Monday Must-Reads (September 29)

Photo: Linda Nylind for The Guardian

Happy Monday!  Here are some good, if not disturbing reads, that made their way to my phone this week.

For parents who want their kids not to cave to peer pressure: "This is What Brave Means."

For those who love the Cosby Show, Claire Huxtable in particular, and how black women are empowered through TV portrayals: "Claire Huxtable, TV's Great Angry Black Woman."

For those who feel we emphasize that beauty = value far too often: "Enough."

For women and men who care about gender equality: Emma Watson's HeForShe address to the United Nations....And, this article from The Guardian about the incidence of sexual assault perpetrated by campus fraternities.

For You Who Live at Home, (Epistolary Wednesday)

On Wednesdays, I write letters.

For You Who Live at Home,

I left a conference a couple weekends ago after speaking at its three sessions. The event was well-put together, inspiring, crafted and--I’ll say it--touched by heaven in all the right ways.  I received the sort of feedback you would wish for if you had traveled halfway across the country and poured your heart and soul into two-and-a-half hours of sharing with 300 women. There were moments of deep connection, as if the power of sharing our stories and God’s stories bound up some of our broken hearts.

Afterward, as I boarded the O’Hare-bound flight, I was content with the outcome of the conference and ready to see my family. It was then, as I stood in the aircraft to find my seat that I received news that my book had been reviewed in one of our local papers.

It was a terrible review.

Terrible both in its opinion of the book and (in my opinion) its way of reviewing. 

Naturally, I did what any of you might do and I sent a link to the review to all of the people who I think love my book the best, an invitation to all of them to write their best rebuttals, to boost my self-esteem, to reassure me that the work I’d broken my heart over was indeed worthy, was indeed worthwhile, was indeed something other than “terse” and “vague.”

And this fleet of writing and non-writing friends came through. After my three-hour flight, I had re-patched that hole in my writerly armor.

But before hearing from my friends, while I was up in the sky, I tried to root myself. Closed my eyes, thought a prayer, asked for heaven’s way of thinking about my book and this review. And as quickly as I did, I gave up listening—too agitated, too anxious. I flipped on the plane’s entertainment console and scrolled through television show options. The only thing that interested me were the three TED talks, and one in particular labeled “Success, Failure, and the Drive to Keep Creating.”  I didn’t realize that this talk was given by Elizabeth Gilbert, the Eat-Pray-Love guru. I didn’t realize that she would be discussing her own failure and success in writing. And as this seven-minute video unwound for me, I was startled by what seemed to be heaven’s answer, delivered while I was suspended in the sky.

 

Gilbert wrote about the blinding success of Eat, Pray, Love and the equally uprooting failure of her subsequent book, both of which flung her far off from her “home,” her Rooted Middle. Home, she said, “is whatever you love in this world more than you love yourself.” And you get back there by “putting your head down and performing with diligence and devotion and respect and reverence whatever the task is that love is calling forth from you next.”

It raised the right questions for me: Where was my Middle? Where was my Home? And what task was love calling forth from me next? I pictured myself on a quiet, sunny day in front of the piano keyboard in my office, in stillness, in quiet, making music, and, in front of the laptop keyboard, fitting words together. I thought of my literal home, filled with shoes and laundry and messy little people who would need their lunches packed, their skinned elbows patched and their worries soothed the next day. Great failure and great success don’t eliminate the beckoning of our Rooted Middles, our Homes. Those call to us whether we are suffering divorce and betrayal or job loss, whether we've received great performance reviews or all the praise we could ever imagine garnering. And in this sense, Home becomes our hiding place from the trauma and drama and clamor of public opinion. Also, Home is the place that shows you if you're loving well and if you respect and revere the job before you in the way it merits your respect and reverence. This is something success and failure won't ever tell you.

And so I resolve to do what you have done so well. When life flings me far off center, I will skirt and jump and run and dodge and roll my way back to Home.

