Wanting In

I planned the road trip knowing that it wasn't all about me; suspending options means parenting poorly.  But my secret wish was to go in the caves.  And we did.  Hiking out to the tubes we ventured below. Inside I felt the grace of physics holding back the weight of the rock above me.  Moving among rubbled boulders I breathed the gritty air, heavy steps crunching the lava remains.   I was in.  

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Nineteen years ago I married him and we've taken a strong turn toward loyalty and longing.  When we first began I longed for the future, just to get some miles behind us.  But now I sometimes long to be less independent, to be able to crawl inside his chest just to hear his staunchly beating heart.  Being with isn't enough.  I want to be in.

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She said it was like a beautiful golden fabric lovingly wrapped around all of her body.  She could feel it.  She could see it.  She laid there in bed after the cancer diagnosis and asked, "God where are you?" And he said, "I am all over you."  She is in him.

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I sit in the guest house listening to the rain hitting the roof; dripping with invitation. I stand on the veranda in the spray and wait for the group to say, "Let's go anyway."  And they do, all.  We strap the packs, pull the slickers, push the hair under hats and venture out.  In this place I've dreamed of I let its bigness and goodness be as close as skin and as far as fog.  I walk the craggy rock on ocean's edge.  I smell the mossy earth on shady path.  I am one in a line of adventurers journeying through blessing and brokenness and gift.

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I wondered when this Call to Union would happen or how I would know.  In the Autumn, when I learned the Teresan Mansions I identified myself firmly in a mansion that intrigued me more than it fit, like a beautiful new coat that looked better on the hanger than it did on me.  My mansion is all about a call to union with God.  I've seen the hints of it; listening in prayer more than speaking, doing work that meets with worship, pushing through woundedness in order to be nearer and nearer still. I have been wondering when life "in Christ" would supercede even life "with Christ."

I've been paying attention; it's above me, it's around me, it's all over me. Right about now.

Pushing Into Abandon

I laid in the bed clutching him, breathing him in.  The morning would bring another separation.  This time, I was leaving. 

Didn't I just move through the house without him for two weeks?  While he was on a boat in the Sea of Galilee, hiking to a waterfall, walking through ruins I was balancing the checkbook, meeting the neighbor, consoling a confused brown belt, reserving lodging for the trip, pulling trash to the curb, grilling sandwiches, moving them into showers and beds.  It was a time of total assumption of self.   I had to be everything that we are together.   It was full.  I was full.

I was about to assume the other place; leaving him to get them places, to quietly slide teeth from under a hopeful pillow, bake the pizzas, check on the bills, and move them into showers and beds. 

Abandonment ran through my head and left a trail.  There on his chest rising and falling I gave instructions for the boys he himself made.  But as with all the manuals he tosses aside, he would work on intuition and get it right.  I couldn't program their days or take the weight off or be the buffer, the helper.  I was going to leave.  And while abandonment wanted to grow its cloud over me, self-abandonment called me to go.

James Brian Smith wrote, "We play because our God is good.  We play for joy.  Play is an act of self-abandonment."

I was going to play.  To be engaged in beauty, to take things in, to explore and discover.  I fought not to make it a spiritual exercise, a kingdom journey.  Can a mother justify and leave for something other than silence and solitude, mountaintop experiences, purposeful accomplishment?  I had to tell myself, "yes."  Sometimes we need to journey outside of ourselves rather than deeper in.  We need to let go of the ascetic and embrace the artistic, reach the fingers far from the fearful and self-controlled to touch the joy.

Letting go of ourselves, our serious business of living our own lives, and pushing into self-abandonment is spiritual exercise too.   Jesus calls us to abandon.  Leave the dead to bury their own dead.  Shake the dust off and leave.  Leave father and mother and cleave to a wife.  "And leaving everything he rose and followed him."  When we abandon things and processes and expectations, we cling to Jesus.  When we abandon self, we cling to life and find abundance.

As I drove the long easy roads from the city, to the island town, I tuned the XM3 to the songs of my youth, the days of inhibition and possibility.  I drove roads that reminded me of that homeplace when emancipation was immanent and freedom came from within.  I remembered the winter play on Lowell Hill, the dances in the commons, the adventures in the city, the cars.  We knew how to play.  I sang the songs of that soundtrack and touched it all again.

"We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn."  -- Matthew 11:17

I don't want to pretend righteousness and sit out the dance.  It is time to play.

Reading Now

July's reading felt wedged in -- pushed in-between the dentist visits, soccer camp, baseball practices, math tutoring, and swim lessons.  Instead of diving into the words while my husband was in Israel two weeks, I listened to podcasts or an audio book and even mindlessly played streaming movies while I attempted to organize family photos at night.  Even time on the deck was spotty.  Despite my distractedness several things happened for me, in order of my enjoyment:

When God is Silent: I'd read it over and over again, especially the second sermon, whenever I forget -- and we easily forget -- that the voice of God is actually charged with power and fright.  We say we want to hear it, but we don't know what we're really asking.

The Burning Word:  Was my morning deck book. Short ideas interrupted by exercises that stretched my reading of the Word and gave me grace to interpret it a little more fully with imagination, intuition and innovation.  I highly recommend it.

