Small Beginnings

What is Christmas?

2012-01-06T14:13:00.000-08:00

It was a cold winter morning. Cold for Arizona. When I awoke and looked out the window a low blanket of gray clouds hovered just above the still-waking city. Cold, and delectably happy in my winter hat and galoshes, I went outside to pull the sheets off the lemon trees. They alone had been protected from the glistening frost, which clung now like thin panes of glass to the rosemary and salvia, the winter lettuces and Lamb’s Ear which huddled together like lost children trying to keep warm. Relishing the sight of my breath, I thudded clumsily up the stairs, entered the chilly living room and flipped on the gas fire. The girls filled the house with Christmas music while I heated hot chocolate on the stove; we used wooden skewers to roast marshmallows on the open flame, and pressed them between two squares of graham cracker. Then we sprawled out on the rug and played puzzles all morning long.

By noon the frost had melted; the canopy of clouds had burned off and the sun shone high in a sky that was empty of everything save a few lingering clouds.

The girls became restless… so we put on our winter coats and trekked down to the zoo.

Twin topiaries, tied with red ribbon, proudly flanked the entrance to the park. Inside, all the trees were dripping with colored lights and Christmas garlands. Several Greek houses, the fire department and the local library, had decorated certain sections of the grounds in honor of their favorite charities – even the local origami club had filled an eight-foot fir with ostriches, monkeys, and giraffes, each intricately folded out of colored paper.

We wound over wooden bridges and paved walkways, hesitating now and then to admire the decorations. But it wasn’t until we arrived at the very last section of the zoo, beside a pen of black pigs, tucked under a low awning, that I saw them: countless paper ornaments, quavering in the breeze like so many autumn leaves: A Savior is Born! they announced: Glory to God in the Highest! The grandeur of the message was thrown into high relief by the fact that each ornament had clearly been made by a child. Shepherds with wooden staffs crouched beside rudely colored wise men, all of them focused attentively toward the contents of a clumsily drawn manger, from which a tiny head and two infant feet poked out.

I looked at the pigs – black, dirty, rasping things – and wondered to think that the greatest master artist, the One who painted the sky with all its colors, who spoke the stars into place, and whose very Word set the planets spinning into orbit – this God, whose power knows no limit, made Himself “an infant small” and came into the world on a bed of old straw, to a stable full of dirty, grunting animals (Blake, On Another’s Sorrow).

There, beside the pigpen, I broke down and began to cry. This, I realized - this pronouncement that God has come to be with us - was the news I had been longing to hear; the news of which I never tire of being reminded: “A Savior is born in Bethlehem!” “The virgin has brought forth a son, whose name is Jesus, for He shall save his people from their sins!” It is the only really good news that has ever come to mankind – without which I have only cause to despair.

He did not command an orchestral greeting when He came. Did not – as would have been right – thunder through the clouds in a chariot leading throngs of angels, and an army, strong. The mountains and the hills did not break forth in song; the trees did not clap their hands. Neither did the stones cry out in worship. Instead, as Sally Lloyd-Jones’s describes, “the earth held its breath. As silent as snow falling, he came in. And when no one was looking, in the darkness, he came” (The Jesus Storybook Bible).

The all-powerful, omniscient, and everywhere present God willfully constrained His powers and became part of the order which He Himself created, and which He sustains by the Word of His power. At the moment of His birth, the infinite became - for the first time to human eyes - something finite. Think of it! In the weeks before Christmas, our pastor made a great point of this, challenging his audience to consider the truly astonishing fact that “the God who begot all things became anything.”

Yet He did. He became a man. Limited by time and space, with flesh and bones, a beard, perhaps, and warm breath flowing in and out of his lungs; a man who was hungry and thirsty and who grew up, like any child, to learn things – a language and culture, for example, and the craft of carpentry.

Misunderstood by His family; cast out by His home town; in turns celebrated and rejected by the masses; betrayed by His closest friends. This Jesus, “with nothing in his physical appearance to recommend Him,” came to earth, and for one reason only: “…He came to save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1.21).

This is the miracle we celebrate each Christmas… And without Jesus the gifts that we give, and the gifts we receive, are no gifts at all - without Him, they are like little doses of elixir with a great inebriating power to blunt all our faculties of self-reflection and convince us that, in fact, we have all we need without Jesus.

I shudder at the thought.

winter

2011-11-14T14:45:00.001-08:00

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Last night there was a storm. A fierce wind shook the house – toppling several pots and a fledgling Cyprus. It rattled the windows and beat against the doors, howling like an old dog wanting to be let in. Snug in our beds, Dutch and I heard the ruckus and clambered outside to find the patio turned upside down: the wind had sent the watering pots clattering down the stairs and knocked my collection of old birdhouses off the garden table. The umbrella above the sandbox was whipping about like a sailboat, caught in a storm, and Dutch swooped down to rescue it while I rushed to gather the window casements for the dollhouse which were skidding along the clay tile ground, about to fly clean off the balcony.

Then, this morning, we woke up to something remarkable: there was snow on the mountain.

Snow.

For a desert-dweller such as I, few experiences can rival the shock of snow. ‘Shock’ may seem a strong word until one considers that yesterday I swam laps out of doors in 85-degree weather, wore a skirt and sandals to the grocery store, and made ample use of my air conditioner.

We’ve had nearly eight months of summer weather. That’s 32 weeks – roughly 175 days - of relatively uninterrupted heat and sun - of making juice popsicles and drinking iced coffee and generously applying sunscreen before going outside to weed the garden. You wouldn’t be surprised, then, that the very idea of snow sounds almost mythological. A magic powder which falls from the sky, bathing the world in white? Impossible. Cold, clean air which nips at the skin and causes one’s breath to come out in little puffs of smoke? The stuff of fairy tales.

But after raiding the winter closet and winding an hour up the mountain, sure enough, there it was on the ground: snow. I gave the girls a little tutorial on how to wriggle their unruly fingers into these strangely unfamiliar things called, mittens, before we emerged from our cocoon, like the Pevensie children when they first entered Narnia, into a strange new world of startling brightness.

We followed a snowy white path up a hill, haloed by ponderosa pines, their arched limbs locked in a permanent posture of suspense, either from so many years’ exposure to the wind, or the weight of snow. Their spindly needles looked like sea anemones or witch’s fingers, pointing us onward.

The girls romped and stomped ahead of us through snowdrifts, shrieking each time they sank unexpectedly into deep snow. At 53 degrees, I felt as though the very air around me had expanded – all at once I had room to move and breathe and be in! Everything – trees, bushes, logs, land, even people - shone with an unearthly light. I couldn’t quite take in the quiet purity of it all.

Audrey tramped ahead of me. When I asked her to turn around for a picture she sighed and said, “I really can’t because – I’m too busy.” Busy, indeed. Enraptured was more like it. I walked behind her, with Evangeline in my arms and my camera slung over my shoulder, under my own spell. The way the light reflected off the fresh snow was blinding. Icicles, which seemed to drip off the ends of every tree branch, sparkled like diamonds.

It was astonishing. If I had ever witnessed a winter landscape before, I had forgotten the experience - or had only vague memories which were nothing compared to the clarity of the vision before me. It reminded me of the time I walked into a Klimt exhibit at the National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rome. Every idea I had formed as to what the real paintings would be like was blown to bits in the presence of the paintings themselves - the replicas I had erected in my mind were shattered by the reality: the flat, two-dimensional images I had emblazoned on my coffee mug and hanging on my dorm room wall were instantly transposed by enormous canvases that glittered like Byzantine mosaics, embedded with precious gems - lapis lazuli, rubies, gold.

Dutch took the girls by the hand and crouched down on the side of the path. "Have you ever tasted snow?" he asked. They shook their heads, incredulous, and we each took samplings of the fresh powder. We savored its sweetness on our tongues, so fresh and strangely nourishing, and giggled uproariously, like a family of criminals, guilty of some great indiscretion.

It was enthralling to imagine what was taking place beneath the snow – the life underground; and as we walked back down the bluff I quietly relished the thought that this world which seemed, in all externals, to be “dead and buried,” was only asleep, crouched in a state of drawn out, if hidden, suspense, waiting to be ‘reborn’ come spring. Spring http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqZLftD3SMI. Our closest approximation to Rebirth.

I love the way God has woven into the fabric of the natural world, hints of the supernatural. The shocking change of seasons are – like golden leaves in fall, and snow in winter— but foreshadowings of the Great Change that will someday take place.

This is odd, in a way, because so much of the time my life seems static – a drawn out suspension of sameness. Or like a revolving door, it is marked by circularity. The world, caught in a hiccup, seems to greet me each morning with the same set of headlines: a sunny sky, a sink full of dishes, children who need food, clothing, and a bath before bed. I, too, feel the same. But for those occasional moments, after a shower, when I am pulling a comb through my wet hair and discover a stark white one, standing on end among the others, waving like a flag to remind me that, indeed, I’m growing old, I don't feel the change.

I don’t feel it; though I know it is happening all the same.

But isn't that the way it is with most changes? Those which turn out to be decisive, which seem to come upon us “like a thief,” have been evolving gradually, in tiny gradations, all the time, so that unless we are really looking for them we don’t notice they are there at all… That’s why the smallest decisions we make can have the greatest impact. They are rolling themselves into something great and unstoppable, like the ball of snow that formed the body of our snowman.

One day, not long from now, the change will burst forth, and I’ll discover that, somehow, in the hours between waking and sleeping, sunrise and car rides, I will have grown old. The tide will have turned – my hair will be all silver. A thought which sends chills through the hearts of many a woman, but not to me. While I certainly don't relish the idea of diminishing capacities, or fading glory, I have a reason to be confident: "for though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day" (2 Corinthians 4.16).

Indeed, each neat little set of twenty-four hours propels me forward, on the conveyor belt of time, toward that other, more important Change. Soon - so very soon - the night will be over. Dawn will break, Christ will return, and we will all be changed: in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye. The bud will burst forth, the tiny green sprout will thrust its head above the soil: Spring will come. And those things which seemed irrevocably lost, or given over permanently to decay, will suddenly bloom again with a fragrance and beauty so sublime our greatest poets can only hint at it; the life underground will rise again, and be reborn; it will blossom and grow, not only for a season - but forever.

How can I keep from singing?

2011-11-03T22:53:00.001-07:00

It was Monday morning, life as usual, only the events of the previous four days still had me in a daze, and I struggled to live life in the present... While backing out of a friend's driveway, the terrifying sound of crumpling metal woke me in a hurry, as I realized in horror that I had backed into a cement pillar, cracking it in two and bashing up my car in the process.

By the time we got home, I was tired. Tired enough to cry. Instead, I sat down on a bench outside the front door and let the girls enjoy the pleasant air. I don't know whose idea it was, but suddenly Evangeline was standing on top of a trunk opposite me, belting out lyrics which Audrey eagerly fed her from "off-stage." Suddenly our entryway had become Broadway, and I was being treated to a private showing of Annie - only the title star was roughly two-and-a-half, instead of six-and-a-quarter, and the lyrics to the song, "The Sun Will come out Tomorrow," sounded a little more like - "I'm ne-ver a-lone! I'm ne-ver a-lone!" (I have no idea where they came from, or what they mean, nor did I care - the girl was putting her whole heart and soul into the number, and it showed.)

Bye-lo Baby

2011-11-02T16:17:00.000-07:00

“Beautiful life, full of grieving…”
~The Innocence Mission, Into Brooklyn, Early in the Morning

Some six weeks ago I discovered I was pregnant. We spent those weeks in the usual way: joyously anticipating the birth of another child, and the addition of another member to our family. Pulling all the pregnancy books off the shelf gave me a secret thrill; and I relished the mornings the girls and I spent paging through one book in particular, “Beginning Life,” which uses real photographs to illustrate what is happening inside the womb during each week of prenatal development.

I cannot but smile now, when I recall the evening Dutch came home looking dog-tired; when we sat opposite each other at dinner, and commiserated about how we’d both felt thwarted that day. I said, “Well, whatever we did or didn’t do pales in comparison to what our baby did – which was to sprout arms and legs!” We talked of names, and Audrey clung to one of her old ideas, that we should have two babies, and name each one carrot. “That way,” she explained, “we could have two baby carrots.”

But then, quite unexpectedly, something went wrong. After only two months I became one of those awful statistics, proving that 2-3 in every 10 pregnancies end in miscarriage.

Driving home from the doctor, I cringed to think of telling the girls, who'd spent the morning playing with friends.... When they arrived home they found me sitting on the back patio, wrapped in an enormous pink blanket, listening to old hymns as water trickled into the pool. They ran to my side and embraced me as though I’d been away a long time.

When I held her at arm’s length, Audrey gave me a look I'd never seen before. A strange mixture of hesitation and interest. “There’s not a baby in your tummy anymore,” she said quietly, as if to relieve me the burden of wondering whether or not she knew. And Evie said, in her emphatic way, “Daddy told me that, and I CRIED.”

Some awkward moments of palpable silence passed, in which I attempted to stifle the flow of tears. Audrey walked to the edge of the patio and peered down into the garden. “Mommy," she said, picking at her fingers, the way she always does when in a state of contemplation. "Mommy, what would you think about if we planted some flowers down there?"

"Flowers?" I said, bewildered because we spent the last two weekends planting winter bulbs. "Okay... but why?"

Audrey turned to face me. "For - for saying goodbye to the baby,” she said, then twirled back around and pointed at a little bed of verbena, its tiny purple petals peaking up through a sprawling bed of green. “Or. Or - Mommy," she panted, excited now, "I know! What about those purple flowers down there? See them? We could name them our Goodbye Baby flowers.”

When at last I could speak I told her I thought this a beautiful idea... and marveled that something, someone, who was a part of our lives, and a part of me, for so short a time could have made such an imprint on all our lives … It may sound strange to say, but the fact that we feel so great a loss has come as somewhat of a surprise to me. A surprise which, I suppose, cannot be explained apart from the fact that God made us to love as He loves - even those things that seem too small to signify.

After the girls had gone to bed, Dutch said to me, “Do you really believe that this life, this soul, was a real…someone we will meet in eternity?”

I was a quiet a moment. At last I said, “If you and I, who are made in God’s image, care so much about this little life — is it conceivable that God could care less?” After all, what are we to God, but a little cluster of cells which is here today and gone tomorrow? Relative to eternity, all life is but a vapor. But God cares for us. “Your eyes have seen my unformed substance,” writes the Psalmist, “and in Your book were all written for me the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them” (Psalm 139.15-16); proof that the life which in our eyes ended before it had fully formed, in God’s eyes is complete – complete and fully known - from the moment it was borne out of the mind of God.

The night before it happened Grandpa came for dinner and while Dutch and I made milkshakes in the kitchen, he read the girls a story about a baby bunny whose future vocation is imagined, in turns, by each of its relatives. As I listened, my heart, which was already gripped by a sense of foreboding, swelled with longing, and I couldn't but hope that one day we’d all be sitting around our baby, exchanging similar speculations.

As the story goes, Baby Bunny did not want to be any of the things his family imagined for him. Instead, writes the author, "Baby Bunny sat in his basket and smiled at his bunny family. He knew what he would be.” I realize now that, in the same way, God, whose ways are infinitely higher and better than our ways, knew – has always known - just what this baby would be: not a mailman or a farmer or an engineer, but a child of the resurrection; where, like the angels in heaven, he can no longer die (Luke 20.34-38).

