Gathering My Thoughts

Outside my window:  Nick is warming up to play the sixth soccer game of the weekend. I’m sitting in the car, collecting myself before venturing into a world of relative strangers and forcing myself to be cheerful. Michael and Kristin are not far from here at all. I’m a few short miles from the airport and planes are taking off overhead. One of them will carry their little family to California. I’m not yet ready step out of the car and into the company of people who say things like, “Good thing you have eight more. You won’t miss the one.” Um. No. That’s not how this works. Not at all.

Listening to: Traffic. Game noise. Airplanes. Some random radio turned up way too high. At least that guy has fairly good taste in music. [edited to add: This game is at a church. I just realized the church is broadcasting praise and worship music. I am so grateful.]

Clothing myself in: Jeans, a cabled sweater, and NorthFace fleece jacket that doesn’t belong to me, but most likely belongs to Kate, the neighbor who frequently sleeps in my basement and always wanted to be Kimmy when she watched Full House;-).

Talking with my children about these books: Going West. We had a good cry. Now, we’re going to tackle all the chapter books together.

In my own reading: I’m going to tell you all about my reading later this week. It’s time for a big reading roundup booklist. I’ve got some sewing to report on as well.

Thinking and thinking: about how special my relationship is with Kristin. In some ways, we’re a lot alike. In many ways, we’re very different. Our differences complement each other though and I have learned so much from her in these past couple years. I know that the way she was in and out of my home, so often and for such long stretches, is a rare and extraordinary gift. I’m glad to have gotten to know her this way. Neither of us knows exactly what these long distance relationships will look like. I have a hunch I’m going to learn some valuable lessons from her in the next few months, though.

Carefully Cultivating Rhythm: Kristin and Lucy have been living with us for a few weeks and so our rhythm has revolved around them. It will certainly be strange to wake up tomorrow morning to the quiet. Neither Kristin nor Lucy is quiet.

As Michael’s family was leaving, Christian was arriving. Christian is very quiet (and Nicholas and Sarah and I will welcome him to our ranks). On Tuesday, Patrick will be home and he’ll bring a friend. The house will shift into big boy mode. I need to do a rare mid-week grocery shopping:-). I’m so grateful for the timing of this spring break. My Nicholas needs his big boys. Rhythm will be off, no doubt. Paddy always bring his own energy into a room and Christian is a night owl, but it will be good. 

Creating By Hand:  I have some costume sewing to do. I really, really have some costume sewing to do. And layette sewing, too. .

Learning lessons in: With a nod to my 100 day cough, I ordered some of these for everyone from Sarah to Nicholas. It’s a little bit of change in the way we approach literature-based learning. There are typos that drive me nuts. But for the most part, the structure and novelty of someone else’s very loose plans are good for us in this season.

Encouraging learning in: We are in full-blown midterm mode. The away college kids bring papers and deadlines home. Mary Beth has a boatload of work to do this week and Stephen has begun two dual-enrollment classes. We’re all about academic writing. (Psst, I like academic writing;-).

Keeping house: My house looks like a toddler got to do whatever she wanted wherever she wanted for several days in a row. It’s time for spring cleaning. It’s also going to be 70 degrees outside, so windows wide open, yay!

Crafting in the kitchen: Whatever those big boys want. Seriously. I’m taking orders.

To be fit and happy: I’m going to begin walking distances again. I’m still coughing quite a bit and I honestly don’t know how my lung capacity will be, but I’m going to try to build up again to the healthy habit I know I need.

Giving thanks: for the messages that have filled my phone since very early this morning and how grateful I am for good friends who pray when they say they’re praying. Grateful, too, for a dear girl in Charlottesville who popped in at just the right moment and reminded me with her presence that these big kids leave, but then they come home again, sometimes bringing people we grow to love. I worry about all the goodbyes my little girls have to say, all the time. Then I remember the friends they have found in people like Kristin. And Lexi…

Loving the moments: when Lucy raids the costume box and dances in the kitchen with Sarah for hours and hours and hours.

Living the Liturgy: Some days, I see striking resemblances between my backyard and Gethsemane.

Planning for the week ahead: We still have some very steep hills to climb this Lent. I know that. Last night, I talked to my friend Martha for an hour and half. This is remarkable because I still don’t really have a speaking voice (that 100 day cough and all). But I needed to be heard, and even more, I needed to hear someone who knows me forever, who walked with me through valleys, who understands what language it is that tunes my heart to hope. We have steep hills to climb. Martha reminds me to take baby steps to the elevator and that the elevator is going up. 