Traveling Mercies: It feels like cheating to call myself an Anne Lamott Fan only having actually read one of her books all the way through.  I'm not even joking; I own five and I've only read Bird by Bird (over and over).  This was very worth it for her depictions of faith and grace. I love that she was doing memoir long before it was trendy.

Franny and Zooey:  I enjoy reading existential works by authors who don't ascribe to my faith.  It gives me a mirror to look into and rubs off the rough edges of publicly living this life.  And, it's Salinger in his classic young-life turmoil element.

The Reason for God:  I never would have read it page by page because of its depth, but this one jumped at me from the library audio book section and I needed something to engage my brain, while I worked with my hands.  This is, of course, very philosophical and I missed a good deal, but I loved the clarity of this one thing:  God is love; He can only be so if he is multi-relational, triune, because love requires the interaction of beings.  He cannot be love (and a loving being is what most people assent to) if he is a singular personality.  I hadn't made that connection before.

Wonderstruck:  This is my second time through Margaret Feinberg's newest book because I was leading other women through it for a book discussion.  It's an easy read with a lot of personal narrative mixed with some scriptural insight and it made for some good discussions regarding friendship, forgiveness, restoration and creation.

Kingdom Journeys: I wanted to finish this before I made my little solo trip to Maine in August. Maine isn't a pilgrimage, but I wondered if this would bring more insight into the act of journeying.  Sadly, the author limits the reader by saying that there are things completely missed and never learned until submitting to a kingdom journey... a long trip filled with dependence and grasping and wonder.  The absolute tone turned me off and additionally it contains a brief story of a friend of mine that's inaccurately told.

The Journals of Jim Elliott: I read (skimmed) the first section of this one and decided to set it aside.  Up to that point it was all of Jim's personal insights into the book of Genesis.  Sometime, I'll pick it up for its commentary usefulness.  *Note to self, don't make all of my journals "notebooks."  Intersperse the learning with the living for my sons to read and know who their mother was years from now.

The Open Secret:  I'm still working on it.


August's Line Up

The Open Secret: An Introduction to the Theology of Mission by Lesslie Newbigin 

The Ten-Year Nap by Meg Wolitzer

Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life by C. S. Lewis

The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming by Henri J. M. Nouwen 

The Good and Beautiful Life: Putting on the Character of Christ (The Apprentice Series) by James Bryan Smith

The Furious Longing of God by Brennan Manning

When There's Tears Because You're Done

Several years have passed since I went through a midlife internal debate:

Who am I?  

How do I live greater purpose? 

When is the time for more?

As I lived that span asking these questions to the walls and the wind, I sent my oldest child to school after letting home be his eleven-year learning ground.  I graduated my youngest child from kindergarten. I experienced my final day teaching my second child, bittersweet to the core of my heart.  I gained a high-schooler who out-grew me months ago.  Milestones don't wait for mothers to know who they're going to be next.

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This summer, my youngest figured out swimming. I no longer sit poolside watching all three, turning my head to view one, missing the achievements of another.  I only slather sunscreen on one.  I don't keep my eye on the kiddie pool anymore at all. To watch him incorporate side-breathing into his front crawl simultaneously sends waves of pride and lament.  A great swell of  'He can do it!' is instantly shattered on the rocks of  '...without me.'  

And, for the first time, there's no one coming up behind him to soften the blow of these last things.  No one else is waiting, wiggling, on the sidelines for his chance at being big. 

On this day, there was a little boy; moving soon into three, flaxen hair, striped swim trunks knocking him mid-shin, dimpled elbows swinging with his puffy running feet.  He wanted to move the pool chair over to his mama.  Sweet determination in him, he found an empty one by my feet and mustered his toddler strength to lift it.  I smiled at his strength of will.  I've seen that so many times.  

But the chair bested him, attacking his toe leaving the sweet one to declare defeat as toddlers do so well.  I giggled privately; just one of many defeats, little man.  You'll get it one day if not today.  

His mother tenderly came to him.  His words came out with a cry, "Kiss it!"  And she did.  And the world was made right again, mama moving the chair for him to sit at her side.  I smiled; their preciousness always trumps their pain. 

And in one instant -- a splash, a drop, a flash -- my inner giggle turned to outward sob.  Tears formed behind my sunglasses before I could turn to see who was the woman crying at the side of the pool?  From the depths of my memory, all my toddler boys and their defeats, I knew I'd never be able to kiss something and make it better again.  That they all could make things better with their own strength of will and character. They all could get from one side to the other, breathe as necessary, pull and kick and get somewhere.

I sensed the weight of all the years' battles lifted at once; the struggles and fights had all been won.  The self-consciousness, the worry the exasperation and fatigue -- all defeated and, in that moment, all counted as victories.  Future struggles would belong to them.  I'd be at the side, watching, smiling a private smile and offering a prayerful boost.

Under the shade of locust tree,  morning breeze blowing my graying hair, I was caught up.  I'm quite certain that the breeze took with it all the curative power held in my aging body and moved it into my young son, gasping his way across the pool with determination and with strength.