Straw

The envy of kings

The starriest thing

The babe that sent wise men a-wandering

The one who was odd 

Born of a woman and God

And set prophets and priestesses pondering,

They laid his sweet head

In a haphazard bed

While a star shone afresh in the night sky.

He nestled in straw

Did they sleep? Did they aww?

Did his dad stay awake to shoo fruit flies?

Was there a line of onlookers

Or some Bethlehem hookers

Bringing his spent mom a hot plate?

Did she curl up on the floor

And sleep deeply and snore?

Or did she worry, and hover, and stay up late?

The only details the story gives us are these: 

She wrapped him snugly in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no lodging available for them. (Luke 2:7)

If I was writing this, there are so many more things I'd want to include. Who helped at the birth? Was Mary terrified? Did Joseph faint like the dads in those 1930s movies, or was he helpful, or nowhere nearby at all?

Bethlehem was crowded, and there were probably lots of other people who couldn't find a place to sleep too. Did they get in the way? Did they share food? Did Mary tell any of them about the angel's visit and her cousin's baby?

 

But Luke, instead, just tells us this.

He was wrapped in strips of cloth, and he was laid in a manger.

When I am grasping at straws

It shifts something in me

To remember his first sleep

Was on a bed of straw.

The one who won't break a bent reed

Bent, himself, so low

To say lo, I am with you

(I am! with you!)

Always.

With Our Real Eyes

I've been feeling cranky and harried lately, rushed and scowly and looking at the sour side of things. I mentioned it to a friend and she sympathized. "I know that feeling," she said, "when you just need more Jesus." 

Every now and then, when we're talking about Jesus, Sam will sigh. "I just wish I could be one of the people that got to see him. Not with my heart" -- he adds quickly, knowing what his predictable mama might say -- "but with my actual eyes."

And if I'm smart, I don't say anything else at all.

I don't tell him that Jesus called us blessed (those of us who believe without seeing him).

I don't tell him that having the Comforter - unbound by flesh and blood and omnipresent, always - is better.

When I'm paying attention, I don't say anything at all.

That longing, this longing, this feeling of needing and wanting more, is universal. It's not satisfied by platitudes or metaphors or substitutions -

We live in a world that teems with life and glory. Just think of the softness of a newborn puppy.  The wonder of northern lights. The crash of an angry sea against sharp rocks, the purr of a rushing tide. The scent of wild violets, the smooth tumble of lupins against your palm. The slap of a beaver tail in the water, the papery rustle of old cattails in the breeze. The joy of loving and being loved, the fireworks in your heart after shared laughter, the sheer relief of fresh air when you step out of a stuffy room ...

The world is full of wonder and delight and awe, and yet - 

We long, we ache, we pine.

When I am at my best, I let him sit with that longing, because it's beautiful. It's the longing of generations. 

It's the longing that we remember every time we mark advent: the longing of a world waiting for Jesus.

From the first sigh that spilled out in sorrow, to Zechariah's song of hope*, we have longed for our Redeemer, our rescuer. 

We long for him still. We long to see him with our real eyes.

Merry Christmas, friends.

Xo.

* the morning light from heaven is about to break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, and to guide us to the path of peace. (from the book of Luke, chapter 1, verses 78&79)

A Love Note

A little girl ran up to me and crushed a paper into my hand. "Read it," she begged, covering her eyes. "It's so inappropriate!"

I unfolded the looseleaf.

I was holding a real live love note. A billet doux. Blue ink scrawled across the top half of the page, boldly unveiling the raw depths of a beautiful heart.

Its enormity was not lost on me. It was breathtakingly sweet.

"How is this inappropriate?" I asked gently.

"I'm way too young for falling in loooove," she moaned, "and he is TWO GRADES ahead of me! And - just - ew!"

I offered to deliver her definite no in person, which gave her unsettled feelings relief.

He took it well, and, understanding that a coerced consent is no consent at all, did not bother her again.

As for me, it's one of the loveliest things I've ever read. It echoes in my heart often, and I repeat it to Patrick and the kids whenever my heart overflows.

Tonight, I learned that the writer of the note died today as the result of a car crash. He leaves behind a young wife and two small children. He leaves behind siblings and parents and family and friends whose hearts are flooded with grief and longing and loss.

And he leaves behind this beautiful line -

 

Your face is the sunshine to me.

I think he might also take it with him, and speak it aloud when He sees the son of God. 

Your face is the sunshine to me.

May your hearts be full, and may your lips be bold to speak the words you've been given, on earth and in heaven. 

Merry Christmas, my friends.

Xo.

For freedom

A gazillion years ago (or probably 16), our friend Dan recommended a series of books to Patrick. He started reading them, then I joined in halfway through the second book, and together we read through the series of thirteen books.

Recently it's been made into a show, and we've been watching the second season.

In the episode we watched tonight, several characters had some enormous realizations about themselves - about who they are. One tempest-tossed character had no memories of himself, of his actions, and walked in fear of what his inner qualities might be. Does he land on the side of good or ill? Is he a bad guy, or a good guy?  And, not knowing, he is scared to act and possibly wreak evil on the world.