Pondering: When I pulled up here at soccer, this song was playing over that broadcast system. And then, when I got in the car to warm up during halftime, this song was on the radio. I never buy music on iTunes. But I bought this song right there and then. I'm going to listen to it before I do anything else every morning for the forseeable future. 

Going West

When Nicholas was little, he loved the Little House Picture Books. Every night, for close to three years, we read at least three of those books at bedtime. They traveled with us when we went on trips. A couple of them became so worn that I replaced them, and, at one point, I had all of them memorized. I loved the books nearly as much as he did.

There was one book, though, that I preferred not to read. And there were three pages in that book that tugged at my heart all those many years ago, as if they foreshadowed a day to come in March 2016. On the first of those three pages, Laura and Mary hug and kiss the Grandma and the aunts goodbye. What are those aunts thinking? Are they remembering the day Mary was born? How exciting it was to welcome a new baby? How it made them all more family to welcome one into the next generation? As the girls clung to their dolls, were the aunts thinking of all the times they'd played with them and all the funny little names they knew between them for the playthings--all the many fibers that wove together to make a family culture? Were they thinking of Ma, and how she was one of them, and how much they'd miss her we've-always-known-her presence in their day-to-day?

Then, we see Laura and Mary saying goodbye to their cousins as they get ready to climb into the wagon and leave the woods of Wisconsin for their new home on the prairie. The little family had always lived within the context of a bigger one and grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins make their appearances in some of the other picture books, threaded into the storyline of Laura's younger years. In Going West, Laura says goodbye to big parties at her grandmother's house with lots of familiar babies all lined up on the big bed and breakfasts in her kitchen, where she's treated to pancakes and syrup from her grandfather's maple trees. There is a sense of somber bewilderment on the faces in the picture. What will this all mean?

Were they thinking that it was entirely possible they'd never see these dear people again? Did Laura understand that the easy familiarity she had with her cousins and her grandparents would fade into infrequent written correspondences? Did the grownups think Pa a fool to pull his family from the security of the known community? Did they understand that he only wanted what was best for his family and opportunity lay to the west?

 And Ma. Sweet Ma, reluctant, but brave.

The dog on wheels is named Izzy, in honor of the real Izzy, who lives at Lucy's other grandma's house. Both Izzys will wait patiently for a visit in June.

It's the next picture that does me in every time. Grandma is holding Baby Carrie as the family gets settled into the wagon. She's looking the little girl straight into her eyes while still holding her as close as she can without blurring her vision. I imagine her vision was blurred all the same. How did she do that without crying? She will hand that baby to Ma, knowing full well that, if she ever sees her again, Carrie will no longer fit in her arms. Grandma won't feel that toddler curve around her hips ever again. She won't sit her on her lap at dinner time. She won't wipe the day's dirt from her face in a warm bath by her woodstove. No matter how reliable the post, letters will never let her feel the baby softness of Carrie's cheek or the tickle of toddler hair after a nap. She knows that she won't be the dear, familiar face to any of the girls that she is when she lifts them onto the wagon. They will grow as quickly as children do and if their paths cross again, the little girls will not be so little and she will be but a friendly stranger to them. They are leaving and nothing will ever be the same.

It's 2016. We have Skype. And Instagram. And FaceTime. And Snapchat. We can see each other every day. We have airplanes.

And I am very grateful for all of that.

I'm also spending countless hours trying to understand the new paradigm where some of my favorite people live 3,000 miles away. I'm trying to imagine how an introverted, homebody kind of a mother who has always understood that "acts of service" is her love language (how she gives and how she receives) and everything is about showing up even begins to wrap her brain around the cosmic shift in her household. 

I'm the mama who always hid Going West so we wouldn't have to read that one. 

Even then, I think I knew. 

Tonight, I read Going West to Sarah at bedtime. We both cried.

Monday night, we'll take turns reading aloud from Little House on the Prairie--right after we FaceTime with Lucy.

Take this Cup

I’ve fallen on my face fairly frequently lately. That part, I seem to have mastered. Like Jesus in Gethsemane, I’ve come to the end of myself. I can’t see, like He does, the suffering that lies ahead. That’s definitely God’s good design, because I’m sure if last year at this time I could see all the way to this year, I’d have been terrified. All I see is what is directly in front of me. Still, I throw myself facedown and pray with all my heart. Something happens here, in the facedown position. Grace is poured. I don’t always recognize it at once, but it’s there.  (Please read the rest here)

To falter, to fail, to find Him

It’s time for the familiar, seasonal conversation. Every year, it’s about the same, just with different combinations of children. They talk about what to give up for Lent. They weigh one thing against another, testing the viability of various options. They bounce ideas off one another, and they are honest in rejecting or applauding those ideas. One refrain always makes itself heard.