The following Saturday afternoon I was outside, losing my sadness in the assembly of a dollhouse for the girls when Dutch came and sat down beside me at the table. “How are you doing?” he asked. I couldn’t look up, couldn’t speak for tears; could only listen as he told me, falteringly, that he felt God had given him a name for the baby in prayer.

"What was it?" I asked.

"Do you want to know?"

"Of course," I said, half-choking.

We held each other’s gaze a moment. His blue eyes, normally so clear, were full of tears. His lips trembled, and his whole countenance bore a kind of world-weariness which was amplified by his unshaven face and rumbled shirt. "His name - " he said finally, "His name is Isaiah."

Isaiah!

Isaiah. Oh, I thought to myself, in quiet desperation, I love the way it sounds! Suddenly, I saw a little boy sitting at my dining table with sleek brown hair and large blue eyes; I could see myself peaking at him from the kitchen, hear myself calling him, “Isaiah! Bring your plate to the sink and hurry, get your shoes on. You’ll be late for school!”

Late that night, I looked up the meaning of the name. In Hebrew it means, "God is salvation" or "it is God who helps me."

It occurred to me that there is a story about Isaiah in our Jesus Storybook Bible. I looked it up immediately and read it straight through. As author Sally Lloyd-Jones has it, Isaiah's name means, ‘God to the rescue!’ because the prophet Isaiah was chosen to convey the message of salvation to God's people in Israel: "Now, God let Isaiah know a secret..." she writes. "God was going to mend this broken world…” “…He was going to make all the sad things come untrue…” “…Even death was going to die! And he will wipe away every tear from every eye...”

This was the Secret Rescue Plan God showed to Isaiah: “Operation 'No More Tears!’”

Even Ms. Lloyd-Jones admits that it sounds like a fairytale which, as everyone knows, rarely come true... But this one did. Jesus, the Son of God and Creator of all things, made Himself small. He became a man, and died a sinner's death so that all men could become his sons and daughters; so we could live forever, clothed with the garments of salvation, adorned like a bride in her wedding ornaments, for the everlasting display of His splendor (Isaiah 61).

It is no small comfort to think that our littlest one is now experiencing in full the salvation we can only perceive through a glass dimly; he knows in the fullest sense that help which comes from God alone; and of course I relish the thought that perhaps one day – in that place of No More Tears, where all the sad things have come untrue – we will be given the chance of meeting.

“Long roads of orange groves
I try, try to see down.
Joyful arrival may be far, far away.
When will I see you coming so many miles?
It is too early to say.
Out in the backyard I will wait for a downpour.
The sky may open but it won’t be today.
When will I see you coming so many miles?
It is too early to say.
Oh down orange groves, narrow roads
I have been looking.
I am half in tomorrow and half in today.
When will I see you coming so many miles?
It is too early to say.”

~The Innocence Mission, Too Early to Say

Be-jeweled

2011-10-26T18:02:00.000-07:00

Life is running hard and fast ahead of me lately. Try as I may, I can't catch up. I needed a little inspiration to pick up my pen this afternoon... A glance at these pictures of my sweet niece, Jewel, romping up and down an Oregon beach, gave me a hearty helping of joy - and re-awakened my senses to the heavenly graces that surround me - graces that come to me, not in spite of the messiness of everyday life, but through it.

A Wave is Rolling

2011-10-06T09:45:00.000-07:00

"The time of mistakes -
will it ever change to another time,
like a season when the snow
will slide off the house
and leave the house clean?
And a wave is rolling over
a wave is moving over
a wave is rolling over me, over me."

~”A Wave is Rolling,” The Innocence Mission

It was June 6th, Evangeline's second birthday. Her cake – two of them, actually – were cooling on the counter. Her presents – so lovingly wrapped and ribboned – were waiting for the moment when, having sung the birthday song, I would slide them before her smiling face, waving candle smoke from my eyes. I would look back and forth excitedly, between the laughing girl and the cake, as I sliced it into pieces, stopping now and then to lick my fingers clean of frosting.

But the moment never came…

Instead, the girls and I were outside on the patio. We set the outdoor table, swept the stairs and watered the potted herbs that line the landing outside my bedroom window. One of the plants – a shrub of Mexican Heather – had died over the weekend so I slid the pot away from the others, intending to repot it the next day. The chicken was nearly done. I stepped inside to grab a platter. When I returned, I caught a glimpse of Audrey through the wave of smoke that wafted up from the grill’s open mouth – a silver chain clasped in one hand, still standing on the steps, holding the broom.

Of a sudden – I heard a snap – and then a scream – and when I looked – Audrey lay on her back beside the sandbox, cradling her forearm in her chest as if it were a broken-winged bird. But she was the bird – and as I rushed to her side I pieced the story together: in those few moments when my eyes were turned, she’d wedged herself into the space left vacant by the dead plant, fallen off the three-foot landing, and broken her arm.

In the emergency room, the nurses told me not to worry. "We see this more often than you'd think," they said, and when Olivia’s mother arrived – a friend to lean on – she reminded me that “God was sovereign,” that "accidents happened." I nodded, trying to be agreeable, and raised a trembling hand to take a drink of orange juice, certain I would faint at any moment. My friend looked at me – with her eyes I felt her grab me by the shoulders: “Heather,” she said, “I won't let you blame yourself for this.”

But how could I, in good conscience, do otherwise? It was I who had failed to put the pot back after watering. I had left the step exposed and turned my eyes away –only for a moment – but that moment, that was all it took.

I could accept that God was sovereign – yes, of course – but.... wasn’t I also responsible? Equivocations and qualifications aside, wasn't this … my fault?

Having swallowed this conclusion, I was filled with bitterness, and passed a fitful night organizing my closet, weeping as I folded clothes. No one could console me – nor even speak to me! – as wave after wave of self-loathing crashed over me like waves crashing against a rocky shore...

The next morning I was confronted by an equally devastating realization: the circumstances of the previous twenty-four hours had unearthed my true beliefs about God. Before the accident, I claimed to believe that God was sovereign – that He was supremely powerful, governing the events of this world and submitting all things, even the most treacherous acts of willful violence, to His great and glorious plan.

But my response to this event revealed that what I professed to believe flatly contradicted the way I lived. Indeed, my actions proved that – when it came right down to it – I believed God was limited by my own failures. He was bound by my sin and shortcomings. He was in control –but only up to the point I’d slid that wretched pot out of place! At that moment, all responsibility, all power in the universe, was transferred to my shoulders – and Audrey was left to suffer the consequences of my failure.

But if taken to its logical conclusion, this meant that all people who suffered as a result of someone else’s actions – whether willful or accidental – were victims. Multiply this by the world’s population and what you get is a lot of very large, very powerful people – and one very tiny, very inert God.

My thoughts traveled back to the previous evening… We’d arrived home from the hospital and when I entered my bedroom it took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the semi-darkness. In the corner, the little bedside lamp glowed, and there beside it, propped up on two enormous pillows, was Audrey. With her right arm bandaged from wrist to shoulder, her face bore a kind of pinched expression, a look usually found on the faces of the very old. She looked smaller and more fragile than she’d ever looked before and when I sat down beside her she clasped my hand and leaned forward, lifting her head with great effort. “O, let’s talk about our day, Mom,” she said, in a quavering voice.

“My hardest part,” she began, before I had time to reply “ – my hardest part was when I got that poke.”

"You mean the IV?"

"Yes,” she said, and sighed, letting her head fall back on the pillow, “the ivy."

“I know, Audrey,” I said, tears filling my eyes. “That was so hard. But you were so brave!”

“And do you wanna know my other hardest part?” she went on.

“Yes,” I lied.

“My other hardest part was when I was trying to sweep up that chain and - " Here she stopped and her eyes her trailed off to a place I couldn’t follow. “— I was trying to sweep up that chain and – I wasn’t being careful – and then I fell and I broke my arm!

“Oh,” she went on, lamentably. “Oh, I whoosh; I just really whoosh I was being careful. Now I’ll never build a sandcastle again!” The self-condemnation and despair in her voice rent my heart, and I couldn’t help but wonder – did God ever feel this way when looking down at me?

…

In the days that followed – all that week, in fact – I began to wonder whether part of God’s purpose in allowing this event to occur… was to expose my error. Ever the iconoclast, He had used this incident of a little girl falling off a step to shatter my false perceptions of His character - to bring my professed and applied beliefs into greater union, and show me who He really is, in a way that transcends mere intellectual ascent. For it isn’t enough simply to know something; over and over the Bible proves that knowledge in itself is meaningless. Faith, hope, and love are what matter. Faith that enters my being, and becomes part of me, changing my perception of the world, not only in an abstract and theoretical sense, but down on the ground, where there is confusion, the popping of gunfire, and so many wounded.

I began reviewing those passages in Scripture from which this idea originates: “The Lord kills and makes alive,” says the prophet Samuel, “He brings down to Sheol and raises up. The Lord makes poor and rich; He brings low, He also exalts. (1 Samuel 2.6-7). “See now that I, I am He, and there is no god besides Me; it is I who puts to death and gives life. I have wounded, and it is I who heals; and there is no one who can deliver from My hand” (Deut. 32.39). Speaking through the prophet Isaiah, God also says, “The Lord of hosts has sworn saying, Surely, just as I have intended so it has happened, and just as I have planned so it will stand’” (Isaiah 14.24).

Because He is always good, always protective, and never punitive, the truth that God is sovereign is meant as a safeguard against the crushingly self-centered notion that I am in control – that I stand at the axis of the wheel from which the spokes of human events emanate and move. In a word, this truth is meant to protect me from the kind of suicidal despair that so often haunts us in the wake of calamity, freeing me from the delusion that I exist as an agent of change in the universe rather than a mere instrument in His hands.

This is not to say that our actions don't have consequences nor that God will not hold us accountable for our actions – not at all. God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility are not mutually exclusive, but coexist mysteriously, like the moment when a seed falls into the ground, simultaneously dying and bringing forth the mystery of life anew. Jesus is frightfully clear about the extent of man’s accountability: “But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned” (Matthew 12.36-37). Paul reaffirms this idea in his letter to the Corinthians: “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad” (2 Corinthians 5.10).

Is it, then, any wonder that Solomon should close his book of wisdom with an admonition to fear God? “The conclusion,” he says, “when all has been heard, is: fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person. For God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil” (Eccl. 12.13-14).

This tension between God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility is, I think, the great tension in which mankind is left to struggle: He is sovereign; but we are responsible. He is in control; yet we will be held accountable. At the end of every day, pain exists because sin exists; and I can be assured that any time I experience pain I am either directly or indirectly responsible for it. Yet I must be careful, lest I judge too soon those things which are only Christ’s to judge. As Paul says, “My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me. Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait till the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men's hearts” (1 Cor. 4.4-5).

“…It is the Lord who judges me.” Four long months have passed since that June day when Audrey broke her arm. In the wake of my little shipwreck of faith, those waves of condemnation are being increasingly engulfed by even larger waves – waves of mercy, and of grace. I have grown both to hate my sin more than ever, and to fear God more than ever, recognizing that He is fully justified in allowing me to experience the consequences of my sin. But having grasped, just a shade more deeply, that God is not limited by any man - least of all me - I can rest in a way I daresay I have never rested before, believing – really believing – that, no matter what the circumstances, "God is for me;" whatever I may face in the future, all His plans and purposes on my behalf are always good continuously. He is now, even now, using my sin to sanctify me by producing a spirit of contrition, of brokenness, humility and dependence on Him, never condemnation (Rom. 8).

It suddenly occurs to me, somewhat abashedly, that perhaps I’ve been delving too deeply into matters which are beyond my scope and skill. I am just a laymen, mind you – a laywoman, actually – and far out of my depth. Like a child with her telescope, looking up at a night sky full of stars, I want to number them all but find I cannot count past a hundred. So I must say with the Psalmist, “I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me. But I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me” (Psalm 131.1-2).

Although, this side of heaven, the line that distinguishes between God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility will remain hopelessly blurred, there is one thing that stands out clear, like a shining light that will never be dimmed – and that is Jesus. The Savior Who lives. Having become a man and walked the dusty earth, with all its obfuscations and deprivations, its weaknesses and frailties, its pains and miseries, joys and exaltations, its darkness and evil and din, “He knows how we are made… He is mindful that we are but dust” (Ps. 103). And if Jesus is anything, He is merciful. I cannot but think of the criminal who hung beside Him on the Cross – that man who understood His sin, who feared a holy God, and cried out for mercy – to this man, Christ offered a place in Paradise – a share in the mercy which His death was, that moment, making possible. This He offered – this He promised – even before the deed was done: “Today you will be with me in Paradise.”

Today. It is a promise that still stands, an invitation to accept His mercy still being extended to all mankind. In all matters, what matters most is whether I am striving to live a life of obedience to this Jesus – to direct my faith to Him alone. Failure will always be all mine because sin will always be mine. “But thanks be to God! He gives us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15.57).

A Victory for Evie

2011-09-28T14:58:00.000-07:00

It is terribly hard to describe the quality of joy which Evangeline's presence infuses into our home. Born with her mother's temperament, Audrey is sensitive, introspective, and sometimes sullen. Evie, on the other hand, takes after her father... She is one great ball of optimism - self-assured, demonstrative (and rather demanding) in her affections, and riotously funny. I am always amazed by the depth of her conviction that she can do things, no matter how impossible they might seem. Change the batteries in her toothbrush? "I wanna do it!" Put on her own bathing suit? "I can do it!" Push her own cart at the grocery store? "Let me do it myself!" Most of the time, she can. Or at least she progresses much further toward completing the task than I give her credit for. I particularly love her persistence in showing affection, convincing Audrey that - really, she is not so sad after all.

Cinderella

2011-09-16T15:50:00.001-07:00

We made a mad/magical/marvelous trip to Disneyland last weekend, with Nanny and Ella and Kate, to celebrate their mother's birthday. After the fireworks show, the others went ahead, and it was just Audrey and I, making our way alone through the crowded park. I was still thinking about Cinderella's Castle, which had been resplendent below great popping bursts of pink and blue and white - Tinkerbell and Dumbo each took turns shooting across the sky to songs of dreams come true, sounds of merriment and exclamations of wonder. It was just about the closest thing to heaven I've seen. And watching it with Olivia's mother made me long more than ever to go there.

Audrey walked beside me, her hand in mine, wearing Evangeline's blue satin dress - the one with the full skirt, the sweetheart neckline, and the lovely tulle roses strewn across the bodice. A gift from Uncle Ry and Aunt Carrie. With her little white sweater snug around her shoulders I noticed for the first time that she looked very much like Cinderella.

When I told her so, she said, "That's what I was trying to tell you this morning!" Apparently I hadn't been listening.

"Yes, your blue dress and your white sweater - even your yellow hair - all match Cinderella."

"My yellow hair!" It was a thought that had never occurred to her. Her hand shot up to finger her braid in astonishment and then a smile of wonderment spread out across her face. "I never noticed that before," she said, very slowly and very quietly. A sudden gasp, as though she'd seen a spider. "But! But - our eyes don't match. I have brown eyes and Cinderella's eyes are blue."

"Yes, blue. Like Daddy's."

"Like Daddy's!" Another wonderful, revelatory thought. She touched her cheek. "But our skin is matching."

"Yes, you do have the same color skin."

Audrey looked at me very solemnly. "Me and Cinderella. We really have a lot in common."

