Friendships that pick right up where they left off years ago
Fireflies
Family that loves me, even if they don't always understand me
Driving with the windows down
Good roads and cars (and airplanes) that make traveling to see family and friends quick and safe!
Childhood memories
So many things that stay the same even when everything changes
Blue sky, flowers, the beach, wind in the trees, birds, fresh strawberries and peaches, mountains... summer sights and smells and sounds and tastes!
Innumerable blessings poured out upon me by my loving Father.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Fish
Between the upper and lower falls at the Graveyard Fields, I saw a rock-colored fish. After our hike along the gentle trail, Mary and I were squatting by a pool created by some boulders damming the water flow down the mountain. She wanted to stick her feet in it before beginning the trek back, easing her swollen ankles.
Behind us, the white water rushes down the almost-vertical rock face: which turns horizontally; upon which we now sit; which continues beyond and below us, with a ribbon of a brook through the middle. On either side, the still-young green of late spring masks branches and rocks and birds and all manner of things unknowable in these woods.
But here, on the broad river of stone between the verdant, wooden shores, there is only Fish.
Twice he jumped to try to eat an insect hovering above the surface. The winged creature flew on. Betrayed, again, by his fins, his scales, his water-breathing. I crossed my legs and watched the Fish. How had he chosen this tiny pool? Had he come over the falls? Could a fish survive such a battering, this side of the frying pan? For how long has he been in this pool? For how long can a pool so small sustain him -- can he grow there? Will he squeeze past the boulders and tempt fate by going down the rest of the mountain? If he depends on catching insects to survive, he won't last much longer...
We had walked the path, cut through the middle of rhodedendron forests, where the monotony of wood and leaf is shattered by silent bursts of color. We passed through fields that the 1925 forest fire had cleared, and over the crooked fingers of the stream we were following. Before we saw it, we heard it: the waterfall. First there were the lower falls, beautiful but small, pouring down the naked mountain. Stepping across the broadly-diverted water -- mere trickles across so much even, down-sloping, soil-less space -- we continued upward, until the upper falls were in view. I know that the mountain laurel always sees it. It does not take the maple tree's breath away. When it rains and there is more water, the fern is not impressed by the sight. But I made a rock sculpture. An ebenezer, said Mary. And we truly enjoyed it. And we just WERE. I just WAS. I just am. ...be...
Mary's baby is swimming like a small, but growing, Fish in his own personal pool.
The rock-colored Fish has sunny speckles on his sides. He lives in, and breathes, pure light rippled by water. He moves slowly, precisely, through the cold water collecting above the Fish-colored rock.
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Mi Negra!
We have a new dog! Yesterday we went to "Manimal" clinic and picked up our new girl! She looks almost exactly like Rocco did, but has a girl face and softer fur. She's a lab mix, and is around 7-8 months old. At the clinic where we got her they've been calling her "Negra", so I guess the name is sticking!
Friday, May 20, 2011
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
understanding
I generally want to be understood.
If I don't feel that someone understands me well, or that they don't agree with me, it's like I NEED to explain myself. And often the things I feel most strongly about are the most difficult to explain (add a second language to the mix, and the complication multiplies).
Like the time in my DTS when I tried to briefly explain how I felt about the tolerance zone (part of the city where prostitution is overlooked, though not legal)... all I could say was how angry it made me that the police just drive by and LOOK at the women and men who are selling themselves in every doorway.
But what I meant was it boils my blood to see humans stripped of their God-given dignity!
Our eleven-year-old has a school activity on Thursday. They sent a note home that she needs to bring "a shirt that shows her belly button and a very short skirt" as her costume for a dance that her class is going to perform. The dance itself is extremely inappropriate, even if they are doing a toned-down version.
I wrote a letter to the teacher, to say that we didn't feel it was suitable and asking for an alternative activity for her to participate in that day. They are respecting our decision, thankfully, but I know that they don't understand why.
And that they won't understand.
How do you talk about the spiritual impact of an overly sexual dance on children, to someone who doesn't see the spiritual realm as equally real as the physical?
How do you convince him that these kids have experienced too much, too soon, and that dancing this, or even watching others, will only serve to open more doors in their lives and further awaken what should be left dormant for a longer time?
