They came as gifts – gifts of life, of hope, of promise.

They came at a dark time – a time of dying, of despair, of good-bye. 

Two small ones, born a month apart – the last of 3 boys for our middle daughter, the first of 2 girls for our only son.

Our son-in-law (husband to our eldest daughter and father to our three oldest grandsons) was fading away, growing increasingly frail, fighting with every ounce of life he had to hang on. We tip-toed around the sadness, the fear, the suffering. 

But then word came of two new babies to join the circle, and somehow, the light was switched on, bright and beautiful, even as our world grew smaller and dimmer.

Both were difficult births, both survived and thrived. Every milestone reached became a small miracle, a treasure to be cherished – turned over and over, catching and reflecting the light right into all our darkness.

 

Every glimpse of them together has been a multiplication of that initial shard of hope and life and light, now three years into a new and different kind of living, one without Mark here.

And now, they are six years old. Last Saturday, I sat outside in the warm southern California sunshine with my middle daughter. We talked of everyday things, relaxing into the surprising heat of a late fall day. 

And all around us, these gifts of ours laughed and leapt, bumping into each other with easy camaraderie as they chased two small balls around the edge of the pool. Too cold to swim, but still the water entices! 

Poppy got out the long-handled scooper and they took turns dragging those balls from the middle of the pool to the edges, running in circles, padding in their bare feet, getting splashed and not caring one whit about the wet. 

And for just a brief moment, sitting there, lit by the light, warmed by the sun – the gates of heaven opened a tiny crack. And I saw the goodness of God made real in the flesh of two small children. I heard the whisper of God in the laughter that rose to the cloudless sky. I felt the nearness of God as I talked with my girl about schools and schedules, about lunches and holidays, about all the real that we live in the midst of, day in and day out.  

And for just those few moments, all of life took on the glow of the Good, the Beautiful, the True. The air fairly vibrated with the power and the glory. 

And I was satisfied, full to the brim with Life.

I am absolutely delighted to join two memes brand new to me – one brand new to everyone, one a re-issue of a long-loved invitation. Emily Freeman’s “Tuesdays Unwrapped,” and Jennifer Dukes Lee’s new “God-Bumps & God-incidences.”

It was the little things that made my insides open wide. The small surprises, those ‘mere’ moments that steal the breath and sear themselves into the memory.

The students from Asia and Europe who willingly looked silly while acting out a First Thanksgiving Day narrative at a dinner we helped to serve on the Saturday before the Big Day. So kind and grateful for a window into an American custom, brought to them by a caring church community, spread throughout the city of Santa Barbara. Held in our gym, sponsored by ISI.

The neurologist’s words, “No, it’s not Alzheimer’s but there is some serious short-term memory loss and some medication issues to be resolved,” at mom’s wrap-up visit on Monday of the Big Week. 

The first-time-in-a-long-time baking frenzy that somehow filled the hollows inside, those hollows that come from worry and uncertainty, from watching loved ones come undone.
The weeping that came from my good man as he read a note from his sister, with words quoted from his mom: “How long is this going to go on? I just wish my parents would come and get me so I could go home.” Oh yes, I added my own sobs to his. 


The shouts of, “Hi, Nana. How are you?” as our three youngest grandboys burst through the door on Thanksgiving Day. And the sweet looks of love between our eldest daughter and her new husband, looks that happened naturally and frequently all afternoon.

Introducing yet another attempt to collectively give thanks for all that is ours. This year, colorful cut-out leaves found on-line with space to write three things, large or small, for which we are grateful. The six-year-old helped me find pens and pencils for each place and we read them before dessert. Most of them sweet and sincere, one of them noteworthy – from the 17-year-old, of course – who is grateful for: “my incredible brain and my dashing good looks, but most of all my surpassing humility.” 

Yes. Well. Maybe next year!


The hard-pounding basketball as boys and men shot the hoops on Friday afternoon, getting sweaty and having a great time doing it.


Hugging my mom that night, and commiserating with her about the vagaries of aging – without my usual descent into guilty fears that it’s all somehow my fault. (How could I have such power??)


Sitting in the sun long after the lunch of leftovers on Saturday, enjoying my middle daughter’s company, watching as our two six-year-olds frolicked barefoot around the pool. These two precious souls arrived in our family circle in the middle of one of the most harrowing times we’ve walked through together. Their very presence always speaks to me of life and hope, of sunshine and laughter, and the sure promise of the future.


Heading into the house that same afternoon to cut birthday cake and discovering that one of the birthday girls – my dear daughter-in-law – had put away all the food, done the dishes and was playing with her (and our!) littlest girl.

Celebrating two of the finest women it has ever been my privilege to know – my daughter Joy and my daughter-in-law Rachel – as they each have a birthday this week. Singing the song decidedly off-key but finishing with smiles and giggles.