"Yes," I went on, smiling, "and do you know what else you have in common?"

"What?"

"Well, you both love mice and birds. You love to talk with them and play with them."

Audrey started giggling. "Yes, we do! We do!"

"And do you know what else?" I was thinking of the little family slogan that Dutch has begun to teach the girls, reciting it whenever they begin to grouse and shrink from cleaning up one of their messes. "We're Bakers," he says. "We work hard, we work fast, and we don't mess around!" Parroting him really does help to revive their working spirits, so I told Audrey: "Cinderella is just like you because she works hard, she works fast, and whenever her stepmother gives her an order she doesn't mess around!"

More laughter, followed by a sudden seriousness, as though Audrey were considering whether or not this were true. She sighed. "Yes," she conceded, "I am learning about that."

Compassion

2011-09-03T00:36:00.001-07:00

It is an adage so old, it has become outworn: “'Tis better to give than to receive.” One of those “truths universally acknowledged” that we all know, but – do we really live it? And if so, how? I’ve only begun to learn… and one thing that is helping me is – sponsoring a child through Compassion International.

When, last spring, I approached the Compassion Table in the lobby of our church it was with the conscious intent to sponsor a child – to fulfill my obligation as a follower of Christ, and help provide for the widows and fatherless. What I did not intend – what I could not have imagined – was God’s intent for me...

The children had all been classified in terms of gravity of need, and so it happened that the Compassion Representative slid a crisply laminated piece of paper across the table to me. My eyes flicked past the red sticker labeled “urgent,” and I saw, for the first time, the stalwart face of Omary, an eight-year-old boy from Tanzania. A stab of something like pity pierced my heart: Omary stood on a dirt ground, his arms at his sides, his feet pressed together like a soldier standing in line for a drill. In his over-sized shirt and voluminous jeans, the too-big belt and army boots, he looked so … brave but also so … vulnerable, as though he were making a particular if unconscious effort to look presentable, to look worthy of sponsorship.

Though it’s only been a few months since we’ve begun our correspondence, I’ve already come to learn, in a deeper sense, how fatuous it is to give only money to worthy causes. Financial contributions can be tricky in the sense that they have the potential to subtly affirm our false perception of ourselves as “good people,” people who give… so that poor children in Africa can attend school, and receive basic medical care.

It is much more difficult to engage a child personally, to share myself – writing letters, exchanging pictures and artwork – and not just my resources, with the ultimate hope of encouraging the child toward Christ.

For example, do I really believe, and can I really say, that Christ is all Omary needs? That Christ is big enough to “compensate” for his relative – and by American standards – profound deprivations? Do I believe that if this child has nothing but Christ, he has everything?

Those are awfully presumptuous - even audatious and outrageous - claims to a great majority of people; and it is one thing to try and make this argument abstractly. But I am not writing to “the poor” in an abstract sense … but this person… this boy… this child. Omary. An eight-year-old living in Bagamoyo, Tanzania. A boy who has no father, to speak of. Who likes to play soccer. Who lives with his mother – a woman who is “sometimes employed.”

Is Christ big enough for him?

In my attempt to tell him so, in language that is so feeble and imprecise, I realize in new and deeper ways that if Christ is big enough for Omary, He is big enough for me, too. In the act of reaching out to one poor child I discover my own spiritual poverty - and the wealth which God has made available to me in Jesus Christ so that I can say, with confidence, "my God shall supply all your needs according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus" (Phil. 4.9).

In his first letter to us we learn, through a translator, that Omary likes to play with toy cars “although for now his car is lost.” I am struck by this one word – car – for it reveals the stunning fact that Omary has only one car; and this car is lost. Yet his letter brims with gratitude, generosity, and child-wonder: “He says he is thankful for your sponsorship…” “He is asking how are you?” “He says he is thankful for your love…” “He says he invites you in Bagamoyo…” “He asks you to pray for him to be an obedient child and who respects people…” “He says he will pray for you to be peaceful…”

Omary – thankful? For our love? But what have we given him? Only $25 a month to go to school, and be treated at the local clinic.

I feel ashamed, to be thanked for such a small gift. Humbled, that God would allow me to give what He has freely, and quite undeservedly, given me. Resources, which I can take no credit for (1 Cor. 4.7). Which have been granted to me, in large part, by nature of the fact that I was born in a very particular part of the world, at a very particular time in history. For what was America, but five hundred years ago? Hardly a place on the map…

Civilizations rise and fall and are forgotten. But here I have an opportunity to do something which will last forever – to give to some-one who will last forever. And do I? Will I? Yes, of course I will. Because to sponsor a child is not to give a gift; it is to receive one. In fact, I think if it were up to me I would change the words to that old adage: for giving isn't just better than receiving; giving is receiving. And I cannot but stand in ever-widening circles of awe and wonder that in giving me the gift of Himself, Christ would chisel space enough in my heart, and time enough in my days, for a little boy whose life and love I would otherwise most suredly never have known.

Surf and Sand

2011-09-01T13:03:00.000-07:00

My computer has been on the fritz for nearly three months... Many of my photographs from our California Road Trip are trapped on its hard drive but I managed to grab a few - including a few here that feature Morrow Bay and the Getty Villa - before it went back to the repair shop. Few things soothe my soul so much as seeing images of my girls fully engaged in the beauty of God's world...

A Child's Prayer

2011-08-31T15:58:00.000-07:00

It was a quiet afternoon. I sat on my bed, sorting books while Audrey arranged her dolls on the carpet beside me.

“Guess what Audrey?” I asked.

“What?” Her head popped up over the edge of the bed.

“Ella and Kate are coming home in two days!”

“Two days?” Her weary eyes widened.

“Yes, two.”

Suddenly her eyes glazed; she looked away, abstractedly, then sighed. “O,” she said, turning her eyes back to me, “and Olivia won’t be with them?”

It was half a question, half a lament - one little note of protest, testing the finality of the absence she had learned to call 'death.'

“No,” I said, my voice quavering, “she won’t.”

That night at dinner Audrey prayed: "Dear Jesus, thank you that Ella and Kate are coming home soon. And please help me and Evie to be patient about having our princess dolls. And please help Becca and Brice to be patient about seeing Livia again. Because I know they still cry.

Amen"

Joy...

2011-08-30T23:09:00.000-07:00

In a word. In a moment. In my heart forever.

Paper Happy

2011-08-27T09:17:00.000-07:00

After my dear friendBetsy featured some photos of Carrie and Ryan's invites on her blog, their suite was featured on 100 Layer Cake and OH SO Beautiful Paper. It was such a privilege to be able to translate my love for Ryan and Carrie into something touchable and visually stimulating; and I'm happy that other people were inspired by it, too. Carrie works at a travel agency and both she and Ryan have traveled extensively so the travel theme was not only inspired by my sisterly confidence that they will "go far" together, but by their mutual love for seeing the world.

Credit goes to Betsy for acting as the project's "artistic director," and to our friend, Sarah, whose own over-sized wedding invites first inspired me to try to put together something unique for Ryan and Carrie.

I should also mention, for anyone eccentric enough to try something like this, that the paper for the liners was purchased at Cavallini Papers. I ordered several different travel and vintage-themed papers - one with old passport stamps and stickers, one with vintage world maps, and another with vintage stationary - and then, because I am totally nuts, selected which one to use based on the color scheme of the stamps and the biography of the person, if I knew any part of it!

Jellyfish

2011-08-26T09:30:00.000-07:00

From now on I'll post pictures in order but, proud mother that I am, I had to put these "Photos by Audrey" taken at the Monterey Aquarium at the front of the line... The light was bad inside, and all the pictures are a little blurry, but I love the images she captured.

The Ace

2011-08-26T09:22:00.000-07:00

We spent the first part of August winding up the California coast... I armed with my camera, Evie with her "bink" and her "blank," and Audrey with a 35mm Diana mini. On several occasions she even borrowed my large lens... I am looking foward to posting snapshots, from a variety of vantage points, large and small.

Sorry and Glad Together

2011-08-20T16:21:00.000-07:00

"As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing..."

"The day is yours, and yours also the night..." ~Psalm 74.16

I've not written much since Olivia's death. I haven't known how. It's as though I've put on a pair of those silly 3D glasses - the contours of the world are different now, unaccountably different; there is a new dimension to existence - the dimension of grief and loss - and no one's told me how to integrate it into what was previously my "normal life." As a result I've been apprehended by the sense that what I have to write is either too weighted down with grief, or too frivolous, and I haven't known how to strike a balance between the two.

Wherever I am - but especially in the presence of Olivia's parents and sisters - there is a hole. Though a ray of hope pierces even our darkest hours - there is a new shadow over every shining moment. Life feels simultaneously as though it cannot go on and like it must go on... Both sensations are impossibly, even imposingly true and real; but any attempt to give vent to one over the other feels like an act of betrayal...as though I am denying one truth in order to express another.

I ask myself: How can I move forward when moving forward feels like leaving her behind? (It isn't.) How can I rejoice in all that's worthy of rejoicing in when the world is so full of sorrow? (Somehow, I must try.)

There is an old Innocence Mission song with lyrics that go, "This flurry of plans is over, over / And I'm sorry and glad together / Our bustling house is sane now, sane / now / And I'm sorry and glad together..." That is how I feel exactly – the whirlwind of activity that so often marked the time we spent together, watching our girls tear up the ground, has been tempered, and all the plans we had have... well, they have been given back to God – and I am sorry and glad together. Like a long, low sigh after an extraordinary book, I am filled with sorrow that Olivia's life on earth is over at the same time that I am glad her story collided with and became part of our stories for a little while.

I see, too, that I must accept that when writing about life - about real life - there is no way to strike the perfect balance, to follow every thread. There are countless running narratives in every story, so many that it's impossible to convey them all. On a basal level, life is always at least two things together - joy and sorrow are like bookends, marking off the boundaries that contain everything in between, and they take turns throwing themselves into center stage.

This blog began as an affirmation of the life God had given me. At a time when I felt most acutely aware of my limitations and failures - certainly as a writer, but also as a mother/wife/daughter/sister/friend - I realized I must make a decisive choice about where I was going to focus my concentration.

I could choose to focus on my seeming "deprivations" and failures - and thus shrink back into a paroxysm of self - self-reproach, paralysis, and despair or I could choose to fix my eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of all things, and to discipline myself to view life through the lenses of His Word.

This required, and requires still, not only a childlike faith, a faith that recklessly says "Yes" to God; it requires the suspension of disbelief, a decision not to disbelieve, not to say "No." That may sound redundant or over-complicated - double-negatives always are! - but I have found both muscles are indispensable and must be flexed on a daily basis if I am to remain "accessible" to God, letting Him write my life story and take me to all the places He wants me to go.

I can choose to say “Yes” to the everyday miracles – like watching the way the light works its way through clouds, and the colors it casts over my horizon. I can choose not to despise "the day of small things," and believe that God has not only initiated a great work in my life, and the life of the world, but that He delights in the work He is doing.

Every time I stoop to snap a photograph, or wriggle wildly out a window, or stop dead in front of a shop display, or weave across scraggly cliffs while Dutch looks down at me, wagging his head, smiling, to capture one-millionth part of the moment, I am saying "yes" to my Creator, to the life He has given me, to the world He has made, and the people He has peopled it with - I am finding Him in even the small moments, and glorying in the "small things," gifts, all of them, which He has created to fill up my days.

And when circumstances arise, like the death of a little girl, our sweet Olivia-Lu, to test my faith – to arrest my “Yes” and press it back against the wall – I am free to lament and mourn and present my complaint to God; but I must refrain from dismissing the plausibility of His goodness in a particular situation before I have grasped His purpose. "Shall we accept good from God, and not evil?" asked Job.

This is very hard; but any teacher will tell you that it's awfully presumptuous to judge an Author before you have really listened to what He has to say - or let Him see His story through.

What would have happened if Christ had rejected the cross because it offended His sense of justice? What would have happened had Jesus turned away from such an arduous calling because, like the scoffers who dismissed Him on the grounds that He came from Galilee, He couldn’t possibly see how anything good could come from one man’s dying on a cross?

We are judgers, all of us. But we forget that we lack perfect knowledge... and all our best estimations are hopelessly one-sided.

On the pendulum of life, the needle still swings back and forth, from joy to pain and back again; these states persist, and are reconcilable only through Christ – "who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising its shame, and is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God" (Hebrews 12:1). His finished work on the cross means that, although we will still weep, our tears "will never be shed again in the way they were before" (Oswald Chambers, A Place of Help). Sorrow remains but with a promise - He will transfigure every tear into a shout of praise, and the blackest holes will swell and bloom into gardens of beauty.

This is the Christ-life; I have tested it, and it is true in the old-fashioned sense of the word. It remains trustworthy where all else is counterfeit.

So I will continue to put up these pictures and words. These words and pictures. Not because they have, in themselves, any particular power or merit. But because they are my gift to Him. My way of strengthening feeble knees, of learning to walk by faith-sight and not mere eye-sight, and to accept what He has given, even the heart-rending thing, glorying in it, and giving it back to Him.

Thank you, Lord, for broken arms, and lungs that struggle to take in air; thank you for Dutch, and all the days he's gone. Thank you for Olivia. Thank you for her life; thank you for her death; and for the good things which have already come as a result of her having lived. Thank you for your magnificent promises - that as Solomon said, 'the end of a matter is better than its beginning.' Thank you that, in Christ, we possess the glorious hope of seeing her again, "in a little while," on that beautiful shore.

R + C = Married!

2011-07-13T15:19:00.000-07:00

The very talented Vanessa Kearnes - photographer to the stars! (well, those I consider stars, anyway) - posted some teaser photos of my brother, Ryan, and his beautiful Carrie as "bride" and "groom." I think they played the parts elegantly, don't you?

The Wrong Side of the Door... Spring Retrospective

2011-07-13T08:21:00.000-07:00

“We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words – to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it. That is why we have peopled air and earth and water with gods and goddesses and nymphs and elves – that, though we cannot, yet these projections can enjoy in themselves that beauty, grace, and power of which Nature is the image. That is why the poets tell us such lovely falsehoods. They talk as if the west wind could really sweep into a human soul; but it can’t. They tell us the ‘beauty born of murmuring sound’ will pass into a human face; but it won’t. or not yet. For if we take the imagery of Scripture seriously, if we believe that God will one day Give us the Morning Star and cause us to put on the splendour of the sun, then we may surmise that both the ancient myths and the modern poetry, so false as history, may be very near the truth as prophecy. At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendours we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so. Someday, God willing, we shall get in.” ~CS Lewis, "The Weight of Glory

Lulu

2011-07-07T17:21:00.000-07:00

"Fear not," says Jesus, "I am the first and the last: I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore...and have the keys of hell and of death” (Rev. 1.17-18).

The last four weeks have given me little time to sleep, let alone to write. A wedding and two funerals … a lifetime’s worth of heartache with a little joy thrown in. On the afternoon of June 12th we received the news that our precious god-daughter Olivia "Lulu" Kopas had been in a drowning accident - and at 2:51 am, after many hours of tearful petitions, God answered our prayers, though not in the way that we had hoped: He graciously chose to heal and restore Olivia by taking her to Himself, into the joy of His Presence, and out of the brokenness of this world.

Those of us who knew and loved her best... well, for us there are no words to adequately describe our grief.