How do you explain that the problem isn't with studying culture, but rather with which elements of that culture are age-appropriate, and also that as Christians, we aren't to conform to any culture other than God's.
You can't explain that. So you listen to his disappointment on the phone, but thank him for respecting your decision as her caretaker. Then you disappoint her by telling her she can't participate, knowing that she doesn't understand, but praying that she will know it's in love.
If I don't feel that someone understands me well, or that they don't agree with me, it's like I NEED to explain myself. And often the things I feel most strongly about are the most difficult to explain (add a second language to the mix, and the complication multiplies).
Like the time in my DTS when I tried to briefly explain how I felt about the tolerance zone (part of the city where prostitution is overlooked, though not legal)... all I could say was how angry it made me that the police just drive by and LOOK at the women and men who are selling themselves in every doorway.
But what I meant was it boils my blood to see humans stripped of their God-given dignity!
Our eleven-year-old has a school activity on Thursday. They sent a note home that she needs to bring "a shirt that shows her belly button and a very short skirt" as her costume for a dance that her class is going to perform. The dance itself is extremely inappropriate, even if they are doing a toned-down version.
I wrote a letter to the teacher, to say that we didn't feel it was suitable and asking for an alternative activity for her to participate in that day. They are respecting our decision, thankfully, but I know that they don't understand why.
And that they won't understand.
How do you talk about the spiritual impact of an overly sexual dance on children, to someone who doesn't see the spiritual realm as equally real as the physical?
How do you convince him that these kids have experienced too much, too soon, and that dancing this, or even watching others, will only serve to open more doors in their lives and further awaken what should be left dormant for a longer time?
How do you explain that the problem isn't with studying culture, but rather with which elements of that culture are age-appropriate, and also that as Christians, we aren't to conform to any culture other than God's.
You can't explain that. So you listen to his disappointment on the phone, but thank him for respecting your decision as her caretaker. Then you disappoint her by telling her she can't participate, knowing that she doesn't understand, but praying that she will know it's in love.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
this too...
Lately I've been listening to the long list of sermons that are set to automatically download via podcast and then sit, unheard, in iTunes. At Mars Hill Bible Church, they did a series on the book of Ecclesiastes.
Sermon number 1: "lessons in vapor managment"
Turns out that the word "meaningless" is actually better-translated "vapor" or "mist," which isn't nothing and isn't without meaning, it's just passing. And that the book's author is showing that EVERYTHING in the realm of the created is temporary. And the ONLY permanent, non-vapor thing, is the uncreated: God and the spiritual realm.
But we end up spending a lot of time and energy and emotion on what Rob Bell calls "vapor management" -- not that it's all bad, but we do need to remember that all these things, like the early morning fog that creeps up the side of these green mountains, will vanish.
Sermon number 2, which I heard today while working in the garden: "a time"
Yeah, we all know the passage... there is a time for [a long list of contrasting actions]. Shane Hipps points out that most of the time we think of this as a list of things we should do at different points in our lives, but that it's really a list of a whole bunch of circumstances that we will experience between birth and death.
It's not a to do list. It's just stating the facts. And, reminding us that all these situations are vapor.
"He has made everything beautiful in its time" And the vapor is beautiful, even when it seems like a bad mist.
"He has also set eternity in the human heart" This point was really interesting for me: When we get tired of all the "vapor management," then we can learn to experience what Hipps explains as a state of joyful acceptance of the now. To stop obsessing over the past or anxiously awaiting the future.
Is this how Jesus lived, all the time?
Is this what He has been inviting me to experience all these months with the reminders to live in the present? Because I want that.
Jesus says that the Kingdom of God is within us. Solomon says that God has set eternity in our hearts.
Hipps suggests that Jesus came to show us the way into that peaceful, joyful, eternal kingdom; how to unlock the still water within us, that eternity in the midst of the ever-changing mist. And to do that, we need to 1. have a relationship with the Master and 2. be actively involved, choosing to live in the present, and be able to rest in the NOW
Then we can start to access the eternal, which is in our hearts, which also happens to be the recipient for the infinite love of God.