Elizabeth Gilbert on "Success, Failure, and the Drive to Keep Creating."

Monday Must-Reads (Monday, September 22)

Photo: Linda Nylind for The Guardian

Well, in case you were paying attention, I missed posting must-reads last week. I was jet-lagged and a little windswept by an amazing trip and conference at Higher Vision Church in Valencia, CA, where I had the opportunity to speak at their Masterpiece conference. In between and amongst all my travels, I enjoyed reading:

For you mamas struggling to love yourself: Sarah Bessey's Dear Body.

For you theologians: "Act Like Men": What Does Paul Mean?

For you Christians who want to compassionately understand the "other" side: What I Learned About Atheists from God's Not Dead. (And, thank you, Neil Carter, for putting into words what troubled me so much about this movie.)

For anyone alive: Glennon Melton's How We Live a Hard and Good Life.

For you bloggers: insight from Jamie the Very Worst Missionary on how Not Everyone Likes You.

Dear Skinniest Me, (Epistolary Wednesday)

On Wednesdays, I write letters.

Dear Skinniest Me,

This is my breakup letter to you.

I've spent so much time trying to keep you and, strangely, there were times I had you and didn't realize I had you 'til you'd slipped away again. (Such a common misfortune among my thirties-aged friends, I find.) I know I had your attention three years ago, for about a month. And then there was the time five years before that. You keep showing up like an old boyfriend at a high school reunion who promises connection and longevity and then fails to deliver. And as hard as I've tried to keep in touch, you just haven't kept it up on your end.

And believe me when I say I've really tried--there was the summer that, for allergy reasons, I drank bone broth for weeks and ate only overly cooked cauliflower. And then the year, for chronic pain issues, I swore off anything that might inflame (read: carbs). Each time, I thought you were going to stay, but you didn't, and you left me adrift, all Skinniest-Me-Is-My-Soulmate-but-Skinniest-Me-Gone-Broke-My-Heart.

Relationships take two, you know.

All the walking. All the yoga. Even the kettle bells after the third baby--those godforsaken kettle bells--did not win you back.  Did you ever know a gal that got walked out on and then just Couldn't. Move. On? What do therapists say to girls like that? Let him go, Honey. You can do better.

Right?

So I'm not waiting around for you, Skinniest Me. I'm not going to be checking the scale every morning to see if you're on a flight back to the mother ship. I'm not even going to keep the clothes on your side of the closet and in those pre-first-pregnancy bins downstairs. No. I'm really moving on.  If you come back, that's your call. Don't expect me to be holding my breath or throwing any parties for you. We girls have gotta to find someone that makes us feel like we're more than just some skin and just some bones. We've gotta find a reason for getting up in the morning other than those Skinniest-Me jeans. Because we've got Skills and we've got Dreams and we've got Places to Be and Things to Do and People to Talk To and a World to Change and We Don't Got the Time to waste on wondering if you're gonna call.

Dear Couch-to-5K App (Epistolary Wednesday, September 10),

Dear Couch-to-5K App,

There's so much promise in your description--a simple hyphenated identifier that links lethargy and weakness to domination and endurance. Do you know I've been trying to master you, or something like you, for fifteen years? Before that, in high school, I never really even tried to run. I was the kid with the doctor's note and the inhaler the size of a small squirrel that I carted around for line dancing and aerobics units in P.E. Run the mile? Ha. I got out of everything that got my heart rate up just a teeny bit. And to be honest, I lost no sleep over missing any of these sweaty indignities.

Then, in my early twenties, when fitness seemed like the thing to achieve (and in the land of severe body dysmorphia that so many of us gals traverse), I tried to run and I was full of pain and felt like my body was going to fall apart or lock up or implode and so I had to stop. Also, I had no plan, no goal, no pathway to run longer, faster.  But you now, you offer steps--that are sometimes just a little slow for my taste but they make this whole endeavor possible, doable.  Me and my treadmill and my crappy running shoes that hurt my feet started out running one-and-a-half minute stints about seven weeks ago and now, this week, I'm going to run for 40. God willing.