It feels a little like dropping a flashlight into a deep, deep well. One sees the fading light flicker as it falls; and hears the reverberating echo as the beam descends and disappears. But one can do nothing to recover it. This is work only Christ can do; and He has done it!

Yet I have never had a more distressing experience – standing by her bedside, holding her little heel in the palm of my hand – such a fine, smooth heel! – and surveying all the delicate features which had become as familiar to me as those of my own daughters’: there were the little bow legs, the stout tummy, the long smooth arms, the rosebud lips and flaxen hair – her mother and I even took a moment to marvel at the little flap of skin on her pinkie finger which she had shut in the door the week before, and lament the fact that we would never enjoy the privilege of seeing it grow back.

I looked into her face and smiled: her mouth was turned down into that infamous little pout – the one that used to make us laugh and call her “Grandpa Kopas” because her expression in those moment’s so recalled her grandfather’s.

But for the profound stillness of her body, the ashen skin and – dear Livvy, you looked as though you were only sleeping! Here she is, a part of me insisted, she’s right here! How can she be gone? And if gone, then where?

A wild feeling of panic swept over me like a wave. Then a kind of blind rage, and an overpowering feeling of indignation: for here before me wasn’t Livvy – it was death, which had come into the world because of sin.

I never knew my heart could hurt so much. Never knew, as CS Lewis says, that grief felt so much like fear. Nor had I experienced the kind of snorting anger I imagine Jesus felt when facing Lazarus’s tomb.

I understood in that moment as I had never understood before why Christ came to earth, and what His coming really accomplished. His death and resurrection meant that this was not the end, but only an intermission – a break in the story, but only on our end: for Olivia, the story goes on; and I imagine her movement from this life to the next was as seamless and simple as it is for me to turn the page in my book, flipping from the end of one chapter to the opening of another.

As I stood at her bedside, in those blackest hours before sunrise, I saw myself standing in the shadow of the Resurrection. The light emanating from Christ’s Risen Form was blinding and yet still there was a shadow – the Valley of the shadow of death, which all must pass through - though because of Christ we can walk through it without fear of evil or loneliness: for He is with us, every step, helping us to leave the old man behind in order to put on the new one.

There is one more thing - I can almost say it boldly now: Olivia’s death has given us a very great and precious gift: by transferring the object of our affections to eternity, God has made the way forward easier; we cannot help but “set our affections on things above.” For she is there. She and He together.

“Behold, I have set before thee an open door,” Jesus says to John in Revelation, “and no man can shut it” (Revelation 3). This door, the door to eternal life, opened for Olivia on June 13th; and no matter how we tried, none of us could shut it. Now, instead of waiting for her to return to us, we must go to her: entering through that great and narrow Door which only a few find, the door that is Christ. “I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture” (John 10.9).

a royal wedding

2011-05-28T00:06:00.000-07:00

It is wedding season, and this spring I had the privilege of soliciting the artistic talent of my friend, Betsy, to put together a wedding invitation suite for my sister-in-law-to-be, whose marriage to my brother will take place in just a few short weeks. The invitations were printed on enormous sheets of hand-made French paper, folded intricately, and then bound with baker's twine and sealed with wax. They were a dream to work on! A wonderful reprieve from laundry and dishes, I must say, and I do think Jane Austen would have been proud.

I happened to be folding and tying and stuffing and sealing a great many envelopes while William and Catherine were exchanging their nuptials; and although I had to draw a breath when I saw the stunning Miss Middleton, swathed in lace and tulle, float from the lobby of the Goring Hotel into her humming automobile, I was even more swept away by the words of Reverend Richard Chartres, the Bishop of London who - with shining eyes and a great deal of English zest - delivered a most moving wedding sermon.

"In a sense every wedding is a royal wedding," he said, "with the bride and the groom as king and queen of creation, making a new life together so that life can flow through them into the future." He reminded the future king and queen of England that "A spiritual life grows as love finds its centre beyond ourselves," identifying the dangers of living in a world where devotion to romantic love has eclipsed, even replaced, devotion to God. Most people's lives reflect the belief that "personal relations alone will supply meaning and happiness in life;" which, he noted, "is to load our partner with too great a burden."

Instead, by grounding our ideas of love in God as He has revealed Himself in the Person of Jesus Christ, we discover that "the more we give of self, the richer we become in soul; the more we go beyond ourselves in love, the more we become our true selves..."

I couldn't help but agree.

Music for the Soul

2011-05-27T23:21:00.000-07:00

Evangeline was actually clowning around when I took this picture, but I love the way she looks all wobbly and weak-kneed, and how the concrete pathway stretching out in front of her appears interminably long and hard and monotonous - the way life feels some days.

I was having one of those days when I listened to this song by singer/songwriter Josh Garrels. The arrangement and recording - which I find achingly beautiful - was produced by a collective of Brooklyn-based musicians, film makers and creative professionals called Mason Jar Music whose sound and setting is inspired by the old buildings of New York.

Josh Garrels has another song, Ulysses, which describes with breathtaking accuracy the journey of faith that each man or woman must make - sailing through storms toward home. Every time I listen to it, I weep.

"Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble, and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed." ~ Hebrews 12.12

{Home At Last}

2011-05-08T16:56:00.000-07:00

We've been home almost two weeks, but I'm still digging my way out of all the dirty laundry. If only I could find a tulip big enough, I'd bury myself inside. As it is, we've plenty of sand and that is good enough for me.

Easter Thoughts

2011-04-24T22:46:00.000-07:00

*Image via Frolic

It was the day before Good Friday; the air was cold, the sky gray and utterly dismal. It felt like the kind of day on which a horrid crime might occur; the kind of day on which, for example, a person might be crucified.

As I looked outside at the pouring rain, my imagination drifted back to that day two thousand years ago, and I wondered, what must it have been like for Christ's disciples, for those who knew and loved Him best? On the natural level – that is, in terms of what the human senses could perceive – the day was certainly anything but good - its significance for mankind as enigmatic to those who saw it happen as its name is to modern people now.

That Good Friday, His disciples having abandoned Him – that is, all but one, and the women who were devoted to Him – Christ, the Messiah – the one who was to save Israel – carried His own cross to the place called Golgotha, the Place of the Skull, and there was crucified. Three large nails like spikes were plunged through His hands and feet. His outer garments were divided; they cast lots for His tunic; and after He received a drink of bitter wine He bowed His head and breathed His last.

And then – ostensibly, it was all over. Even His last words, “It is finished!” rose up to affirm this seeming truth. Christ, the Messiah, was dead. Dead. His body, cold and lifeless. And a spear pierced His side.

What was there to do for the few that remained but to take the Body down? Remove the nails and bind it in linen wrappings with a mixture of myrrh and aloes, as was the burial custom of the Jews. This second Adam was then buried in a garden, in a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid.

What does it mean? they must have asked themselves. Is this the end? And if so, how can it be?

What, I wonder, must the Sabbath day that followed have been like for the disciples? For those who had forsaken Him, there must have descended a spirit of shame, confusion, and despair. Uncertainty, and an almost dizzying sense of anti-climax. Stupefied, they must have walked about in a stupor. Sick with grief, they couldn't make sense of what had happened – couldn’t even distract themselves with work. Instead, their burial rites interrupted, they were compelled to sti still, mulling it all over.

But then – the tomb was found empty. The women who had gone there with spices came back to testify that they had seen angels, been visited by the Risen Christ! No matter. To the disciples – their words appeared as nonsense. It wasn’t until Christ revealed Himself to them personally that they understood – it was only after they had seen that they could believe.

When you think of it, not much has changed. We live by the light of revelation – and must cling to this revelation when nothing, not even nature, seems to affirm its truth.

Today I woke up and the world was unaccountably changed. Dutch was home. All the dark clouds, which had hovered fitfully above the trees for so many long days, were gone. The sky was clear and blue and brilliant.

All the neighbors emerged from their cocoons. The children across the street, whose faces I had not yet seen, were out on their front lawn, joyously engaged in the act of making a fort using a child-sized picnic table, a porch umbrella, and some old sheets. Even the insects – most of them just hatched – had come out from their hiding places to play: a white butterfly hovered above the blooming rhododendrons, its two white wings trembling like little scraps of paper in the warm, thick air. Swarms of bees circled the ranunculus, buzzing cheerfully. Two doors down a chicken clucked, warbled, sang.

The four of us, reunited at last, couldn’t help but pack a picnic and join in the revelry. As we walked past an endless succession of jewel-bright lawns, and I began to describe to Dutch the agonies of life without him – I had to interrupt myself: for in that setting which was suddenly so beautiful, so idyllic and splendorous, I began to question the credibility of my own story.

How can it be that here, today, a new world is born where yesterday there was only rain and gloom, and everywhere a spirit of dissolution and torpor?

I don’t know. It is unaccountable to me – and yet I rejoiced to see how well nature served to illustrate the point that appearances can be deceiving. At first glance, victory may present itself as defeat. That which today may appear hopeless, irredeemable, gone forever, may tomorrow find new life, new birth, and the promise of redemption.

I couldn’t help but reflect that the Christian life – that is, the life of the disciple – is often filled with these kinds of stunning contrasts and reversals. One day, the sun breaks through the clouds, bathing everything in the light of revelation. One can nearly see the Risen Christ, and feel His Presence in every created thing, man and beast and bush. The next, the light of the vision vanishes – and one is left to wonder when, if ever, it will return again.

Like Lucy after she has first discovered Narnia, one learns that there is no telling when the Wardrobe will open itself again to worlds unknown. The magic never works the same way twice – and never on command. One cannot walk back to the same place and expect the same result. Instead, one must wait and believe, recognizing that we are not in control of the magic – but that the magic is in control of us, and that it is a Person, Jesus.

"He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see..." ~Matthew 28.6

The Return of the King

2011-04-23T14:05:00.000-07:00

2011-04-21T17:29:00.001-07:00

“I cry aloud to the Lord; I lift up my voice to the Lord for mercy.
I pour out my complaint before him; before him I tell my trouble.
When my spirit grows faint within me, it is you who know my way…
Set me free from my prison, that I may praise your name.” ~ Psalm 142.2-3, 7

Time moves very slowly as we await Hessel’s return. Whatever attempts we’ve made to venture even a little distance from our rented “home” have more often ended in disaster: a burned hand, a hailstorm, crying, and losing our way.

I am very tired.

Nap-times, which I usually reserve for restorative activities such as reading, writing, and exercising – are now typically spent laying prostrate in bed, reading the Psalms, or staring listlessly at the shadow-patches on the blank beige walls.

Again and again, my mind goes back to the analogy Cynthia Heald offers in one of her books – how being a mother of young children is like being in the trenches. I was pleased to discover several intriguing facts about trench warfare this afternoon, while hiding my head beneath the quilt that is spread across Audrey’s bed, and conducting painstaking research on my i-phone:

1. Trench warfare is essentially a defensive, not an offensive, type of warfare. Platoons of soldiers used to literally camp out in trenches which were dug directly into the battle lines. Their goal was simply to endure by staying put - and keeping the enemy from gaining any of their ground.
2. Because trench warfare was essentially a battle of endurance, “winning” required wearing down the enemy’s resources – food, supplies, ammunition – or organizing an assault on the trench that was discovered to hold the brunt of the supplies.
3. Disease due to poor sanitation or a lack of proper supplies was often as big a killer as an enemy assault.
4. Trench warfare was so taxing on soldiers (physically and psychologically) that they were typically only relegated to serve in the trenches for 15% of their overall deployment time.

Mothers of young children will doubtless find myriads of metaphorical “gems” in these facts, as I did. My four take-aways: first, Christ fights – and wins – the battle on my behalf; my job is to stand firm, not letting the enemy overtake my ground; second, “merely” enduring is an incredibly valuable component in winning a war – I may not be called to actively fight, but I must have enough spiritual grit to hold out until help arrives; third, it’s not enough to keep the enemy from assaulting your trench – I must be properly equipped inside in order to endure successfully and fend off disease; finally, no one can sustain the kind of acute pressure that is called for when in the trenches – it’s temporary, and relief will come eventually!

“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities - all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.” ~ Colossians 1:15-17

Project

2011-04-13T16:31:00.000-07:00

I have been working with my dear friend, Betsy, to design a wedding invitation suite for my brother and his charming fiance. The project is finished - phew! - the invitations all assembled and in the mail. I am so excited to post some pictures - I just want to give them a few days to arrive to their designated destinations.

Rooms with a View

2011-04-12T15:23:00.000-07:00

*Wilhelm Bendz's "Interior From Amaliegade With the Artist's Brothers," around 1829 via NYT

I noticed that the Metropolitan Museum of Art is currently showcasing a series of 26 works of art all revolving around a single theme: Rooms With a View. Journalist Roberta Smith's review of this exhibition in the Weekend Arts section of last Friday's New York Times left me spellbound. She calls the collection "passively subversive" in that the works it showcases "determinedly say no to established authoritative statements: formal portraiture and large-scale history painting, or depictions of grand structures and even the stark or overwhelming landscapes characteristic of a more outdoorsy Romanticism." When so much of the world is preoccupied with external events - political clashes, wars, entertainment news - I find it refreshing to consider the importance of interiors.

I think that is part of Ms. Smith's point: that by representing interior scenes of quiet domesticity - subjects engaged in ordinary activities, such as embroidering, combing hair, reading, or merely peering quietly out a garden window - these artists were saying that these scenes mattered. Perhaps not as much as the Napoleanic Wars, but still, they mattered. A home. A quiet place to retreat. A room to dream and rest and think in. These things mattered. And still do.

*Georg Friedrich Kersting's "Woman Embroidering" (1811) via NYT

Tim Keller (quoting a scholar whose name I can't remember) says in one of his sermons that "religion is what you do with your solitude." In our moments of solitude we show not only what we value, but who we are; not simply what we enjoy, but what we worship. It can be taken too far, but I think this is a point worth considering.

*Caspar David Friedrich's "Woman at the Window" (1822) via NYT
I wish New York weren't so far away. I can think of no better way to spend the afternoon than wandering down the oyster gray hallways of these exhibit rooms. Instead, I'll try to enjoy the view from my own window - green tree tops jutting into gray clouds, cracked with sunlight, and the occasional silhouette of a black bird cutting across the sky.

2011-04-11T23:44:00.000-07:00

Hi, Dad!

2011-04-10T22:07:00.000-07:00

Today we're starting a "Hi, Dad," series: one snapshot for every day that you're away. This one is from yesterday. We went to the park - two of them, actually. One was Oaks Amusement Park where we celebrated Audrey's birthday. Again. All the aunts and uncles were there and we ate cake and opened presents before going on the carousel and half a dozen stomach-lurching rides. We missed you. Especially for the stomach-lurching rides part. You would have liked that.

Then, this evening, we went to the park nearest us, the one with the rose arbor and the teeter-totters. Evie fell in the mud again and we were all freezing so we drove home. In the car, Evie said, "I miss Daaaad," in her throaty little mouse of a voice.

That night, when I was tucking her into bed, I asked if I could sing her a song. She said, yes; and I asked, which one, and she said, The Hessel One, and I said, The Hessel One? She said, Yeaaaah. The Hessel sooooong. I shamefully admitted I didn't know The Hessel Song and began singing the opening lyric to Jesus Loves the Little Evies, Go Tell it on the Mountain, and Baby Mine, each in succession. No, no, no, she said, very emphatically. So I told her I would ask you to teach me The Hessel Song and sing it tomorrow.

Don't wonder whether we miss you. We do.

