Gathering My Thoughts

Dressing room surprise. 

It's been a very long time since I've written in "real time" here. All of December's "Comfort and Joy" posts were from the archives. I thought maybe a gathering of thoughts might get the writing going.

Outside my window:  It rained all weekend. Cold, wet, dreary. How I would have rathered snow! It's been remarkably warmer than predicted this winter, so far. I'm not really sure how I feel about that. It was good to run outside yesterday. On the other hand, I could really use a post-Christmas snow day or two to get my act together.

Listening to:  Silence. I've been up pretty much all night. It's quiet.

Clothing myself in: Pajamas. A Christmas quilt. 

Talking with my children about these books:  We are going to finish reading the last of the Christmas books today. Then, we'll wrap them all back up for next year. That should keep Sarah happily busy for a long while. She's a very good wrapper. 

In my own reading: I think I'm going to accept Anne's challenge for my own reading in 2015. 

Thinking and thinking: About this post on blogging. It summarizes many (most?) of the things I've been thinking myself. Tsh writes from a huge platform and she has kept her readers engaged. I lost many of my readers last year. My audience has shrunk. Still, principles are principles. Like Tsh, I still believe in longer pieces. I like to read them, and quite frankly, the freedom to write them is what drew me to blogging in the first place. I could explore a topic beyond the 500 words of my column. The Pinterest number staggered me. I can't image posting any where  27 times every day. I usually forget about Pinterest. According to the experts, Pinterest drives blog readers. Hmmm... I believe, as well, in remaining true to oneself. Like Tsh, I love Instagram. I love it more than Facebook and much more than Twitter. If Instagram had clickable links, it would be nearly perfect. If Tsh has a comments problem at her blog, I have them more. I know comments here don't work reliably. I have no idea what to do about that. I do engage in conversation on Facebook, so be sure to like the blog page there. Maybe that's a solution to the combox issues here. Still, I'd rather chat here. It's prettier.

I look at the way blogging has changed in the last five years and I hyperventilate. Thanks for visiting my quiet, old-fashioned corner. When I had a full-time job, I was desperate to be a mother at home. All I wanted was to come home to my baby and invest in my family. I've worked in some form or fashion from home ever since then, but never have I felt that pull between my work and my family until the last year of blogging. I don't want a full-time job. I'm a mother at home, antiquated as that has become.

I am very aware that my children are becoming adults and that they are my first readers. I don't care if the rest of the world reads my words. I care very much if my kids do. There can't be a disconnect. It needs to be honest. Always honest. If I'm going to write about wholehearted mothering, I need to be that wholehearted mother. Sometimes, that means I publish nothing but re-runs for a whole month. Thanks for understanding.

Pondering:

"My confidence is placed in God who does not need our help for accomplishing his designs. Our single endeavor should be to give ourselves to the work and to be faithful to him, and not to spoil his work by our shortcomings." St. Isaac Jogues.

More on this one on Wednesday. Also, more #morningrun posts soon. Thanks for all your kinds words about those little thoughts. 

Carefully Cultivating Rhythm: I'm ready for the rhythm of the winter to settle upon us. Christmas was wonderful. The transition from Christmas was not. Let's move on.

Creating By Hand:  Christmas pajamas. Yep. Those were abandoned in favor of following a certain someone on the path to a national championship. So, they will be January pajamas. Also, there are four quilts to make. Three for the girls' new bunkbed and one that was promised to Mary Beth two years ago. I really miss my sewing machine and I'm committed to bringing it to life this month.

Learning lessons In: Humility. Oh my. Nothing like really messing up to drive one to one's knees.

Encouraging learning in: True confessions would require me to divulge that it's 6 AM on Monday morning. I haven't written a single lesson plan. We're going to wing it. 

Begging prayers: I am wearing my new favorite pair of Elizabeth DeHority socks. I’m praying so hard for her. Every minute is a struggle and she’s fighting valiantly to meet the struggle with love and grace.

Keeping house: Christmas is still up. My girls won't let me touch anything until after January 6. That's OK with me for now.

Crafting in the kitchen: I cooked a lot last month. It was pointed out that I love people by feeding them. This is true. It is also true that, while I'm certainly not finished loving people, I'm a little tired of cooking.

To be fit and happy: I went for a run yesterday and my legs felt like lead. Not really sure what that is about except that I haven't been as careful with diet and I've gotten not enough sleep. I'm going to sleep more, eat better, and hopefully run further and faster.

Giving thanks: For a very healthy and happy December.

Loving the moments: The waning moments of 2014 and the beginning of 2015 will forever be etched in my memory as some of the happiest this house has held. I'm very grateful.