I sure hope he is.

Sure, it's been uncomfortable. My trapezius muscles are screamy for some reason, and my arches started to ache, which precipitated the purchase of the $100 dollar running shoes, but my greatest moment in our journey together so far was the 13-minute mile. You may laugh, but it's never been done before by this body, this woman who had has had three babies and allergies and asthma and neck injuries. You made me a believer. I can run. I am one of those people who can.

Now, there's one thing I'm not. I'm not the woman who can lose twenty pounds doing this.  Couch-to-5K does not equal slimmer, necessarily, and I had to surrender that hope, it couldn't be about weight loss or inches loss because whenever exercise is about that, and whenever that is not achieved, it's a sure-fire formula for Giving Up. Because who would keep running 40-minute stints for weight loss if they never lost weight?  Answer: a crazy person would.

So here's me celebrating something unseen--a heart rate that stays elevated for longer than two minutes without my running out of breath, and the ability to pace myself and finish well, which is, really, what I want for all of life, not just for these new miles in these new shoes.

Monday Must-Reads (September 8, 2014)

Photo: Linda Nylind for The Guardian

Happy Monday, y'all. So, I read as much as I normally do this week and there wasn't as much that moved me as usual. But here are three little tidbits that got me kind of excited.  The first one, the one I'm calling the amazing screen-time experiment, appears to be absolutely genius on the surface. It took me, I don't know, fifteen minutes after reading it to implement and design my own version. And now my children are asking to get up early to do chores (!) and read (!) and do "productive, creative activities" (!). Jury's still out on the longevity of this plan, but Day 3 is going great. 

Sarah Bessey's here, on seasons of our lives where we haven't quite grown in all the ways we'll be glad we've grown later, and being gracious toward our younger selves: I know. I'm sorry. I hope I was kind.

And, this week was a double header for hearing that two babies were coming to two moms who've experienced long roads of miscarriage and infertility in their mama years: love this story from, again, Sarah: "173 beats a minute: on one surprising little baby and the possibility of tiny miracles."

Have a good one!

Dear Seventh Grader, (Epistolary Wednesday, September 3)

© 2011 Enokson, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio

It's a bit overwhelming, all of the flyers we are handed at Back-To-School-Night for parents, as we race through a two-hour version of your day--no time to introduce ourselves to your teachers, just enough for them to get halfway through their presentation on Expectations and Rules and Late Work. It seems, at times (maybe because of the lengthy lists of homework assignments sorted by date on their slide shows) that they are expecting us to do this work, to keep track and get things handed in. You'll want to make sure. You'll want to check. These are phrases I hear over and over throughout these first two weeks of junior high when teachers and administrators talk to us parents and I think, I don't have time to manage the full-time job of a seventh grader who is also in cross country practice for an hour and a half after school. Who has time for that? Also, I'm not sure I want to sign up for the texting service that will remind me of Global Studies projects and science assignments. 

I know that some of your classmates' parents have to, in order to help their kids succeed. That's a hard, hard job. So I'm thankful that, in so many ways, you are prepared for all of this responsibility. You know how to keep track, make lists. Your upbringing has cultivated in you just the right amount of anxiety by which you're driven to fill out worksheets on time, hand in two-paragraph "essays" (Although, newsflash: two paragraphs does not a real essay make!).

Still, this Junior High is a New World where it doesn't necessarily matter how diligent you are or how responsible. What matters is your score. What matters is the "work." No more points for just doing homework. Points are for getting homework right. The difference between an A and a B on math homework might be that when you carried the "one" you forgot to add it into the other numbers in the column. Boom. B.

While grade school was so full of mercy, this New World is not. And I sometimes wish you'd been a bit better prepared in other areas--in sentence mechanics, for example: run-on sentences and missing periods never cost you so much as a point or a missed recess in sixth grade. Now you get As for periods in the right places and you get points taken away in their absence. (Finally, finally, someone is going to convince you to take the sentence seriously even though I've been trying since you were eight. Thank God. Thank God. Thank God.)

