One could do worse than plant flowers

Today is supposed to be my writing day. 

Subjects have been interviewed, topics are prepared, and three articles are due ... but I'm sitting at my computer gloomscrolling instead.

I feel stuck.

And not just in my writing. But in everything. Helplessly stuck. You know?

 The apartment building across the street had a leak in the basement a few years ago. A cute little backhoe came and dug up the driveway, ruining the curb and a long strip of asphalt on one half of the front of the building.  

Repairs were made, the earth was replaced, but the curb and asphalt were never fixed.

The building isn't pretty - brick and square - but the front of it was always reasonably neat and not unpleasant. But for the past two years it has had an ugly 2-foot swath of dirt out front like a scar.

I feel like that with Covid. More than a year of adaptations to a life I was pretty happy with have been necessary, and functional, but ugly.  Scarringly ugly.

I want everything to go back to the way it was.  I want to have friends over and raise a glass and decimate a cheese board and hug hello and goodbye. I want to hang out with my closetalker friends and not step back an offensive mile.

I want the asphalt and the curb repaired.

Today I noticed that lumpy upturned patch of earth in front of the apartment building is growing daffodils and tulips. Last fall, maybe, someone got an idea in their heart and carefully tucked the seeds and bulbs into the dirt and let them unfold in their own time.

Beauty. 

Just now, my friend called. We're miles apart. Her call was like a breath of air. We can't hang out in person but we can still talk and share joy and carry each other's burdens. 

Her call planted a little flower in my Covid-broken heart.

I don't know how to plant and I don't know how to repair torn asphalt or rebuild a curb. I don't know what will grow out of all the upheaval and repairs we've had to make.

But I do know that God put us here to make gardens out of wilderness. To set our hands against entropy and craft, create, cultivate. We're made to be makers. To make beauty, to make life, to make wonder and function and comfort and nourishment.

And maybe someday a construction crew will pull in and set the apartment driveway right. It will be lovely.

But until then - 

one could do worse than plant flowers.

On Sleeping

I love the way our bodies 

Fold together in the night

When we're asleep, legs tangled and feet 

Murmuring hello.

Your hand on my hip

Just barely twitching, 

A million miles away together.

I woke up from a dream of being beautiful.

Your legs were nestled into mine like two spoons 

Our room was dark and spacious and

My heart was content. 

My Sam

There's a man who lives in our neighbourhood, and when he sees us outside he often wanders over to our place for a chat. He's definitely had some hard times in his life and doesn't always make a lot of sense. He talks close to your face and swears about the government a lot, so he's a bit scary for the kids, even though he's never done anything harmful or threatening to us.

Usually he finds me when I'm on my way home from dropping the kids at school, but today he came over when they were playing in the driveway.  I was in the porch getting my shoes on when I heard him ask Sam if he was babysitting.

I stepped outside quickly, and there was Sam standing in front of the kids with his arms out. "Don't come so close," he was saying, but politely, trying to shoo the kids away behind him, "social distancing please."

My heart.

I had my mask on, so I stopped and talked with the man while the littles ran out back, and Sam wedged himself into my arms, determined not to let anything bad happen if he could help it.

I held Sam close and the man explained he thought Sam was a teenager who must be babysitting and he wanted to tell him to look after the kids well.

And I smiled and thanked him but all the time my heart was singing because Sam already was.

He already was.

He was making a barrier, protecting his siblings and he was using his voice. This boy, who hates being noticed and doesn't often speak up, was speaking up. He was confronting a grown up he didn't trust. He was being smart and brave and bold.

I'm so so so proud of him.  

Are We Poor?

Little Miss V was having a hard time today. (Very long story very short, our contractor left our job half done so we're living in limbo and chaos with living room, dining room, kitchen, and office all condensed into one cupboardless very crowded space.)  

"I hate things being ugly," she moaned, "can we make it prettier?"

I have been feeling the exact same way for months. It's no small part of why I've been so discouraged - looking at ugliness drags at the soul.

So I asked her to sketch some ideas for beautifying and we got to work. We pulled up the dead plant in our tiny front yard and put two deck chairs out there to make a little sitting area instead. Then we cleared off the side steps and decided to paint them - but it was calling for rain, so we just painted the big top step, which would be sheltered under the porch roof.

Then we swept and tidied the back deck, unstacked the chairs, and washed the winter grime off the table.

While we were painting, V asked why we didn't just hire someone else to do the unfinished work.

"We will," I told her, "we're saving up again." She pondered this for a minute, then, "Are we poor?" she asked me.

The kids have asked me that before. (Usually when I'm impervious to the gimmes and cries of but-my-friends-do.)  I told her what I always tell her.

"No. We have everything we need, and a lot of what we want."

There is a lot of discussion lately about essentials and non essentials. Workers and supplies. Jobs and shutdowns. 

It's not easy.

I'm lonely. We're all lonely. 

And struggling. 

But there are late night phone calls and starlit walks and prayer requests in my inbox.

There's grocery pickup and counseling on the phone. 

There's a patch of forest in our backyard, and wild geese in the river.

