Five Years of One Wild and Precious Life

Josie, this week

Today is the five year anniversary of this blog, and all week I have been thinking, I will write a post about this blog. Why? I don't know, why do I ever blog? This is what I keep trying to figure out.

I finally hit publish on my first post in the living room of the church parsonage on a sunny day in May. I had no idea what I was doing, only that the sun was shining.

I didn't know when I began what I hoped to happen with blogging. We still had dial-up internet. The only person I knew who blogged was Ruth, and hers was the only blog I read except maybe Dooce occasionally.

Five years. Geesh. It's like the 1800's of the internet.
Blogging has changed, life has changed ...

Annie, six months

I guess blogging has chronicled my motherhood journey in this way: I am always trying to figure out where to put it. Just like everything else in life.

It's like when I was a waitress, and I would pull out a huge giant tray, and carefully arrange four or six or ten platters of food, and then there was that one glass of lemonade someone needed and so I would rearrange all of the plates in order to perch the glass in the center before heaving it onto my shoulder to carry to the table. That tray is kind of like my life, and this blog is the glass of lemonade: one last detail I try to fit onto the tray. Not really a necessity, but nice when it can fit.

Maybe I blog because it is one small thing I can do for myself, a creative space that is just mine. It doesn't ask for things or require craft glue or peanut butter or clorox wipes. It's always here, just like I left it, and I can ignore it for days and that's okay too.

I have over these years wavered between deciding that blogging is stupid, and a waste of time, I am going to shut down the blog and leave the internet for good; and then deciding that I really should take this blogging thing more seriously.

There are blogs I envy sometimes, the more prolific or professional mom-blogs, the incredible amount of good blogging they are able to produce. How do they do it?

Eventually I learned where to put this, how to fit it in among the five or so plates I am balancing, and I find that it occupies a pretty small spot. But also that it's a sweet spot, I'm glad it here, like the dark chocolate I keep hidden on the top shelf.

Thanks to blogging I have made new friends, or have other friends who I know a lot better because of their blogs. I have been able to grieve with friends and rejoice with them along their own journeys, through their own words, and for this alone blogging is beautiful.

I write because I cannot speak, and I have felt a little more understood thanks to this blog.

There are posts I have published that I am glad to have written, and a lot that I would like to burn down.

Most of all I think I blog because it is a way- my way- of acknowledging the wild and precious in life.

It is a way to Cling to what is Good, and oh, in this world, that is the only thing to do- to cling; to look for the good, search for it, cleave to it, fixate on it, hold it to your chest for dear life. We need to cling to good.

Blogging is a way I have found to pay attention, a way to say Me Too, and thank-you, and life is wild and precious so what will you do with it? Blogging is one way, my way, to say that Life is a Miracle.

I see that the life of this place is always emerging beyond expectation or prediction or typicality, that it is unique, given to the world minute by minute, only once, never to be repeated. And this is when I see that this life is a miracle, absolutely worth having, absolutely worth saving. We are alive within mystery, by miracle.
-Wendell Berry, Life is a Miracle

And so I am thankful for this little space, however unpredictable and imperfect and incomplete, just like life.

Thanks for reading, whoever you are, even if you never comment or we have never met.

The next verse says that we are to "be devoted to one another in love." (Romans 12:10) It seems that understanding one another is a first step toward love, and the written word is a good step toward understanding. So, thanks.

And if you blog, thanks for blogging. Thanks for all of the authentic, imperfect and lovely blogs out there clinging to what is good. Your art is important, and needed.

And if you don't blog I hope you have your own space somewhere, your own creative enjoyment and your own way of expressing the miracle of life.

source

so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your^[a] faith; if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead,^[b] do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully. 

Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. 

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Romans 12:5-10,21

soup: May 11

It was a sober week in Cleveland. I cannot stop thinking about the three women found alive after a decade. (Read news about it here). Once again we are faced with the depth of evil in our world, and the goodwill of most, and the survival of the human spirit.

This column about Amanda Berry's now deceased mother made me weep.

I have nothing more to add to the conversation, except for this: Pray.