While it's a all bit overwhelming for you, I must confess I find myself swimming in a small pool of relief  All those skills I've been watching you develop and waiting for you to master--to be motivated to master--are within mastery's reach. Think: typing! Think: practicing the trombone with more regularity. Think: taking the long way when deconstructing a book plot rather than short-cutting through worksheets. So much is on the horizon. All because of Seventh Grade. The whole world has opened up to you, taking you quite seriously for the first time: hard practices, hard drills, missing points, consequences. I've always taken you seriously, of course, but like grade school, I've been brimming with mercy, shielding you when I could from Discomfort and Unpleasantness and, as parents are sometimes guilty of doing, shielding myself from the Unpleasantness of your displeasure.

Now you have all these other adults in your life who will work with me to expose you to rigor and discipline, which will result in your broadening your horizons and your scope for critical thought. I could have wept with gratitude--your Language Arts teacher talking about the greatly detailed feedback you will get on your writing ability this fall, your Literacy teacher saying she is going to push you to "prove" your interpretations now with textual evidence. This is so good. It's the stuff I live for. I'm a little bit of a language arts nerd, as you know, and I'm so glad we can share this now.  And I'm secretly as delighted as you are that you got an A+ on that "essay" I helped you with.

That's my daughter-of-an-English-major girl. 

Monday Must-Reads and Watches (September 1)

Photo: Linda Nylind for The Guardian

Happy September to you readers! I've got a great list of reads this week, starting out with something reminiscent of a topic we'll be covering at our women's retreat this coming October (all ya locals are invited!)--it's What I Want You To Know About Being the Stepmom.

There's also a humorous account of a parent's "back-to-school" experience in 2014 vs. 1970, which dovetails nicely with Health, Home, & Happiness's post about helping children feel content without feeling deprived.

Kate Conner has a great meditation "On Ripening" and Sarah Bessey writes to her husband about their married love, which will go down in the family history books as the stuff of legend. 

Owlhaven is challenging us all to spend less and save on groceries this month, something I will have a hard time doing because of all the back-to-school extras we've been buying. 

On a more serious-but-funny-to-make-a-point is Jon Stewart on White Privilege.

Also, Matthew Paul Turner's Lingering Effects of Fundamentalism is for those still raw from harsh religious church cultures and, speaking of church culture, this is the latest on Seattle's Mars Hill church: the board of elders are asking for Mark Driscoll to resign and seek personal help. 

Until next time!

Dear Anonymous Facebooker, (Epistolary Wednesday, August 27) #tbw

On Wednesdays, I write letters. (And this one's a throwback to my original post in 2012.)

Dear Anonymous Facebooker,

I saw your post today. The one about believing in Jesus Christ and challenging other believers to put the same post on their wall. You said Jesus said he would deny us in front of God, if we deny him in front of our “peers.” It’s a simple test, you said. If you are not afraid, then re-post.

You probably don’t know this—probably you had no desire to have this effect on me--but your post makes me want to do the opposite. Because it inspires guilt and fear in me, a lover of Jesus who gets by in the world because of and out of the conversations I have with him daily: the questions and answers and simple moments of divine presence felt. Yet, Jesus never told me—he didn’t, I promise—to copy and paste your status update on my Facebook page. And I wonder at the audacity of a mere human trying to boil down a relationship with divinity (and everyone’s afterlife statuses-to-be) to whether one hits cntrol-c followed by cntrl-v on a keyboard. It seems so black and white. So cut and dried. So harsh, really. Do this, or else. Or else—what? Damnation? Eternal Punishment? Separation from God for eternity?

I don't believe in this kind of God. The kind that is upstairs devising tests by which he can damn us all quickly. Hey—using Facebook for the job is so efficient. All he has to do is count.

