To Care and Not to Care

  I LOVED this assignment. Lucky for me, it's almost Halloween, and amos' costume worked out very nicely with David Bowie's "Space Oddity" track.  "Ground Control to Major Tom Ground Control to Major Tom Take your protein pills and put your helmet on Ground Control to Major Tom (ten, nine, eight, seven, six) Commencing countdown, engines on (five, four, three) Check ignition and may God's love be with you (two, one, liftoff)... Here I am Floating in a tin can And I don't know what to do And I don't know what to do Except that God's love is with you Here I am again Despairing, desperate for what?  For You. Find me here. You always do. You found me in the Garden Hiding in my tin can Your grace can be too much sometimes  I had to shield myself. Why did you have to make me so magnificent?  You sling me through space I tumble and roll, Born again on solid ground.

  The power of the gaze. Of presence. Of not saying anything. Words are not always necessary. Perhaps we've overused them lately... Arguing over definitions and intentions, then judging and dismissing ourselves into our own tribes. Semantics.  But take away words and replace them with eye contact for 4 minutes? Well. * We enter eternity. Our communal eternal struggle to be known. To be understood. To be looked upon with compassion and tenderness, kindness and wonder.  We enter into the eternal story of humankind, how we are all more alike than different.  We open our hearts door to our war-torn and blissful stories, let everything spill out,  and before its too late we try and pick everything up and stuff it back in.  But it is too late, and the grace of the other's gaze looks upon you and smiles.  What a holy exchange.  May I have the courage to go and do likewise.  *This assignment was inspired by an experiment with Amnesty International and the over one million refugees ente

  My oldest, Amos, has to have virtual learning this week. So we welcomed a bit of activity mid-morning. We slid our little trampoline underneath our almost bare Maple trees. He was trying to jump so high he started giggling. This lesson made me think about how much I focus so much on the mourning part but not enough on the dancing. I know we can't have one without the other, but just as Joy's 12 year old ballerina said, "I imagine a straight line pulling from my feet, to my heart and out the top of my head." It pulls our heart and head up high so we don't fall.  Here we are, hearts and heads ready to get hurt, feel pain and sadness. May we spin and twirl, shake and groove until the joy seeps into our bones. May we trust that everything belongs. And our becoming is also our child's becoming, held within the strong hands of our Maker who knew us in our Mother's womb.

  It's been stormy here too in the northwest. So lots of lamps and twinkle lights! I decided to go with this shot, inspired by Joy's video on getting creative with light.  My second born, Nathanael, is CONSTANTLY playing with cars. I like this one because it captures the immersiveness of his nature. All in.  Into his vivid and colorful world of play. Even if it is a plastic structure that I swore I'd never buy. Ha! I like the light of the lamp reflecting off of the shiny plastic. Even plastic can be baptized.

  It was joy's video on composition that spoke to me most.  This was taken early one Sunday morning while I let my husband sleep in. Like most mothers, I have a VERY hard time seeing things in a good light in the morning. Before this class, I was more likely to be too concerned with making breakfast, feeling sorry for myself that I *had* to be up that early, all the while trying to keep the boys quiet. But as I leaned back on my oven while the baked oatmeal did its thing, I saw it. The mess in a good light.  The oranges lit up and the grated apples didn't look as brown as they really were.  I smiled and grabbed my husband's Canon power shot and started playing with the scene. Sometimes this endless cycle of cooking and cleaning and eating can feel like such a chore. I can get lost in the monotony of it and get bitter. But better to serve up a plate of nourishing goodness than bitterness. Who wants to be invited to a bitter table? Better to see ourselves in a more forgiving

  Where within myself do I feel the most resistance?  It's my chest that usually constricts, my heart beating so wildly that it might just burst out if I don't  Say something Do something. Dammit just make yourself known! Who cares if it gets shut down? This past decade has been just that. Making myself known... to God, to myself, to others and to my kids. I used to merge and shape-shift like lava, until one day I exploded and people near and dear to me were collateral damage. I really wanted to upload a picture of me from a far off distance, getting lost in the spaciousness of it all. But then I thought no, I'll take one closer, hemmed in by my firey red dogwood.  I wanted to stand in the rain because I wanted to feel alive. And isn't that just it? The truth is I will go through life and hurt people and people will hurt me. I'll let people down and they'll let me down. But at least I'll know what it feels like. At least I'll be alive. ( "Just becau

  "We're a mixed grill of happy anticipation and dread." This is what floated to the surface of my mind after sitting with Anne Lamott this morning.* Well that, and Gift Of Desperation is a great acronym for God. I honestly had a really hard time with this assignment. I still am...wondering if this is the photo that I want to present, overthinking it all, again. Thinking it needs to be something perfect all wrapped up and contained. Maybe it's because all of life really is a paradox. Life and death, give and take away, light and darkness, joy and sorrow, within and without, now and not yet. Man it's a hard road to walk.  It's only day 3 of this class and I'm already questioning myself. Am I really going to create something again tomorrow? And again, for the next 30 days??? But in my trivial desperation, God reminded me to turn around and remember a moment from last summer.  The Portland Art Museum is a place I go often to clear my head. I stood there and b

  If I may, I'd like to blend the Navajo Way Blessing with a favorite quote from G.K. Chesterton's book Orthodoxy and how I see these canopy of lights in my back room.  "Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Do it again"; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. (It has become beauty again)  But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. (It has become beauty again) It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon.  (It has become beauty again) It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. (It has become beauty again)   It may be that He has the eternal appetite of i

  He covers himself with his sheet almost every morning, huddling his wiggly body over the warm air blasting out of the floor vent. I'm kind of amazed at how hot he's willing to get, skin, itching red hot.  I laid down on the floor beside him,  my vantage point his. Remnants of Special K cereal crushing under my leg. I push aside a thought...something about judging myself for not sweeping the floor earlier... The truth of it is, I'm not sure if I want to be under that hot billowy shelter. Am I glad I'm on the outside?  He discovers there is a hole in his sheet and says, "Hey mom, I can seeeee you! " I'm afraid, if I were to be really fully present with him, sometimes, the entire situation would swallow me whole. I don't know if I could stand the heat. But alas, there is also an invitation to join.  Where Now is, there Christ is also, absorbing what I cannot. As the poet Friedrich Hölderlin says, "Where danger lies, grows the saving also."