And in tonight's episode, when his memory is restored, he realizes he has all along been good, and he is flooded with joy and purpose. He runs. He fights. He rescues.

It reminded me of that scene in Moana, where Moana and Te Ka realize that Te Ka is not actually a monster of fire and lava, but a creature flowing with life - only, her heart had been stolen and left her aching and raging. She isn't Te Ka at all, but Te Fiti. She needed to be restored to her true self.

I grew up believing worm theology - that I was bad and evil and full of rottenness, and I needed Jesus to give me His value so that I would be valued. But I now believe that was wrong.

I read a different story in the Scriptures.

We were created good. We were created with value. We were created to create and speak and sing and laugh and tell stories and listen. 

Sin steals our true hearts. It hides our memories and makes us afraid. It leaves us tempest-tossed and purposeless.

But Jesus came to restore all things. To restore. To redeem, to set right, to set free, to remind us of who we were created to be, and who we were created to be with. To replace hearts of stone with hearts of flesh - warm and caring and beautifully human. Whole.

So writer, write.

Singer, sing.

Worshiper, worship.

Listener, listen.

Caregiver, care.

He has set us free for freedom. 

Go, walk in it.

Xo.

A Little Extra

It was a busy evening where I had multiple commitments all stacked atop one another after a full day of work, and lots of heavy feelings weighing me down. I was so hungry for some solitude and a good cry.

But my girl messaged me.

She had come home from a happy time at a friend's house, and in the first 10 minutes of being home everything had gone wrong, and her kind Papa had asked if she was okay.

"Okay?! Okay?!" she texted, "no, I am NOT okay!"

I don't always get it right. (I usually say the wrong thing that sends her upstairs to punch her pillow and scrawl furiously in her journal.) But God must have given me the right words because in a few moments she was in the driveway in my arms, and we drove out to Dairy Queen for a blizzard. Night had fallen and driving in the dark, even with a mouthful of ice cream, makes for good conversation.

When we got home, I had to get to work. Unprompted, she apologized to Papa for her storms, then pulled her chair into my room and we did our work side by side at my teensy desk.

"You are so precious to me," she said, leaning her head on my shoulder.

After a while, she went off to bed and I kept working. A few minutes ago I finally submitted my article, stood up, stretched, and noticed the two chairs at my desk. 

My heart overflowed.

My evening didn't go the way I'd expected, nor even the way I'd hoped.

It went, oddly, much better. 

I always crave ease or solitude when my heart hurts. But sometimes what it needs is a little shift of focus, a little extra tenderness, and a little extra ice cream.

Sweet dreams, friends.

A post in which I sympathize with a tree because I, too, like to be naked.

There's this one tree in the park that always changes colour in August, ages before we're ready to even think about the end of summer. 

It has always made me a little mad, to be honest - stop rushing into the sadness! I would think. The long bare winter will come soon enough; let's enjoy summer and fall a little longer, a little slower. Keep those beautiful leaves another month or two.

We're only midway through September and she's already half naked. But somehow instead of making me sad, it struck me that she was enjoying this.

You know that feeling you get when you're out at some glorious event, wearing your beautiful clothes? And it's wonderful and you're enjoying yourself so much, but also at the back of your mind is the knowledge that soon you will experience the delight of kicking off your pretty (but too squeezy) shoes. You will take off that dream of a dress and draw a breath of relief.

And it struck me that this tree might love losing her leaves in exactly the same way. 

Maybe she is stripping down and shaking free and kicking away her uncomfortable shoes in a glad little dance of bliss. Maybe she's glad to shake out those leaves like I pull out hairpins and let down my hair. 

Maybe she isn't sad that winter is coming - maybe she's looking forward to the brisk wind against bare branches, with nothing at all between her and the wide blue sky.  

And by this time of course I know I'm not thinking about leaves or a tree but myself, and maybe this is what I love about getting older, why I was so happy to hit 40 last fall --

Maybe as I'm older I'm glad to be a little more myself every year, to be a little less who I think other people expect me to be and a little more true to who I am. Maybe I'm kicking off the weight of expectations gladly, and maybe I, too, want to hold up my own undecorated branches just as they are in the light of the wide blue forever. 

Maybe stripping off the colours isn't sad at all. Maybe it's bliss. Maybe it's freedom.

I Saw Something New

I saw something new tonight,

Walking home at the end of a warm ramble.

A cool rain began to fall

And from the hot asphalt

Captured in the sweep of headlights passing

A thin and lacy steam rose slow and low

Like ghosts of mushrooms from the road 

An unexpected delight 

That I have never seen before.