Do you remember that Peter denied Christ three times--and yet. Peter was also martyred for his love for Christ, crucified upside down. Because of love. For Christ.

Anonymous Facebooker, I want to introduce you to Wiggle Room. If you peer into the economy of Christ’s kingdom, I believe you’ll find an X factor,  so that a man like Peter, who denied him three times, and then testified for Christ, died for the sake of that testimony, is welcomed by Christ—not denied by him. The X factor: can we call it Grace? Grace that doesn’t damn us to hell the second, the moment, we speak or don’t speak, act or don’t act, repost your silly status on our FB page or not.  Because there are a hundred times a week I speak or don’t, act or don’t, and yet I know this Grace that looks at the whole picture of my heart, Grace that gives me an opportunity to be in process, to make mistakes and recover, to arrive at my own understanding and final revelation of divinity or not divinity in my life.

Maybe I don't sound very gracious toward you. I'm sorry. I need to take deep breaths and back away slowly when I see status updates like these. I have to write an entry like this over the span of a week because I'm working on telling the truth as I see it with love.

And here's my bottom line: God’s not riding Zuckerberg’s coattails..  

Monday Must-Reads and Watches (August 25, 2014)

Photo: Linda Nylind for The Guardian

Back-to-school week is kicking my butt--in a good way. Hope all you parents out there can say the same! Here's what I noticed this week on this here Internet Web Thingy:

Not sure what happened in the Michael Brown shooting? Watch these eyewitness accounts spliced together that create a very consistent storyline. 

I haven't read Kate Conner's Enough: 10 Things We Should Tell Teenage Girls, but I am digging this blog post where she shares the best advice offered by her readers.

Also from Kate Conner: why exaggerating the story about ISIS's persecution of religious minorities in Irag is not helpful: The Truth Does Not Need Your Help.

Turns out that doodling during work meetings promotes better processing of information.

Also, Ginny at Random Acts of Momness interviewed my friend and fellow Ovenbird author, Tarn Wilson--all about her new book and how we gain perspective as we write about our families. Tarn's book is ah-mazing, moving, and profound! I highly recommend you head over to Amazon and buy a copy! 

Monday Must-Reads (August 18)

Photo: Linda Nylind for The Guardian

Oh my, oh my, oh my! School starts tomorrow! Routine begins tomorrow! My babies continue their journeys of Getting Smarter and Making Their Ways in The World tomorrow--seventh grade, fourth grade, and pre-K. And that's the local 411, but in national news, it's been a terrible week. Really, so bad, I don't even want to get on Facebook or listen to the radio. And, of course, all the bloggers I read are also writing about the news, which they should--someone should, and we should be Paying Attention. It's just that, sometimes, our hearts break when we pay attention, but that's a Good Thing-- even when it hurts.

Here's what I found note-worthy this week.

On Ferguson and the death of Michael Brown:
Racial bias, police brutality and the dangerous act of being black from Rage Against the Minivan.

In defense of black rage: Michael Brown, police and the American dream from Salon.com.

When Parenting Feels Like a Fool’s Errand: On the Death of Michael Brown from Stacia L. Brown.

On Race, the Benefit of Doubt, and Complicity from Rachel Held Evans.

In response to Robin Williams' suicide:
"In which depression is not your fault" from Sarah Bessey.

On consumerism vs. contentment:
"Give Me Gratitude or Give Me Debt" by Glennon Melton over at Momastery.

When you do everything right and still don't succeed:
"What I Want You To Know About Trying to Lose Weight."

On a lighter note:
13 Tips For Getting More Reading Done.  Especially #1, #2, and #6. I have quitter's guilt like no other and I need to get free. Support group anyone?

Anyone need to get their kids to pack their own lunches? I think we're heading there this year.

Blessings on your reading and processing this week, friends.

