – you must read her every day (I do!)!

Meet me over there...

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A Grey Day

I settle into the swivel chair, feet on metal bar, as she tucks the vinyl cape tight around my neck. “Well,” I announce, hands to hair, mussing, “I think the time has come. I think I need to succumb to a full dye job.”

Liz stands behind me, comb in hand. We meet eyes in the mirror.

“Let me just tell you,” she says, “once you go that route, you’re going to have to keep it up, which means in here every six weeks or so for color. Are you willing to make that commitment?”

I waver.

I don’t think I can afford color every six weeks, at $80 or so a pop. I don’t even think I can afford the time commitment, the two or three hours sitting in the chair, under the dryer, at the sink, acrid chemical scent of honey blond tickling my nose.

I sigh. Shake my head. I tell Liz the truth.

"I’m just tired of it," I admit.

“I want to look like the other moms,” I say. “The blond moms, the ones with the cute clothes, the ones I see every morning at drop-off. They always look so good, even in their work-out clothes. I want to look like them. Why are the grey-haired moms the frumpy ones? The earth-crunchy ones? The grey-haired moms wear the Birkenstocks.”

Liz is disappointed. I can tell. She even says it, in so many words.

“I’m surprised at that, Michelle,” she says simply, combing wet strands straight. “I’m actually surprised to hear you say that.”

She meets my eyes in the mirror again. I look down at the vinyl cape.

That’s all she says. But it’s enough. I’m ashamed. Embarrassed that I have admitted my insecurities aloud to my hairdresser.

In the end I acquiesce. I’ll keep the grey, add a few highlights and lowlights to mask the shimmering silver a bit.

I try to resign myself to it, but I struggle. I don’t want to look mumpy-frumpy. I want to look edgy, cool, sophisticated. Pretty. I want to look pretty.

Can grey be pretty?

I ask my husband to take pictures of me to post with this blog – one with my hair down, grey partially masked. The other shot, the real story: hair pushed back into a headband, grey halo around my face prominently displayed.

He’s remarkably patient, especially given the fact that I keep making him retake the pictures…and during the Husker game, too (though they are losing painfully, so really it’s a distraction). After each snap he hands the camera back to me; I review it on the viewfinder.

The skin beneath my eyes looks wrinkly. I have two chins, maybe three. Was my nose always so bulbous? Why am I so washed out? I'm slumping.

I keep handing the camera back.

I shift my posture. Tilt my head a bit to the left. Lift my chin. Cast eyes down. Then up. Then off to the side.

Brad gives up.

I hand the camera to Noah. His shots are all blurry. Maybe this is better?

Later, I transfer the pictures from my camera to the computer and look closely at the shots, large, full-screen. I think about the times Brad and I have poured over old photo albums, gazing at photos of ourselves when we were dating, engaged, first married, first house, infant in our arms.

I always found something to criticize in those photos, too…at the time. Now we look at those pictures and gasp. “We look like babies,” says Brad. 

::

I wore my hair cinched into a half-ponytail this week, streaks of silver glinting, grey halo aglow. I pulled on edgy polka-dot tights, black boots, jean skirt above the knee, glittery beads. I walked across the elementary school playground, trench coat flapping in the breeze. I walked toward blond moms in all my grey glory.

Perhaps it’s a matter of perspective after all. Perhaps I will look at these photos of the grey, the chins, the pallor, ten or twenty years from now and gasp again.

Maybe I will see beauty. Grace. Wisdom. Joy.

Maybe I will see vibrant color. Maybe I won’t see the grey at all.

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The Do-Nothing Kid

I'm not one of those overzealous moms – the ones who enroll their kids in every next thing: soccer, t-ball, French horn, yoga for toddlers, Portuguese, Tai Chi.

Don't get me wrong – it's not because I'm self-righteous and virtuous and protective of my children's childhood. It's because I am simply lazy. The thought of schlepping Noah and Rowan back and forth, night after night and weekend afternoons to games and practices and recitals, combined with work and grocery shopping and Walgreens and trips to the post office paralyzes me. Frankly, I'm much too self-centered to spend all that time shuttling my children.
Yet I do strive to involve them in some activities, because heaven forbid, I wouldn't want them to become "nothing kids."