Maybe it was just the right angle and

Just the right temperature of road and rain or

Maybe it's always been there and

Maybe I've always had my eyes closed

Dizzily inhaling petrichor,

But I would just like to write it down 

Against the times I am feeling like existence has grown stale,

And all its riches have worn thin, wrung out and been hung up to dry -

Right here on this street

With rain tunneling through my thick hair to kiss my head

With a wet dog panting and reeking beside me

With forty years streaming out behind me like a wrinkled cape 

With these same old eyes

I saw something new.

Telecommunion on a Monday evening

I felt a weariness, a slowness, 

A weakness in the spine

I cast about for strength 

(I had misplaced all of mine)

And you rang on the phone

And you talked to me of rest

Of hindsight-growth and forward-hoping

He always (always?) gives the best

(Even though it sometimes feels

Like His best is very strange,

Like five exams at once

-But on the fifth, a stronger range -)

It wasn't what you said, but rather

That you talked to me of Him -

And your words were like a breath of air

When the oxygen's grown thin.

And you didn't know I needed

You: 

Your words, your heart, your time

And to hear my heartbeat echoed back

From your end of the line.

Good Shepherd, Shepherd Me

When I care for my own comforts first and most

And quench the neighbourly 

Holy Ghost

Good Shepherd, shepherd me.

When I can't eat a gnat, but swallow a camel

In determined

Gullibility

Good Shepherd, shepherd me.

When I painstakingly tithe each leaf of mint

But hold the poor in 

Haughty contempt

Good Shepherd, shepherd me.

When my faith makes neither molehill

Nor mountain

Tilt into the sea

Good Shepherd, shepherd me.

When cavernous silence is the cry of my heart

And I can't even speak, or know 

Where to start

Good Shepherd, shepherd me.

Luna

We all try to capture her

At some point or another -

With lasso or paintbrush

Or ladder or camera or pen.

She rises silent and enormous

(A ghostly galleon 

Only if you have no idea what a galleon looks like.

Though sometimes clouds look like galleons, with great sails unfurled against a starry sky,

And she sits like an orb on the prow);

A lamp, slowly held aloft

By invisible and kindly giants;

A smaller, cooler, second sun;

One solemn, unblinking eye.

She arcs over us unnoticed

Haunts the day-sky pale

And bounds unremarkably from east to west

Folding and unfolding

Like pages of the calendar.

Until, laden with strawberries or wolves or blood or harvest,

She looms, full, into view,

And we stand slack

Heartstruck by her magnificence.

Jevver see such a moon?

-Never, we reply, gathering our weak snares.

And they fail, they fail, they have always failed

But, darn it, we're going to try.

In two weeks when she is laughable

- A lopsided grin, a skinny banana, a toenail -

We won't even notice her tucked in the corner of the sky. 

But tonight we linger over fence posts

Peer through branches

Race down the street to the end, for a better view

To hold her, to keep her, to make her stay. 

We all try to capture her,

At some point or another.

Hope hurts

Sitting here in the quiet morning sunshine, and my heart feels at peace. 

Not everything is set right, not everything is flawlessly lovely, but enough things are good that I can have hope again. 

Enough things are good that my heart can dare to entertain ideas of sheer goodness and gladness.

I couldn't before. I couldn't bear the weight of the possibility of joy, last year. It hurt my heart to reach that far. Our contractor had left our house ruined, but more than that, he had punched me right in the bright hope, right in the joy, and left it shattered.

I didn't realize how healing it would be, to move away from the space where that happened, and set our hearts free to remember that good things can happen and good dreams can come true.

It was a hard and humbling lesson, but a good one, I think, for a christian to learn. Sometimes hope is out of reach. Sometimes there is no strength to even lift my eyes to the hills. 

I can believe that God intends good toward me and at the same time, be utterly unable to feel it, let alone rest in it. Despair isn't a matter of not having the will or desire to see the goodness of God in the land of the living. 

I hadn't felt that for so long before. I didn't know it could last and last and leave me flat for weeks and months and years. I didn't know.

I didn't know it could be painful to hope.

If your loved ones are unable to reach out and take hold of hope, it is not because they don't want to. It isn't necessarily because their hearts are stubborn or hard. 

It just might be because hope can hurt too much.

(I read this verse this morning and my heart sang with the joy of hope. I was able to bear the weight of it again, the weight of yearning for things to be that good and true -

Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a dew of light, and the earth will give birth to the dead.

Isaiah 26:19 ESV

And it felt so nice to hold it in my heart. ❤️)

A Lovestorm

Mom and Dad and Laurie have been working hard to make Vava's fairytale bedroom dreams come true.
She just came to me crying.
"I love it so much. I don't know how to thank them enough."
I feel the same.
Dad built us a fence, cut down dangerous branches, fixed a wonderful recycling bin in place under my sink, brought up this bed (and painted it) and repaired our bikes.

Mom baked bagels, cookies, and muffins, made lunches, cleaned the kitchen, did laundry, transplanted all the beautiful plants that were growing in Eevee's enclosure, and planted my herb garden.

Laurie played with the kids, took them biking and shopping, created art, and helped Vava beautify her room.

I feel like we've been showered in a lovestorm.

I don't know how to thank them enough.