Nighttime is the time of day when our anxieties are heightened and fears seem the most real. Often at night my imagination will race and many nights it is with thoughts of prisoners. We know that there are prisoners held in nightmarish conditions all over the world, and as I would pray for prisoners everywhere the thought would occur to me of the possibility that even within my own radius, there are people being held prisoner. I believe the Holy Spirit was prompting me to pray for these women, maybe others.

It was a reminder to me that our random thoughts or intuition are more than just that: that the Holy Spirit prompts us to pray even when we do not know what to pray for.

Other links this week:

Bookish I just discovered this site, and I love it- a way to choose your next book to read. This will be helpful as I am in a reading slump- I have started and decided not to finish my past four books. (Any book suggestions?)

Poetry as Therapy: Curator Magazine

Have you seen this?


This is water video


What a week of groceries looks like around the world

Have American Parents Got It All Backwards?: Huffington Post

Homeschool: This week we got to enjoy a Concert for Kids from the Akron Symphony. So wonderful!

Tomorrow is Mother's Day and I never want to forget that this can be a painful day for so many, for many reasons, my heart will be with them tomorrow.

Thank-you, Sam, Annie, and Josie, for making this mom's life so sweet. I am so grateful.

Thought:

Our freedom to be creators is far less limited than some people would think.One of the many sad results of the Industrial Revolution was that we came to depend more than ever on the intellect, and to ignore the intuition with its symbolic thinking.  The creator, and the mystic, have tended more towards Platonism than Aristotelianism, and to be willing to accept Plato's "divine madness," with its four aspects of prophecy, healing, artistic creativity, and love. 

These divine madnesses have been nearly lost in this century, and so we've lived almost entirely in the pragmatic, Cartesian world.  I wonder if Descartes knew what he was doing when he wrote his famous I think, therefore I am, and subsequently, if not consequently, we began even more than before to equate ourselves with our conscious minds. . . if we insist on intellectual control we have to let go our archaic understanding and our high creativity, because keeping them means going along with all kinds of things we can't control.  

And yet, ultimately, our underwater, intuitive selves are never really incompatible with the above water, intellectual part of our wholeness.  Part of Jesus' freedom came from the radical view of time which allowed him to speak with Moses and Elijah simultaneously, thus bursting through the limitations of time accepted by the intellect.  Yet what he did is not at all inconsistent with what contemporary astrophysicists are discovering about the nature of time.  Secularists have long tended to laugh away the story of "Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon," but according to some new research, it now seems as though something actually did happen to the physical world at that time; the earch may have shifted slightly on its axis, and time would have been affected, and the sun for a moment may indeed have stood still.  

For the astrophysicist as for the saint, chronos and kairos converge.  Robert Jastrow in his book, God and the Astonomers talks about the astronomers, after all their questions, struggling up to a mountain peak, and finding the theologians already there. 

-Madeleine L'Engle, Walking on Water, 90-92

What Are People For?

When I am weary, or when the world feels jagged I turn to Wendell Berry. I am so glad that Wendell Berry wrote books. I am so thankful for a farmer in Kentucky who writes words both provoking and healing, moving to a New York Times columnist or a Cleveland housewife.

This week I listened to this podcast with Wendell Berry on Indiana Public Media, and read a book of essays, What Are People For?

Where is our comfort but in the free, uninvolved, finally mysterious beauty and grace of this world that we did not make, that has no price? Where is our sanity but there? Where is our pleasure but in working and resting kindly in the presence of this world?

It is a book about living consciously.
"My wish simply is to live my life as fully as I can. In both our work and our leisure, I think, we should be so employed. And in our time this means that we must save ourselves from the products that we are asked to buy in order, ultimately, to replace ourselves."

I was ashamed, as I read, of my previous post in which I boasted about the large haul of clothing I had bought for such a small price, and also this week as we watched in horror the news of the Bangladesh factory collapse , with a death toll now over 500.

I am a participator in this industry that manufactures cheap, disposable fashion by robbing the poor and putting their lives at risk.