...I'm over at Make a Difference to One today. Click here to find out how I've reconciled myself to a "do-nothing."

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It's Not Pottery Barn...But It's Perfection

I turn the slick pages, one after the other, my feet propped on the metal patio chair, chickadees trilling in the white pine. "Ooooh, that's nice," I murmur, gazing at autumnal china, dark wood, dazzling fabrics, glass hurricanes and smooth pillar candles.

Noah wanders by, perches on the chair arm. Together we admire the lavish Thanksgiving tables displayed across glossy pages. We stop a moment on page 10, drinking in the sage-encircled turkey browned perfect, sumptuous leather chairs, rustic but chic chandelier.

"Wow. Now that looks just like perfection to me," I say to Noah. "Yummy food, a gorgeous table set with beautiful dishes, a relaxing meal with family. I don't think it gets much better than that."

Noah nods solemnly. I turn more pages as he walks inside.

I admit it. I'm pining. Coveting the opulence orchestrated so perfectly on those Pottery Barn pages. I want the mongrammed napkins, the mercury glass votives, the luxurious throws. I want the Pottery Barn life, the seeming ease that comes with high-class living. Quite simply, I want the stuff.

I look up from my fantasy when I hear the screen door slam shut, when I hear Noah's smiling voice.

"Now you have perfection, too," he tells me, navigating bare feet around tumbled acorns, walking toward me with plate in hand.

I lean forward as he places my grandmother's blue Fiestaware dish on the green metal table, careful to position it away from the dried remnants of bird droppings. A scattering of scarlet, foil-wrapped Dove chocolates sits in the center of the dish, delicate stems of burnished Autumn Sedum and golden beech leaves arranged just so.

Noah sits next to me on a tipping metal chair, striped cushion faded dull from burning summer sun. We unwrap foil, let the smooth sweetness melt in our mouths.

I close the Pottery Barn catalog and lay it on the table, tuck feet beneath worn cushion, unwrap another chocolate.

I smile at the boy next to me as a gust blows brown pine needles, twirling from treetops to leaf-cluttered lawn. A squirrel rustles his nest high above us, and acorns plunk onto the patio umbrella like autumn raindrops.

It is perfection indeed.

Linking up with L.L.'s On, In and Around Mondays.

And...

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Prevailing

The clock ticks toward five, and I swivel my chair to face her desk.

“So…got any big plans for the weekend?” I ask. She mentions the wine bistro and the play, Sunday brunch after church, the symphony perhaps.

I think about what awaits me as the weekend looms.

“What about you guys?” she asks politely.

“Oh…pretty much the routine, you know…kid stuff,” I mutter with bitter breath, realizing how ordinary it all sounds, how mundane and boring. The sameness of it reeks dull.

I pack my bag, grab my empty lunch box, power down the computer, switch off the lights. We walk toward the elevator.

She mentions a new film at The Ross they want to see. I’ve never heard of it.

I think about Noah’s choir rehearsal, Rowan’s soccer game, the birthday party Saturday afternoon, the gift to purchase and wrap. The shuttling. The dropping off and picking up of boys.

I think about the laundry basket I plunked in front of the television cabinet three days ago. Clothes hopelessly wrinkled. Still there.

I think about grocery shopping, making the list, fighting the Saturday crowd. I wonder why I didn’t shop earlier in the week.

Later that evening I sigh to Brad as the sun slants westward. “You know, I would just love one weekend, just a Saturday and a Sunday, you and me on the patio. With the newspaper in the morning, maybe a cinnamon scone. Or a glass of Chardonnay right now, with just the quiet. No plans. Nothing on the schedule. Just you and me and nothing to do.”

I say it then. “No kids. Just for one weekend. I don’t want kids for just one weekend. Is that too much to ask?”

Brad nods. He sees where I am spiraling.