“No, I’m not going to do that. I could never stick to that for 40 days.”

“He’s right. That’s too hard. I tried it last year and couldn’t do it.”

And then it’s my turn to weigh in. If you can’t do it, if you really, really know that you can’t possibly do it, that’s exactly what you should do. Go ahead. Set yourself up for failure.

 When the time comes that you falter and you stumble and you do the thing you expressly resolved not to do, you will see what it is to come to the end of yourself. You will know that you have to reach the point where you need grace, and you will beg for it.

All the tricks and tips will present themselves at the beginning of Lent. Don’t want to eat chocolate? Don’t buy it, and make sure no one brings it into the house. Want to give up coffee? Stay away from Instagram between the hours of 6 and 10 a.m. lest you be tempted by all the carefully staged photos of foamy latte art. And all the tricks will fail if you have chosen your sacrifice well. The things of the world — the tricks and the tips — will sustain you only so long. Your soul will be filled only when it is emptied of worldly tricks and tips, emptied of your own resolve and good intentions, and looks to God to fill it.

People who don’t understand Lent object by saying that we are trying to live under God’s law, that it is unnecessary to observe Lent because Jesus already has done the work of salvation on the cross. We don’t have to work out our salvation with self-imposed suffering. He’s done it all. It is finished. We are saved.

They’re right, in a way. Lent teaches us that even if we wanted to, even if we were of iron will and utter devotion, we will break God’s law. We cannot keep it perfectly. We are a people born into sin, and there is no way out without God. For 40 days, every time we bump up against the struggle of making our sacrifice well, we are reminded of death in sin, and we look with hope toward Christ, who brings light and life to the darkness. Lent is precisely about making us aware that it is Jesus Christ, crucified, who has opened the gates of heaven.

This, then, is Lent: to falter, to fail, to find Him. Choose the hard thing, the thing that brings you to your knees, the thing that reminds you to ask again and again for His mercy and His grace. Choose the thing that will empty your soul of you and fill it with God. (It’s likely that is not chocolate.) Let Lent teach you the places you will fail, the places where you are frail. Let it remind you that you are dust and to dust you will return. Let it break you and bring you down. Let it find you kneeling in the dirt — soft, yielding, fertile dirt that will bloom in time with Easter glory. Let it empty you of your weak and weary self and fill you with His strength.

Gathering my Thoughts on the Eve of Lent.

Outside my window:  It's snowing--a soft, sweet, sort of wimpy snow.

Listening to: kitchen sounds as my children fix themselves lunch..

Clothing myself in: Yoga pants and a Mason soccer sweatshirt. I've worn a variation of this almost every day since the beginning of January. And I've gone almost nowhere since the beginning of January:-)

Talking with my children about these books:  Christian is taking an intensive class on the Civil War. He's reached out for some help, so Stephen and Nick are jumping in to provide community. We're all talking about Uncle Tom's Cabin this week.

And, of course, we're stocking the book baskets with these perennial favorites for the Lent and Easter season.

In my own reading: I've just cracked open The Awakening of Miss Prim. Looking very forward to it. One thing on the my list of things I will cherish this Lent (CHERISH is the word for 2016) is reading from books chosen for me. I spend a whole lot of time reading with my kids, even my adult kids. I know I need to not neglect the dimension that is fed by personal reading. I'll keep you posted.

The Importance of Being Little: What Preschoolers Really Need From Grownups arrived today. I was so excited about this book when I pre-ordered it last fall. I think I may wait a bit on reading it now, though. For the first time in my adult life, there are no preschoolers. It's been a long time since I taught preschoolers in a classroom.  Mine own sweet preschoolers are grown well beyond that age. And after having our favorite baby and then toddler come hang out without us several days a week for a couple of years, we are soon to settle into the new normal of watching her become a preschooler via Skype. I don't really have the heart to read this book just now.

Mary Beth has a whole school of preschoolers keeping her busy these days. Perhaps I will borrow them in time;-). 

Thinking and thinking: Oh, about things too tender to share. 