There's sidewalk chalk and a trampoline, books galore and Netflix.

There's love and sex and laughter and the quiet grey of dawn.

There's a grab-and-go pork schnitzel & chutney sandwich right up town that is out of this world.

But. Like V and me looking around our unfinished house, it's so much easier to see what's missing than to enjoy what's there.

We don't have hugs or grandparents, date night or church gatherings or a packed arena cheering on our hometown teams. We don't see strangers' smiles or have cousins' hands to hold. We don't get to grieve together or rejoice together or travel and stand around in our friends' kitchens with our shoes off, singing.

But God grant that we will.

And until all this mess is broken, fixed, healed, repaired, put right, we can just try to make things a little better right where we are.

We have everything we need. 

And a lot of what we want.

Hold tight, friends. 

Pray with me.

Xo.

Wounds

I know that almost everyone has had a hard go through Covid-19.  My mental health has been shakier this year than any year since my first bout of depression - way back in 2009 when I miscarried our first baby at 12 weeks. 

I'm a hugger. I love friends. I need space and people both. Too much socialization and I lose myself. Too much solitude and I get bogged down in my own head. 

I took another job this year because the solitude was swamping me like a heavy cloud.

I recently started meeting with a counselor on the phone, to help manage the depression. She gave me great advice, and offered helpful practices and exercises.  I'm so grateful for her listening ear and wise instructions. 

But the biggest gift in all the ache and struggle this year is when others have opened up and shared their struggles with me too. Friends and loved ones who reached out and said "I've been there." The ones with practical advice and tender understanding. "Check out this podcast," they say, "read this book that saved me from despair." The ones who don't judge. The ones who pray for me and laugh with me and hurt alongside me and assure me we'll move forward together. 

I've been spending way too much time online, and the other day I stumbled across a really cool horticulture article. It was all about grafting and growing multiple types of fruit from one tree. 

The author shared that grafting isn't terribly complicated - you just need two harmonious trees that are supple and flexible (ie, trees from the same family, such as 2 types of citrus trees). You pare a spot beneath the bark on the host tree, and pare back the bark on the other tree, and put the wounds together. You wrap them in moss and they begin to grow together - sharing nutrients and strength and becoming one tree.  And in the end, your one tree produces two types of citrus. One artist grafted 40 different fruit-producing branches onto a single tree.

And I wept when I read it because I, too, feel like a branch with open wounds. Cut off from trusting my own heart. And my friends, my sisters, have drawn close and shared their hurts with me and prayed for me. They have laid bare their griefs and battles and showed me one after another that I do not face these alone. Depression lies and it tells me that I am alone and I am lonely but my sisters say look here, me too, I am hurting too.

I may be a broken branch but they have wrapped me in moss and carried me to Jesus - Jesus, the wounded.

And while I suffer, I cannot think of it as a good thing. But the horticulturalist says that the wound - the wound is where the life flows in. The wound is where we bond. The wound is what allows a cut branch to live again. 

The wounded branch receives life from the wounded tree.

 And I think of us all, with our hurts and raw, bare places, grafted to the life-giving tree - and we are healed by his wounds, knit together. Made strong and well. He is a tree of healing for the nations, for every struggling, wounded heart. 

Don't hide your wounds from your friends. Let your loved ones carry you. Let them cry "me too," and weep and pray with you. You are not alone, my dear one. 

And if everyone around you forsakes you, you are still held. 

Jesus holds you.

How To Build A House

Tips from a carpenter for the un-handy 

(Adapted from the book of Matthew, chapters 5-7)

When someone asks you for your cardigan, give them your coat too.

When they strike you, turn your cheek.

If anyone forces you to go one mile, go two miles. 

Give to people who ask, and don't refuse when people want to borrow from you.

Give secretly.

Pray secretly.

Fast secretly.

Your Father sees.

Love your enemies.

Pray for those who persecute you. 

Don't judge.

Watch birds.

Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing [and the family more than the house]?

Will he not much more clothe you, you with your little bit of faith?

Therefore

Don't worry.

Your Father knows that you need them all.

Whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them.

And all these things will be added to you.

And your house will be solid,

So you won't fear the wind and rain.

Resurrection

If I say them out loud

In a row, in order,

The weights I've been carrying,

It sounds like a depression comedy album

A Murphy's Law of a year 

A graveyard of hopes

And then some. 

A thousand little losses

A dozen large ones

A few

Once in a lifetime doozies.

And I have been trying to 

Ignore-rationalize-dismiss-contextualize-bury

These burdens

But You say - unearth them. 

Roll them away, roll them Your way

Roll them all the way straight to the cross

Because it's only with Jesus

Soaked in spit and forgiveness

Slain and victorious 

That hope makes sense.

I uncover them one by one

And

Jesus weeps.

The little hurts;

Jesus weeps.

The big aches;

Jesus weeps.

The wearinesses I've been pushing and lugging around for so long (and I need a miracle God!);

Jesus weeps.

And Jesus waits. 

And

Eventually 

On some timeline I'm not privy to

Jesus speaks

And life begins.

I come forth.

My sisters make sure 

The graveclothes unwind.