-H

Dear Summering Girls, (Epistolary Wednesday, August 13)

Dear Summering Girls,

Recently, my blog feed exploded with posts from various mom-bloggers about "How To Stay Sane During the Summer When Your Kids Are Home" and "How to Set Up a Routine When You’re a Work-At-Home-Mom." I know these songs by heart, I've sung them so much.

If it was just me and you at home for the summer, it would be delightful. Pure magic. But it’s not. I’ve got this thing called "Work" and these things called "Expectations" (that you’ll know not to interrupt me at certain times; that you’ll really clean your room when you say you will) that mingle with us like houseguests that just won't leave, spoiling all our fun. And these last few weeks of summer, Work and Expectations have been at each other's throats. Some mornings it's just chaos and anarchy and I have to tell Work to hush up because Expectations are just being ignored like a cast-off friend.  I mean, how can you get worse at following your Morning Routine (i.e. brush teeth, dress, empty dishwasher, eat, do math facts, read for 20) now that you’ve had the whole summer to practice? And those pink shoes on the bathroom floor--the ones that have been sitting there for over a week, the ones I’ve asked you three times to pick up--are still sitting there.

The "after" picture.

Here's a typical conversation about Expectations:

Did you clean your room?

Yes.  

Let me check it.  [Gasp] Your laundry EXPLODED in here! What happened? How could you say you cleaned your room when it looks like this?

But I did! I did clean it!

But don’t you see the dirty underwear on the floor? What about the Kleenexes wadded up next to the garbage can? I want you to Clean This Room.

I have this naïve belief that come August 19, the first day of school, you will magically and suddenly become innately disciplined human beings once again; you will pull Expectations out from under that heap of clothing and wet towels on your bedroom floor, dust her off, and allow her to accompany you through your day: you will get up on time;you will eat more than a smattering of Cheerios for breakfast; you will put on fresh clothes and change your underwear and empty the dishwasher all without me mentioning these things to you. A mom can hope, can’t she?

Until then, I don’t even work in the home office most of the time because if I were to do that, you'd be leaving wrappers and tissues all over the living room and I wouldn't be able to catch you in the act. Best to have you deal with it immediately, before the candy wrappers and tissues become the next pink-shoes-on-the-bathroom floor and a month goes by before I see the carpet again. I wish I was that mom who didn’t lose brain cells at the sight of garbage on the floor, wish I could just sit right among the muck and play tickle fights and video games in the evenings when I'm done working, but you didn't win that lotto, girls. You are not those children and I am not that mom and someday, when you live in your own house and you’re all grown up, if you want to never flush the toilet and let it back up and let fruit flies reproduce over your left-out glass of orange juice, if you want to sit in a dark room all day and play video games, never seeing the sun, so be it. I will love you then as I do now. But I won’t live with you.

This is just to say that I really love you and I'm really looking forward to school next week, despite the fact that junior high and fourth grade are on the horizon, whole new worlds of Work and Expectations that I don't have to manage on your behalf. Instead, I will just be Mom with Milk and Cookies at the end of the day. I'll be a Good Listener and Your Biggest Fan and I will leave lunch clean up to the lunch ladies.

Monday Must-Reads (August 11, 2014)

Photo: Linda Nylind for The Guardian

It's been too long! And I missed a week of Must-Reads because I was either traipsing all over the country or recovering from the traipsing. All that means is that there're more links than usual today.

I really appreciated this post by Sarah Markley on road-tripping with her kids without her husband because that is exactly what I just got done doing this week. Strange, yes, but empowering all the same.

Reality-check post for the week: How to Get Rich by Blogging.

Most grateful for this one: "Monsanto Ordered to Pay $93 Million For Poisoning Town." Thank God, thank God, thank God. This company needs to be held accountable on so many levels and stop getting free passes at every intersection for the impact they are having on communities and economies. This is just the tip of the iceberg, but it's something.

I sent "The Parenting Books Were Wrong" to a new mom of a newborn this week:

"Jesus has said, 'Don’t worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow will worry about itself.' And, yes, I find that each day does have its own trouble. But far worse than the particular trouble of each day is our despair when we believe that all we can hope for are storms."