Pondering: “The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.”
--Anna Quindlen

Carefully Cultivating Rhythm: This has been an odd winter rhythm. It is punctuated by the gurgle of the vaporizer and broken by unexpected spasmodic coughing. It's been six weeks since the first diagnosis and antibiotic. I don't really want to settle into a rhythm of being intentional about these days because I still go to bed every night thinking the next day will be "all better" day. I believe in the sanctity of suffering and the holy ground of plans gone awry. I'm praying I understand what God desires from me in the time I spend recovering. One thing that I think about as I sit mostly silently (still laryngitis), is what God hopes I hear in this bubble made quiet by my silence. I had so many clear, well-defined goals for this year. This year has barely started and those plans have been mostly blown away. For several weeks, this unrelenting re-writing has rocked me. Now, though, I'm beginning to understand that building it all again from scratch when I have no strength for such a task, leaves God able to do what He will. I cannot think it an accident that Lent begins tomorrow and with it, Restore.  Two years ago, I wrote Restore--it is where I was (and still am) sure I heard God most clearly. Now, it sits waiting for me, ready to walk me through restoration and healing. I'd love it if you join me.

Creating By Hand:  Katie and I are giddy with excitement over beginning to share Scripture time with one another using these. She has literally been counting the days. Today was to be the day, but it looks like it's been delayed a week or so. All in God's time, right? That's the theme.

Learning lessons In: Mama guilt. I think midlife for women is marked by "What did I do?" or "What could I have done differently?" When we are open to life, to bringing these new people into the circle of our lives without reservation and pouring ourselves into them with reckless abandon, we think they'll know--always know--how precious they are and how much we want for us to always be US, across time and space and generations. We learn that they make their own decisions and their own mistakes. They choose different priorities and different paths. Again and again, I hear women saying, "Wait? This doesn't work? This intentional, life-giving mothering to which I've dedicated all my childbearing years?" They're surprised that grown children reject family values or seem not the least inclined to buy into the vision or even the faith of their parents. And women feel terribly guilty. They are sure it's something they did wrong. Not so, at least not to the degree we beat ourselves with it. When they start the conversation--begin to talk with other women--women with grown children learn they're not alone. Not at all. And they begin to understand that it's not their fault. Children grow up to be adults who make their own choices. There is peace in letting go of Mama Guilt. Mama Sorrow?  That's another story. Sorrow comes with the afternoon of mothering. It is what happens when you raise a child and live long enough to see her go wherever she chooses and do whatever she believes. So, yay for living long!

Encouraging learning in: Civil War studies. Here are my notes. We'll adapt.

Keeping house: The Jesse Tree is still up. It's coming down today, a final admission that I will not be well enough to read aloud all the stories I wanted to share. I left it up because we never finished before Christmas, so I thought I'd grant myself some grace and just finish up in January. Okay then, but I didn't have a voice at all in January. It's time to hide the Alleluia. We shall concede that the Jesse Tree didn't happen this year. Hide the Alleluia. Pack away the Jesse Tree. Move on to the next season. It's a theme:-)

Crafting in the kitchen: For tonight,we are all about Fat Tuesday. Waffles and sausage and whipped cream, oh my!

To be fit and happy: Hah! A sweet friend encouraged me at the beginning of the year with a membership at Run the Year. I haven't tracked a mile since January 7. However, that gift is a treasure. I still have every intention to run the year. It will happen. Let's see how God lets it be so.

Giving thanks: For a good weekend with my youngest boys. Patrick, Nick, Stephen, and I watched the Super Bowl together at my dad's. Then, Stephen and Nick and I went to Lynchburg on Monday. While the boys did a campus visit, Ginny and I had a lunch visit with Ann. I cannot overstate how grateful I am for my time with my boys and my time with two women who hear my heart even when my words are soft and strained.

Loving the moments: I will forever treasure Nicholas' enthusiasm yesterday afternoon. He was so excited about what the next few years could hold for him and it was such a happy thing to see hope shine in his eyes.

Living the Liturgy: Lent, my friends. We shall hide the Alleluia and talk together about what we hear God calling for us this year. My children know that sometimes, you don't really get to choose your Lent. Life brings with it suffering beyond the sacrifice of chocolate. And they know (even the littlest one) that this season will undoubtedly have some of that for them. So we talk today, about how to suffer well and how Jesus walks with us in every season, tenderly binding wounds and restoring souls. 

I intend to share the season with you in the most raw, honest way this medium allows. Please take a moment or two to read what I am offering and maybe to watch the video we made? 

Planning for the week ahead: Mike comes home today. He's been gone ten days! He has a date tomorrow morning to have breakfast with Sarah and Mary Beth at the Montessori school. I have very little on my calendar. I'm looking forward to getting to know some new friends as Restore begins tomorrow and I'm looking forward to slowly getting back into the groove of caring for my home and family. Only as He wills...

All photos are the kindness of Katie Foss