Trying to cut what will undoubtedly be a cake that goes down in family lore as one of the weirdest ever – an attempt at a caramel ‘fringe’ accidentally became a caramel blanket! (It tasted okay, but looks?? Not so hot!)


The sweet relief of a quiet house by dinner time on Saturday – so grateful for its fullness over the previous three days, but glad to be just two once again. 


Life is good, even when it’s hard. God is good, even when it doesn’t feel like that’s true. We have much to say ‘thank you’ for and I’m so glad I get to do it with these people.

Joining with Laura and Laura after a long break. I’ll try and reflect on why the break in the next post.

Maybe, in these few minutes before midnight, I can actually get a post linked on time this week. Sigh. Yup, it’s been one of those. I’ve driven over 1000 miles in the last week and my bod is feeling it. So, it will feel good to join Lisa-Jo over at The Gypsy Mama for her weekly invitation to just write – without worrying whether it’s just right or not. Always one of my very favorite things to do! Why don’t you try it yourself?

GROW

GO:

For much of my life, I associated the verb ‘grow’ with the verb ‘do.’ If I wanted to grow in any way – mentally, athletically (now that is a funny adverb for me to choose – I am the LEAST athletic person you will ever meet anywhere!), musically, emotionally, academically, spiritually – then I needed to get busy. You know what I mean… 

Want to know something more about a topic? 
Do the research. 

Want to hit a baseball better?
Do the batting cage. 

Want to sing a solo?
Do the practicing.

Want to understand why you act the way you do?
Do the therapeutic work.

Want to excel in school?
Do the homework. 

Want to get closer to God?
Do the quiet time. 

For the first five arenas, all that doing seemed to work out pretty well. (Though no amount of time at the batting cage will ever make a baseball player out of me!) 

But that last one? Hmmm… maybe. 
Sometimes. 
But. 
And that’s a great big, gigantic BUT here… 
I am slowly learning that to grow deeper in my connection to God, to gain understanding of how God works in the human heart, most particularly in my human heart – I need to stop doing. 

Yes. There. I said it. I.need.to.stop.doing. 

Organized, scheduled study time – great for learning about scripture and about myself. Even for learning about God. 

But to grow in knowing God – not about God – well. 
I just need to stop.


Yes, stop. 


Stop trying so dang hard to impress God. 
Stop trying to please God. 
Stop trying to learn all I can about God through reading and writing and talking. 
I just need to STOP. 
I need to use many fewer words. 
I need to listen. 
I need to ‘go inside.’ 

And to do that – I have to work against everything I’ve ever learned about succeeding and growing in this world. Because knowing God simply cannot be done when I’m all wrapped up in doing. Especially when that doing is being done for some crazy mixed up reasons. 

It’s when I slow down, on purpose, and carve out a few minutes here, a few minutes there and hit the pause button – that’s when I grow. 

But it doesn’t usually show up at the time I’m pausing. 
In fact, sometimes it feels like absolutely NOTHING is happening. 

Ah, but then. 

But then I begin to notice small differences:
a more centered calmness in my usually rapidly spinning mind, 
a more gentle approach to myself and those I live with and love, 
a deeper patience with the frustrations of schedules 
and car trips 
and the personal idiosyncracies of others. 

Yeah, that’s when I grow. When I stop all the doing.


Well. That took a bit longer than 5 minutes. I forgot to look up at my computer clock and just kept typing! More like 8 or 9, I think! Maybe this is really important right now. Yeah, that must be it. :>)

Italics/bold/formatting added later.


 

Joining Lisa-Jo late this week – been a heckuva a time trying to be available for a number of different needs in our family circle. But I found five minutes today, so I’ll be ‘better late than never’ I guess. The Gypsy Mama invites us to join her each and every Friday to just write and not worry about whether or not it’s just right. So join us, why don’t you?
 

 Mom, at her 90th birthday party last June. That was a great day and good time for all of us.
UNEXPECTED

GO:

A few months ago, I discovered a delightful blog about writing, one that comes complete with prompts. Timed prompts. I am discovering that this an absolutely crucial element for me. In order for my words to flow best, I need a clock ticking. I don’t completely ‘get’ this phenomenon, but I’m guessing it’s somehow tied to this sad truth learned in high school: the essay I sweat over the night before will earn a B+ at most. The essay I hurriedly scribble at lunchtime, just before the bell rings for English class, will get an A. This knowledge did not help my academic career or my sanity. I have spent way too many sleepless nights completing assignments I have left til the last minute – because, you know, it just ‘flows better that way.’ Oy vey. At any rate, please check out Joe Bunting’s wonderful place. Here is a link to today’s prompt – http://thewritepractice.com/who-are-you-writing-for/

And here is the interesting story that came to my mind when I read it. My answer to Joe’s question – “Who are you writing for?” – was the same answer it’s been for a while now. I write first for my granddaughters. They are too young to read much of this now, but someday – perhaps about the time I’ve honed my skills enough to compile the bits and pieces of my life and my reflections into some sort of cohesive whole! – they just might.  A funny – as in funny-peculiar, not so much funny-ha-ha – memory is what came out my fingertips during this 15 minute trip to the past. Maybe someone out there can relate to this hyper-imaginative child?

