What I don't do

I'm currently reading Shauna Niequist's Bittersweet and in it she has a chapter titled "What I Don't Do". Its inspired me to make a list of the things that I too don't do. I think there's some major freedom in a post like this.

Fold my clothes all of the time
Fold my children's clothes all of the time
Put away Matt's laundry
Dust regularly
Clean regularly
Floss daily... many days I don't floss at all
Get bikini waxes
Pluck my eyebrows
Keep cute scrapbooks of my kids (this blog is your scrapbook, babes!)


I think this will be a list that I add to as more things pop into my mind. 

Its okay that I don't do these things. I am freer for having listed them here, even if I'm the only one who ever sees this list. 

Bittersweet

Oh, Shauna. You are so good to me. Bittersweet is yet another heaping dose of your eloquent, honest, life-giving prose and I love it. Here are some parts that stood out to me and of course there are LOTS. (Emphasis on certain parts is my own doing, not how the text is printed.)

p. 11: Bittersweet is the practice of believing that we really do need both the bitter and the sweet, and that a life of nothing but sweetness rots both your teeth and your soul. Bitter is what makes us strong, what forces us to push through, what helps us earn the lines on our faces and the callouses on our hands. Sweet is nice enough, but bittersweet is beautiful, nuanced, full of depth and complexity. Bittersweet is courageous, gutsy, earthy.

p. 12: When you haven't yet had your heart really broken, the gospel isn't about death and rebirth. Its about life and more life. Its about hope and possibility and a brighter future. And it is, certainly, about those things... When you life is easy, a lot of the really crucial parts of Christian doctrine and life are nice theories, but you don't really need them. When, however, death of any kind is staring you in the face, all of a sudden rebirth and new life are very, very important to you.

p. 13: ...when life is sweet, say thank you and celebrate. And when life is bitter, say thank you and grow.

p. 15: If you try to stand and face the wave, it will smash you into bits, but if you trust the water and let it carry you, there's nothing sweeter. 

pp. 17-19: Looking back now I can see that it was more than anything a failure to believe in the story of who God is and what he is doing in this world. Instead of living that story - one of sacrifice and purpose and character - I began to live a much smaller story, and that story was only about me. I wanted an answer, a timeline, and a map... If I'm honest, I prayed the way you order breakfast from a short-order cook: this is what I want. Period. This what I want. Aren't you getting this? I didn't pray for God's will to be done in my life, or, at any rate, I didn't mean it. I prayed to be rescued, not redeemed. I prayed for it to get easier, not that I would be shaped in significant ways. I prayed for the waiting to be over, instead of trying to learn something about patience or anything else for that matter... More awareness of God's presence and action and ability, and less stranglehold on my fear and anxiety. More floating, and less getting tumbled.

p. 36: Feeding people is a way of loving them, in the same way that feeding ourselves is a way of honoring our own createdness and fragility.
When we stop everything else to gather around the table and eat a meal made by someone's hands, we honor our bodies and the God who created them. We honor the world he made and the beauty of creation. And in that moment we acknowledge that even though life is fast and frantic, we're not machines and we do require nourishment, physically and otherwise.

pp. 65-66: Share your life with the people you love, even if it means saving up for a ticket and going without a few things for a while to make it work. There are enough long lonely days of the same old thing, and if you let enough years pass, and if you let the routine steamroll your life, you'll wake up one day, isolated and weary, and wonder what happened to all those old friends. You'll wonder why all you share is Christmas cards, and why life feels lonely and bone-dry. We were made to live connected and close...
So walk across the street, or drive across town, or fly across the country, but don't let really intimate loving friendships become the last item on a long to-do list. Good friendships are life breakfast. You think you're too busy to eat breakfast, but then you find yourself exhausted and cranky halfway through the day, and discover that your attempt to save time totally backfired. In the same way, you can try to go it alone because you don't have time or because your house is too messy to have people over, or because making new friends is like the very worst parts of dating. But halfway through a hard day or a hard week, you'll realize in a flash that you're breathtakingly lonely, and that the Christmas cards aren't much company. Get up, make a phone call, buy a cheap ticket, open your front door. 
Because there really is nothing life good friends, life the sounds of their laughter and the tones of their voices and the things they teach us in the quietest, smallest moments.

p. 69: Aaron and I are finding that marriage, and maybe all relationships, are built on the past. That's a good thing, when the past involves honeymoons and great dates and moments of sweetness and partnership. But what we are left with when, increasingly, the past also contains the moments when we hurt each other, the times we stopped listening, the needs we saw and didn't meet, the conversations we walked away from?

p. 79: Sometimes we get so tangled up in our own perceptions of ourselves, what we think we're good at and what we're not, that we lose perspective, seeing only our failures and bad habits. I can give you a top ten list of why its hard to work with me or crazy-making to live with me, and especially in difficult seasons, its almost impossible to remember that feeling of being great at something, or the feeling of being proud of yourself.

pp. 81-83: Part of why I'm seeing it [grace] everywhere now is because I'm just coming around to the realization that I don't really want to need grace. And all of a sudden now I can see that I never have been very comfortable with the idea. I don't really trust that people will show me grace. I don't show it to myself well, and when I'm doing very poorly, I don't show it to anyone else well, either. 