The religion and the environmentalism of the highly industrialized countries are at bottom a sham, because they make it their business to fight against something they do not really wish to destroy. We all live by robbing nature, but our standard of living demands that the robbery shall continue. 

We must achieve the character and acquire the skills to live much poorer than we do. We must waste less. We must do more for ourselves and for each other. It is either that or continue merely to think and talk about changes that we are inviting catastrophe to make. 

The great obstacle is simply this: the conviction that we cannot change because we are dependent on what is wrong. But that is the addict's excuse, and we know that it will not do.

I have, like many others, attempted to research and find ways to buy clothing that is made fairly, even if it costs a little more. There are two fair-trade clothing stores nearby, and I have shopped at both with the intention of finding one or two quality staple clothing items that I will pay more for, buying fewer items, knowing full well it is fair both to the store and the people who made the clothing. In the end I simply could not afford the prices.

The only other option seems to be to buy used clothing, which we do. But there are occasions, like the upcoming wedding, when I want and need to buy new clothes. Buying as cheaply as possible seems to be the responsible approach, but maybe it's not. I am not really satisfied with any of my options. We can hope that events such as the factory in Bangladesh will help to drive change. (Salon: How shoppers can help prevent Bangladesh-type disasters).


One f my favorite essays included in this collection is a famously provoking title, Why I Am Not Going to Buy A Computer. It was originally published in The New England Review and Bread Loaf Quarterly, and was reprinted by Harpers with letters in response, and Berry's response to those letters. This was fascinating. You can read it here.

This subject then led to an essay titled Feminism, The Body, and the Machine, which I found equally fascinating on several levels, and hope to write about soon. You can read it in entirety here.

soup: free to wander

Oh my goodness this wedding is making everything so much fun this spring. It is all we can talk about.

Last weekend was my Sis-In-Law's bridal shower, and we wore dresses and minded our manners and petted sheep. Could a day be any more wonderful? Maybe if it were warmer, yes.

You know, I am at peace with the fact that I will probably not ever be posting my run times for any race, ever. So.

Since I can't brag about working out, let me tell you about the amazing deals I got on our wedding clothes: 

three dresses, 

two sweaters, 

a dress for the wedding for me, 

three pairs of shoes,

 throw in several tops and skirts for the girls-- 

Grand Total:

under $100. 

AND I did it while shopping with three kids by myself. 

(Old Navy sales, and there was some mad couponing involved).

If this were a competition I might actually care to compete (probably not).

After the bridal shower, we went . .. Camping!

My Aunt Sharman rented a cabin for us for two nights at a local campground,

and it was so much fun we could hardly stand it.

We celebrated Earth Day by being outside in God's glorious earth from sunup to sundown.

It was so quiet and restful. I want to live in a cabin in the woods. 

I am feeling so hugely blessed by our family and friends, 

we have such wonderful people in our life.

Thank-you, Aunt Sharman, for a lovely and memorable camping trip!

I only have one link this week: Achieving Without Goals- zenhabits. 

This post so resonates with what I have been thinking about and I guess what I was trying to say in this post. I think that living with or without goals will of course be different for every personality, but it seems that things like ten-year plans, a-b-c types of thinking are a very modern, very American approach to life and offer only a win/lose way to live, and possibly miss some delightful twists and turns and possibilities along the way. Isn't it wonderful to think of life in terms of discovery rather than success?

Wishing you a beautiful weekend, whatever path you choose ...

Poem in Your Pocket Day

Today is Poem in Your Pocket Day.

This day appeals to me for two reasons: I love poetry, and I love pockets! I love bags or bureaus with many drawers or pockets and the small pleasure of tucking things away, and later finding something long forgotten. I used to put my hand in coat pockets and pull out money, now I pull out used tissues, crayons, forgotten toys.

This morning I put my hand in the pocket of my sweatshirt and discovered this tiny matryoshka doll. How delightful. This is the wonderful thing about poetry, and pockets, and life, you never know what you mind find.

Today I am keeping this poem in my pocket. I think Ruth introduced me to it on her blog a while ago. I just love it.

