God’s gifts — Page 21

Breathing in the Beauty – 2008 – Archive-Diving

November 24, 2012 By Diana

This post was originally written about four years ago and was probably the first time

I wrote about the restorative qualities of time spent at Butterfly Beach.

I kept personal posts off of the blog until the beginning of 2011 and am now

editing a few of them as I prepare to transfer my blog to a new site.

You’ll note that we were both still working at this point in time.

You’ll also notice that I write about some of the very same themes today.

Last week, the weather turned warm and balmy. Dick had been in southern CA working from Tues-Thurs and it was Friday, with an afternoon off for both of us. I came back from errand running and said, “Let’s drive down to the beach!”

We each picked up a book to read, drove the two miles straight down the hill and parked on the slope of Channel Drive, just above this old cypress tree. With both front windows down, the moon-roof open and the seats leaning about as far back as we could get them, we slowly sank into the beauty of this place in which we are blessed to live.

Winter is the best time of the year at the beach in Santa Barbara. No tourists. No crowds. The sun sets directly over the water, the dolphins and sea lions come in close to the shore and the birds hang out in droves.

We are both tired, the kind of tired that seeps into your bones. The kind of tired that has little connection to how much sleep or exercise you’re getting. It’s the kind of tired that builds up over many months of watching people you love suffer greatly. It’s the kind of tired that comes from grieving the death of someone dear, and the related losses that come with that: the death of dreams and hopes and plans.

We know where this deep tiredness is coming from and we know it cannot be avoided. It’s part and parcel of living to have to deal with grief and it cannot be gotten around, only walked through. But last Friday afternoon, we were so grateful for a chance to just sit and breathe in the beauty of God’s world for a couple of hours.

Dick napped a little, I read a lot, and I just sat and looked out at the ocean a lot. The sight, sound and smell of the ocean is like medicine for what ails me – it truly brings healing and comfort. And a reminder that there is a bigness to God and to God’s creation that can handle all the pain and struggle we suffer in this life. Perhaps even more powerfully true than that, it is a reminder to look for the beauty around us, wherever it can be found. And to take a little time to savor it and let it speak.

Filed Under: Archive-Diving, Beauty, death, God's gifts, personal journey

Light and Dark – Spring, 2007 (Archive-Diving)

November 19, 2012 By Diana

I am about to undergo a blog ‘makeover,’ so I’m looking things over around here. And I’ve found a few draft pieces that never got published. From time to time over the next month or so, I will publish them, but I will note that these are from a time long past. Those of you who have followed this blog in the last two years will recognize the two babies featured here – they are now active, bright, fun and fearsome 7-year-olds, and we have added another little girl to our family circle. Mark died about 18 months after I wrote this piece and three years later, our daughter re-married. (Their engagement and wedding story are told here, here, here, and, finally, here. I have not yet been able to write very much about Mark’s death, but there is one post about our final good-bye to him to be found here. )

Despite the pressures of a remodel gone terribly, terribly wrong; despite the gnawing concern about my son-in-law’s health and my daughter’s intensive education program; despite my own recurrent struggles with overeating and under-exercising, with my own idiosyncratically strange mix of laziness, drivenness, self-doubt and grandiosity – despite the various stresses and messes of my life and my family’s life and my community’s life…this has been a Holy Week filled with gratitude and grace.

Our immediate family of 15 had a sweet afternoon together one week before this week began. Dick turned 65 and we all gathered together at a tappan restaurant in Thousand Oaks on a Sunday afternoon. We had two super samurai chefs, with their slicing and dicing and volcano-making skills dazzling us all.

We laughed as Dick donned a strange looking headpiece and bright blue kimono for a birthday picture. Then we traveled to Lisa and Mark’s home to enjoy birthday cake and babies. These two beautiful gifts of God have lightened and brightened our family gatherings for 18 months now, reminding us, even in the midst of all the pain and uncertainty of Mark and Lisa’s struggle, that life is a glorious gift, no matter what. They are living reminders of all that is good and beautiful, fun and fragile about this world.

Griffin is 18 months old, full of vinegar, climbing all over everywhere and keeping his mom awake most of the night. He is comical, loves to giggle, babbles to himself constantly – complete with inflection – moves around as quick as lightning and his smile lights up the room.