--She writes about how a friend of hers keeps asking for prayer for the same situation over and over, but doesn't actually make changes in her life to do something about it. She is frustrated over her terrible decisions and "having" to pray about it. --

...Uh-oh! So in my economy, we earn the right to be prayed for by making all the right decisions? Practically speaking, if we all made the right decisions, we wouldn't generally need prayer, would we? But more than that, who am I? Is it my job to decide who does and who doesn't deserve to be prayed for, based on the tokens they've put into the good-decision-meter? My friend and I are bound together by our common love for Christ and common acceptance of his grace.
It gets even worse, actually. The thing is, she asked for my advice, many years ago, and went against it. This situation wouldn't exist had she taken my advice. So now my small, ugly self doesn't want to pray for her. Something about making one's bed and lying in it. I have her what comes easily to me: advice. She didn't take it, and now she wants something that's harder for me to give: prayer.
That's a grace-less way to live, where everything is an opportunity to achieve or fail. Its exhausting to live like that, where everything's a performance, and you can't trust the people in your life to give you a break or to give you a second chance or to give you what you really are longing for, which is grace.
I don't like the idea that someone can judge me and that I have to depend on their grace. I want to take that power out of their hands. I hate to think about the fact that the people who love me show me the grace for all my faults. I prefer to believe instead that the math works: that there are good things about me and hard things about me, but that they've checked the math and because I'm funny enough, they can let go of how terrible I look most days, or that if I'm interesting enough, the fact that my house is dirty isn't such a big deal. But that kind of math is specifically anti-grace. Grace isn't about netting out on the right side of things.
If arithmetic is numbers, and if algebra is numbers and letters, then grace is numbers, letters, sounds, and tears, feelings and dreams. Grace is smashing the calculator, and using all the broken buttons and pieces to make a mosaic.
Grace isn't about having a second chance; grace is about having so many chances that you could use them through all eternity and never come up empty. Its when you finally realize that the other shoe isn't going to drop, ever. Its the moment you feel as precious and handmade as every star, when you feel, finally, at home for the very first time.
Grace is when you finally stop keeping score and when you realize that God never was, that his game is a different one entirely. Grace is when the silence is so complete that you can hear your own heartbeat, and right within your ribs, God's beating heart too.
I used to think that the ability to turn back time would be the greatest possible gift, so that I could undo all the things I wish I hadn't done. But grace is an ever better gift, because it allows me to do more than just erase; it allows me to become more than I was when I did those things. Its forgiveness without forgetting, which is much sweeter than amnesia.

pp. 114, 116: We slip into believing that it's better to strive for perfection that to accept and offer one another grace. Back once again to grace, the spiritual theme of my year. What I need as a mother is grace. God's grace, that allows me to fail and try again, that allows me to ask for help when I don't have the wisdom or patience I need, that reminds me we're not alone in this, and that God loves my son even more than I do. And grace from other mothers. I need grace and truth-telling and camaraderie from other moms. I need us to tell the truth about how hard it is, and I need us to help each other, instead of hiding behind the pretense and pressure of perfection.
...Let's give each other a break and a little help and some soft places to land. 
If you're a mom, what you do is nurture and protect and give grace. You do it all the time, and it's very important, because it reminds is, in daily, tangible ways how God nurtures and protects and gives grace. And maybe today the one who really needs that nurturing and protection and grace is you.

p. 127, 129: I know that most of us are longing for something. I know that longing is part of the deal, part of living in the not-yet-heaven. I know people who are longing to marry, who are longing to be healed from disease, longing for their children to come home, longing for the financial pressure to release. I get that longing is part of how we live...
I'll celebrate with my friends. I'll hold babies, buy baby gifts, ask them what it's like for them and really listen to the answer. I'll do it because it's the right thing to do, and because I can't ask them to mourn with me unless I'm willing to celebrate with them, as deeply painful as it is on some days. And my friends have done it for me, certainly; they stood in my wedding when they wanted to be brides, bought shower gifts when they wanted to be mothers. No one is exempt from the longing, and now, it seems, it's my turn. 
...I'll choose to believe that the happiest ending isn't the one you keep longing for, but something you absolutely cannot see from where you are.

p. 150: In my most blind moments, I think that women without children live luxurious, carefree lives, filled with nothing but cosmopolitans, bikinis and well-maintained highlights. I find that the phrase "She's let herself go" fills me with terror and guilt and panic as I look down at my jagged dirty fingernails and overly soft tummy. I am she, certainly. And then I realize that as much as I want my friend Jenny's abs, she wants a baby, and we're all yearning for something. 