We took a trip to the park, my parents, my younger brother and I. It was a big park, one I’d never seen before, filled with tall, tall trees and wide-reaching ferns, with winding pathways and waiting-to-be-explored fairy hollows. I remember being overwhelmed by green, all different shades and textures of green. I think I was about seven or eight years old, so my brother would have been five or six.

The shadows were deep in this place, sunlight flickering down between branches and leaves. I noticed the interesting way those flickers made our faces look different than usual,
creating creases and shadows, shades of color we’d never exhibited at home. It was fascinating and a little bit frightening, too.

We lived in the San Fernando Valley, in a ‘new’ housing development. We had no trees to speak of, nothing with big, leafy branches stretching high and wide. So my usual landscape looked open, almost flat. I loved the way the shady side of the house nourished calla lilies and small ferns, but there was nothing on my street to match the size and spread of these trees, nothing to create such enchanting shadow play.

My brother and I found a small bench in the curve of a pathway, and behind the bench was a small open space where we could sit on the ground, luxuriating beneath those big, cool trees. We climbed back there and enjoyed ourselves, imagining a tiny world of elves and fairies all around us. My parents decided to keep exploring the park and told us to stay where we were while they continued to walk. We blithely agreed and returned to our imaginative games. I remember watching them turn the bend up ahead, disappearing from our line of vision.

We enjoyed our woodland hideaway for quite a while – until my brother got bored with the whole elf and fairy idea and began to beat the bushes, hunting wild game! I tried to maintain my beautiful tiny world, but found it much harder to do without someone else’s imagination to bolster my own. And I began to feel just the slightest twinge of anxiety about the truth that I did not know where my parents were.

That was a new feeling for me. I ALWAYS knew where they were. Daddy went to work, Mommy stayed at home with Tom and with me. She took us to the store sometimes, she walked us over to our cousins’ house, she had coffee with a neighbor and we went along. We weren’t left alone very often, that’s for sure.

So as I waited in the woods, I found my heart beating a little bit faster than usual. And my imagination kicking into overdrive. “Where are they?” I wondered. “Maybe they’ve been kidnapped!” “Maybe they’re never coming back!”

After about five minutes of that kind of thinking, I was good and truly scared. Then, just out of the corner of my eye, I saw them, turning on the pathway just up the hill from us! They were coming around a bend and they were deeply engrossed in conversation. Such relief! It flooded over me in waves.

For about one minute.

Then another whole set of questions began tumbling around in my head:

“Well, it looks like Mommy and Daddy, but can I be sure it’s really them?”

“What if someone came from outer space and sucked them out of their bodies and replaced them with someone I don’t know?”

“What if …?”

“What if…?

And you want to know the really weird part? I kept wondering about that for years and years. 

In fact, sometimes I still think it might have happened.

Putting this one into the mix over at L.L’s place, and Laura’s, too. Somehow it seems to fit both of their invitations this week:

Last week’s prompt just didn’t move me – maybe because I’m pretty much convinced that the church’s attempts to be ‘relevant’ over the last 3 decades or so have produced an end product that looks less and less like church to me. (Even though I totally get the desire to meet people where they are with the gospel, I’m just not convinced that changing how we do church so dramatically is the best way to really be relevant. And I just KNEW I couldn’t even scratch the surface of all that in 5 minutes!) At any rate – today’s word is rich for me, causing me to be pensive and nostalgic and all kinds of things that surprise me, in ways both hard and wonderful. So, I’ll put fingers to keyboard for 5 minutes flat and see what comes out when the buzzer rings:

Remember

GO:

I remember being young and foolish and full of myself and wildly, passionately in love. I remember wanting to be with that man every minute of every day. I remember the joy of a big wedding, with lots of family and friends around and I remember the naturalness of coming together in lovemaking and tenderness.

I remember the adventure of taking a freighter across the Atlantic to Africa, to live in our newly married passion in an entirely different place. I remember being so sure of myself and then being told to cool it by a very conservative bishop.

I remember being pregnant – and not fully comprehending how I got that way. (Yes, I was that naive – well, really not THAT naive – but, still it was puzzling when we thought we were being SO careful.) I was 14, 000 miles from home, no telephone service, no internet, letters took two weeks round trip. And I had no pre-natal care. And I remember the rush that came when she pushed her way into the world  and the joy of having this perfect treasure to nurse and hold and watch with wonder.