Living the Liturgy: I admit it. I'm preparing to offer a Lenten version of Restore. So, in my brain, I've jumped a little past the coming brief period of Ordinary Time. I'm feeling rather penitential anyway, so that works out well.

Planning for the week ahead: Going to take it slow, one foot in front of another. Back into our ordinary days.

About the photos: These are from late last November. I never got a chance to share them here. it's still Christmas, right? Photo credit: Michael, Kristin, and Christian Foss.

Exuberant Love

THINK

"It is Christmas every time you let God love others through you."

-Mother Teresa of Calcutta

PRAY

 Dear Jesus, Thank you for the people you have called to love me. Thank you for their kindnesses, their time, their compassion. Thank you for the hospitality offered to me, for the comfort of friendship, for support in stressed moments. Bless those people, Lord. Bless them abundantly.

ACT

Write thank you notes today. Actually mail them.

~*~*~*~

As I mentioned yesterday, these quotes have been queued up for a month. Kristin and I have shared the graphic-making. She took the last part of December and sent me an email with a whole bunch of them. I didn't look until I needed them. December 29th is Kristin's second anniversary. Of course, she'd choose a wedding picture for the graphic! I think this one is a Ginny capture. When Kristin creates the graphics, she chooses the quote to go on the image. sometimes, it's the famous quote. Sometimes it's the prayer. Sometimes, it's something I wrote in the action.

This quote, with this picture?

Did. Me. In.

That is Shawn in the background. Shawn, Master of Ceremonies over the wedding festivities. Shawn, who blessed the first meal Michael and Kristin shared together as a new family, on the Feast of the Holy Family. Shawn, whom we all thought would be a part of their future together. Instead, when the happy couple had their first baby a little over year after this picture was taken, they named her Lucy Shawn, after the the best friend gone too soon.

Shawn was larger than life when he was alive and we are very much aware that we now have an advocate for exuberant joy in heaven. Still, there is Shawn, in the background of the glorious moments (and the tough ones, too). Shawn taught us all a lot about love during his brief and very fierce illness. I cannot look at this image without weeping. I'm still sad. I'm also very grateful. If only we could all learn to let God love others through us the way that he did... If only.

peace in the disappointments...

THINK

“And in despair I bowed my head;

"There is no peace on earth," I said;

"For hate is strong,

And mocks the song

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:

"God is not dead, nor doth he sleep!

The Wrong shall fail,

the Right prevail,

With peace on earth, good-will to men!”

--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

PRAY

We wait and watch and hope and pray and Christmas comes and invariably, there is a disappointment. Something is not just exactly as we’d hoped it would be. But you are, Jesus. You always are. Help us to hear the bells that peal the good news.

ACT

There is someone in your life who is very vulnerable today. Perhaps he is disappointed. Perhaps he has disappointed you. Love him well.

~*~~*~

I chose these quotes as Advent was beginning. I sifted and sorted and prayed that they'd all land in the right spots. When I write these short devotions, I sketch out what I'm thinking in advance, save as a draft, and then I go back and tweak after I've run. I'm not running this morning. I've got an injury that may sideline me for awhile. This has me disappointed in a big way. But I'm sitting in the quiet and looking at today's "act" and thinking how God found me with it. There is someone in my life who is disappointed. It's a disappointment I didn't anticipate at December's beginning. But there it is. And if I were running today, no doubt I'd be begging God to turn it all around and bring the happy back. Instead, I'm sitting. I'm hoping and hedging, but I'm also knowing that what I really want is His will. And the grace to be happy with that. If the Holy Spirit nudges you today and all this comes to mind, would you pray for my special intention, please? 

Say Yes.

I hear them whispering in the kitchen as I fold laundry in a room nearby. I can tell they are setting her up. Sure enough, she toddles in, carrying a box of brownie mix, so very proud that, despite her tender age, she has been entrusted with the mission.

 “We make brownies, Mama?”

 I hesitate for the briefest moment and then I’m slayed by the most charming two-year-old smile and big, brownie eyes.

 “Yes,” I reply, hoping the joy on my face mirrors hers, even just a little.

 She goes back to report, yelling “She said ‘yes!’” And the phrase rings in my ears.

 She said, “Yes!” It’s a phrase often associated with the Annunciation. The angel Gabriel appears to Mary and asks her assent to being the mother of God.  Mary wholeheartedly embraces God’s plan with her fiat. She said yes. Her “yes” set in motion the salvation of mankind. It also set up mothers everywhere to work like crazy people for the first three and a half weeks of December.

