Boats and Planes

Last time she was at the monastery, Sis gave one of the beautiful Sisters (who lives and serves there) an origami flower. She also told the Sister of our plans to spend two weeks in Venezuela playing with kids while they waited to see the doctor. “Would you like to take some paper with you?” the Sister asked. Sis smiled and they disappeared for a few minutes, returning with a thick stack of computer paper in summery pastels.

Between the day at St. Gert’s and the trip, Sis forgot how to make flowers, but our translator-friend knew how to make little boats, which turned out to be just the thing for rainy season.

One morning, as we were waiting out the downpour that had halted set up in a small church, Sis and her friend Ceaser hurried to make boats, and sprinted across the street to take advantage of the river running down the drainage trench. They chased their boats with abandon, the on-looking adults cheered, and the little barcitos spun away from their charges.

When it wasn’t raining, we used the paper to make planes and sombreros.

And Sis set up an “official” airport in a vacant lot.

Every time I handed out a piece of paper, a spark of gratitude for the foresight of the Sister from St. Gertrude’s warmed my heart. I watched children huddling over muddy puddles, talking and smiling, and was grateful for the specific way that Benedictine hospitality had reached through the arm of one Sister, into the suitcase of my kid, and out into the campo around Bocono.

"Always be eager to practice hospitality." Romans 12:13b

Measuring Up

In Bocono, a pediatrician from our town met up with a team of general practicioners, optometrists, dentists and med students to conduct single-day clinics in the surrounding area. They set up shop in schools, clinics, and living rooms.

Most, if not all, of the families who came to wait in line lack the minimal level of medical care available here. Even still, the majority of the babies who waited on the laps of their mothers to see the doctor were generally healthy. I watched them come and go from their check-ups and thought about all the times I have taken my own children in to be weighed and measured. For me, there was something beautiful and spiritual about the long line of patiently waiting mothers and their babies, chap-cheeked from having their skin scrubbed under a cold spigot in the dawn light.

We want to know that we are on track.

We want to know that we are making progress.

We want to see our dot on the upper edges of the chart. We desire, in our bones, confirmation that we are okay.

Watching the mothers wait with their babies reminded me that I also desire to plot my progress. The important thing, the thing that matters, though, is making sure I am using the right chart. Because plotting points on the wrong graph makes the measurement worse than useless (I did not know until the trip, that doctors in South America use a different height and weight chart that the one used in the U.S.). Abraham Lincoln said, “Put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.” I think he had a good point.

The measurement of my life that matters is the one set for me in scripture. The right place for my feet to stand is in the grace of God. And the great map of God’s grace makes the kind of charting we like to do impossible. Any place I land is within his love. And, no matter where my inky dot is added, there is room for growth. This side of heaven, I will never make it into the 99th percentile. Instead I find myself always between the promise of God’s gift of grace (like in Ephesians) and his prescription for a rich and meaningful life (like in Micah) - already healthy in his sight with lots of room to grow.

Ephesians 2:8 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith —and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.”

Micah 6:8 “The Lord has told us what is good. What he requires of us is this: to do what is just, to show constant love, and to live in humble fellowship with our God.”

Plain Jane

This morning at breakfast Peanut announced that she is plain. I was pretty sure I understood the root of her comment and pressed for more details. She kept talking. “I mean I have white skin so I am plain.”

“That is not true,” I argued, realizing at some level that I was attempting a conversation with a preschooler before eight o’clock in the morning that I don’t even like having with adults. “Your skin is plain because you don’t have any tattoos or scrapes or polka dots. All three of you have plain skin. Just because skin is a different color doesn’t mean that it is not plain.” I kept going, way past her developmental level, into the subdermal layers of historical racism, where biological definitions of race (a deadly gift of the Age of Science) do their work at gut level. She pushed back, insisting on her plainness. I explained that when she decides that her white skin in plain, she is saying that anyone without white skin has to be defined as Big-D different, which is both untrue and unfair. “Ya, well, my food goes in my mouth and down to my leg, and then to my other leg and up to my brain,” she said, effectively changing the subject.

I continue to be sadly fascinated by the ways white kids growing up in mostly white communities “learn” about their position in the world. I would like to imagine that our home is a place where hierarchical messages about skin color meet with compelling counter-evidence. But this morning’s conversation, and the many others we have on the topic, prove again that helping all my children rethink skin color is lifetime work.

And really, where does a kid who wears most of her clothes backwards, likes holding taranchulas, and spends an entire day with half a box of corn starch in her hair (to absorb the tube of sparkly lip gloss that mysteriously missed her lips) get off defining herself as plain? As if.