I remember the birth of each of my 3, all of them spectacular in their own way, each of them unique and wondrous and complicated and scary. 

I remember the day they told us my husband had prostate cancer and the surgery that followed and the difficult recovery and the changes that wrought in our relationship. There was loss but I remember deepening joy, wider acceptance, and partnership through the tough stuff as well as the joyous stuff. 

I remember that God has been there in, through, around and above it all, providing moments of close connection and years of doubt, all of it to push me along this journey of life, this journey of faith. 

I remember that he said, “Remember me.” And that is the most amazing remembrance of all.


STOP

Today, I am honored to be guest posting over at Jen Ferguson’s place, “FindingHeaven.” Jen is the creator of the soli deo gloria sisterhood and a transparent, energetic, authentic follower of Jesus. She has created a series on “Nourishment,” asking the question, “What in your life nourishes your spirit, helps you to grow in your faith and helps to connect you to Jesus in a deeper way?” I jokingly commented a couple of months ago that it would be great to see book lists from a number of people so that we might create a ‘to read’ category based on the real life experiences of others. She surprised me by writing back and assigning me a date to write my own list! This was harder to do than I thought it might be – mostly because the list could go on forever. Right now, as I’m typing this, I am regretting that I did not include Parker Palmer, especially his small gem, “Let Your Life Speak…” So please consider this a work in progress! You can read this post by clicking right here.

So, I’m really truly sorry for the whiny post last week about our multiple days of fog here on the central coast. Those to the east of us this weekend have suffered far worse weather-related angst.

And to make matters worse (in comparison to the right coast early snows – but in reality, lots better for me – personally) – we’ve had our usual weather-of-perfection-in-the-month-of-October for about five days now. Sunshine, crisp air, blue skies. The mountains which were invisible now look like this:

So, large chunks of my weekend were spent outdoors – walking or sitting, praying, reading or writing…or just plain looking. And as is often the case in quiet times, I was visited by some neighborhood friends. 

Friends who always remind me of what is true and good and right about life on planet earth. Friends who do what comes naturally, with ease and grace. Friends who live in the moment and don’t borrow trouble. Friends who relish the warmth of sunshine as much as I do and who definitely make hay while it shines. These friends are curious, active, like to eat and to bathe. Who could ask for more?

First to come by were the smallest members of the ‘hood. We’ve got a trio who have buzzed our backyard for years and I always welcome them into my space – or should I say, they always welcome me into theirs? This one chose to sit and spy for a while, calmly ruffling his feathers, getting rid of the dust of life.

 And then he and his cohorts buzzed the Mexican sage, which is like nectar of the gods for them. They dined with casual elegance, occasionally buzzing my head just to let me know, “We see you over here. Too bad you can’t taste this stuff!”

Then the big, noisy, colorful – and very greedy – guys joined the party, essentially chasing the small buzzers away. I set out about 9 peanuts on the small table next to my chair and watched as each and every one of them was grabbed, flown away with and buried somewhere in our lawn.

There were two jays squabbling over those nuts and it didn’t take them very long to carry them all away. But then, I noticed something different. The bigger of the two began to search around a bit. “Now, where did I put that thing?” He hopped on the grass, turning his head, now this way, now that way. “I know I just shoved it in here. Where in the world is it?”

 He flew across the yard and perched himself on the back of a chair, giving himself a better vantage point for the hunt, I suppose.

Eventually, he flew straight up over my head, to the top of the gingko tree and spent a few moments taking a gander from that spot.

 Then suddenly, he swooped down, taking precise aim with his opened beak, and SUCCESS! He’d captured what he’d just hidden and carried it away to enjoy in privacy.

Then this morning, my husband beckoned me over to our bedroom window to peek at the fountain which stands just outside our door. The sun had burned off the very early fog and about six small finches were cavorting in and around the stream of water that keeps the fountain fresh.

They stood in the sunlight, they dipped their beaks for a small drink, they pushed each other away from a favored spot, they flitted happily back, down, up and around. And sometimes, they just flew all caution to the winds and got good and stinkin’ WET. Fun was the name of the game and they thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

There is such joy to be found when we make time to do the things that nourish us. Whether it is spent sucking up the nectar of life, buzzing by to say ‘hi’ to trusted friends, hiding and then finding our treasures, or being just a tiny bit wild and woolly – life is meant to be savored as well as endured.


Joining with L.L. and Laura on thie Monday afternoon before All Saints’ Day.

And with Emily and Bonnie at week’s end. Yes, I know this makes 2 for Bonnie – but I’ve missed a few weeks there, so this is a make-up round!