Rowan calls from the sandbox, needling: “Is anyone going to play with me? Why won’t anyone ever play with me?”

Noah asks what’s for dinner, frowns when Brad mentions spaghetti.

I perch on the wooden edge, bare feet in cool sand, while Rowan lays out instructions for the game, something about rolling acorns down a sandy mound, a contest.

I’m not listening. I sift sand through my fingers. Look longingly at the sun-drenched patio, dappled umbrella, imaginary wine glass glittering gold.

In these moments I am not graceful. I am grace-ish at best. Grace-less more likely. Grasping at grace straws.

These are the unspoken moments. The unwritten ones. The moments in which pictures are not snapped. The moments where glory is not captured.

Because there is no glory. At least none that I can see. There is only mundane.

These are the moments no one mentions.

The moments of ebbing.

Clawing.

Succumbing.

There’s no drama here. No floods, no quaking earth, tossing winds. No grief, illness, death. Just ordinary, mundane despair.

Even through my same-old, same-old despair, though, I realize, dimly. I can see it, feel it. These moments of boring, hackneyed sameness count, too. Sometimes they even count more.

Because it’s in this grind, in the day in and day out, that God stands quietly near.

Prevailing as I persevere.

Written as a reflection on yesterday's reading (Philippians 3:7-14) and sermon.

 

 

"I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 3:12-14)

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October Snow Day

Brad accidentally deleted a draft I was working on a couple of nights ago. I’d left the unsaved document open on the screen (I suppose I should take partial responsibility, given that admission) when I went upstairs to say goodnight to Noah. When I came back down, Brad met me at the bottom of the stairs, contrite.

I tried to be graceful.

“That’s okay,” I muttered as he apologized.

And then I harrumphed into the living room, switched off the lamp, threw myself onto the couch and pouted in the dark.

Yes, this is me being graceful.

“Do you want to try to rewrite it while some of it’s still fresh?” offered Brad, calling from the computer desk in the sunroom.

“No,” I answered, martyrish. “It was crap anyway.”

After a five-minute pout-fest I got up, poured myself a glass of Shiraz from the Bota Box, switched the lamp back on and plunked onto the couch again, this time with a book in hand.

Billy Coffey’s brand-new novel Snow Day had arrived that afternoon, the brown cardboard Amazon box peeking out the mailbox when I pulled into the driveway from work.

I read the first few pages, snuggled deeper into the couch cushions, pulled the fleece throw to my chin.

Billy’s the kind of writer whose prose draws you in immediately, before you're even aware of what’s happening. His words and phrasing are deceptively simple, but the lessons – messages about God and grace, generosity and trust – they drill deep.

You care about his characters. Rather than fictitious, imaginary creations, they feel familiar, like neighbors next door or your old high school friend. His writing is easy, conversational, comfortable like fuzzy slippers and a soft cardigan. He describes the ordinary, and it shines extraordinary.

I didn’t finish Snow Day yet. I read past my bedtime on the couch, and then laid the book, pages dog-eared already, on the coffee table. As it turned out, the book was a perfect balm, warm respite from a harried day and savior from what had nearly been a disastrous night.

I’m thankful Brad deleted my draft. In the end, I got a much-needed Snow Day on an October eve.

[More to come on Snow Day when I finish reading it. In the meantime, don’t wait for me to tell you…order your own copy here. And while you're at it, visit Billy Coffey's blog...he writes this way every day! ]

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Simple Bliss

With both kids in school this year, for the first time in nine years I have a slice of time I can call my own.

Wednesday and Thursday mornings I write before heading to work in the afternoon. Friday mornings I meet friends for coffee and treats – officially we still call it “playgroup,” though there are only two young kids left amongst the five moms. And then, for the rest of Friday until I pick up the kids from school, I write.

This is how I choose to spend my free time: writing, with a bit of coffee, a slice of pumpkin bread and a little chat in between.

Last Friday I stacked manuscript pages into a pile and stepped outdoors, where I pulled a chair close to the metal patio table and spread out my stuff. There, with the sun glinting through the river birch tree and Noah’s bonsai keeping me elegant company, I spliced and diced chapters and paragraphs, reworking 200 pages into a new rhythm.