Sutra
Marilyn Krysi

Looking back now, I see
I was dispassionate too often, 
dismissing the robin as common, 
and now can't remember what 
robin song sounds like. I hoarded 
my days, as though to keep them 
safe from depletion, and meantime 
I kept busy being lonely. This 
took up the bulk of my time, 
and I did not speak to strangers 
because they might be boring, 
and there were those I feared 

would ask me for money. I was 
clumsy around the confident, 
and the well bred, standing on 
their parapets, enthralled me, 
but when one approached, I 
fled. I also feared the street's 
down and outs, anxious lest 
they look at me closely, and 
afraid I would see their misery. 

The rest of the poem is beautiful. Read it here. And don't forget to keep a poem in your pocket.


Keep a poem in your pocket
and a picture in your head
and you'll never feel lonley
at night when you are in bed

The little poem will sing to you
the little picture bring to you
a dozen dreams to dance to you
at night when youre in bed

So-
kepp a picture in your pocket
and a poem in your head
annd you'll never feel lonley
at night when youre in bed.
-Beatrice Schenk de Regniers

how to cook your chicken

Remove your chicken from the freezer and dump it in the crockpot or the last place you ran from.

Add a can of beer, cheap, or a glass of dry wine or coffee or whatever your grown-up self prefers.

Now for the seasonings:
1/2 tsp garlic
1/2 tsp grit
1/2/ tsp oregano
1/2 tsp fool
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2/ tsp prayer and regret and
1/2 tsp belief in impossible things

salt and pepper to taste (do not let this trip you up again, the taste is your own)

Now set to low, put the lid on and go
vacuum the rug
clean out your closets
take a walk- it's working, really, you don't need to check.

In about five hours, or seven years, or on a day in April when anything seems possible (you will know when) it will be cooked, your chicken. Shred and serve.

just write

For two days I have only two children. Sam is staying with my mom and it's just Annie and Josie here while Jim is out of town. It's funny how one less child changes the dynamic, the whole house changes we all sense it and for two days it's a good change; Sam is happy to have a little time away and she needs this too, and I am enjoying a little time to focus on the littles without thinking so much about school.

I love so much getting to know my girls, watching them grow before my eyes. I remember when Sam was a baby thinking how inconceivable that one day she would walk and talk and take on her own personality, and I think of this all the time, what a miracle it is to watch them unfold. So much about them is just in them, they were born with these peculiarities and bents and I love learning them, amazed by their potential and forever a bit shocked by the wonder of them. I imagine myself as an old woman, and my children with grey heads and I know even then, still I will watch them and shake my head bedazzled.

Yes I am confounded by them too sometimes, by their sin nature and I fear for it, the way these small leanings toward selfishness or covetousness or fear and anger will wound and taunt them, the great potential for hurt in their life and I think of what a lifelong battle it is to surrender, to trust, to love and I pray that they will find it early, life that is truly life, their belonging to Abba.

I think about the pathways being formed in their little brains, and the habits already taking root, creating patterns of thought and how can I now coax them early towards gratitude faith hope love joy, how can I teach them, early, to avoid false selves and illusions of the world, how will I teach them these things that take a lifetime to learn escape expose accept?

And the world is dark. Wars and rumors of wars. Bullies, bombs, every night we shake our heads, every night we lay beneath the weight of the world and worry but lately I am struck by this: the strong hope of our calling and the strong love of our Father and the strong power and love and strong mind of the Holy Spirit. I have been thinking about the high calling of faith in a world of fear and of hope in a world of despair and that if we are to be like Noah, in this age, well then, it is to flood the world with love love love, and this is enough, this love.

After quiet time I have promised to take the girls shopping. Why I do this to myself I have no idea, except that Annie loves to shop, Lord help me, and we need to buy a wedding gift, and I need a skirt to wear this weekend. I can hear the girls chattering to themselves, each on a bed for quiet time, and the windows are open and spring has come.

Life goes on in the details, even as the earth trembles and mountains crumble and bombs explode and hearts ache and we shake our heads.