Gracie is 17 months old, loves to dance and sing, and recently, she too, is busy babbling to herself. Very soon now, they will both burst forth with full-fledged sentences and stun us all. Put them together in the same space, and the real fun begins. Whether stacking colored, wooden rings or banging out harmonies on the piano, they are quite a pair.

Life is such a bittersweet experience, filled with wonder and grief. How very grateful I am for these two precious reminders of all that is wonder-filled and glorious about the human experience.

Filed Under: Archive-Diving, family, God's gifts, memoir, remodel, The Grandkids

Of Sunshine and Seasides and Hope – A Photo Essay

November 14, 2012 By Diana

See that girl in the pink?

She is the best medicine in our lives just now,

and we had ourselves a good, healthy dose yesterday.

Last week’s visit to my mom was hard,

and the road ahead will continue to be so.

This end-of-life journey will be fraught with

confusion and loss

and I will hate it.

A lot.

I am talking to God about it,

often yelling while I do,

but also coming back round to center,

remembering that no matter how lost

my mother feels to me,

she is never lost to God.

Never.

So. Yesterday was a school holiday for our girl,

and we were given the gift of being with her.

The.Entire.Day.

She sprang through our door about 8:45 a.m.,

dressed from head to toe in HOT pink,

complete with sequins lining the pockets of her fleece jacket.

A new outfit from Target, picked out by herself. . .

and of course, it had to be pink.

And not just pink, but PINK.

We pulled out the Lego bins, filled with

colorful bricks that once belonged to her dad,

and she dug in with gusto.

Almost three hours for this 7-year-old

of creating, disassembling, re-arranging

and fun.

I sat at the table, 10 feet away,

reading blogs and email,

enjoying her easy company and occasional conversation.

Then we piled into the car about noon,

and headed out to the wharf.

It was a stunning day.

Crystal clear, about 60 degrees,

with warm sun on our shoulders.

We went to the local Sea Center,

a small marine museum, featuring exhibits

about the creatures which inhabit these coastal

waters in the Santa Barbara channel.

This is a very bright girl,

eternally curious and actively engaged with

whatever is going on around her.

From tiger sharks to sea stars,

from restless Garibaldi to the breathtaking view

out the back wall,

she explored it all.

In the ‘wet room,’ where buckets are dropped

directly into the ocean through a large hole

in the wharf,

she watched, intrigued,

as several students older than she

put the contents of a bucketload through a

sifter and then a microscope.

Upstairs was a small exhibit of jellyfish,

those brainless creatures of grace and transparency.

You can just make her out to the left of

the observation window,

momentarily entranced.

Against a very dark wall, there was a slide

of moving shapes and colors

and Gracie wanted a picture in front of it.

A little bit too dark, however,

and the flash obliterated the slide on the wall.

In the upstairs gangway, there was a small puppet theater,

which enraptured her.

She had such fun entertaining us with

each and every one.

Each.And.Every.One.

Smile.

One look at this sweet girl’s face

and all the sadness just sort of lifted

away like a cloak,

dropping to the floor around me.

This guy apparently inflicted some pain!

But the dolphin was sweet as could be.

We took her to lunch at Longboard’s about 90 minutes later.

She loves the peanut barrel there,

where you can scoop up as much as you want,

eat as much as you want, and —

wait for it! —

toss all the peanut shells right onto the deck!

How cool is that??

We finished our adventure with a trip to the

ice cream shoppe –

single scoop of Cotton Candy on a sugar cone, please.

It even matched her outfit.

She ate every last bite, too —

without spilling a drop on her new outfit —

until that very last bite, when the cone

broke. . . and there was a bright blue

spot in the middle of all that pink.

As we sat in the sun, enjoying our ice cream,

this catamaran came within about a stone’s throw,

gliding through the sea,

loaded with inquisitive tourists,

eager to view the coastline and enjoy

their afternoon on the water.

I took a deep breath, trying to capture the moment.

A beautiful grandchild – one of eight such

magnificent gifts in our life.

A spectacular day – in a magnificent location.

And we get to live here,

fifteen minutes from this girl and her sister.

The older kids live one to three hours south of here,

so these are the kiddos we see most often

and are graced to care for from time to time.

This, this is gift.

And I am grateful.

And for a while, as the sun shone down,

and the water sparkled,

and the glory-girl grinned her toothless

grin at me while her Poppy watched with love —

for a while, that hurting place in my heart

was healed right over.

Thank you, Gracie, for being you:

God’s gift to all of us.