Lady Bug

2011-04-10T21:50:00.001-07:00

Enduring with Joy

2011-04-10T16:39:00.000-07:00

Life has been a bit of a whirl lately. I am spending most of April in Oregon while Dutch is in India. We girls have temporarily exchanged our bathing suits for galoshes and winter coats. The morning we arrived was gray and cold; as we turned onto our street, gray clouds clustered above the triangular tips of all the houses; gray drops dripped from the tips of all the leaves of the trees; gray sidewalks shivered with rain; later, as we crept outdoors, the puddles trembled hello. When we reached the park Audrey gasped. "Follow the moss path!" she said to Evie, and they jogged ahead of me. I haven't been able to catch up with them since.

March Teen Collage

2011-04-04T16:37:00.001-07:00

My Favorite Day

2011-03-22T00:53:00.000-07:00

We tugged at our wet bathing suits, on our way to pizza. It had been a long day – a good day: “March Teen;” the day we celebrated Audrey’s fourth birthday. In the morning she sat around the wooden dining table, surrounded by friends, and ate a decadent breakfast of cold cereal, bagels with cream cheese, boiled eggs, fresh berries, chocolate milk, and orange juice. Afterward, the children opened presents before streaming outside to blow bubbles.

In the haze of afternoon Grandpa and Aunt Sommer took Audrey to the Gaslight Theater while Dutch and I and Evangeline went out hunting for an old piano – we found one, a 1929 Wurlitzer which, as we drove to dinner, was hid beneath a sheet in the entryway, waiting for Audrey to unveil it.

The sky was black and starless – the moon hung like a giant paper lantern in the sky, white and round and smooth. “The biggest moon in twenty years!” a little voice proclaimed in astonishment. “It’s the biggest moon in twenty years!” I turned around to look - Audrey was nuzzling Snowflake, the little toy dog Walker had given her as a birthday gift. “It’s for you, Snowflake,” she said ebulliently. “It’s just for you – because today is your birthday.”

She leaned her head back - her wet hair slicked back like a little golden helmet atop her elfin shoulders - gazed out the window, and sighed. The moonlight streamed in from outside, lighting up her face and forehead and I saw what looked like little white stars dancing in the brown oceans of her eyes. “O,” she said, to no one in particular, “this is my favorite day.”

My heart swelled; suddenly it was my favorite day, too.

Dear Sweet Audrey Sophia,

2011-03-19T09:00:00.000-07:00

Four years ago today, at one o'clock in the afternoon, my life was changed forever - because that was the day I met you. It was the day God gave me the great, glorious task of being your mother. Every day since has been made more beautiful, richer, and full of greater joy, because of your presence; and every morning when I wake up I am overwhelmed with gratitude - if a little mournful for lack of sleep - the moment your and Evie's bushy heads nuzzle into bed beside me.

Yesterday morning, for example, we we were sitting at the wooden dining table - you were eating "pop cereal" while I drank my coffee, a little bowl of blueberries between us, when you flung your head back and suddenly exclaimed, "Oh, Mudder - you're so kind to your daughters!" I smiled and told you I did try to be kind.

You put down your spoon and your eyes widened, a look of sincere puzzlement on your face. "Mudder,” you said, “you don't have to try!"

“Really?” I asked. “Why not?”

“Be-cause,” you said. “You're just kind. You don’t have to try."

While I struggled to suppress the bubble of laughter welling up inside me, you went on breathlessly, as if something even more extraordinary had just occurred to you: “And, Mudder," you said panting, "you have your king – Daddy, he’s your king - and you're the queen, and you have your precious daughters. So you don't have to worry!”

Then I did laugh, but it was a welcoming, appreciative laugh, and you sat back in your chair and beamed at me with pleasure. "How is it," I said, "that you, my little not-yet-four-year-old daughter, can speak to me so incisively?"

You shrugged and said you didn't know. I shook my head and said I didn't know either; and then we both laughed heartily.

Even now, as I recount the story, tears prick my eyes - and I wonder, how will I ever recover from the absence of you little ones, when, one day, God-willing, you grow up and are gone? I don’t know; but, as you suggested, I will try not to worry it - try, instead, to keep entrusting all of us to God, who promises to meet all our needs in Christ Jesus.

After all, tomorrow is a long way off. Today is your fourth birthday, and I am doing my best to simply enjoy your presence.

March Teen!

2011-03-18T04:43:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is March Teen - that is, Audrey's birthday. We've invited a few friends over for a "breakfast birthday party" - but I'm still lingering over these sweet vintage stamps I found to paste on her invitations. They just don't seem to make them like this anymore!

Corn!

2011-03-08T22:18:00.000-08:00

Do all little girls go through a unicorn phase? I know I did. I must have been five or six... I don't remember how it came into my possession - but I was the proud owner of a porcelain music box with a rearing white unicorn atop its smooth round pedestal. I loved to turn the little brass key on the underside of the box, then prop it on the white wooden windowsill in my bedroom - and watch it twirl round and round in the sunlight, its music wafting out the door and down the dark hallway into the dining room.

Audrey acquired the luminous "Corn" - as she calls him - from Nanny. She loves to put him in her butterfly net. They travel everywhere together, Corn and Audrey. And when we leave the house to run errands she drags her blankets into the car and makes a nest for Corn so that he can rest snugly while we drive around town because, "He really has to take a resty time! Otherwise, he'll be cranky."

Two Sisters; Part the First: the Go-getter

2011-03-07T14:59:00.000-08:00

Image: John Singer Sargent, "Venetian Interior"

“Then Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met him: but Mary sat [still] in the house.” ~John 11.20

When Lazarus of Bethany – beloved brother to Mary and Martha, and friend of Christ – becomes gravely ill, and one doctor after another has wrung his hands in despondency, telling his sisters bleakly not to hope, both women know just what to do: they must call Jesus. They know Jesus is no ordinary friend – He is a Prophet, sent from God - and they believe His very Presence at the sickbed of their brother will heal him instantly. Thus they waste no time engaging a messenger: “Lord, the one whom you love is sick,” says he to Jesus.

They are simple words - yet robust in meaning: for they convey, with startling acuity, the sisters' profound confidence in Christ's love for their brother - a love so deep they need not mention him by name.

Then, after the message has been sent – what can they do but wait?

It is uncertain how much time elapses before Christ's arrival, but one can imagine what this waiting may have been like. Two sisters taking turns - Mary blotting her brother’s brow with a cool, wet cloth while Martha watches at the window, sweeps the stair. one ear cocked to the road, straining for some sound or signal of His approach… Hours pass, morning is swallowed up by afternoon, but still there is no sign of Christ. By break of day, Lazarus has grown worse; he is groaning and sighing and telling his sisters he cannot hold on.

Do they exchange anxious looks? Or avert each other’s eyes, choosing, instead, to ply their brother with assurances: “He is coming; He is coming. You must hold on.”

But Lazarus cannot hold on. By the time the sun has crested in the hazy, cloudless sky – it is too late. Lazarus's limbs have all gone slack, and he is resting – not in sleep, but in death. Midst their numbness and bafflement, their heart-hurt and weeping, these sisters must wrap Lazarus in a burial shroud; they must array themselves in grieving garments and attend his body to the tomb.

Three long days pass by with agonizing slowness. They may as well have been years.

Do the sisters privately exchange possible reasons as to why their Friend and Savior did not come? Surely they try to be generous; try not to give in to dark thoughts - yet all the while their feelings of disappointment mingle with feelings of betrayal, perhaps even deep, deep despair, as the question sinks deeper into the deepest hollows of their souls: why, oh! -- why hadn’t He come?

Meanwhile amongst the mourners there is a buzz: “Look; see? This man Jesus - He is not the Christ; He cannot be.” “Would the Savior of the World abandon His friends in their hour of greatest need?” “Would He who is said to be capable of anything do absolutely nothing to help those He claims to love?”

It isn’t until the morning of the fourth day that Christ is spotted on the road – “He is coming! He is coming!” someone shouts, “He is near to Bethany! He is on His way to the door!”

And it is precisely here, at this moment of great tension, that the essential differences between Martha and Mary are dramatically expressed. John tells us, “Then Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met him: but Mary sat [still] in the house.” The distinction is subtle but profound: “Martha…went and met…but Mary sat still…” (11.20, italics mine).

In the core of her person, Martha has interpreted her brother’s death as an accident which could have been avoided; an error which she must take it upon herself to rectify. In this small act of leaving home, Martha reveals herself to be the quintessential go-getter –literally leaving her house full of guests to go and get - first Jesus, and later Mary.

It may be a bit of a stretch but, on rare occasions, the word that is used for “went and met” connotes a hostile meeting, such as in Matthew 8.28 when the same word is used to describe Jesus’ encounter with two demon-possessed men who are described as “exceedingly fierce.”

Thus it is tempting to consider whether there may have been a note of hostility in Martha’s countenance when she rushed to meet Jesus. Could her first words of address - "Lord if you had been here our brother would not have died." - been laced with reproach? Might she have spoken them as an an accusation? “Lord if you had been here our brother would not have died!”

Significantly, after she speaks, Martha does not wait for Christ to answer. Instead, she says, “But even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you” (John 11.22). Pause a moment, and consider: what is Martha is really saying? Is this an expression of faith in Christ? Perhaps, in part.

But there is an idiomatic expression we “post-moderns” use to describe this kind of language: we call it passive-aggressive. Martha doesn’t come out and bluntly ask Jesus to perform a miracle; instead, she insinuates and implies. This could be because she doubts Christ's ability to grant her request; or perhaps she simply does not want to humble herself by asking Him for something she feels He should have done in the first place.

Then Christ says something remarkable: “Your brother will rise again.” Notably absent in Martha’s reply is any sense of wonder, awe, or gratitude. She does not respond in faith and submission – as do most recipients of revelation. In fact, Martha says nothing to indicate that she believes Christ is actually speaking to her present situation. “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day,” she says (italics mine).

It is the tone we have all taken when some poor soul tries to tell us something we’ve heard a thousand times and are sure we already know. We are polite but insincere: “I know…”

Martha assumes – without asking for clarification – that the resurrection to which Christ is referring will occur on “the last day,” the Day of Reckoning, when the Messiah returns to judge the world. Tragically, Martha does not really hear a single word Jesus is saying. In one sense, one could argue that she does not hear because she is not really listening; but in another, more heartbreaking sense, Martha literally cannot hear Christ - or even begin to grasp His purpose for her situation - because she is so utterly absorbed in her own.

But Christ – who knows Martha’s thoughts and motives before she herself does – is unrelenting in His pursuit of Martha's heart: “I am the resurrection and the life,” says Jesus, “He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"

Christ's words are like a provocation, inciting Martha to believe that He is, in fact, the Son of God. But Martha’s reply is remote, even guarded: "Yes, Lord," she says, “I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.” Martha gives intellectual assent to the idea that Christ is the Messiah and Savior of the world; but the Christ Who stands before her does not touch her personally; He does not penetrate into the world of her present pains and hardships.

If we put ourselves in her situation, this is not so hard to understand: for from Martha’s limited perspective, Christ has failed her. The gulf between her expectations and His provision is too wide, she cannot cross it. The burden of her suffering is too immense – she cannot lift or leave it. And so, like the rich young ruler whose great wealth crippled Him from following Jesus, Martha walks away. She walks away from the Living God of the Universe, and calls her sister, “saying secretly, ‘The Teacher is here and is calling for you’” (John 11.28).

Notice that Scripture does not say that Christ calls for Mary; instead, it says that Martha tells Mary that Christ has called her. But could Martha’s retrieval of Mary been a contrivance? Could this errand, this act of going and getting Mary, have been, for Martha, the last in a long string of tactics to get Christ to resurrect her brother? “Christ may have been unwilling to grant my request," I imagine her thinking bitterly, "but surely He will not deny my sister hers. For I know how much He loves her."

Here, perhaps, lies the real tragedy in the story of Lazarus and his sisters: for it is not Christ's failure to arrive in time, but Martha's failure to trust Him - and to believe that He loves her, no matter what circumstances may say.

How often, when tragedy strikes – or some relationship or hard-wrought endeavor, which I have deemed vitally important to my life – “fails” do I run direct to Jesus and demand reparations, begging Him to right the wrong, settle the misunderstanding, amend the oversight, and undo what has been done instead of trusting that the same God who spoke the universe into existence may just have a plan which - in all perfectness - He is in the process of unfolding?

"Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead. And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent that you may believe” (John 11:15).

"...to the intent that you may believe." God always has a purpose in every pain; and His purpose is always good. Rarely does He answer in the way we expect - but He always answers, and if we are willing to wait on Him, He will bring about a result that exceeds even our wildest expectations.

Springing for Spring

2011-03-06T22:28:00.000-08:00

It isn't autumn season; quite the opposite, in fact, but one look at this evening's sunset and I was all whoops and cheers - dumb-founded and awe-struck, and driven to reread these lovely lines by Hopkins, in his aptly named poem, Hurrahing for Harvest. It begs repeating:

"Summer ends now; now, barbarous in beauty, the stooks rise
Around; up above, what wind-walks! what lovely behaviour
Of silk-sack clouds! has wilder, willful-wavier
Meal-drift moulded ever and melted across skies?

I walk, I lift up, I lift up heart eyes,
Down all that glory in the heavens to glean our Saviour;
And, eyes, heart, what looks, what lips yet gave you a
Rapturous love’s greeting of realer, of rounder replies?

And the azurous hung hills are his world wielding shoulder
Majestic as a stallion stalwart, very-violet-sweet! –
These things, these things were here and but the beholder
Wanting; which two when they once meet,
The heart rears wings bold and bolder
And hurls for him, O half hurls earth for him off under his feet."

The Love Month

2011-03-03T22:02:00.000-08:00

They say February is the Love Month. For us, it was the month of sickness and fatigue...as well as endless loads of laundry. Perhaps the one upside is that I got a lot of pictures of the girls in their pajamas; nevertheless, I am welcoming the season of Spring with open arms.

i really love my blankie

2011-02-25T21:14:00.000-08:00

A Lovely Man

2011-02-25T16:32:00.000-08:00

It was getting close to the time of Nanny's arrival. Aud helped me pick the blocks up off the carpet and, yes, even mop the floor - at least, she did a marvelous job sloshing water around as if this were the most important thing in the world. I was carrying a stack of clean towels downstairs when I found her sitting on the bottom step, stacking magnets. "Audrey," I said, "will you go ask Da to carry the vacuum down?" "Sure," she said, and scampered up the steps two at a time. "DA," I heard her call, "Mommy wants to know if you can carry the vacuum downstairs to Nanny's room!" Dutch said he would and Audrey threw up an enthusiastic yip. "Oh, Hessel," she said, in as grown up a voice as I've heard her affect, "you're such a lovely man!"

a recipe for love

2011-02-14T17:00:00.000-08:00

celery + onions + cornbread + birds = love

A Gift from Bennett's Millinery

2011-02-09T21:01:00.000-08:00

One Saturday in January Audrey and I went to the Library Sale. In half an hour I had filled my bag with biographies of Isak Dinesen and Willa Cather, a history of the Third Reich, and a two-volume copy of the Gulag Archipelego. Audrey found a pristine hard-cover edition of "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" and was swimming in happiness. We exited the building like a couple of hummingbirds just come in from a field full of wildflowers. It was then we noticed an antique shop across the street, its front window filled with enormous conch shells and white coral specimens so big they looked like ancient pieces of driftwood. We went inside and wandered through the musty rooms. Hanging against a wood-planked wall, on a crooked nail, were several old hats. One of them, a creamy white one with costume jewels stitched onto the bill, caught Audrey's eye. "Oh, may I see it, Mom? May I try it on?" I could not but comply. "Oh, please can you get it for me, Mom - for my birthday? For March 'Teen?" I turned the hat upside down. It had three tags - the first said it was a Frances & Walter Helkin hat. The second, that it was from Bennett's Millinery in Evanston, Illinois; best of all the hat was stamped with a seal that read: "Melusine Registered; Made in Czechoslavakia." I considered that a Melusine hat from Bennett's Millinery is probably an uncommon request from a three-year-old, and when I walked out of the store the hat was tied up with string, in a box under my arm. Upon returning home I shoved the box onto a shelf in my closet... today someone spied the box and opened it... She very much liked what she saw.