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linking up today with Heather to just write.

as He leads

Then go as He leads. Go with all your heart. Makings and cultivatings of a thousand sorts are waiting. There are sick to tend. Meals to stir together. Songs to sing. Bridges to build. Accounts to balance. Hungry to feed. Feet to wash. Deaths to die. Souls to woo. Books to be written. There are Sabbath rests to take, and fields to walk, and silent prayers to pray that seem to accomplish nothing at all, but accomplish everything instead. Yield. Yield. Yield to Jesus in you.The Creator flows in You, alive and rushing. 

from On Creativity: a letter to my children

The hardest part of being a stay at home mom and attempting to keep some career plates spinning is the constant sense of torn. I am always a little bit unsure, moment to moment, of the particular calling I should be giving myself to, when they all are calling me at once. 

Lately I have been considering that my own calling in this season may not be to anything quantifiable.

Maybe I am not called to a specific goal. Maybe my calling is only as far as I hear Him lead, moment by moment; nothing more. And that requires trust and quiet and a certain yielding to the ambiguity. 

Maybe today I am called to notice the way the light slants, at three in the afternoon, and to watch as it breaks apart at the end of the day. Is anyone doing this?

Maybe my life's calling is to not only my own interests, but also the interests of others.

Maybe I am called simply to pay attention.

Maybe it will only always be a long obedience, a patient prayerfulness, and no more. 

Maybe at this place in my journey there is no path and hardly any fences, only a wide open field . .. a field ripe with many good things to cultivate, beauty waiting to be recognized and poetry waiting to blossom and people to love and meals to stir and songs to sing and small people to hold and it's all good and it's all an acceptable sacrifice.

The hard part will always be the sense of wondering if I am doing it right- am I spending my time and energy in the right ways, to the right things, am I completing the work He has called me to do? The answer to that will only come by listening, abiding.

I pray a lot for the Spirit to fill me, and finally I need to understand that he Has. And if the Creator flows in me, then I am free to create- vulnerably, honestly, heartily- as unto the Lord, and not men.

Sunday Soup: rain and rainbows

School
It was one of those weeks when the air is too heavy and the light oppresses like cathedral tunes and we are all a bit slow and fumbling. We were weary of the lessons, weary of the weather, restless and bored. The cure, of course, is books. And I remembered why we are doing this anyway, if not to enjoy the process, and finally on Friday we curled on the couch and did nothing but read until the atmosphere shifted.

Brennan Manning
This week we learned that Brennan Manning died. I can't help but offer my own story of the influence of Brennan Manning. It was my third year of college, on a dark spring Saturday much like the dark days we have been having here in the northeast, when I sat in my dark college apartment and read Abba's Child. It had been a dark year, and a deep-rooted splinter of insecurity was working it's way out of my life that year. It was a life-changing afternoon as I sat and soaked in what it means to belong to Abba. Thank-you, Brennan Manning.

Poetry
April is National Poetry Month and I thought I would share a few poetry resources. I enjoy receiving a poem a day from The Writer's Almanac, Poets.org, and Your Daily Poem. Ruth posts a lot of good poetry and is posting a poem a day as well as a progressive poem in the month of April.

This year I bought the collection she walks in beauty by Caroline Kennedy. I really love this book. Here is a poem that seems fitting now:

Grown-up
Edna St.Vincent Millay

Was it for this I uttered prayers,
And sobbed and cursed and kicked the stairs,
That now, domestic as a plate,
I should retire at half-past eight?

Link:
On Creativity: a letter to my children
Oh. This is so lovely.

Books:

Incendiary: Chris Cleave
Chris Cleave definitely can write a book I can't put down, but oh, the tragedies, I can hardly bear it. Incendiary takes place in London after a fictional act of terror similar to our 9-11. The story is narrated by an unnamed mother who loses her son and husband in the bombing. Raw but humorous, it was similar to Little Bee in that I couldn't put it down, and similarly gut-wrenching. I really liked the book until the last few chapters which became increasingly despairing.