Signing on with Michelle DeRusha, Jen Ferguson, Laura Boggess and Ann Voskamp. Sad to say good-bye to Seedlings in Stone this week – but trust that Laura Barkat’s fine work will continue to show up in some other sparkling setting – I know it will show up at TSP!

Filed Under: Aging, Beauty, Encouragement, family, God's gifts, personal journey, Photo Essay, Santa Barbara, The Grandkids

Of Rainclouds and Wildfires

November 11, 2012 By Diana

It rained on the way south this week.

Nothing dramatic,

but a welcome sign that the season is finally shifting

into true Fall.

I remember that rain is a good, good thing–

when it comes at the right time,

and in the right amount.

Just a few short days ago, this was our view

for about 75 anxious minutes.

That day was hot–over 90 degrees,

and this fire was close enough to see flames

and to evacuate dozens of homes at the top of our hill.

But a bright-red-bird brought gallons of sea water

up onto the dry hillside,

and a deep-bellied tanker dropped red dust

all down the fire line,

and this time, we were spared the fury of a wildfire.

However, there are all kinds of wildfires in this life.

And we’re in the middle of one just now.

My mother is enduring a kind of fire

for which there is no antidote, short of death.

No red-bird-miracle-water-drops,

no magic dust.

And of all the wildfires our family has survived

in the past half dozen years, this one is,

in some ways, the worst one yet,

at least for me.

Because, you see, my mother knows she is ablaze,

that she is being slowly but surely ravaged,

that all that has been lush and green is now turning to ash.

She knows it.

And that is the hardest part of all.

We will have to make some difficult decisions

in the next few weeks.

And she will be terrified

and she will feel betrayed

and she will wonder why.

So today, I am praying for wisdom.

And grace.

And I am searching for ways to be grateful

and mean it,

for ways to link my lament to praise,

for the strength and will

to relinquish my own fears and grief.

Many weeks ago I submitted an essay to Rachel Held Evans’

Women of Valor series.

I wrote one about my mother,

and how hard it is to see her struggling at this end

of her long, good life.

It will be published as the last in the series on December 8th.

On that day, I will come back here and give you a link

to Rachel’s website,

and I hope you’ll follow it over to read my heart.

I will not write further about her now,

except to say this much:

I love my mother very much,

I am more grateful for her than I can possibly

put into words.

Our relationship is long and complicated,

filled with so much good–

and a few things that have taken therapy to sort out!

But if I were given the privilege of choosing my mother–

I would choose her, in a heartbeat.

In.A.Heartbeat.

Although this particular reflection does not fit any of these themes, I will join this one with Jennifer Lee, Emily Wierenga, Duane Scott, Cheryl Smith and Ann Voskamp.

Filed Under: death, family, God's gifts, memoir, personal journey, The Journey with Mom

Of Candles and Community

November 6, 2012 By Diana

It was a weekend lit by candles.

It was a weekend marked by community.

It was a rich time, a set apart time,

a thoughtful and reflective time.

Six hours on Saturday, working through a series of Ignatian

prayer exercises, every hour, on the hour.

A candle in the room where I landed helped light

the way to the inside of me,

the place where God quietly pokes and pushes

the deepest parts:

Holy Spirit, warm me and warn me;

like a candle flame –

pierce the darkness in me,

warm the space in which I live and move,

light the way forward,

remind me of Truth.

Bless me, O Lord, for I have sinned.

Guide me, O Lord, for I am blinded by the dark.

Speak to me, O Lord, for I am distracted by the glitz.

Nudge me, O Lord, for I get stuck in the muck.

Breathe in me, O Lord; I am gasping,

in need of your oxygen to find my way.

A break for lunch led to an unexpected and rich conversation.

And that led to reading through an unassigned psalm for the day –

Psalm 71 to find verse 14:

“As for me, I will always have hope;

I will praise you more and more.”

Words which brought deep release and profound

meaning for a friend.

And then, as I prayed the rest of the psalm out loud,

verse 18 seemed to call my name,

reminding me of who and where and what I am

at this point in my own journey:

“Even when I am old and gray,

do not forsake me, my God,

till I declare your power to the next generation,

your mighty acts to all who are to come.”

This is my primary call I think.

And there are days I embrace it,

and days I run from it.

Sunday morning, All Saints’ Sunday,

brought candle upon candle,

brilliant points of light across the altar table.

As the deep bass note that begins

Vaughan Williams’ glorious hymn,

“For All the Saints,” resounded through the sanctuary,

people streamed to the front.