Traveling Song

The hills around Bocono, Venezuela are magnificent. I tried and tried to take a picture that would capture their dewy green expanse and the way they spoke calm to my soul with their endless folds and creases. I did not end up with a satisfying photo, but the hills did prompt a return to a beautiful psalm.

Psalm 121 speaks about hills. It is the second in a group of psalms referred to as the Psalms of Assent. These short songs were sung by ancient pilgrims making their way to Jerusalem. In his book, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, Eugene Peterson comments on this important group of psalms and makes the case for walking life’s road with a persistent reliance on God and God alone. Peterson notes that the Songs of Assent speak to “times of in between.” They are “songs of transition, brief hymns that provide courage, support and inner direction for getting us to where God is leading us in Jesus Christ.” Psalm 120 takes the voice of the bitter, discouraged traveler. Psalm 121 follows with a reminder that he who watches our way does not slumber, really sees us, offers the promise of protection that the inevitable weight of suffering will not crush us in the end.

I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
where does my help come from?
2 My help comes from the Lord,
the Maker of heaven and earth.
3 He will not let your foot slip—
he who watches over you will not slumber;
4 indeed, he who watches over Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.
5 The Lord watches over you—
the Lord is your shade at your right hand;
6 the sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.
7 The Lord will keep you from all harm —
he will watch over your life;
8 the Lord will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore.

Rather than worshiping nature, Psalm 121 reminds that the beauty of the hills, their majesty and seeming permanence, cannot save us in our darkest hour. They are a “delusion” (Jer. 3:23). They are creation, not Creator. Our confusion in the face of their beauty should point us back to promise in Romans (8:28, 31-32) that nothing, not even mountains, can stand between us and the love of God. Peterson: “The only serious mistake we can make when illness comes, when anxiety threatens, when conflict disturbs our relationships with others is to conclude that God has gotten bored looking after us and has shifted his attention to more exciting Christians, or that God has become disgusted with our meandering obedience and decided to let us fend for ourselves for a while, or that God has gotten too busy fulfilling prophecy in the Middle East to take time to sort out the complicated mess we have gotten ourselves into. That is the only serious mistake we can make. It is the mistake that Psalm 121 prevents: the mistake of supposing that God’s interest in us waxes and wanes in response to our spiritual temperature.”

I want to walk in obedience, one foot in front of the other. I want to walk towards heaven with a sure-footed faith that sings through the hills and does not fear darkness, strangers, or the cliffs along the way. I want to remember that the creation that speaks to my soul is but a dim reflection of the One who folded the hills together and painted them with colors of endless birth, ripe fruit, and things made new by sweet, warm rains. Lord, make it so.

Top Five

Sis and I are back from two weeks in Bocono, Venezuela. Numbed by travel weariness, I don’t yet have anything significant to say about our time there, and so begin the process of processing the trip with its least spiritual victory: Sis won a dance contest.

She and I went with some of our new friends to a kid event where she was plucked from the crowd, along with two dozen other little girls, by the clown emcee. She looked horrified, and I was horrified for her. Neither of us knew what the contest was about and I watched her in the middle of the line of little ladies, eyes darting left and right, looking for clues as to what she would be asked to do. The song started and the kids on her left and right transformed into music video backup dancers. Sis just kind of stood there twitching and I started praying that she would loose in the first round.

But the friends we were with cheered and she made cut after cut, gaining confidence, shaking her buns, flailing around. In the end she made the top five and was awarded this hat, which our friend Patti said she has seen in the Oriental Trading Company catalog – twenty-five for a dollar.

Its not every day you go to Venezuela and win a dog hat. Good thing I got that kid a passport.

Paint

Papi lets the kids paint the bathroom in his studio. They like to do it. And there is some beautiful story in "the process" that I will have to come back and tell - some story about painting over time, as you grow - some story about how the wide, flailing stokes that leave heavy drops of wasted paint on the floor provide the backdrop for the finer, more graceful lines of a mind and body that has had more time to get used to life here. But no story today. Just pictures of happy kids leaving their mark.

In Celebration of Dads

In celebration of men who - by biology, adoption, or circumstance - choose to love bravely and find themselves Fathers . . .