To some this might sound like nothing short of Hell, the slicing, dicing, rewriting, writing, editing, reworking. 

But to me, warm sun on my hair, feet tucked into striped cushion, pen in hand, chickadee at the feeder, it was perfect, simple bliss.

 
Linking this bliss today with Dayle's Simple Pleasures and Emily's Imperfect Prose.

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Neighborhood Brunch

They walk up the sidewalk, platters in hand.

Some move slowly, carefully navigating humped concrete and rolling acorns. Wrinkled hand on cane, windbreaker zipped snug.

Some bound, skipping and pedaling ahead of parents, eager to glimpse sweets laid on soft cotton cloth.

Some saunter, metal travel mug in hand, dog on leash, breathing golden light as honey locust leaves flutter, autumn ticker tape.

Most wear scarlet Husker caps, sweatshirts and tees even though it’s not even a game day – this is Nebraska, you know.

All come with food.

Slices of pumpkin bread pinwheeled on goldenrod plate; dainty cinnamon scones tucked into plaid napkin and nestled into a basket. Quilted mitts grip hot casserole pans. Boxes of chocolate-iced donuts squeeze next to bags of doughy bagels, strawberries and grapes tumbling across platter. Something gooey and sweet, fruit with brown-sugar-crumb top, fills a metal pie plate, tarnished server wedged tight.

We stand on the driveway, styrofoam cups in hand, nametags taped to the fronts of our shirts. Coffee steams, swirling into cool morning air. The rich scent of egg and ham casserole greets us before we even turn onto the drive.

“This is unique, you don’t see this very often,” says Tom, gesturing to people laughing, card tables and folding chairs, the spread of savory and sweet. The new neighbors, a young couple with three kids, smile and nod.

They see it’s true.

Tipping plates brimming, we scrape chairs closer to tables and cross legs. Wet get comfortable, catch up.

“Tell me again what grade Daren is in now?”

“How ya doing after that knee surgery?”

“Your asters look incredible this year.”

Kids race the length of the street. Dogs sigh, curled beneath the tables in cool shade. Karna brings out more plastic forks, fills the water pitcher, checks the coffee percolator.

The sun rises higher on an October morning, casting shadows on golden carpet of fallen leaves. And we give thanks for this.

These people, this food, this day.

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Putting the Kybosh on Comments

It's decision time around here, and it’s a big one, a decision that's caused me a lot of angst. I've decided to close comments on Graceful for the foreseeable future. Don't laugh – this is actually a big deal for me, a decision I’ve pondered for quite some time. Because I'm kind of self-involved, you know.

So why no comments?

Because I check my blog 45,000 times a day.

Because I monitor comments like a hungry hawk watches a mouse.

Because I have a job, in an office – and a boss who pays me for work that does not include checking comments on my blog and following up with comments on other blogs. Not very gracious of him, I know.

Because I suspect sometimes, not always, but sometimes, I leave comments on other blogs simply to entice readers to visit mine.

Because I suspect God does not like that very much.

Because I wonder if my kids think the computer desk chair is a legitimate piece of my anatomy.

Because I hear my husband mumbling to himself as he watches Sports Center alone in the evenings [not really, but I worry this may eventually happen...the mumbling part].

Because when I lost five followers recently, I felt a burning desire to track down those un-followers and then unfollow their blogs as revenge.

Because I wondered, when I lost those five followers, what I’d written that had turned them off. Too much about grief? Too Jesus-y? Not enough Jesus? Too many photos? Not funny enough? Too shallow? Too sarcastic?

So I admit: I’m worried that in closing down comments I'll lose all my readers.

I also worry that I'm not being very neighborly – not encouraging "community" on my blog. After all, isn’t that what blogging is about, the community? At least in part? And don’t I love it? Don’t I appreciate and value the real friends I’ve met across the country and around the world via this blogging experience?