 We have our lists, our errands, our planning and packaging.  We do it all for these dear people whom we love so much. But in the doing, do we forget the loving? The active loving? Do we say many more “nos” than “yeses?” Forget advent, I am pretty sure I am guilty of that all year ‘round.

 But it wasn’t always like that. We have a home video of me with my firstborn. He was not quite two. I had just turned 24. We were both had a tendency to wholeheartedly go for the “yes.” Outside of the deck of our little house, we spread butcher paper. And we fingerpainted. With our feet. There was much giggling and much smooshing of paint through our toes. My husband, behind the camera, asked why.

 “Why, exactly, did you feel the need to do this? Make this mess? Haul out this stuff?”

 “Because we can,” came my reply. “Because it’s fun and we’re playing with colors and we’re creating art (of sorts) and it’s an absolutely beautiful day out here. Just because we can.”

 “Works for me,” came the reply and he continued to tape.

 That is the last videotape we have before I was diagnosed with cancer. “Because we can” rang in my ears for the next year. I promised myself over and over that if I survived I would be a “Yes” mom. I wouldn’t be too busy, too grownup, too preoccupied to get to “yes.” I’d find a way to connect, to create, to cuddle, to care in a very active way. By golly, I’d do it because I’d be just so very grateful if only I could do it. I’d live each day fully and I’d seize every opportunity to actively live love.

 And that’s the way I’ve lived, mostly. I think most folks who know me would agree that I’m pretty into my kids. Over the years, though, I have become more sedentary, a bit too likely to delegate the playing with them part, and far too likely to think twice before letting them make a mess or better, yet, making a mess with them.

 That afternoon, when Sarah Anne asked for brownies, I decided that this is the Advent of “Yes.” I did it really in hopes that I could revive an old habit. So, yesterday, when Karoline asked to watch Ramona and Beezus for the bajillionth time, I said “yes.” That was pretty simple. Might even buy me an hour and a half of time to do something productive. Except she had a followup request. “You sit and watch it with me?” 

Me? Sit? For an hour and a half on a Thursday afternoon? I am so not a sitter.  But sit I did. I watched the whole darling movie with my three littlest girls. When it was over, there was a song playing after the credits. 

“Get up and dance, Mommy!” And I did. I twirled and picked my sweethearts up in the air. We joined hands and danced in a circle. They looked at me with wonder. The wonder of “Yes. 

The song? Live Like There’s No Tomorrow. We danced, in part, to these words:

Take a leap and fade and hope you fly, feel what it’s like to be alive
Give it all, what we’ve got and lay it all on the line
And we can find a way to do anything if we try to

Live like there’s no tomorrow, (cause all we have is here right now)
Love like it’s all that we know. (The only chance that we ever found)

It’s nearly Christmas. We have right now. Say “Yes!”

--2010

It's been inked in the calendar since the steamy days of late summer. December 10-14, five days at home with just the girls. Mike would have the younger boys at a four day soccer tournament. The big boys would be in the thick of exams. No driving to soccer. Scaled down meals. Scaled down laundry. The perfect window during which to hunker down and finish preparing for Christmas. Gift making. Gift shopping. Gift wrapping. Meal planning. Baking. Canning. Sewing. All would be ready to welcome everyone home to soft, cozy Christmas on December 15. That was the plan.

Until it wasn't. 

Patrick is scheduled for surgery in Charlottesville on December 17. No problem. Change the plan. I'll go down there on the 16th, be back here on the 18th. Then, we can all be cozy for Christmas.

Actually...

The plan has changed considerably again. Measurably. And I'll tell you all about it later. Just know: I've done about 20% of my shopping. I've baked nothing. My oven still isn't clean (I feel compelled to tell you this because I shared my cleaning aspirations last week). I haven't sewed a stitch since Nutcracker. 

But I heard the disappointment in a voice. And the plan changed. 

I'll get back to you on how that worked out. 

Here, Now

THINK

Acts of faith are expressed in two ways.  The first is our willingness to jump into the darkness, that is, choosing to trust in God’s guidance as we venture into the unknown.  The second is our willingness to sit in the darkness, which is continuing to do God’s will when our emotional resources are depleted and life seems hollow, meaningless and absurd.  . . .

These are the worst times in our life of faith when viewed from a psychological and emotional perspective.  But from a spiritual vantage point, they are potentially the best of times.  For when we continue to do God’s will without emotional support, our love for God and neighbor grows and is purified. --Marc Foley, The Context of Holiness

PRAY

God, I choose to sit with You. I trust that You are here, now, in whatever darkness I find myself.

ACT 

Here's where the practice of gratitude is really helpful. Make a list of five times in your life when you felt alone, without emotional support. Now, note how you grew. Note the blessings that came with reliance on God and obedience to His will.