p. 155-157: Keep in mind that there are a million ways to do a wedding, and that for whatever reason, people feel extraordinarily free to comment on anything they feel is out of the ordinary. Consider this great training if you should one day decide to have children. Advice on cakes and seeing each other before the ceremony is a great warm-up for unsolicited lectures on the ills of epidurals, the importance of delayed vaccinations, and many varied ways you will probably damage and scar your precious new life. 
Part of being a married couple means that you create a new identity together, woven from your experiences and histories and lives, and while the whole world is replete with opinions and recommendations, work hard to become your own family, with your own values and traditions, things you always do, things you never do, things that bring you back to why you fell in love in the first place. Dance to your song in the backyard, wear your wedding shoes every anniversary. Carve out your own history together, little by little, month by month, year by year. Because there will be seasons that are as dry as deserts, and the history of your love for one another will be the water you need to bring new life and growth, turning that season from dust to garden once again. 
...You will be a bride for one day, but you will, with God's grace and your own very hard work, be a wife to this man every day for the rest of your life. Being a bride is super-fun, but it pales in comparison to the thrill and beauty of being a part [a] truly great partnership... Make your love story one worth telling. Make it one worth living, every day, as long as you both shall live.

Mid-year book review

So far 2014 has been "The Year of the Book" for me! 

When I was younger, I read a lot and enjoyed the escape of whatever novel I was into. For several years recently though, I've either not been reading much of anything at all or if I was reading something, it was in the educational or self-help categories. What I've read so far this year has been a great mix of escapes from reality blended with some humor, some memoir-type reading and a little bit of self-helping. Here's a list of the pages I've been turning since the beginning of the year.

I meannnn, Suzanne Collins... you had me at Katniss Everdeen. Who comes up with such a name? And with such characters and a plot like I was tantalized by in the Hunger Games trilogy?! I started reading the first book on our weekend without kids in December and within three weeks, I was through all three books. UNHEARD of for moi! Loved every second of it and so much so, that I'm considering reading through em again - just 'cuz!

Melanie has a frank, witty, down-to-earth way about her writing that hooked me instantly. I think I read through this book in about four days and I enjoyed it all. If I'm honest, I felt like sometimes she was trying a bit too hard to get a laugh out of someone, but for the most part, it was a great (and easy) read. 

Shauna Niequist. 'Nuff said. This was the first of her books that I found and now she's got me hooked - probably for life. I don't think her books are categorized as memoirs, but they're written in that same manor which made for an easy, breezy time of flipping through the pages and being so eager to know what waited on the other side. There were times when she said things better than I've known how to articulate them in my own life and there were highs and lows she experienced that I too have been through. We're friends, Shauna and I. Maybe one day we'll meet in person. Ya know, for realz.

Disappointed! I tried and tried to read this book over the course of several weeks and I just couldn't stomach it. I adore the show and so I thought that I'd naturally adore the book as well. Wrong. I found Jennifer Worth to be incredibly wordy and it wasn't the relaxing book I was hoping for. Sad.

I read this twice. In less than three month's time. And I want to make all the recipes and create art pieces from all the chapters and sing all the food-love-friendship songs that Shauna sings throughout the book. There were moments when I'd read what she wrote and it felt like she had penned things that had just fallen from my very lips. Words about issues with food and about the pain of losing someone you love and of friendships and of the Church and of a God so big and gracious and powerful that you're left speechless. Shauna Niequest, folks. She kicks major booty. The book is good. So good. So inspirational. So so good. 

Ah yes, the fourth teen fiction book I devoured of the year. What is it with me? Is that were my intellect is? No, I know its not, but I sure did blow through this book in a mere three days. Oh, Hazel Grace and Augustus Waters. Why'd ya have to be so young and so smart and so cancer-ridden? Its not okay. Okay?

Insert big, loud swallow-gulp here. In April I started going to a women's group through CV and they were just starting this book. Its been wonderful. We meet twice a month and read/discuss just two chapters a month. Very doable at this stage of my life and for some of the subject matter, taking things this slow is for the best. As with all Brene Brown stuff, it ain't for the faint of heart. She pinches where it hurts and says what needs to be said that you'd rather avoid and she lays things out in a way that make sense for my often-tired brain. Its been a good few months with the ladies of my group and this book for sure.

Sure did read all of Shauna's book out of sequence, but who cares. This one, maybe because its the most fresh in my mind, really hit home. Thoughts on grace and change for goodness sake - I could read about that all day long if she was writing about it. She's eloquent but real, emotional but not too emotional, centered in her faith in God but not in a cheesy church lady way. She pretty much rocks. 

There are some helpful household tips in here on cleaning, avoiding cleaning and things like avoiding awkward people and a lot of things in between. The cover caught my eye on the display rack at the library and it was a decently humorous book . Not too shabby.