Christ, the Shepherd and Bridegroom of our souls

2011-02-09T08:35:00.001-08:00

“When Jacob saw Rachel daughter of Laban, his mother’s brother, and Laban’s sheep, he went over and rolled the stone away from the mouth of the well and watered his uncle’s sheep."

It is a familiar story, this story of Jacob’s first encounter with his future bride; and as a story it has been passed down for generations, from father to son and mother to daughter, for generations.

Jacob, son of Isaac, grandson of Abraham, flees his father’s house and journeys to the land of his mother’s people, where he hopes to find a wife. Along the way he stops to rest, using a rock for a pillow, and dreams an uncommon dream in which he sees a stairway, thronged with angels. There, at the top of the stair, stands the Lord, the God over all Creation: "I am the God of your father Abraham,” the Lord says, “and the God of Isaac. …I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go…I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised” (Gen. 28:13-15).

The next day Jacob arrives on the outskirts of a country he has never visited, but which he knows is the country of his mother’s brother, a man called Laban. He sees a well in a field, surrounded by three flocks of thirsty sheep. But the mouth of the well is blocked by a large stone. This, conceivably, does not surprise Jacob – as it was the custom of that time for shepherds to wait until all the flocks had been gathered before watering the sheep (Gen.29.3).

I imagine the sight of the shepherds roused Jacob’s interest, and inspired him to overcome whatever fatigue might have been slowing and stiffening his weary limbs. “Do you know a man called Laban, Nahor’s grandson?” he asks the shepherds, with some urgency. “Yes,” they say, “we know him. And here comes his daughter Rachel with the sheep.”

A coincidence? Perhaps. But Jacob recognizes in this chance encounter the providential guidance of a faithful God. For the moment his somnolent eyes fall onto Rachel’s lovely form it seems that a chill like a lightening rod passes through his being, electrifying him into spontaneous action: “he went over and rolled the stone away from the mouth of the well and watered his uncle’s sheep.”

I, too, when my somnolent eyes swept over this story, was electrified by certain narrative elements - elements which have always been there, but which, until recently, I had never "seen" before: a well, sealed behind an enormous stone; three flocks of thirsty sheep; and – most riveting of all – a shepherd, moved out of love for a woman he does not yet know, to apply all the force of his strength to roll away the stone and water the sheep which have been entrusted to her care.

A coincidence? Perhaps. Or could these details be strung together to foretell a different narrative? Could they stand like a flaming arrow, pointing to Jesus Christ, that great Shepherd and Bridegroom of our souls?

Indeed, in Jacob I see the distant echo of another Shepherd, a Heavenly One, who out of love for His bride – the church – entered history some two thousand years later, to live and die and roll away an infinitely larger stone so that His sheep could receive the water of everlasting life. Thus Jacob the man serves as a kind of type of Christ - the biographical details of his human life anticipate the coming of Christ, and his shortcomings as a human being underscore the need for His coming.

In the same way, in the character of Rachel – that outwardly beautiful but inwardly idolatrous woman – I see the bride of Christ.

Put another way, in the character of Rachel I see myself – a bride in need of cleansing (Eph. 5.25-27); a woman gripped by petty jealousies, and fear; deceived and deceiving; an unfaithful wife who would willingly cling to worthless idols rather than entrust herself completely to the loving care of a God whose faithfulness has been demonstrated countless times before.

"But Jacob loved her.” And so Christ loves us. Broken, misguided creatures though we are… He loves us; and like Jacob, who proved His love for Rachel by working fourteen years in her father's pastures, tending sheep that were not his own - so Jesus Christ has proven His love for us in that while we were yet sinners, He died for us. "I am the good shepherd," Jesus said on the night He was betrayed, "and the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep...No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord."

This, among an infinite number of other things, is what I love about the Word of God - for just as God breathed life into man so that he became a human being, so He breathes Christ into Scripture, making it a living thing through which Christ speaks to us across ages, in the precise and complicated circumstances in which we live.

"I am the good shepherd," says Jesus, "and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice."

O, Living Christ, attune my heart to the sound of your voice... May It be the guiding principle of my life, my strength in times of weakness, my consolation in despair; a light that shatters even the darkest darkness, bidding me onward and upward, into eternity.

“But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away.” ~Mark 16.4

*Photo by Peter Buncombe Photography*

The Silas and Audrey Shoooow

2011-02-06T22:37:00.000-08:00

All he wanted was a little space to eat his snack and watch his show. But this proved to be too much to ask. Way, way too much.

i love this kid

2011-02-03T22:14:00.000-08:00

Shadow Princess

2011-02-03T22:13:00.001-08:00

Everett

2011-01-29T22:39:00.000-08:00

Out of the thousands of photos I snapped during the holidays this one of my nephew, Everett, is my favorite. Perhaps it's because his expression embodies everything that a happy, well-balanced childhood should produce - confidence, curiosity, hope, eagerness, and an impulse toward contemplation. The glint in his eyes gives me cause to consider that one's goal in life should not be to remain young for as long as possible but to retain, and even nurture, these "childish" qualities well into old age.

Bathtime

2011-01-25T22:19:00.000-08:00

This is my niece, Jewel. Appearances can be deceiving, but not in this case - for she is just as much the treasure as her name, and her crystalline green eyes, suggest. This morning we filled the bath so high with bubbles we felt positively rebellious. The sudsy peeks were fit to rival any Alpine retreat and the morning light came streaming in through the clear glass window - bright, warm, eastern light - bathing everything in gold. When I stepped back for a moment and looked at the children, blowing bubbles into the air, shouting to one another from the top of their great foam mountains, "Hell-oo, down there!" I couldn't help but feel as though I were living inside one of Mary Cassatt's paintings.

Marguerite

2011-01-19T12:48:00.000-08:00

I love this store. It is a newish little home accessories boutique in Sellwood, OR, and I arm-wrestled (okay, not arm-wrestled, but sweetly talked) Dutch into taking me there when we were in Portland last month. The store is named after its owner, a Miss Daisy Phillips, whose name in french is - what else? Marguerite. The store was piled high with french linens, brass scissors, hand-blown ornaments, paper whites, stuffed pheasants, even a giant urn filled with enormous goose down powder puffs from Paris - if only I wore powder! All of these details worked together to create an ambiance that I'm convinced would enthrall even the stodgiest soul. When I returned to the sidewalk I was freshly inspired to really look with wonder and curiosity upon the world.

My one regret: I turned down an offer to photograph Daisy's shoes! Why would I do it? They were camel-colored peep-toes, very shiny, and revealing a pristine holiday pedicure... But when she offered I got all bashful and instead went into the bathroom and took pictures of the toilet paper! Ridiculous. But perhaps she'll give me a second chance next time around...

Rain

2011-01-19T12:44:00.000-08:00

These glittering pictures of Audrey watching traffic streak down a rainy Portland street make me smile.

This Earthly Tent

2011-01-18T21:46:00.000-08:00

“Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God,
an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.” ~2 Corinthians 5.1

It was the Sunday after Thanksgiving, and I was standing in front of the barista bar at Starbucks while Dutch and the girls waited in the car, combed and pressed and ready for church. I tapped my foot, checked my phone, and threw a hurried glanced at the New York Times which was propped on a shelf beside the register. The cover photo – a brick colonnade crowded with people, all of them in woolen caps and thermals – looked vaguely familiar. So I looked closer… Yes, I thought, with just a glimmer of satisfaction, it is: Pioneer Courthouse Square. My Pioneer Courthouse Square, the one which sits at the center of the city where I grew up.

The tree in the background suggested that the photo had been taken at the annual Christmas tree lighting, and I wondered which of my friends, if any, had been there.

Foreshortened memories flicked through my mind like slide show images and, with them, forgotten feelings of forgotten afternoons – strolling up and down the square, past street kids on skateboards, asking for change; slackening my pace to take a long look at the classical facade of the Federal courthouse building; drinking iced coffee in front of the flower stall across from Nordstrom, and lingering to ogle at the magnificent dahlias, their petals all a-glimmer with raindrops.

But one look at the picture’s caption shattered all my reveries: “About 10,000 people were in Pioneer Courthouse Square when the authorities said a teenager hoped to detonate a car bomb,” it said. I quickly scanned the article which described how a Somali-born teenager was arrested Friday night after detonating what he believed was an authentic explosive device.

Standing there in the atrium of the coffeehouse, waiting around for what suddenly seemed a meaningless concoction of espresso and milk, I understood keenly why and how such acts of violence – even the failed ones – achieve a degree of success: for if they succeed they do so by making us afraid, by bringing home the unsettling thought that we are not safe, not even in the most innocuous, most familiar surroundings.

Thus the bomb may have been a fake, but the threat was - and is - startlingly real.

Less than two weeks ago, in Tucson, for entirely different reasons, a lone gunman shot congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords along with more than a dozen others. As most of the world knows, Congresswoman Giffords survives, in critical condition, but six others were killed.

And when, several hours after the attack, I passed by the scene of the crime, which also happens to be my neighborhood grocery store, my stomach churned.

The idea that there is lurking beneath the hood of some vacant car, or strapped beneath the clothing of a nearby stranger, a ticking bomb, a loaded gun … sends a chill like a shock-wave rippling down my spine, proving that while the individuals responsible for these crimes may have been taken into physical custody, their actions threaten to imprison those of us who remain "free." We may not be literal hostages, but we risk becoming emotional ones.

Walking into a bakery less than a mile from the site of the shooting I overheard two people talking. "It really makes you think,” said a woman to a man. “At any moment our lives could be snatched from us without warning. Just like that.”

It is the kind of talk that is often heard in the wake of tragedy; and it is so familiar as to have become cliche. But just because a thing is hackneyed, does not make it untrue, or unworthy of honest consideration, does it?

In fact, last weekend’s shootings reveal the truth that has been there all along, but which the pale of untroubled circumstances, or the frenetic pace of life, allow us to overlook: the truth that life is fragile, tenuous, uncertain. That we could be asked to cross the bridge from life to death at any moment; and that even if we live another fifty or a hundred years, death awaits us all.

But whether we live a few decades more or die tomorrow is not, ultimately, the point. The point is where we’re going, where we long to be, and whether we have any sure means of getting there. Out of the rubble that we human beings have made of this world, Christ rises. He rises, and has risen, having defeated death - and the paroxysms of fear which just the thought of it induces - for every man or woman who would deign to call on His name.

There is something exquisitely unique about the hope of Christ – for it is a hope which will one day be replaced by reality. As Paul writes in his first letter to the Corinthian church, “Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven… For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.” (1 Corinthians 15.49, 52).

“Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.” ~1 Corinthians 15.58

*Images courtesy of {frolic!}.

Birthday Wishes

2011-01-17T07:37:00.001-08:00

I was introduced to the work of Dutch artist Sebastiaan Bremer by the inimitable Chelsea over at frolic!. These images fill me with joy and seem an appropriate way of saying Happy Birthday to my sister, Kate. Happy, happy, happy day!

Giving Him My Yes

2011-01-10T14:02:00.000-08:00

"And in despair I bowed my head
'There is no peace on earth,” I said,
'For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.'

~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

It is easy to forget to savor the small moments, or take time to commemorate them once they have passed. On this early day in January, when the city of Tucson remains shrouded in grief, a few memories call out to me, twinkling like stars in an ocean of darkness... It was Christmas morning. The first we had ever spent alone as a family.

The fragrance of fresh pine branches mingled with the smell of cinnamon buns, baking in the oven. While I prepared the coffee, the girls stalked in and out of the kitchen in stockinged feet, alive with that peculiar brand of eagerness that only comes on Christmas morning.

Dutch sat in the blue velvet chair before a whispering fire to read the Christmas story and Audrey bounded down the steps to meet him, and was caught up in his great strong arms. Once her laughter had subsided she stood between his knees and batted her eyes, a genuine look of interest and curiosity streaked across her face, while Evangeline made circles around the pair, examining the designs in the carpet and only looking up to utter a single word: "Nice...nice."

Dutch read from a black leather-bound volume called The Life of Jesus. Its delicate pages fluttered like birds' wings, like the most delicate tissue paper – as if the book were itself a gift being opened – and a hush fell over the room. As each new narrative detail was introduced – the angel, the stable, the wise men, the star – I could see the story come to life in Audrey’s eyes, betraying a look of wonder such as is only seen on the faces of children…

Then came the shepherds, out in the fields watching their sheep: “And the glory of the Lord was shining around them,” Dutch read, his voice quiet and even. “The shepherds were very afraid. The angel said to them, ‘Don’t be afraid. I have some very good news for you – Today your Savior was born in David’s town. He is Christ, the Lord…”

The words came like a shock, like a revelation. Dutch looked up at me and our eyes met – tearful, smiling eyes – as my heart expanded to take in the miracle: Today your Savior was born... He is Christ, the Lord.

It never happens the same way twice, but it always happens that each year, on Christmas, the story of Christ's entrance onto the stage of history - into a world that without Him is full of dread and gloom - strikes me deeper; its meaning and power penetrate further into the furthest recesses of my soul.

I don't know why.

Perhaps it is because I have had 365 more days of exposure to the horrific realities of sin in the world. Oppression. Greed. Cruelty. Violence. The swelling gravity of these things serve as a terrific backdrop for the work of Christ, which has the power to redeem the seemingly unredeemable, to bring life out of death, and to take the ashes of this world and remake them into something beautiful.

"Peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled..." We sing the words, but can we comprehend their meaning? "Peace on earth" - it is very obviously not a peace which has been made manifest in the material world. Not yet, anyway. But for the anguished heart which has been stilled by Christ's touch, it is a peace which is true, and which endures. "Peace, I give to you," says Jesus; "My Peace, I leave with you. I do not give as the world gives."

"Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5.1). But Christ’s propitious death not only opens the way between man and God, but between man and man. He was born, lived, died, and rose to stand between us in all our dealings with other living beings... His death and resurrection mean that we can, by the power of His Spirit, truly love and be loved in return.

For this reason, for Christmas this year, I decided to give Dutch a tiny golden key with the word "YES" inscribed along the blade. After all (or so I thought), what husband would fail to appreciate receiving a symbol of his wife's continued commitment to love and honor him? But the idea wasn't mine entirely; instead, I borrowed inspiration from Maria von Wedemeyer, the woman whose engagement to Dietrich Bonhoeffer became official following a letter she wrote to him, giving him her ‘yes.’ With joy inexpressible, Bonhoeffer immediately responded. “I sense and am overwhelmed by the awareness that a gift without equal has been given me," he wrote, "– this 'Yes' that is to be decisive for our entire life.”

