To Care and Not to Care

My son and I w ent and saw a man today who fell off his ladder 8 weeks ago and broke his foot. We brought him food and eye contact, a listening ear and human embrace. His inner SE apartment had that old welcoming smell of spice and old wood floors where stories lived. He told me stories of his past and beamed with joy when he talked about his 5 year old daughter. Just 4 years ago, I remember sitting in the back row of our church with my newly born first son, and this man with the kindest eyes welled up with tears when he held my son. I teared up too, feeling a bit of his loneliness. The lines in his face held too many broken memories but his eyes held hope. He told me today that's its taken him a long time to be able to accept that the Father delights in him. Delights in him. That these past 8 weeks have been a gift , all glory to Him. This time, my eyes welled up with tears while he told me with a voice a kin to Bill Nighy, why they've been a gift.   We  also glory in ...

Once a month or so, I'm on the worship team at my local church. This past Sunday, I had the humbling vantage point of looking out among our relatively small body, and I saw that she was tired. We had begun to sing "Lean Back" by Capitol City Music ... You will never leave Her body softens Your love sustaining me Before I even knew what love was She inhales You've brought me here to rest And given me space to breathe She exhales So I'll stay still until it sinks in I AM THAT I AM She is I will lean back in the loving arms of a beautiful Father Breathe deep and know that He is good He's a love like no other After the fall, her eyes are opened. Not a fall from grace, but a fall into grace. We must let go of this life to truly find it. Now I can see Your love is better Than all the others that I've seen It's easy to breathe now. I'm breathing deep all of your goodness Your loving-kindness to me Sustained by the e...

Christ have mercy for they know not what they do Forgive me Lord for the sleep I wish I had. For the long lazy mornings, slowly waking up. For nights of sound, restful sleep. 4:30am: DADDA! Nathanael pooped. Body tenses. Roll over. Silently hope that Ben takes care of it. 5am: Amos thinks it's time to get up I HATE DAYLIGHT SAVINGS. Can I at least blame something? Forgive me Lord for the sleep I wish I had. For the hot cup of coffee that never gets cold. Cursing the microwave still. For thinking I have the right to live in Eden. No, that I get to go back. For the clean floors and polite children and unspilled cereal. 6am: Amos trips, falls off his stool, all the while spilling his bowl of cereal on top of him and over the stairs. Forgive me Lord for the sleep I wish I had. For my tight fist around comfort. You owe me nothing. And yet, And yet, And yet, you give.

Asleep My body moves in and out of dishes and babies and prepping meals, meals, meals. My ears catch snippets of news. More shootings, refugee resettlement act repealed, fires, ice melting. I turn an ear, shake my head and return to wiping up the spilled food. Moments of alone time are filled with other lives, fiction and nonfiction.  Nudge There's an unsettlement in my chest. Why is the Lord poking around in my heart? The Spirit prays within me. Give her the grace to give a damn. Give her the courage to believe that everything she does matters. Gentle. Compassionate. Powerful. Anger as Grace I am awakened. Grief and injustice overlooked, it is inflamed in my gut, hips and back. It tells me to pay attention. What happens when I start paying attention for the first time in years? Anger can take the form of many things - blame, grief, fear - and if these were the only forms I'd be limited ...

It's true I never really thought about anger until I had kids. I was going through life pretty darn comfortable without anyone poking and prodding all of my senses at once. But when I felt my body tensing and blood rushing to my face, I was alarmed and scared of my own anger. What is this ? Apparently I've never cared so much about my own peace before.  I decided to reach out and find a woman in my local church community to help me on my journey of anger discovery. I wanted to know what healthy anger looked like. So, for the past couple of months we've been reading The Enigma of Anger: Essays on a Sometimes Deadly Sin by Garret Keizer. The title alone captured my attention. I didn't want to read a how-to book. I didn't want to be fixed. I wanted something that I could come alongside and grow in grace and mercy. Friends, Garret Keizer has been doing just that. In a strange poetic way, he upsets and rattles my assumptions and forces me to wake up and join Christ i...

Broken Hallelujahs/Lent 2019 I've been hearing Hallelujah (by Leonard Cohen) alot lately. Mostly because Amos is obsessed with the Sing soundtrack. I'm never prepared to hear it. Amos quit hitting Nathanael! I've never understood it. Boys stop screaming! Hallelujah. Gosh I'm so tired and my neck hurts. Broken Hallelujah. Stop spitting. Cold and broken Hallelujah. The miracle is always in the Hallelujah to the One and Only. Dying and resurrecting all day long. Anything and Anyone can be made new. ... These have been my Lenten thoughts this season. Lots of broken Hallelujahs. Lord may I have the courage to believe that everything I do matters. Eastertide: New Life/1 1/2  months later A season of health is upon me. Cultivated soil through the winter. Dark. Wet. Tears. Prayers. Hallelujahs. Grace grows gratitude for my Maker and the Maker in my sons. Warmth. Sun. Rain. Push. Receive. The Body of Christ sowing more seeds in my s...

So I'm fasting from social media right now. For Lent. You could say it's a spiritual maintenance thing. My uses for social media (mainly Instagram and Facebook) are multiple, but mainly they are a source of not dealing with my feelings. What I realized only 3 days in was that although I'm not on them alot collectively, I am on them for short bits several times throughout the day. My phone is usually on the kitchen counter, available and always in sight - triggering me to check something. (even my 3 yr old son will say "I just need to check something). On my 3rd day of fasting, in a moment of frustration with my kids I went to tap the alluring Instagram app. I immediately stepped back, alarmed at myself. Every time I have unwanted feelings and/or feelings I don't know what do with, I tap that trusty app. I zone out for a couple minutes. Then I jolt myself back into reality, having not dealt with whatever emotion I was trying to escape (in myself AND in my children)....