Ain't it da troot, ain't it da troot? Everybody really does have something and Robin Roberts writes about her somethings so well. I vaguely remember her first battle with cancer, breast cancer and all the buzz surrounding her because she was another sick celebrity, yada yada. But this book is more about her bone marrow cancer, the second cancer that affected her. She's so deeply rooted in her faith and in her family and she surrounds herself with the ones who love her most, have walked with her the longest and who speak the truth to her. I want to have a support system like hers around me in my final days or if, God forbid, I'm affected by a life-threatening illness. Robin's optimism and descriptive language about the highs and lows of her life are powerful.


So there ya have it. My mid-year book review. I'm thankful for an amazing public library system because without it, I wouldn't get to read much of anything!

Bread & Wine

I feel like Shauna Niequist is my friend. 

In the last couple of months I've read through two of her (three) books and they've been so easy, enjoyable, so sitting-in-a-friend's-living-room-sharing-a-bottle-of-wine kinds of books. I'm thankful. 

LOTS of good stuff in her most recent book, Bread and Wine and again, its one I should probably just buy. For now though, the library copy is doing me well and typing out her nuggets of goodness helps the thoughts stick in my brain a little bit better. 

So, without further ado, a bunch of quotes (with my own emphasis added) from my good friend Shauna. 

pages 106, 107 & 109: What people are craving isn't perfection. People aren't longing to be impressed; they're longing to feel like they're home. If you create a space full of love and character and creativity and soul, they'll take off their shoes and curl up with gratitude and rest, no matter how small, no matter how undone, no matter how odd... it isn't about perfection and it isn't about performance. You'll miss the richest moments in life - the sacred moments when we feel God's grace and presence through the actual faces and hands of the people we love - if you're too scared or too ashamed to open the door. I know its scary, but throw open the door anyway...

page 176-177: The heart of hospitality is creating space...protecting the fragile bubble of vulnerability and truth and love. Its all too rare that we tell the people we love exactly why we love them - what they bring to our lives, why our lives are richer because they're in it. We do it best, I think, with our nuclear family - most of us tell our children and spouses how much we love them easily and often. But that night... we risked the awkwardness of saying tender, meaningful things out loud in front of everyone, in front of our friends, trusting that those words would travel down to a very deep part of someone we cared about...
Sometimes food is the end and sometimes its a means to an end, and sometimes you don't know which it is until it happens... The food and the table and the laughter helped to create sacred space, a place to give someone the gift of words. That's what the night was about - sacred space and words of love.

page 181: Kids aren't vanity projects and they're not extensions of our own images... He's a person, not a paper doll. And we're his parents, not his marketing team. 

page 250: The sacraments are tangible ways to represent intangible ideas: new life becomes something we can feel and smell and see when we baptize in water. The idea of a Savior, of a sacrifice, of body and blood so many centuries ago, fills our senses and invades our present when our fingers break bread and our mouths fill with wine. 

We don't experience this connection, this remembering, this intimate memory and celebration of Christ, only at the altar. We experience it, or at least we could, every time we are fed. During that last meal, that last gathering of dear friends and disciples, Jesus was inviting us to gather around a table and remember, in church buildings and outside of them, during the sacrament of Communion and outside of it. 

When you offer peace instead of division, when you offer faith instead of fear, when you offer someone a place at your table instead of keeping them out because they're different or messy or wrong somehow, you represent the heart of Christ. 

page 251: ...the genius of Communion, of bread and wine, is that bread is the food of the poor and wine the drink of the privileged, and that every time we see those two together, we are reminded of what we share instead of what divides us.

page 252: I believe the bread and wine is for all of us, for every person, an invitation to believe, a hand extended from divine to human. I believe its to be torn and handled, gulped. I believe that we can practice the sacrament of Communion anywhere at all, that a forest clearing can become a church and any one of us a priest as we bless the bread and the wine. 

And I believe that Jesus asked for us to remember him during the breaking of the bread and the drinking of the wine every time, every meal, every day - no matter where we are, who we are, what we've done. 

If we only practice remembrance every time we take Communion at church, we miss three opportunities a day to remember. What a travesty! Eugene Peterson says that "to eyes that see, every bush is a burning bush." Yes, that, exactly. To those of us who believe that all of life is sacred, every crumb of bread and sip of wine is a Eucharist, a remembrance, a call to awareness of holiness right where we are. 

I want all the holiness of the Eucharist to spill out beyond the church walls, out of the hands of priests and into the regular streets and sidewalks, into the hands of regular, grubby people like you and me, onto our tables, in our kitchens and dining rooms and backyards. 

Holiness abounds, should we choose to look for it. The whisper and drumbeat of God's Spirit are all around us, should we choose to listen for them. The building blocks of the most common meal - the bread and the wine - are reminders to us: He's here! God is here, and he's good. Every time we eat, every time we gather, every time the table is filled: He's here. He's here, and he is good.

page 257: I want you to stop running from thing to thing, and to sit down at the table, to offer the people you love something humble and nourishing, like soup and bread, like a story, like a hand holding another hand while you pray. We live in a world that values us for how fast we go, for how much we accomplish, for how much life we can pack into one day. But I'm coming to believe that its in the in-between spaces that our lives change, and that the real beauty lies there. 