But the tumultuous times in which Dietrich and Maria’s love bloomed were impossible to forget or ignore – even in a single letter. And so Bonhoeffer ended his effusions with an admonition: “But let us not dwell now on the bad that lurks and has power in every person,” he wrote, “but let us encounter each other in great, free forgiveness and love, let us take each other as we are – with thanks and boundless trust in God, who has led us to this point and now loves us.”

It is because of Christ’s work on the cross that I can – not only in the springtime of love, but on and on, until the end – approach my husband in this spirit of “great, free forgiveness and love;” because of Christ I have the opportunity to do my utmost to make and keep peace between us.

And - perhaps best of all - through all the circumstances that work to try my patience, to test my endurance to its limit, I can exhibit and foster “boundless trust in God.” For I have His “yes” – the grandest gesture of love that ever was or will be, expressing itself most perfectly on the cross of Christ.

This, to me, is Emmanuel God with us. And it signals that the work which He completed, once and for all, on Calvary will one day be complete in me.

“Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
‘God is, nor not dead doth He sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail
With peace on earth, good will to men.’”

puppet master

2011-01-06T21:31:00.000-08:00

Boys will be boys but sometimes - and particularly if there are puppets involved - so will men. I made a makeshift puppet theater using two sets of curtains held up by a golden rod. It needs improving but it'll do for now. During our family Christmas celebration Audrey and her cousins put on a very memorable production of the Christmas story using an ostrich and a mouse as wise men. It was the purest form of entertainment I've seen in quite some time... possibly ever. And on New Year's Day, just before bed, the children were each given flashlights; Dutch put a white sheet up on the wall and we used puppets to tell shadow stories, voices and all. It wasn't just great, it was grand.

the look I am going for

2010-12-25T00:16:00.000-08:00

This 1963 photo by Alfred Eisenstaedt's features Parisian children watching a performance of St. George and the Dragon at the puppet theater in the Tuileries. Isn't it glorious? It's impossible for me to look at it without smiling and smiling. (Note to self: no one ever looks this deliriously happy while watching television.)

I have admired the puppet theaters in Paris for a long time - and this year, for Christmas, I am giving the girls hand-puppets for our someday-coming puppet theater (curtains courtesy of Ikea; craftsmansship courtesy of Dutch).

Coming Home

2010-12-22T15:43:00.000-08:00

Aud took this picture with my phone from her window seat. I think she is about to surpass me in terms of technological expertise, which is not saying much, but it does cause me to wonder whether, as an old woman, I'll be able to function in the world at all. Sigh. If only Aldous Huxley could see us now.

Christmas Time

2010-12-16T12:43:00.000-08:00

I snapped these pictures (some were part of our Christmas photo shoot) before we left for Portland - for a day and a half, the girls and I reveled in putting Christmas lights and balls and chocolate into jars. When Dutch came home from work I was sitting at the dining table separating candy kisses into color-coordinated piles. "Do you realize you live with three children?" he asked, counting himself as the third. "Most ordinary people cannot live with this kind of temptation." I shrugged and said it was one more reason to be grateful we were leaving home for a few weeks; exempting ourselves from the struggle. It hasn't been so long since we've been gone, and we're having a marvelous time, but I must say one does begin to miss home, sun and all.

a few of my favorite things

2010-12-10T23:14:00.000-08:00

happy feet

2010-12-09T23:19:00.000-08:00

holly leaves

2010-12-09T12:24:00.000-08:00

We are still looking for the french hens, and the turtle doves, but we found the holly leaves. Lots of them.

this old house

2010-12-07T22:55:00.001-08:00

Right now heaven is spelled: this old house. It doesn't matter that we're only renting it for two weeks because I plan to treat the house like it is my own best Christmas present. Dutch gets all the credit for finding it - it's not only a short commute for him, it's crammed, floor to ceiling, with old books and artwork. Everything – and I do mean, everything – about it creaks: banisters and stairs, doorknobs and floors, the piano bench and dining chairs, and all three of the four mattresses I’ve tried. Even the gas burner squeaks hell-oo when you turn the little black knob. It’s like a small enchantment, having a conversation with one's place of residence. Unlike most human beings, the house picks up on even the subtlest cues – a tip-toe, a nocturnal change in position, a shift in weight from right foot to left. No matter how small the gesture, it always talks back. And sometimes – in the middle of the night, when it is shiftless, unable to sleep – the house talks to itself, creaking and sighing, and all that is required is that I lay where I am lying, and listen.

Winter

2010-12-06T11:13:00.000-08:00

This is not an ad for Land's End; but it could be. These are not my children; but I wish they were. In fact, they belong to my old college friend, Al, whose blog will make you want to run outside and make a snowman, whether or not you have children, or a yard full of snow. If I were in the business of exploiting people for money, hers would be the first door I would knock on. As it is, I will remain content to admire her from a distance, and seize every opportunity to enjoy the season - such as, for starters, catching the next plane to Portland to enjoy two weeks of rain and cold!

The Most Expensive Book in the World

2010-12-02T13:53:00.000-08:00

On December 7th, Sotheby's is set to auction off an original copy of John James Audubon's, "Birds of America." According to an article in last week's Wallstreet Journal, "Sotheby's has valued the book at about $6.2 million to $9.3 million, making it one of the most expensive books ever sold at auction." The original prints, bound in four volumes, were made from engravings of Mr. Audubon's watercolor paintings which he composed between 1827-1838. Given my recent ornithological reflections, I can't say that I am surprised to learn that the world's most valuable book is devoted to artistic renderings of birds... and I suddenly feel rather fortunate to have found an inexpensive copy of "Birds" in the rare books room of the library sale last spring. Not coincidentally, the pink flamingo is currently on its way to being framed and hung up on my bedside wall.

Goodbye, Uncle Jordanian

2010-11-30T13:47:00.000-08:00

This is the cake we made, and prematurely sampled, to commemorate Uncle Jordanian's departure... He will be away for nearly five months, training to be a US Marshall. And we are so proud of him. Who could have imagined my darling niece, his daughter, could look so pristine, so like an angel, even with a tear cascading down her cheek?

Baking

2010-11-30T13:40:00.000-08:00

thank. you.

2010-11-25T09:33:00.000-08:00

“When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; what is man that you are mindful of him? And the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.” ~ Psalm 8

It was a balmy October evening, little more than a year ago, and Dutch and I were standing in the middle of a teeming parking lot under a star-studded sky. We were in a part of town I had never visited … and I balked at what I saw: panoramic views of city and mountains lapped against us like waves. It was unlike anything I’d ever seen in the seven years I had lived in Tucson.

There, in the darkness, I felt chastened, as though God were hurling me a question: So this is the desert you so abhor? The barren wilderness, the stifling dead land, in which none of my wonders are made manifest?

Tears filled my eyes as I clasped Dutch’s hand and breathed a quiet prayer, “God, thank you for bringing me to a place so steeped in your grandeur, its beauty a testament to your glory.” Then, in a spasm of impetuosity, I added a postscript: “And Lord – if it’s necessary that we should remain in the desert, would you allow us to live in a place where we can better experience its beauty?”

Suddenly I felt childish, and stole a sly glance at Dutch. “Well,” I said, laughing, blushing, bashful, “the worst He can do is say no, right?”

I was aware that perhaps it was an indulgent thing to ask. But I was still thinking about the conversation I'd had with a wise old friend that very afternoon. I had expressed frustration with myself – wanting to be rid, once and for all, of the desires that caused me to battle with discontentment, but my friend reminded me that God is my Father. “It’s okay to ask Him for things,” she had said. “He wants you to ask – freely… but to accept His answer, whatever it is, trusting that He alone knows what is best for your soul.”

Days, weeks, months passed and I forgot all about the prayer. It wasn’t 'til last month, as Dutch drove me up for the second time to view the house that would become our home, that I chanced to remember it… Not five hundred yards away - whipping wildly in the wind - stands a flag, the flag that marks the very parking lot where we stood last fall, without the slightest inkling of what God had in store.

We have lived here only three weeks but still, each time I pass a window and look out upon the vast expanse of mountains, sky, and stars, an unspeakable mixture of disbelief, unworthiness, and overwhelming awe rise up together from the very depths of my soul.

To the north, the shadowy peaks of the Catalina mountains loom, dusted with saguaros like candles on a cake. To the south, straining far in the foggy distance, I can glimpse the violet hills of Mexico. Each evening the sun never fails to sink behind the blue-black mountains without putting up a fight – an extraordinary show of colors which no human language can adequately describe.

When at last the sky darkens, the city becomes a bed of glittering jewels, a black sea, churning with lights; and in the daytime, the view from high up on the hill betrays a landscape that is anything but withered. On the contrary, the city is blanketed in green: green trees, green brush, even a few brilliant patches of lime-colored grass.

In response to all these sights I cannot help but feel very small; and in this case, as in few others, I know my feelings are entirely justified: for I am small - but one body of swirling life and activity, absorbed in its own particular interests and concerns, in a great sea of other bodies, absorbed in other activities and plagued by other concerns.

It is impossible to conceive how the God of the Universe, whose attentions are at every moment turned to the great and important matters of the world, can also be so humbly and lovingly concerned with mine… And yet I am constantly confronted with evidence that He does; that He is.

It is an unaccountable blessing… a gift which, like salvation, I cannot take an ounce of credit for. So what must I do?

I think I'll start at the very beginning: by saying thank you.

"Bless the LORD, O my soul, And all that is within me, bless His holy name.Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget none of His benefits; who pardons all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases; who redeems your life from the pit, Who crowns you with lovingkindness and compassion; who satisfies your years with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle....The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness. He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His lovingkindness toward those who fear Him. Just as a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear Him." ~Psalm 103.1-5, 8-13

little fall

2010-11-19T22:01:00.000-08:00

for al

2010-11-19T21:53:00.000-08:00

the white one

2010-11-19T09:35:00.000-08:00

It was Nanny's last night in town and we promised Audrey we would take her to the pizza parlor with the carousel. All day long she told us how she was going to ride the white horse, how Nanny would come too, and they would go around and around and around. But when we got there another girl was already sitting on the white one. Audrey was crestfallen and I quickly began ushering her toward the white bunny, instead, but Nanny - her indomitable Irish will flaring - would not be put down: instead, she clasped Audrey's hand and walked confidently up to the girl - who looked to be about ten - and explained the situation. Then she held Audrey up and they both looked at the girl very mulishly. I don't know if the girl said anything but a moment later she slid off the horse and went elsewhere... Sitting on the blue rooster, with Evangeline on my lap, I hovered somewhere between shock and awe.

to a desert flamingo

2010-11-18T22:39:00.001-08:00

Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river?
Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air -
An armful of white blossoms,
A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned
into the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies,
Biting the air with its black beak?
Did you hear it, fluting and whistling
A shrill dark music - like the rain pelting the trees - like a waterfall
Knifing down the black ledges?
And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds -
A white cross Streaming across the sky, its feet
Like black leaves, its wings Like the stretching light of the river?
And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?
And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?
And have you changed your life?

~Mary Oliver, “The Swan”

Dear bird,

This is a letter of apology – and a confession.

I used to hear the words pink flamingo and think of stale Floridian houses trimmed with green plastic lawns. And you propped up on one. Alone. Or maybe with a fellow – standing solidly on one black leg, your black beak, with its white dimple, tipped downward shyly.

I was unaware that all such replicas are little more than hopeless misrepresentation of what, in fact, you are: a living work of art.

Now I know.

But before this morning I had never really looked at you – never examined the many folds of your feathers, the elegant nape of your neck, or the infinite gradations of crimson color which cascade down the long length of your back. I never knew the tips of your tail feathers look as though they've been dipped in flaming coal; had never stared into your eerily mesmeric yellow eyes, nestled deep into either side of your downy head, and thought, but what universe have you come from?

Somehow – how is it? – I have lived three decades on this planet without ever grasping that your knees, which are really ankles, are the color of raspberries; that the hollow reeds of your legs appear to have been washed with lemon glaze, or the webs of your pink toes dusted with blue powder. Has your hooked beak been brushed with charcoal? Would its inky blackness rub off on my hands? I have never taken the time to wonder.

Instead, my mind has been occupied with other matters… It is - in case you haven't noticed - a strange time of year. In the morning a chill creeps into the air – hinting faintly that cold is coming, coaxing me into donning a long sweater and knee socks, packing a basketful of goodies, and trekking to the park to spread a woolen blanket out upon the lawn.

But this is a ruse. For by eleven o’clock, the sun, winking in a cloudless sky, humiliates me into retreating once more behind hat and glasses. Into sweating and swearing and thirsting all the long way home.

I think I understand why God made seasons – there is something intensely cathartic, even instructive, about watching nature change – its revolving cycles of new birth, of ripening and wilting and dying, tangibly enact, in a relatively condensed form, the life cycle of all living organisms.

For this reason, by the time September comes, I am longing for a change, but outside there is none to speak of. No bright leaves to sweep up into bundles on my front lawn. Instead, the leaves on the lone leafy tree outside my kitchen window remain an obstinate green. My rosemary is blooming – touching little purple flowers – that speak to me of spring, not October and its autumnal glory. The heap of pumpkins piled outside my door begin to bake themselves into pies, so I am forced to drag them inside to cool. It is one less thing to do before Thanksgiving, I suppose.

Meanwhile, all the local stores have set themselves up for holiday shoppers – wreaths made of plastic holly leaves are stacked on practically every end cap; reindeer and Christmas lights mocking me into confusion, alerting me to the incomprehensible fact that winter, even Christmas, is fast on its way. But how can this be, when it is nearly 80 degrees outside? How, when my children are kicking off their shoes to dip naked feet into cool water, playing in their bathing suits, sunning in sun dresses, and slurping down popsicles in jelly sandals?

I do not know.

But standing in the middle of the zoo with my hands clasped to the metal railing, beside the painted plaque that told me all about your natural habitat, I did see how your beauty pertained to everything; and how my life should change.

You may be stuck in the center of an artificial habitat, a man-made lake which – isn’t it? – considerably smaller than the lake where you were born – but for all these constraints, you have not become reptilian, not exchanged your wings for scaly arms. Instead, proudly perched on one leg, you preen, tucking your head into the nest of your wings. The desert sun hasn’t wilted your feathers or muted your colors. You are caged yet you remain obstinately unaffected – or strangely indifferent – to your surroundings, as though your hope were elsewhere.

There, at the center of the zoo, you appeared to be entirely at peace with yourself, wrapped up in a kaleidoscope of quietness that fanned out from all sides… and enveloped me entirely.