Daring Greatly : How the courage to be vulnerable transforms the way we live, love, parent, and lead: Brene Brown
I loved this book and the only thing I didn't like about it was that I wished I were reading it in a group to have people to discuss it with. Every single person could benefit from this book. And I loved Brene Brown's casual, personal style of writing which is so relatable, I felt like I was having a conversation with a really wise, comfortable laid-back friend.

For a good taste of what the book is about check out her talk, The Power of Vulnerability on Ted Talks. And here is her blog.



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This week at a library activity I sat and realized that I have completely neglected every type of toddler activity with Josie. We never missed a story hour with the older two. Oh the mother guilt is endless . .. (and she is clearly holding it against me- ha)

May you find rainbows after your storm this week . ..

A Homeschool Review

It seems time to give a bit of a homeschool update. 

I have been wanting to get to this for weeks but you know, Life.

This week I looked through our curriculum and discovered we will be completely finished in six weeks. This was somewhat of a relief to me as I have not been a militant homeschooler . .. we school four days a week, and we have taken multiple breaks along the way including a ten-day vacation in Florida. Although we can get through some of the material very quickly and others take longer, I was pleased to find that we are right on schedule. And as we will be preparing for a very special wedding, there is a good chance we will double up to end our bookwork a week or so sooner.

This week I ordered books for the summer, writing workbooks and a nice stack of Greek and Roman myths. The learning will continue, always, and this has been an important thing for me to remember: learning happens all the time, sometimes especially apart from the formal bookwork. I don't think I will ever be an "unschooler", but I definitely get the concept and believe wholeheartedly in a lifestyle of learning.

After one year, I would say the number one benefit of home education is TIME.

My kids have time to learn in the way that they are most interested in learning. Playing outside, sitting at the table and drawing for hours, imaginative play- it's all learning. And because our schoolwork can be completed in half the time of a regular school day, there is plenty of time for the less formal, curiosity-led learning which I feel is equally if not more important.

Finding a likeminded homeschool community has been a HUGE blessing, for me and the kids. As a parent, I have plenty of questions and concerns related to homeschooling, and being able to talk about those things with other moms who have the same value system and approach to learning is SO so good. I think I would have had a much harder year had we not had this community. And the girls love their friends.

Honestly I have experienced so many blessings along this homeschool journey this year. Being a person prone to doubting myself with just about everything, I have had no doubts this year. We see Sami thriving, and this to me is reason enough that this is the best choice for us.

Although I am not especially concerned with why doctors and lawyers homeschool their kids, despite it's hoaky title this article is really good: 18 Reasons Why Doctors and Lawyers Homeschool Their Kids. We have definitely experienced all of these.

We were able to do some extra classes too, piano and gymnastics, and this along with tons of field trips and things to do in Cleveland, church and meetings with our co-op, kept us just busy enough but not too busy. I love our rhythm.

Everything has it's negatives, of course. Here are some of mine:

1. My own flaws become magnified. 

One of my greatest parenting weaknesses (which is also sometimes a strength) is that I am very flexible a big fat pushover. My kids have learned that they can argue with me and change my mind. This means, that while I do want my kids to be able to voice their opinion, for a while every. darn. thing. was coming with an argument. This is exhausting. It is getting better.

Another flaw is that I am very flexible can't stick to a routine. This can be a good thing, as some days we just need to do things differently. However it is another area that invites arguments. I have been really trying to be more consistent and this, too, is improving. On the days when we are on a normal schedule and stick to it, we have really smooth successful homeschool.

2. Someone said to me once that she "has never met a homeschooler who didn't believe the world revolved around her." I think about this all of the time. I can see how easily a child at home can become very egocentric. However I would argue that there are plenty of egocentric public school students too, no?

3. Lack of competition can create a lack of motivation. 

4. mid-Feb to mid-March was hard. Every problem we have ever experienced became magnified. And we even had a vacation. I have heard this is to be expected. We need to find a way to better survive it next year.

I'm sure there are more but the day has begun and we are off to the art museum.

If you are in Cleveland be sure to check out the renovations at the Cleveland Museum of Art! It is really wonderful. And the Children's gallery, Gallery One, is fantastic.

Wishing you peace, friends!