More from Cold Tangerines

Cold Tangerines. Its so good. I should've just bought it, but I'm cheap. So I took a pencil to the pages and marked the parts I wanted to remember and now I'm typing them out so I'll remember them even better (in theory, at least). How old school of me!

Pg. 148: I imagine a huge choir, hundreds of voices, and they’re singing something unquestionably, remarkably beautiful, and if you look at each person, you can see their intensity, their attention to detail and precision, their extreme focus on sounds and phrases. And you can see their love for music and their passion to sing. You could never pick out an individual voice, out of those several hundred, but that’s not the point. They are not singing to be heard individually. They are singing for the act itself, for the love of music and tone and melody. That’s one of the reasons I pray, for the act itself.

158-160: Shalom is about God, and about the voice and spirit of God blowing through and permeating all the dark corners that we’ve chopped off, locked down. Its about believing, and letting belief move you to forgive. Its about grace, and letting grace propel you into action. Its about the whole of our lives becoming woven through with the sacred spirit of God, through friendship and confession, through rest and motion, through marriage and silence.

Shalom is the act of life lifting up and becoming an act of worship and celebration, a sacrament, an offering. Its about living in a world of movie theaters and shoes and highways and websites, and finding those things to be shot through with the same spirit and divinity and possibility that we see in ourselves. Its living with purpose and sacrifice and intention, willing to be held to the highest, narrowest possible standard of goodness, and in the same breath, finding goodness where most people see nothing but dirt.

I have been surprised to find that I am given more life, more hope, more moments of buoyancy and redemption, the more I give up. The more I let go, do without, reduce, the more I feel rich. The more I let people be who they are, instead of cramming them into what I need from them, the more surprised I am b their beauty and depth.

Shalom is happening all around us, but it never happens on its own. The best things never do happen on their own, and shalom is the very best thing. In the same way that forgiveness never feels natural until after its done, and hope always feels impossible before we commit to it, in the same way that taking is easier than giving, and giving is easier than getting up, in that same way, shalom never happens on its own.

It happens when we do the hardest work, the most secret struggle, the most demanding truth telling. In those moments of ferocity and fight, peace is born. Shalom arrives, and everything is new. And when you’ve tasted it, smelled it, fought for it, labored it into life, you’ll give your soul to get a little more, and it is always worth it.

Shalom.

178-9: …when you realize that the story of your life could be told a thousand different ways, that you could tell it over and over as a tragedy, but you choose to call it an epic, that’s when you start to learn what celebration is. When what you see in front of you is so far outside of what you dreamed, but you have the belief, the boldness, the courage to call it beautiful instead of calling it wrong, that’s celebration.

When you can invest yourself deeply and unremittingly in the life that surrounds you instead of declaring yourself out of the game once and for all, because what’s happened to you is too bad, too deep, too ugly for anyone to expect you to move on from, that’s the good, rich place. That’s the place where the things that looked for all intents and purposes like curses start to stand up and shimmer and dance, and you realize with a gasp that they may have been blessings all along. Or maybe not. Maybe they were curses, in fact, but the force of your belief and your hope and your desperate love for life as it is actually unfolding, has brought a blessing from a curse, like water from a stone, like life from a tomb, like the actual story of God over and over.

Nothing good comes easily, you have to lose things you thought you loved, give up things you thought you needed. You have to get over yourself, beyond your past, out from under the weight of your future. The good stuff never comes when things are easy. It comes when things are all heavily weighted down like moving trucks. It comes just when you think it never will, like a shimmering Las Vegas rising up out of the dry desert, sparkling and humming with energy, a blessing that rose up out of a bone-dry, dusty curse. 

194: "...My life is much quieter now. When you work on a team and you have a boss and projects and deadlines, when you get to the end of something, someone says, "Good job." Or, "Thank you." Or, "Wow, that was smart and helpful." But Henry never looks up at me when I'm changing his diaper and says, "Good move with the wipes, Mom. Very thorough." He doesn't look up at me when I'm trying to get him to go back to sleep in the night and whisper, "Fabulous techniques with the shushing and rocking. You're a genius."

It doesn't matter to Henry one little bit that I can speak French or explicate sentences or cook really good roasted salmon. What matters is that I can be there with him as long as he needs me. What matters to him is that I can play with Froggie, his favorite toy, one more time, one more time, one more time. 

All my life I've been multitasking. I'm good at it. I don't want to be braggy, but I'm kind of a champion multitasker, really. And all of a sudden, what's valuable is not the multitasking, but the single task - being with him, only him, doing nothing else. 