Each person picked up a votive candle to add to the table,

each light representing saints who have

crossed to the other side:

“O blest communion, fellowship divine!

We feebly struggle, they in glory shine;

yet all are one in thee, for all are thine.

Alleluia, Alleluia!”

YES!

All are one in thee — for we are all thine.

I carried a candle for my father and my brother,

my husband carried one for his father and our son-in-law.

And people everywhere around the room

brought light, light, light.

I love the way these pictures came out sort of ethereally blurry, not ghost-like, but somehow a reminder that

those who’ve gone before us are every bit as real

as the ones who sit next to us in the pews.

And I believe they are that near.

We sang through the entire hymn* and then began one of my favorite contemporary songs whose words include:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty,

Who was and is and is to come;

With all creation I sing praise to the King of Kings;

You are my ev’rything and I will adore You.”**

And still, the lights kept coming

Until we were literally ringed with it,

fluttering wicks lifting their heads to heaven,

reminding us that we belong to one another.

I loved every minute of it.

And I am deeply, deeply grateful

for all those who’ve led the way,

kept the faith,

followed hard after Jesus

and built the church over time and around the globe.

*While looking for a video of this grand old hymn,

I stumbled across this home-made video

of a young man who looks about 14 years old!

And he’s playing it on the organ, in an Episcopal church

in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Amazing.

And it gives me hope that someone will still

be playing organs in years to come!

One of my all time favorite hymns —

and somehow, it is the organ that most makes it sing,

even without words.

And here is a version of that glorious “Revelation Song,”

written by Jennie Lee Riddle for Gateway Publishing in 2004,

sung here by Phillips, Craig and Dean.

(We do it with much less drama and a whole lotta heart.)

Joining with Michelle, Jen, Ann, Laura and Laura on this Monday night:

Filed Under: biblical reflection, Church, community, Encouragement, God's gifts

31 Days in which I Am Saved by Beauty – Day 31

October 31, 2012 By Diana

We’re at the end of the month,

All Hallow’s Eve,

and fall is definitely in the air.

We lose the light this next weekend

and I, for one, will miss the longer afternoons.

Living in a Mediterranean climate,

the signs of fall are more subtle than

in many parts of this great country.

You see it in the changing angle of the light,

you see it on country drives,

as hay is harvested and rolled.

You see it in the bigness of sky,

the sharp horizon line, unmuddied by summer fog

lying just off shore.

Around our home, you see fall in some of our trees.

The birches, just outside the front door,

turn golden,

shimmering and shaking

their heart-shaped leaves

in the afternoon breeze.

And you see it in the gingko tree,

that ancient traveler across time,

found in fossil form

around the globe,

its fan-shaped leaf distinctive

and lovely.

Our tree is misshapen and not large,

but its leaves are magnificent,

whether on the tree or off.

The birds love it either way.

We have a small, octagonal window with beveled glass,

one that we salvaged when we added onto this house

about ten years ago.

We placed it at the peak of the high ceiling in

our bedroom,

where I can look up and out

as I wake each morning.

The gingko branches against the sky

tell me what season we’re in.

I love that.

Bare branches in winter,

nodules bursting into chartreuse in spring,

deepening, thickly-covered branches in summer,

and bright, bright yellow in fall.

As they fall from the tree,

I find them in the nooks and crannies of our yard

and I marvel.

They die every year.

To make room for new life.

And they scatter themselves everywhere,

in one last hurrah.

I was here!

LOOK at me.

And I do.

I do.

I am a beauty-hunter,

seeking always for evidence

of love and hope and joy

in the world around me.

A friend had this quote on his blog

last week and it has stuck with me

ever since.

“As soon as beauty is sought not from religion and love,

but for pleasure, it degrades the seeker.”

– Annie Dillard

But here’s what I believe:

if we seek to find beauty around us

because we are indeed

looking for signs of the Source

of that Beauty,

then we will also find pleasure.

Yes!

I believe that.

Pleasure is not the goal,

but it is the by-product,

the glorious gifted by-product.

And in exactly that way,

we are saved by beauty.

Thank you, Lord.