Absolutely. But I also know that in encouraging an online community here, I'm discouraging community with my own family, in my own home. The more time I spend here, the less time I spend with my children. It’s that simple.

And so, because I'm red-light-green-light, all-or-nothing, I'm closing comments.

This doesn't mean I don't like you, or don't love to hear from you, or don't value your words.

It doesn't even mean that I won't visit your blog from time to time.

It simply means that I'm OCD Triple Type A. And because I’m not so good at moderation, I’m taking extreme measures to rebalance my life and priorities.

We can still chat. In fact, I would love it if we would still chat. You can always email me [click on the profile link for my email address]. I promise I'll email back.

And thanks for your understanding and patience with my red-light-green-light ways.

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Here on Earth

I began to read the Psalms on Labor Day weekend, during the drive from Nebraska to Minnesota. We were on our way to visit Brad’s mom – the last time, I knew, the kids and I would see her.

I started with Psalm 1 and gradually worked my way through them as Brad drove, Scooby Doo bellowing from the DVD player in the backseat. I jotted verses that resonated with me into my journal as we bumped along I-80.

“How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?” (Psalm 13)

I read Psalms as I sat next to Janice’s bed, murmuring in the dim light as her breath rasped and the smell of lilies and Febreeze and sickness soaked the air.

“Hear my cry for mercy! As I call to you for help, as I lift up my hands toward your Most Holy Place.” (Psalm 27)

I read Psalms as I stretched out in a lounge chair on the back deck, sun hot on my hair, kids scrambling up rungs and cascading down slides.

“Show me your unfailing love in wonderful ways.” (Psalm 17)

I read Psalms as I curled into the living room couch, waiting for the hospice nurse to finish bandaging and tidying.

“He leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul.” (Psalm 23)

I read Psalms back home, in my own living room, Bible on the coffee table, vanilla candle flickering, as Janice died.

When I look back at all the verses I recorded in my journal during those weeks, it’s not a surprise that every one of them is a cry for help or a plea for peace and hope. When I got to the rejoicing Psalms, I stopped reading.

I did not rejoice.

During the days leading up to Janice’s death and for many days afterward, I complained that I didn’t feel God’s presence. “Where are the signs?” I implored. “I need a sign!”

“You need to look with your God eyes,” my best friend Andrea emailed me.

“God eyes? God eyes?! I don’t have those – I wasn’t born with God eyes! I slept in that day! ” I remember telling her, laughing a little as we talked on the phone.

As time passes though, I begin to see that the signs were there all along.

I recall the evening I walked by Noah’s room to find him tucked under the covers, Cat Stevens singing Morning Has Broken on the CD player next to his bed.

“This song reminds me of Haukebo,” he said, when I asked what he was doing. He pointed to the window. “I open the window when I listen to it. I think she can hear it in Heaven. I think Haukebo is painting and listening to this song with me in Heaven.”

Our friend Kate brought over a pan of homemade lasagna one evening. Others sent cards filled with poignant messages of hope and sympathy. My friend Jennifer sent me a text message with a Bible verse (my first Scripture text messge ever!). Brad’s colleague Kurt gave him a CD – Brahms’s Requiem – a piece, he said, that has given him much comfort over the years.

Our neighbor Karna left fresh pesto and homemade bread on our kitchen counter, where we found it after our long drive home from the funeral.

I’d thought He was quiet, silent. I’d thought He might have abandoned us. I'd wondered why I didn’t see Him, why He wasn’t giving me the signs I so urgently needed.

Turns out, He had been with us all along. In the pesto and lasagna and fresh bread. In open windows and Cat Stevens’ songs. In Brahms' Requiem and texted Bible verses. 

In the everyday living and breathing of grief and hope.

“He has saved me from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling. And so I walk in the Lord’s presence as I live here on earth.” (Psalm 116)

*Yesterday’s reading in church was Psalm 46 (Be still, and know that I am God). Although this post isn’t directly related to that specific psalm, the reading and yesterday’s sermon were the basis for these thoughts.

 

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Holiness Everywhere

We drive toward Hobby Lobby, Jack Johnson crooning mellow in the background, sun sinking low behind the Capitol.