Helpful during my work-at-home/parenting-kids-at-home summer was this from the Nesting Place: "Because Choosing Your Battles Saves Your Sanity: How Having One Decent Space Makes All the Difference."

And here's some heavier stuff. Have you heard of ISIS? An Islamic extremist group that is systematically taking over towns in Northern Iraq and targeting religious minorities? There are reports of beheaded children and mothers and forced "conversions" and other terribleness. Right now there are thousands taking refuge in mountainous areas without access to food or water. Meanwhile, the U.S. is dropping a few bombs on ISIS and airdropping water to the refugees. Google for more info. If you are the praying type, pray.

Because I've been such an avid observer of all things Mark Driscoll, it's been interesting to see the Christian community's response to a growing understanding of some of his poor behavior from 14 years ago. I met Mark right about that time, toured his then-little church building in Seattle, spoke with his worship leaders. The man was "edgy," he was someone who had the vibe of us Gen-Xers, a prophetic voice, and I claimed him as a leader of my generation for a couple years, until I was stung and stung again by the continually vicious comments against different demographics in the body of Christ. Some feel his most recent apology is not enough to heal the wounds said to have been caused by his leadership. Others are asking what "grace" means for Driscoll in this context. The church network he founded (Acts 29) has recently decided to remove him and his church as members of the network. Honestly, I'm thankful that he is being called out by a wider array of the Christian community and not just those of us on the fringes who have been disturbed by his leadership tactics and his message for so long. The last thing I want is to see this man destroyed, but I would like to see him restored and to see relationships with the wounded restored as well. What would create restitution for those who've been harmed and for those who are hurt by now reading these latest comments, albeit 14 years old?

THIS WEEK: The Kindle Version of Dear Boy, is only $0.99!

Hey readers! Amazon is promoting the Kindle version of Dear Boy. You can pick it up for only $0.99 today through August 14! Happy reading!

Dear Tiny Road Trippers (Epistolary Wednesday)

On Wednesdays, I write letters.

Dear Tiny Road Trippers,

Preschool closed down last week. It’s you and me and some vacation days and I want to take you away—from all the rat race of hide-and-go-seek in the evening backyards and Laundry Day and Morning Chores. Let’s go up to western Minnesota, you and me.  I think the drive is only 7 hours, but it’s really 8. With all our stopping and getting mixed up, the entire trip is 9. And for the first three hours, when one of you has to pee so desperately, twice, I think about turning around, think I don’t really have to do this. We could spend a happy few days at home, emptying the dishwasher and doing laundry and summer math facts and driving to the lake. But when we’re home, it’s so hard to break each of us from what pulls us most powerfully. My email account. Your smart phones. Your singular love for the 3-year-old neighbor boy.

Auntie Nay and Tiny piggy-backing

So here we are in a small town of 1,900, and when we drove in I felt myself relax. Felt we could just hunker down with the Boy's* family, now our adopted family, and walk the barely trafficked streets, run on the empty high school track, wave at neighbors, play at the playground, swim, beach. Of course, two of you can’t get through the day without a Minecraft marathon (curses on Minecraft!), but that’s okay; it gives me time with Tiny who, after a good nap, has turned so charming and sweet again and in love with her cousins and their dogs and her auntie.

Tiny, Cash, and Ruby

Life seems so simple here, if expensive. Auntie Nay says the groceries cost way more than what they cost us back home. There’s a Walmart and a Hy-Vee about an hour away, and that’s it. People here are farmers or teachers or doctors and some of them are out of work, and it’s calm and quiet except for when the St. John church bells ring at 5 p.m. for Saturday evening mass.

And now, I’m sitting on the bed at dusk next to Tiny as she whispers the words to "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" and fingers the movements in the warm, sticky air above her head until she pauses and leans over, still whispering, “Mom, my arm is tired. My arm is tired.”