206-207: ...As we talked about it, I commented that this season, while they're selling their house and getting ready to move, must feel like an interim season. And she stopped for a second and looked at me pointedly. "You know, Shauna," she said, "everything is interim. Every season that I thought was stable and would be just how it was for along time ended up being a preparation or a path to the next thing. When you decide to be on this journey with God, everything is interim." When I got back home, I wrote that phrase on a Post-it and keep it near my computer.

We can dig in, make plans, write in stone, pretend we're not listening, but the voice of God has a way of being heard. It seeps in like smoke or vapor even when we're barred the door against any last-minute changes, and it moves us to different ways of living. It keeps us moving and dancing and watching, and never lets us drop down into a life set on cruise control or a life ruled by remote control. Life with God is a daring dream, full of flashes and last-minute exits and generally all the things we've said we'll never do. And with the surprises comes great hope.

When it comes right down to it, of course, it's always been in the interim. We've always been in the middle space, the not-yet-heaven middle space, the yearning and groaning. We construct elaborate castles of business cards and Pottery Barn catalogs, and craft armor out of skinny jeans and insurance policies and text messages, beating back the sense that we are not enough, that life is not offering us enough, but we are not and it isn't.

All of life is in the interim, and if we're honest and tender with ourselves, if the armor is off and the castle has crumpled, we feel the ache of the meantime. Our permanent records are a mess of marks and offenses, and we are laid bare to the ache of what's coming.

208 - on control: ... I'm learning to just keep moving, keep walking, keep taking teeny tiny steps. And it's in those teeny tiny steps and moments that I become. And actually, who I am. We won't arrive. But we can become. And that's the most hopeful thing I can think of.

218:  (Talking about how symbolic it is to be able to make a good, homemade stock from bones. Something dead, bringing forth new life in a sense, a resurrection, redemption. I like her perspective on it and it makes me really want to get into making my own stocks one day!) I like the idea of everything being alive, healthy, brimming with spirit and hope. I wish my life was like that. There are moments of life and beauty, but there are also a lot of bones, skeletons from lives already lived, regrets, broken hearts and promises and relationships. Now on my best days, I take a look at each pile of bones and imagine what it would take to make some soup, to repair and redeem, to make something dead into something full of life and flavor. 

Sometimes it takes a phone call, or an apology. Sometimes it takes a new promise, even though I've broken so many in the past. Sometimes telling the truth, sometimes giving up something important, sometimes leaving something long dead. And what you get from that pile of bones is soup - warm, rich, full of life and soul and spirit. You get something beautiful out of the trash, which is the whole point.

Jonathan: 14 months

I'm currently reading Bread and Wine by Shauna Niequist and this little blurb seems fitting for your monthly post, J.

"Its our job to let them grow up, to let them become big and smart and grown-up, but its so tempting to keep them little forever, or at least to try... 

There's nothing like a first baby, but the second time around has a loveliness all its own, because you know what's coming - you know that this baby, this tiny, odd, wild animal will grow into a person with words and ideas and personality...

...Who will you be? What clues are you leaving us even now about the boy inside all that baby?"

I know I have to let you grow up, but there is a big part of me that wants to resist it strongly. Because I know that there won't be a Blinn babe after you, I want to stop time for a while and just soak you up as you are now and not let you get any bigger. I don't want your sister to go to school or to become a teenager. I don't want you to become taller than me with a voice that's deeper than your papa's. I want you to be my sweet, 5 lb. 2 oz. baby who shot out of me with an eagerness for this world that couldn't be stopped by anyone. But alas, I can't stop time. All of the things I don't really want to happen, will happen and you are, my boy, becoming a new person every day. You're leaving us clues all the time about who you are, what you will do for the world, what ways you will continue to change all of us. 

Enough sap, huh? Let's get to the nitty gritty here - what you've been up to in the last month! The biggest news is well... BIG news! As of February 28th, you! are! W-A-L-K-I-N-G! Its really fun to see you toddle around and just like I feared, you didn't spend long actually walking, but you actually run most places. Ha! And I thought I had my hands full before!