A few things we like about Dad:


Peanut:
I love playing with him
We play Tic-Tac-Toe
I like eating with my Daddy
He makes crepes with yogurt inside
I like his sunglasses
He likes to go bear hunting, remember the Bear Hunt book?
We put on our bathing suits on the trampoline and he sprays us with the water hose


Mister:
I love that my Daddy is strong
I love that he lets me have more of his cookie that he ate
The other thing I like about Daddy is that he holds the slide while we slide
I love about Daddy is that he found a great place to drive the remote control car
I love about Daddy that he helps me build a Lego car



Sis:
I love you because you are the best Dad in the world
I love it when you take us to the Skate Park
It was super fun when you took us to the pool
I love you a lot because you are always rubbing my back
You make the best crepes ever
I like it when you read Little House on the Prairie

Public Schooling

Can you read this fine piece of 1st grade writing? (double click on the image to make it bigger)

I am sure you knew that it says: "ABC! ABC! ABC! Whow! I like my ABC. I am going to say forever ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ. How I say my ABC. Next time will you say to."

That's what I thought too. But not on the first read.

Be Still or How I Heard My Heartbeat in My Ear

This morning was Day 4 for me of working through a prayer journal that my mom gave me for Mother’s Day even though I am not her mother. Mother’s Day was not four days ago, which proves, as if it needed proving, that spending time in prayer does not come easy for me. The book, Writing to God: 40 Days of Praying With My Pen, by Rachel Hackenberg, suggested this morning that I read Psalm 46 and then set a timer for ten minutes to truly be still and know that God is God. Since it is Day 4, and like any good student, I am still eager to complete the lessons with A+ effort, I set my watch, folded my legs to appear more yoga-like, and closed my eyed.

And nearly panicked.

Ten minutes of holding still and knowing that God is God suddenly seemed impossible. What if he wasn’t going to speak to me? What if he was and I didn’t like what he said? What if my mind wandered?

It did.

I tried to take deep breaths and relax, but was totally consumed by the sound of my heartbeat in my ear, which I think was I could hear because it is so plugged up. Then I thought about post-nasal drip. And whether or not I would get a chance to exercise today. And whether or not I would wash my hair. And whether or not I would let it drip dry. My thoughts roamed slowly around in depressingly unspiritual loops. Yoga pants versus jeans. Post-nasal drip. The pattern of my bedspread. A small thought about knowing that God is God. Breathing. Stiffness in my neck. Weeds. Wind. Post-nasal drip. Wondering how much time was left. Hair washing, again. The time I wore my yoga pants inside out and backwards half a day without noticing and swore then and there to go back to the land of zippers, buttons and self-respect.

The timer went off and I picked up my journal. And wrote this: “Sorry, God. I feel like I just wasted your time.” But that is just the thing. Thinking that I wasted God’s time is hubris. It means I still think that time is mine to waste – that I own it, even in its misuse. I did not waste God’s time, because Big-T Time is not mine. It belongs to God. Thinking about the “unproductiveness” of my roaming mind, is still thinking about Me, is still a rating of my performance, which is a convoluted form of conceit and time-ownership. Ten minutes of quiet, thinking about God being God, is not about Me. And that, I think, may be the whole point, at least today.

I do want to learn to clear my mind. I do want to learn to pray and hold still and think about things other than washing my hair. But even if I do learn how to hold still, how to be in the presence of God without talking, I will never own time. Because I am not God. And somehow that feels comforting.

Morning Light

I came around the corner to find Peanut sitting at the kitchen table eating her breakfast with her eyes pinched shut. “Your baby is missing, Mama.” She announced. She was so sure of the total darkness registering in her brain, despite the sunlight filling the window, backlighting her bedhead and transforming the plastic gaudy flower tablecloth into a sheet of glowing white. Her face was scrunched so that the whole of it seems to be folding into itself at the eye sockets, pulling her mouth into a happy grimace showing her baby teeth.

Kind of like this:

This hasn’t been my best parenting week. There are a few choice moments of me responding very, very, very badly to the tiresome quirks of the oldest I would rather forget forever. Like Peanut, I would like to scrunch my face and announce my disappearance. Truthfully.

This morning a timely word came with all the promise of a little silver box with silky matching ribbon. It came by way of A Year With Dietrich Bonhoeffer which I picked up earlier this week at the local used books store. This morning, Mr. Bonhoeffer pointed me towards Proverbs 4:18: “The path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter till full day.” I whispered a little thanks for the reminder that my best days, my closest likeness to the character of Christ, are yet to come. The moments when I most closely resemble the love, patience, and wisdom of God are not lost somewhere in my past. I haven’t missed it. I haven’t squandered all of himself that he longs to give. He calls me to new mercies every morning, to a discipline of prayer, a closeness to his Word. And like the morning, my life holds promise for more light, more warmth, more movement toward the heart of God.