“I saw God in Minnesota,” he says from the backseat. “I saw God at the place where Haukebo’s ashes were.”

[Haukebo, you should know, is what Noah and Rowan called Janice, my mother-in-law. Before we left Minnesota we took the kids to see, generally, the spot where Brad and his dad and brother had scattered her ashes beneath the oak tree, overlooking prairie grass and pond].

I look at Rowan in the rear view mirror. He stares out the window. Bounces one foot to the music.

“Really? You saw God?” I ask, alternately glancing in the mirror at him and keeping my eyes on the orange construction cones ahead. “That sounds pretty cool. How do you know it was him?”

“Everyone sees God sometimes,” Rowan explains, pauses. “Even you see God sometimes.”

“That’s true, I do,” I answer. Wait a bit.

“So tell me,” I ask. “Where exactly did you see him? What did he look like?”

[I like specifics. You know that, right?]

Rowan lifts his arms, spreads his hands wide, gesturing.

“He was just, you know…everywhere,” he tells me, meeting my eyes in the mirror.

I do know, sweetie. I do.

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Balance

“Brad, come here,” I summon. “Take a look at this.”

I breathe in long once and then exhale with a whoosh, tightening my stomach muscles and pushing out my abdomen. Phoof. The Velcro tab on my jean shorts bursts open with a ripping, crinkling sound, exposing my fish-belly-white stomach and striped underwear band.

Brad and I laugh. It’s kind of funny, in a horrifying, grotesque way. But the Velcro popping symbolizes something important: an unbalanced life.

I used to run four or five days a week – not a top-notch, competitive running, just a steady, day-in-and-day-out loping. I liked the way it made me feel – the endorphin high, the relaxed limbs, the shorts that fit without a Velcro burst.

In the last few months I’ve let the running slide. Writing has taken precedence over just about everything. I write during almost every minute of my spare time. Don’t get me wrong. I love to write. I wish I had four more hours every day to write. But, as my husband likes to remind our kids (and me): all things in moderation.

At dinnertime, when Rowan begs to eat six servings of Honey Dew melon at the expense of his baked chicken and asparagus spears, Brad reminds him, “Everything in moderation, honey.” Sure, we tell Rowan, Honey Dew is healthy. But so is protein and beta carotene. “We need balance in our diet,” we tell Rowan. “Too much of a good thing is almost as bad as too much of a bad thing.”

So yesterday I hit the running path again. Except I walked – I have an at-death’s-door head cold, so running wasn’t in the cards. I worried, at first, about the post I had to write. About my manuscript, in tatters as I rewrite sections and shift chapters to new spots. About the thank you notes I need to pen. About the laundry festering on the basement floor.

But I walked onward.

I whispered “Good morning” to the lady strolling with two small dogs, puffy tails swaggering high above matching, navy blue quilted coats. I called out “Hello!” to the fellow with the bass cap perched on broad forehead, jeans cinched with worn buckle.

I smiled at the unlikely sound of a late-rising rooster crowing from behind a fence. I parted mulberry branches to catch a glimpse and saw him, jet black and proud, preening atop the fence.

I searched for the jack-hammering woodpecker and sweet chickadee, chirping rhythmically like the horn of a Volkswagen bug. I breathed morning air as the sun tipped over Norwegian spruce, casting long shadows like cypress on cement.

Cattails, fronds striped scarlet and chartreuse, stood motionless, brown heads stately and still, bunched like business executives in an elevator.

Staghorn sumac draped burnished leaves over dewy grass, Moses bush in Nebraska prairie wilderness.

A single lemon-yellow locust leaf twirled like a helicopter seed to the ground as I walked into cool shade, elm and walnut branches arched over the path, creating cool secret garden cave.

It’s true, I wasn’t any thinner after my hour walk; it’s going to take more than a single morning for the Velcro tab to close properly on those jean shorts. But when I returned home, the sun high in autumn sky, my scales were balanced once again.

Imperfect life, imperfect prose...over at Emily's place:

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