• On March 1st I went to Vineyard Columbus for a few hours for a women's conference. When I came back your hair had been cut. Papa got a little clipper-happy and decided that it was time for your first haircut. We hadn't discussed this much beforehand, however so I was pretty disappointed to have missed it. Surprisingly though, I wasn't mad (like your papa thought I would be) because Papa did a great job! You look SO much older now and that, coupled with your new walking skills is a bit too much for this mama heart to handle right now.
• You're saying more and more words every day such as turkey, apple, night-night, banana, thank you, uh-oh, high chair, Gaga (as in Zachari's Baby Gaga) and bye bye.
• Yesterday you fell down the steps from the second floor. Ohhhhh goodness. You and I were upstairs and I ran downstairs to get the gate so that you wouldn't fall and you took one step to follow me and bam, you toppled all the way down, landing almost on the actual landing. You screamed and big ol tears wet your face immediately, but you weren't hurt and after a few minutes, you calmed down (I nursed you). It was a scare for sure and the irony of when it happened is still a bit comical to me. I was going to get the gate, Bud! Couldn't you have waited just 4 seconds more?!
• Papa is kiiiind of your favorite person these days, you've become really attached to him. When he leaves the room, you whimper. When he leaves the house, you wail. Being held by him is pretty much what you want any time he's in your sight and when he comes home at the end of the work day, you can't get to him quite fast enough. Its absolutely melt-my-heart adorable and Papa and I LOVE that you've formed such an affection for him lately. 
• You're still doing the lay-yourself-flat-on-the-floor thing when you don't get your way. Now you've added another layer to it: banging your head on the floor or the wall, whatever is closest. This for sure makes us laugh!
• Boy, you love you some water! If we're at a meal together and we have water, but you don't, you whine until we get you a cup! 
• Speaking of meal time, you're a fantastic eater and there have been many times that you've finished what Sister doesn't at meal time or snack time. I see lots of this happening in the future - little brother eating big sister's scraps. Oh my. You're enjoying chicken cacciatore, pita chips, and chicken salad to name just a few things.
• Our nursings are usually down to three times a day: first thing in the morning, at nap time and then again at bedtime. There are some days where its more than that of course, but this is pretty much our new norm.
• When you're sad, you often look around for Z and you are easily soothed by her. Its incredible to watch, really. She is so, so, so good with/to you and the love you two share is palpable. I hope you're always like this with each other. Such a gift. 
• Our abundance of baby dolls has proven to be a great source of entertainment for you! You give them hugs and kisses all the time, you put them in their strollers or high chairs and greet them with your sweet "Hi!" all the time. What a great papa you'll make one day. 
• When music that you like comes on, you murmur things in a cute singing sort of voice. That's my boy!
• Stethoscopes, Sister's headbands, visors, tiaras... these are all things that you like to have around your neck. Its become so natural for you to just walk over, pick up the item and stick it around your neck and you look at us like we're crazy when he chuckle at the humor of the situation. You're confident in your accessorizing and I support that, Lovey!
• There are probably a hundred words floating around in your head that you want to communicate to us, but right now, it sounds like a lot of mumbo jumbo. Its precious to listen to you babble on. Keep it up though, we'll eventually understand your language!
• A favorite pastime for you and Z is running around the house chasing each other. You still fall down a lot, but that hasn't stopped you and to hear your hard laughter with Zachari as you play together is music to my ears!
• You say "Uh-oh!" all the time - if something falls, if you enter a room, basically any time you want. Super cute!
• You've figured out what the remotes are for and you'll get one of them, point it at the TV and expect immediate results. Hilarious! You don't know that you have to push certain buttons to turn the machines on, but I'm alright with that. The less you know about button-pushing, the better!
• Sister's temper has a rival: Yours! The two of you have started fighting over this or that and I usually just stand back and watch as you two work something out. My word - I did NOT think the spats would start this early in your relationship!
• I no longer feed you food, but you feed yourself exclusively and you're doing really well with spoons! 
• When I'm unloading groceries you love to help take things out of the bags. Sometimes if I tell you to put something in the pantry, you actually do it and surprisingly, it has been helpful at times! There are other times though that I find that you've chosen to rearrange said pantry and its difficult to find the items I want at the time I want them. You sneaky little bugger. I bet as you're moving cans and bags and boxes around you've got a little snicker on your face and you just can't wait to see how you'll keep us guessing!
• I find it interesting how early little ones learn about babies - whether the baby is your own age or slightly younger - and how you learn to use a softer voice with them or get closer to their face when you speak to them. You've done just this with the few babies you've been around lately and I adore it. Ethan Cyzewski was here a couple of days and though he's about five months older than you, you recognized him as a wee person and you treated him with a gentleness and sweetness that was glorious. You greeted him with a big hug as though you were old friends being reunited and your loving heart bled through to the surface, making me so proud of how you're growing up!
• The word ornery has come into rotation for you in the last month, mister. You'll smile, wave and in a so-sweet voice you'll say "Hiiii" as you're doing something you're not supposed to do. WHERE did you learn this form of manipulation? You're far too skilled at it already, Charmer!
• Your papa's mechanical/figure-it-out mind is deep within you too, I'm starting to see it. You enjoy playing with your wooden tool box, puzzles and the shape-sorter toy that Grandpa Glover and Sherry got you for your birthday. I enjoy watching you try to understand how certain things work and go together. It makes you seem so much older than you actually are at times!

I've probably forgotten a few things that you've started doing in the last several weeks, but there's so much change, that its hard to get it all recorded fast enough! You are all BOY, Jonathan and that brings your papa immense pride and joy. I'm pretty sweet on you too though, Babe and I'm really looking forward to how you continue to change!

An old house and thoughts on friendship

More thoughts from Niequist's book, Cold Tangerines. Its chock full of goodness, I tell ya.