“Okay. Well. Let it sleep.” I whisper back, and she receives this without comment and moves her fingers to tickling her belly. 

Dinner by sunlight.

In some ways, all our arms have gotten tired from holding up the routine. So then, we should let them sleep these few days before we face school registration and work and the Daily Grind.

Also, I just love you more and better when we pause all that other stuff so we can just be. Let’s always remember to do that. You’re getting so old and, I fear, drawing away each in your own little ways. This is normal, but sometimes we get so far apart that when I look at you this week I see both desire and uncertainty in one of your little faces; you’re wanting to get close like you were when you held my hand voluntarily everywhere we walked, but you don’t know how to get there without doing that.

After our visit, we stop in Minneapolis to see more cousins and that giant mall "of America." While driving through one of the many tiny country towns, I exclaim, “Look, here’s a town that’s ten seconds long! If you blink, you might miss it.” And you older ones unwrap the earbuds from around your ears and stare. “Whooa.”

Oldest, Middle, and cousins

There was a time when I had so much time that I walked hours daily to fill it. Around and across neighborhoods in all seasons of the year, I noticed things like rusty cars, children whining on the sidewalk, a dog sniffing near a ravine in the park. With all my modern-day efficiency strategies, all the smarts of smartphones, I’ve thought I’ve done myself a favor by filling up the time. I've been Getting More Stuff Done, so much that I’ve forgotten to be and notice as much as I've wanted to. And I haven’t helped you practice those things as much either.

“Mama,” Tiny says from her carseat as we exit the town. “I blinked but I didn’t miss it!”

I think, then, that there is still hope for us, despite all the blinking we do--for connecting, for paying attention, for being. And we can start now with this road and with this trip--with the shanty towns, the speckled cows, the chilled blue water of the community pool, and the street lined with toads that jump frantically out of our path. Let's do our best not to miss too much.

*The story about the Boy and how I adopted his family can be found here. 

Dear Desert Dweller, (Epistolary Wednesday), July 30

On Wednesdays, I write letters.

Dear Desert Dweller,

It’s dusty and hot here, I know. And sometimes we wonder, in the desert, if we’ll die before the next rain, the next bottle of water, the next splash in a puddle. It seems though, that there is, eventually, a next rain, a next water. But sometimes, like the Israelite’s manna it’s just enough to barely get us by.

In the meantime, so much beauty flourishes where it's so dry. Like the work of the L.A. Dream Center—in the middle of poverty and homelessness, there’re a million pounds of food (that’s 16 semi trucks) going out to in-need neighborhoods where young mothers and trembling old men fill their carts-with-wheels full of cherries, avocados, whole wheat pasta, and organic apples. Every week to the same neighborhoods all over the city.

Here, in the desert, women go every Thursday afternoon to a park in the projects (and on other afternoons to other parks) for Kidz Club. They sit in the baking sun, throw water balloons, hug children and tell them there are no limits on their lives or to their names. They are there every Thursday and the kids come to expect them. These women remember their names. This is the water.

In the yards in the projects, where the many mamas tend actual green in the heat of their children’s neediness, there are so many signs of life.

There are always signs of life in the desert. Promise comes in hues of orange and gold. And, wouldn’t you know it, some of the most glorious things grow when the sky is blue-bare and cloudless.

Most of us don’t pick the desert. Instead, it chooses us, claiming us for seasons and, sometimes, for what feels like forever. But, there are streams to be found, there are flash floods to fall. Watch and see what grows out of loneliness and loss. Watch and see what flourishes where there is no abundance, where you strain toward heaven with questions unanswered, wondering, waiting and thirsty. Something will spring up. It has to.

The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom. Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom; it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy...Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give way; say to those with fearful hearts, "Be strong, do not fear; your God will come, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save you." Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy. Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert. The burning sand will become a pool, the thirsty ground bubbling springs. In the haunts where jackals once lay, grass and reeds and papyrus will grow.

Isaiah 35:1-2, 5-7