This has been a challenging month on many levels, but I have enjoyed looking for beauty each and every day. I will join this last post in the 31-Day Challenge with Jennifer, Duane, Ann and Emily on this Wednesday and Thursday:

Filed Under: 31 Day Blogging Challenge, Beauty, God's gifts, Home

31 Days in which I Am Saved by Beauty – Day 30

October 30, 2012 By Diana

A Note of Thanks for a Beautiful Friend

Dear Rachel,

Here’s a scary thought:

you are young enough to be my granddaughter!
(If I’d started having kids really, really young

and my kids had started having kids really, really young –

but still!!)

And yet I call you friend. Through these cyber waves only, of course, but friend. That’s what you do, you know. You make friends — everywhere.

Across all kinds of so-called ‘barriers’ in this world of ours – age/gender/sexual orientation/race/political persuasion/denominations/theological differences.

Now that last one has proven problematic at points, I know that. You’ve taken a few too many brickbats for my taste. But you’ve handled every single one with grace, honesty, openness. And that is a very rare thing in this world. Very rare indeed.

You consistently choose to take the high road and you do it with intelligent humility, which is a killer combo in my book. You do your homework, you write with skill and good humor, you listen to criticism, if it’s offered with good will and has merit.

But you refuse to be cowed by hate-mongers, fear-based misinformation, sideswipes, even outright lies. I salute you, I admire you, I respect you and your work.

More than that, I am deeply, deeply grateful for your presence out here in this ever-growing world of technological conversation and community. Yes, community. And you have built a wild and wacky one over there at RHE, yes you have! Lots of voices, most of them filled with grace and intelligence, even when they don’t agree with you.

And then, of course, there are those others, who are not graceful. At all. Sigh.

But you see what you’ve done, don’t you? You’ve made room –even for those more difficult voices. AND you’ve built a team – to speak right back to them. Your commenting community is among the most articulate and well-spoken I’ve seen anywhere out here. And there are a lot of really fine friends (and far better writers than I) who are writing notes like this to you today. We write because we believe in you. And we believe in what God has called and gifted you to do — on your blog and through your books.

Because we want you to be encouraged today. To know that what you do and what you say and who you are — all of it, all of YOU is valuable to us and to the building of the Kingdom of God in this time, in this place. You are a great gift to the church, Rachel. A great gift.

So thank you for being brave. Thank you for using that good, good mind God gave you. Thank you for taking on the tough topics, for facing into your fear, for speaking truth and love with well-chosen and wise words.

Your publisher didn’t choose me as a team member, but I am one anyhow. I have ordered the book and I look forward to reading it, reviewing it, sharing it.

May you be blessed this day – and every day – by the steady and steadying presence of our Savior. And may you always stand ready to, “give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have…with gentleness and respect.”

Because that is exactly what you are doing. And you do it so very, very well.

Blessings,

Diana

Joining with a long list of other bloggers in a secret synchroblog to honor Rachel Held Evans on the day of her book launch. You can read all the others over at Jessica Goudeau’s great blog, “Love Is What You Do.” (Isn’t that the greatest blog name ever??) Just click on these sentences and you’re there.

Filed Under: 31 Day Blogging Challenge, Beauty, Encouragement, Friendship, God's gifts, RHE Synchroblog

31 Days in which I Am Saved by Beauty – Day 29

October 29, 2012 By Diana

I find myself being saved by beauty

in interesting and various ways of late.

On Thursday night, in answer to an invitation

from a friend, I hosted a table

at the fund-raising event for our local

Young Life organization.

I was never a part of Young Life as

a student and neither were any of my kids.

But I believe in the work they do,

and I especially believe in

what our local leadership is doing.

This was the first time I had seen the

new area director in action.

And let me tell you,

this woman is a ball o’ fire.

Her name is Tanita.

She is beautiful in every way I can think of,

exuding the love of Jesus with every breath.

The youth of this city are in very good hands, indeed.

Then on Friday evening, after a difficult phone

conversation with my increasingly confused mama,

I took a walk.

Bent over in frustration and worry,

I cried out for patience,

and forgiveness,

and deep reservoirs of love.

And then I looked up.

And this is what I saw:
the mountains glowing pink,
reflecting the setting sun.
And the full moon rising,
shedding its quiet light over the landscape.

Sometimes a quiet light is what is needed.
Just enough illumination for the next step,
the next curve in the road,
the next smooth space to put your foot.
I’m not sure I want to look very far down
the road ahead for my mom.
I think it’s going to get increasingly rugged
and difficult and
a little moonlight
will be just about right.

As I rounded the driveway and headed away
from the reflective hills and the rising moon,
I was struck by another view:
this strong, clear silhouette against the dying sky.