"...I thought of myself as an old-house-person, a person who appreciates character over perfection, who likes the bumps and bruises of an old home...

And then I went over to a friend's house - a new house. I was overcome with jealousy over her new house, not because it was fancy or big, but because the toilets didn't run and none of the windows were painted shut, and none of the doorknobs get stuck... 

I was so jealous of my friend's new house that when I got back to my house, all I could see were the imperfections, the fixer-upper things that were not yet fixed up...

I want to be all shiny and new, all put together, and I just can't get there. The things I try to forget don't go away, and the mistakes I've made don't go away, and I'm a lot like my old house, cracked and mismatched and patched over. 

On my worst days, I start to believe that what God wants is perfection. That God is a new-house God. That everything has to work just right, with no cracks in the plaster and no loose tiles. That I need to be completely fixed up. I always think that God's kind of people are squeaky-clean people whose garages don't leak, but really a lot of the people God uses to do amazing things are people who don't necessarily have it all together. A lot of the best stories in the Bible, the ones where God does sacred, magical things through people, have a cast of characters with kind of shady pasts, some serious fixer-uppers.

On my very best days, as an act of solidarity with my house, since we're both kind of odd, mismatched, screwed-up things, I practice letting it be an old not-fixed-up house, while I practice being a not-fixed-up person. I wear my ugly pants, the saggy yellow terry-cloth ones with the permanently dirty hems, and I walk around my house, looking at all the things that I should fix someday, but I don't fix them just yet, and I imagine God noticing all the things about me that should get fixed up one day, and loving me anyway and being okay with the mess for the time being...

In my best moments, when I calm down and listen closely, God says 'I didn't ask you to become new and improved today. That wasn't the goal. You were broken down and strange yesterday, and you still are today, and the only one freaked out about it is you. 
I sometimes hate this house for not being what I want is to be, and I sometimes hate myself for not being that either. But little by little, my funny old broken down house is teaching me that good enough is good enough. Maybe in six months we'll take the home-improvement next step, whatever that might be, and maybe we won't, but my house will keep me warm and dry until then, and I'll try to be kind and gentle to my house and to myself in the meantime."


On friendship
"...Friendship is acting out God's love for people in tangible ways. We were made to represent the love of God in each other's lives, so that each person we walk through life with has a more profound sense of God's love for them. Friendship is an opportunity to act on God's behalf in the lives of the people that we're close to, reminding each other who God is. When we do the hard, intimate work of friendship, we bring a little more of the divine into daily life. We get to remind one another about the bigger, more beautiful picture that we can't always see from where we are. 

True friendship is a sacred, important thing, and it happens when we drop down into that deeper level of who we are, when we cross over into the broken, fragile parts of ourselves. We have to give something up in order to get friendship like that. We have to give up our need to be perceived as perfect. We have to give up our ability to control what people think of us. We have to overcome the fear that when they see the depths of who we are, they'll leave. But what we give up is nothing in comparison to what this kind of friendship gives to us. Friendship is about risk. Love is about risk. If we can control it and manage it and manufacture it, then its something else, but if it's really love, really friendship, it's a little scary around the edges."

Becoming family

I'm currently reading Shauna Niequist's Cold Tangerines and its been an enjoyable, easy read. Her chapter on becoming family with her husband Aaron resonates with my love for Matt. I'm so thankful we're in this together. 


"...On that hot shimmering night, one of the things I said to Aaron in our wedding vows was 'When I am with you, wherever we are are, I am home.' It was, I thought, a beautiful and romantic thing to say, and I really felt it. Aaron has a way of settling me down and making peace in me when everything feels crazy and alien. The more time I spent with him when we first met, the stronger and more peaceful I felt, like I had eaten a delicious and nutritious breakfast...

I had thought that we became a family the day we were married. What I have found, though, is that the web starts as just one fine filament on that day, and spins and spins around us as life presents itself to us day by day. And on some days, the strands spin around us double-time, spinning us life a top and binding us like rubber cement...
Its hard to imagine now, now that we have been married for five years, now that we live in another state, in our home, one with space for me and space for him. Now we are, certainly, family. Aaron is my first thought and last thought, the companion with whom I walk through every part of life...

That's how family gets made. Not by ceremonies or certificates, and not by parties and celebrations. Family gets made when you decide to hold hands and sit shoulder to shoulder when it seems like the sky is falling. Family gets made when the world becomes strange and disorienting, and the only face you recognize is his. Family gets made when the future obscures itself like a solar eclipse, and in the intervening darkness, you decide that no matter when happens in the night, you'll face it as one. 

And so, Aaron, thank you for becoming, and for being, my family. Thank you for persuading me to take back the chairs, and thank you for sitting with me that night, and thousands of nights since then, watching and listening to our world change, with two sets of eyes and ears instead of one. Thank you for the millions of ways you have been my family since then, but especially, thank you for being my family that night."