So, bad day? Good day? Sunshine or rain? Laughter or tears? Hired or fired? Finally got pregnant or another negative test? He loves me or he loves me not? Chicken or fish for dinner?
This, too, shall pass.
But the love of God remains, and it's in me, and it's unchanging. Will I choose to experience it?
Sermon number 1: "lessons in vapor managment"
Turns out that the word "meaningless" is actually better-translated "vapor" or "mist," which isn't nothing and isn't without meaning, it's just passing. And that the book's author is showing that EVERYTHING in the realm of the created is temporary. And the ONLY permanent, non-vapor thing, is the uncreated: God and the spiritual realm.
But we end up spending a lot of time and energy and emotion on what Rob Bell calls "vapor management" -- not that it's all bad, but we do need to remember that all these things, like the early morning fog that creeps up the side of these green mountains, will vanish.
Sermon number 2, which I heard today while working in the garden: "a time"
Yeah, we all know the passage... there is a time for [a long list of contrasting actions]. Shane Hipps points out that most of the time we think of this as a list of things we should do at different points in our lives, but that it's really a list of a whole bunch of circumstances that we will experience between birth and death.
It's not a to do list. It's just stating the facts. And, reminding us that all these situations are vapor.
"He has made everything beautiful in its time" And the vapor is beautiful, even when it seems like a bad mist.
"He has also set eternity in the human heart" This point was really interesting for me: When we get tired of all the "vapor management," then we can learn to experience what Hipps explains as a state of joyful acceptance of the now. To stop obsessing over the past or anxiously awaiting the future.
Is this how Jesus lived, all the time?
Is this what He has been inviting me to experience all these months with the reminders to live in the present? Because I want that.
Jesus says that the Kingdom of God is within us. Solomon says that God has set eternity in our hearts.
Hipps suggests that Jesus came to show us the way into that peaceful, joyful, eternal kingdom; how to unlock the still water within us, that eternity in the midst of the ever-changing mist. And to do that, we need to 1. have a relationship with the Master and 2. be actively involved, choosing to live in the present, and be able to rest in the NOW
Then we can start to access the eternal, which is in our hearts, which also happens to be the recipient for the infinite love of God.
So, bad day? Good day? Sunshine or rain? Laughter or tears? Hired or fired? Finally got pregnant or another negative test? He loves me or he loves me not? Chicken or fish for dinner?
This, too, shall pass.
But the love of God remains, and it's in me, and it's unchanging. Will I choose to experience it?
Sunday, May 8, 2011
mothers' day
Our friends went home this weekend. Went, and aren't coming back within the foreknow-able future. Home, to England.
Today was the parent visit.
Today is also Mother's Day.
That's a lot of emotions.
I cried, kind of a lot.
Wanna know the hardest thing for me today? I don't know how to do what I do. I don't know how to be, and at the same time not be, mom.
And I can't imagine being a kid and not knowing who to give my school-made mother's day project to. Which mom?
And when I am present, and the biological mom is present, what am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to react? Interact? And when our son gashes his head open... it's not my role to take care of him, because she's there. So I wash dishes and cry in the corner by the sink. And she probably thinks I'm cold and neglecting.
Plus, I'm a single mom. Well, my housemate is my co-mom, plus the biological moms... man it's complicated! These kids need dads, too!
And in church, when the pastor invited all the mothers to stand up, I didn't know what to do.
I don't think I like this day very much, being and not being, mom.
Today was the parent visit.
Today is also Mother's Day.
That's a lot of emotions.
I cried, kind of a lot.
Wanna know the hardest thing for me today? I don't know how to do what I do. I don't know how to be, and at the same time not be, mom.
And I can't imagine being a kid and not knowing who to give my school-made mother's day project to. Which mom?
And when I am present, and the biological mom is present, what am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to react? Interact? And when our son gashes his head open... it's not my role to take care of him, because she's there. So I wash dishes and cry in the corner by the sink. And she probably thinks I'm cold and neglecting.
Plus, I'm a single mom. Well, my housemate is my co-mom, plus the biological moms... man it's complicated! These kids need dads, too!
And in church, when the pastor invited all the mothers to stand up, I didn't know what to do.
I don't think I like this day very much, being and not being, mom.
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