Three tall, straight Washington fan palms,

three shorter, sturdier date palms —

quintessential California sentries.

I love them.

I have not always loved them.

Growing up, I thought they were strange,

sort of purposeless, actually.

Where was the shade?

Where were the finely shaped leaves?

Somehow, I grew into them.

I love the rustling sound they make

in the evening breeze.

I love that birds of all varieties

make their home buried at the

bottom of those massive fronds.

These trees speak to me of my own history,

driving to my grandmother’s house,

across concrete roads with asphalt stripes,

clickety-clack, clickety-clack,

every street lined with one variety or another.

They speak to me of warm, sunny days

and cool, soughing midnight stirring.

They speak to me of continuity,

of presence,

of stability.

They are long-lived and impervious to drought.

They don’t burn easily, either.

In fact, it’s really hard to get rid of them

once they’re in place.

We have an upstart next to our backyard shed,

and the fire department is suggesting

we eliminate it.

It breaks my heart,

even though it’s one of my

least favorite varieties.

I think maybe I need these reminders of longevity

around me right now.

Life can seem fleeting when

you watch your parent slowly disintegrate,

when you see ones you love struggling with

debilitating, life-altering disease,

when you hear the years

creaking in your own bones as you move.

So I say thank you for palm trees,

and night skies,

and full moons,

and family history.

I say thank you for young women,

picking up the slack,

carrying the torch,

loving Jesus and pouring love into others.

I say thank you for beauty,

in the world around me,

in the people I meet,

even in my own faltering love for my ailing mom.

Because all of it. . .

every bit of it,

reflects a Beautiful God,

the One who stirs in me,

in all of us,

this longing for beauty —

anywhere and everywhere we can find it.

It is that longing that speaks to

the imago dei within.

It is that longing that leads us to Love.

Joining this reflection with Michelle, Jen, Ann, Laura and Laura – with deep gratitude for their faithful invitation to keep community growing.

Filed Under: 31 Day Blogging Challenge, Beauty, God's gifts, Home

31 Days in which I Am Saved by Beauty – Day 28

October 28, 2012 By Diana

I love steeples.

All kinds of steeples.

From wood frame churches,

hanging out in small towns,

to tall, stately stone edifices, standing as

dignified adornments for busy city streets.

I like being forced to stop,

to look up.

I like seeing their silhouettes

against the sky.

I like imagining how long they’ve been standing there,

thrusting upward,

proclaiming the glory of God.

Because of where we live,

I am particularly drawn to mission style towers.

I love the gentle curves,

the tilework,

the crosses atop.

There doesn’t have to be a cross on the top of the tower
for me to see one there.
Because that’s the beauty of church towers
to my eye —
they all bring to mind the vertical beam
of that old rugged one,
the one that stood on the garbage dump
just outside the city of Jerusalem
over 2000 years ago.
And that is the most salvific of beautiful things
in my life — that stark reminder of Love in Action.
Thanks be to God,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Filed Under: 31 Day Blogging Challenge, Beauty, God's gifts, Santa Barbara

31 Days in which I Am Saved by Beauty – Day 23

October 23, 2012 By Diana

In Celebration of the Color BLUE

I am deeply grateful that God saw fit to fill the universe

with a sparkling array of shades of blue.

Blue is cool and calming,

yet strong and sturdy.

Cerulean, azure, lapis, turquoise, royal.

You can find all of that in sky and water,

at just about any time of day or night.

Water, water everywhere!
And often it shows itself in a beautiful mix
of aqua, teal, indigo, even navy.

Spinning the wheel right to the edge of violet,

flowers come in blues, too.

Some of my favorite people sometimes
come in shades of blue, as well.
Lilly, on her blue blanket,

Gracie in her blue dress,

and before he discovered orange, blue was one of Griffin’s

favorites when he was littler.

Joel, dressed in blue, passes birthday goodness to his big brother, Luke,

and Poppy wears it around lots of days, too.

Eric and Griff share a similar shade and a plateful of goodness.

Mom and I squint into the sun, each wearing a piece of coolness.

And this smile – above a blue (or any other color) shirt? Well, that’s one of the most beautiful sights in my world.

We all wore it for our one-and-only family photo shoot.

Places wear this color very well. The Chagall windows at St. Stephen’s church in Germany are among the most spectacular uses of it I’ve seen anywhere.