There, watching you, I was reminded what beauty is for - that it is an instrument of God, meant to arouse in the human spirit a desire, not to consume or acquire, but to worship; that beauty, if it is true, should breed gratitude, not discontent – should compel the mind it rivets to look up and outside itself, away from all the man-made ugliness that robs the soul of joy. Seeing you reminded me that there is beauty which is beyond the grasp of the imagination, and gave me cause to wonder: if God can create birds with such infinite variety and ingenuity what must the place be like which He is preparing for me?

decorating for christmas

2010-11-14T21:48:00.000-08:00

I was sitting on the living room rug sorting old magazines when Audrey scampered up and took hold of my hand. "Close your eyes!" she demanded, and led me ten paces to the center of the room. "Okay, open them!" There, to my surprise, stood one of the old dining chairs I recently fixed up for the new house, its back swathed in some old ribbon scraps which Audrey found bunched up in the corner. “It’s for you!” she shouted. “I decorated it - for Christmas.” Genuinely impressed, I began asking her precisely how she did it when suddenly she became grave and serious. “But, but, but," she stammered, in a hushed but forceful tone, "you can’t show it to Daddy because if you do he will want it and he will take it, okaaaay?” Were I not intimately familiar with Dutch's taste in home decor, I would have surely believed her.

the new house

2010-11-11T09:51:00.000-08:00

Like trying on a new hat, the feel and fit of a new house can seem strange, even dizzying, if only because it's unfamiliar. Nevertheless, we are tremendously enjoying our new surrounds and the feeling of home which is becoming every day more marked and real.

white

2010-11-04T23:38:00.000-07:00

Her favorite color is white. White cups and white saucers; white dresses and cabinet doors. She would like a white room, a white pony, and a white pygmie pig named Chloe, whom she can lead around on a long white leash and with whom she can build elaborate snow castles. At the zoo, we happened upon a white peacock - did you know there was such a thing as a white peacock? - and traveled no further.

fall fashion

2010-10-30T23:49:00.000-07:00

I have lived in the desert seven years without ever visiting the zoo. This is no accident. As someone who finds the desert heat - particularly in late October, when everything in me is yearning to experience a taste of fall - not only oppressive, but deppressive, as in depressing, I was sure that, for me, given my particular propensities and predilections, paying the price of admission in order to meander around a park full of animals in actual cages would be almost negligent.

Today, however, with the move delayed by a few days, the girls and I cast off all constraints and headed to the center of town to feed the giraffes.

The effect turned out to be quite opposite of what I expected: rather than causing me to bemoan my presence in Arizona - which is a bit like a reverse Narnia in that, here, it is always summer and never Christmas - I actually began to celebrate it.

It's difficult to explain why, exactly, only I know that something quite palpable began to happen the moment I set foot in the aviary. So much life! So much color! True, the birds were in cages but this didn't keep them from strutting and pecking and nodding their beaks at me. In short, it did not keep from being birds.

Suddenly, I felt I had been welcomed into a society of my betters - the only one whose external appearance was pure pretense - who had to resort to wearing clothes, for example.

Forget whatever fall fashions are being touted at the moment, have you ever really examined the head of a crown pigeon? Why, it is absolutely extraordinary! Their eyes are the brightest vermilion; their crown feathers as stiff as dried moss, as frail and fine as pressed flowers. It's no wonder such birds are often personified as aristocrats with monocles. If I hadn't been pushing a stroller I'm almost sure I would have curtsied in reverence.

Someone to do for

2010-10-27T14:17:00.000-07:00

Boxes to pack, decisions to make and delays to endure... all run the risk of making Heather a hopelessly distracted girl. Should you find yourself in need of a dose of perspective, as I was this afternoon, give this song a look and listen. It is particularly effective when dancing.

Singin' in the Rain

2010-10-23T22:33:00.000-07:00

They trapsed back and forth along the stone ledge beneath the roof's awning, in their matching pea coats, Evie pointing at the sheath of water that gushed over the drain while Audrey kept repeating, "There's wa-ter, Evie! It's falling from the sky!" For an instant, this thirty-year-old woman from the rainy Northwest felt as though it was her first rain too.

Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head

2010-10-23T21:33:00.000-07:00

Yesterday morning, for the first time in Audrey and Evangeline's living memories, it began to rain - hard. Having been recently schooled in the practice of identifying poisonous liquids (cleaning products, spray paint, and chlorinated water) Audrey immediately began making loud proclamationa that she (nor Evie, nor I) could drink the rain. "No, Ma'am!"

Her irrepressible delight when I informed her that, in fact, the rain was not poisonous, banished all thoughts of packing or 'to dos.'

Storytime + Bagels = Happiness

2010-10-19T14:07:00.000-07:00

Moving (again)

2010-10-17T22:01:00.001-07:00

I saw this photo on a blog called Olivet and thought - well, aside from its very New England, very autumn flavor - it was too perfect not to post. We haven't packed the car yet but the house is officially coming apart which means all the really "superfluous" (i.e. crucial-for-maintaining-my-mental-health) things in my life, like writing, are being pushed, not just to the margins, but clear off the page for a while.

The Princess and the Peacoat

2010-10-11T22:35:00.000-07:00

Her chilliness toward all male articles of clothing - sweaters, sweatshirts, jackets, pants - has been one of her prominent characteristics for some time: "I can't wear that Mommy, because, because, be-cause - I'm sorry but, I'm a girl." I was taken aback to realize that even socks were included in the ban. "Socks are for daddies," she explained, shrugging and squinting and tipping her head sideways. "Of course!" I retorted. "How could I have been so thoughtless?" (Though it is hard for me to imagine life without my argyles.)

But this evening, when I brought home a brand-new "winter" peacoat from Beppe, her moratorium began to thaw. She slid her supple arms into the shimmering red sleeves, buttoned it up to her chin, and begged me not to take a picture. Naturally, I complied, as I understand the need for "priver-seat," even when you're three, however I found it impossible to restrain myself the moment after she'd fallen asleep.

Life is Sweet

2010-10-10T23:43:00.001-07:00

I know it's sort of frowned upon these days to advocate the consumption of copious amounts of raw unprocessed sugar - especially if you're a mother - but really, what else are weekends for?

Many Things

2010-10-05T16:35:00.000-07:00

“Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.’” ~ Luke 10.42

There is a long stanza in Wordsworth’s Ode about the many stages in a man’s life – stages of love and strife, of weddings and funerals, action and contemplation. Man moves, with a dissatisfied hunger, from one state to another - always, with "joy and pride," fitting himself to another new part, like an actor who is endlessly vying for a new role. By the time he arrives at “palsied Age” man has inhabited a great many persons and done a great many things - tempting the poet to wonder, with just a hint of lugubriousness in his tone, whether "[man's] whole vocation" is little more than "endless imitation.”

The rhapsodic line tripped about my mind all morning, as I was driven – not (quite) to drink, but to distraction.

I had been sitting at the table for approximately thirty-six uninterrupted seconds, attempting to read the gospel of Matthew, when Evangeline, in her high chair, her pink cheeks plastered with peanut butter, urgently signed for water. When I opened the refrigerator I saw the little puddle of spilled soda which had been firming itself into place for two days – Oh, I really must clean this! I thought, but when I reached for a rag I remembered the wash – the wash! I really must change it! But - wait, had I remembered to put that check in the mail? ...

I was just addressing the envelope when there came the slap, slap of bare feet behind me. There, like an apparition, stood Audrey in her fairy costume, waving a tattered pair of wings. “Mommy, can you put these on for me? So I can fly. So I can fly?”

"But dearest," I wanted to say, "it is Mommy who wants to fly... far and away!" I sighed; I smiled; I bent down to attach the wings. “Really, William," I muttered, talking aloud to Wordsworth - because there is nothing better, in harried moments, than to begin imaginary conversations with dead poets - "If you're going to speak of my experience, you should alter the last line: for the whole vocation of a mother is one of endless interruption.”

Anne Morrow Lindbergh articulates this problem with an amusing mixture of insight and wit in her book, Gift from the Sea, in which she writes, “I begin to understand why the saints were rarely married women. I am convinced it has nothing inherently to do, as I once supposed, with chastity or children. It has to do primarily with distractions. The bearing, rearing, feeding and educating of children; the running of a house with its thousand details; human relationships with their myriad pulls – woman’s normal occupations in general run counter to creative life, or contemplative life, or saintly life.”

I agree with Lindbergh. Whether or not we are mothers or managers of large households, I think most women live in a perpetual state of interruption – of negotiating how to respond to the shower of demands that rain upon us from all sides, at all times, and from all sorts of venues. If my own experience is any judge, it is all too easy to flutter about from one task to another without stopping to scrupulously, and prayerfully, consider which demands are to be submitted to, and which deferred or denied.

My impulse – admittedly very childish – is simply to run away from life's demands and distractions...to look for a loophole, a keyhole - even a rabbit hole - so long as I can escape.

But as so many children's stories deftly illustrate - it is one thing to want to run away; it is another thing entirely to have identified where, precisely, one wants to run to.

Upon careful reflection, I realize that I really long to go to that place where, in the words of GM Hopkins, "no storms come;" "where the green swell is in the havens dumb / and out of the swing of the sea."

In short, I long for heaven, and the beauty, tranquility, and unhurried fellowship with Christ - and with other people - which are its hallmarks.

However this realization comes as both liberation and limitation - for I cannot fly to Heaven any more than Audrey can flit through the looking glass to Wonderland. For now God has planted my two feet on the earth - wriggling amongst its mud and flowers.

Because I cannot escape life's storms, I must learn to live amidst them - recognizing that the peace I long for is only found in Christ, who "Himself is our peace" (Ephesians 2.14).

And yet, as I wrestle through such things, I cannot help but feel a certain sympathy for Martha who, the Scriptures say, was "distracted" or "cumbered" by "much serving" (KJV). The Greek word merimnao, from which the word “worried” is translated, is defined as “to care for or look out for (a thing)" as well as “to take thought of [it].” The context of the passage, alongside Jesus's gentle rebuke, implies to me that Martha was not just being careful to attend to her guests - which is something any gracious hostess would do - but she was being too careful, allowing such concerns to inhibit her from spending time with Christ.

As a wife and mother, there are many days when I too am "cumbered about much serving." Administering meals and all the household concerns which accompany them are part of my daily life - and they will be for as long as God gives me these parts to play. But to accept such responsibilities should not be tantamount to allowing them to rule my life and consume all my energy. “Be carefully careless about everything except your relationship to Christ,” says Oswald Chambers.

If I was held at gunpoint, and absolutely forced to pick a life motto, this might very well be it.

Thankfully, no such dangers are upon me. Instead, I face the danger of neglecting the one thing that is most important - and this is what causes me to shudder. For in the end (which is really the beginning), when I meet my Savior face to face, I want Him to commend me for having chosen what was better - even if it means letting the spilled soda sit in the fridge a few days longer.

Car Shopping

2010-10-04T15:26:00.000-07:00

Several weeks ago I was privileged to enjoy a few days with my nephew, Asher. One afternoon we let the children loose in (what is, to us) the infamous toy store, Mildred & Dildred. We were simply tickled (pink? blue? chrome?) when Asher shimmied his miniature shopping cart right up to this "car dispenser," giving us all a new and deeper appreciation for the term car shopping. It was a "Dutching" moment - which is to say, his Uncle (Dutch) would have been very proud.

Ryan + Carrie

2010-09-30T23:15:00.000-07:00

Several years ago I was strolling through a Portland park with an infant-Audrey strapped to my chest in one of those ridiculously long fabric harnesses. Her great walnut eyes were peeking out from beneath the rim of her little white bonnet and her arms and legs dangled loosely like a stuffed monkey that has been put on display in the shop window of a toy store. Suddenly a woman came up to me and tsk-ed. Literally, tsk-ed as though I had done something wrong! I turned around to see if I had unknowingly dropped a bit of trash along the sidewalk. I looked at her with inquiring eyes, but she didn't crack a smile. Instead she gave a short, sharp little nod and said, "That is too cute. It should be illegal."

I feel the same sentiment wash over me every time I look at these pictures - and it is compounded by a cool rush of relief and sisterly pride that the man featured in them is now, officially, as of two o'clock in the afternoon on September the 24th, RJA, Esquire. Extraordinaire. And his bride-to-be? Well, she's just extraordinary. Purely and simply.

Seraphine

2010-09-22T14:55:00.000-07:00

The film, “Seraphine,” chronicles the life of French painter Seraphine who grew up in the town of Senlis, about forty kilometers from Paris. Seraphine, who is brilliantly portrayed by the actress Yolande Moreau, was orphaned at seven, received no formal education, and spent most of her life working as a domestic servant or housemaid.

As a mother – (i.e. one to whom the term domestic servant may be just as easily applied) – I was immediately drawn into the life of this woman whose time is chiefly consumed with menial tasks: mopping floors, washing linens, scrubbing dishes, heating and preparing baths, and cleaning up after meals she did not have the privilege to enjoy.

In the afternoons, after her work is through, and particularly whenever she is sad or depressed, Seraphine takes long walks through the neighboring countryside. She limps down hillsides dappled with wild thistles, fingering the grass, and absorbing the sound of insect and bird. On warm days, she sometimes refreshes herself by bathing in the creek and listening to the wind as it rustles through the tingling branches of trees. Occasionally, she even climbs them, and one of the film’s most resounding images is of the forty-year-old woman perched on a limb, looking down on the rolling, wind-swept hills with an expression of childlike wonder.

But Seraphine can only absorb nature's glories for so long... at a certain point, she must find some way of expressing the beauty she has imbibed. In later years, Seraphine claimed that, as a young girl working in a French monastery, she had been visited by her guardian angel who commissioned her to paint.

Drawing from the ordinary venues of her common life, Seraphine teaches herself how to mix paint. The film depicts her quite literally filching supplies for this purpose: she bottles melted wax from the candles in the cathedral, and fills an old vial with bloody water when the butcher is busy helping other customers. In reality, Seraphine never revealed what ingredients she used to make her paint – but whatever they were, they stood the test of time.

During most of her “career,” she painted by candlelight, and in secret, singing hymns to God while using her fingertips to achieve effects which most artists can afford to accomplish with a brush.

It was not until 1914, when a famous German art collector and critic, Wilhelm Uhde, rented an apartment in the small town of Senlis, that Seraphine’s work was “discovered.” When his landlady invited him into her rooms, Uhde inquired about a still-life he saw leaning against a wall and was amazed to learn that it was painted by his housecleaner, Seraphine, a seemingly coarse woman who was frequently laughed at by others.

Uhde believed in Seraphine and it is largely due to his advocacy and patronage that she ultimately came to be recognized as a “legitimate” artist, classed among the “Modern Primitives,” or “Masters of Naïve Painting,” whose work is characterized by a childlike simplicity, or, naïve depiction of nature, which often belies the actual skill of the artist.

In externals, Seraphine was the kind of person any society would deem underprivileged or unfortunate. Like so many who are "afflicted" with an artistic temperament, she walked a fine line between visionary creation and mental illness thus she often acted in strangely unexpected and bizarre ways.

Yet history shows her to have been a great visionary artist with a rare ability to transcribe, in her paintings, the mystical beauty of the created world. "I have to raise my eyes," she said when posing for a photograph, "because my inspiration comes from above."

Lemon Lucky

2010-09-20T00:46:00.000-07:00

The Wonder of Small Things

2010-09-19T22:26:00.000-07:00

It's the little things that come back to me in quiet moments, filling my heart with joy and wonder. This image keeps recurring in my mind, of Evangeline standing before an old wooden ship which Dutch drug down from the attic of our rented beach house.

The ship's belly was filled with little wooden cannons and a gang of wooden sailors, whose black hair was made of yarn. They all wore white linen pants and gray jackets and their shoes were painted a glossy black. I'm not sure who was more enamored with them - the girls, or me!

I could have watched them for hours, filling the prow with Scrabble pieces and arranging the cannons into long straight lines beneath the black masts of the ship's extravagant sail.

To our amusement the cannons contained little wooden spools in place of cannon balls. To shoot the spools one had only to pull back and release a round knob at the back of the cannon - Audrey's sole preoccupation once she discovered it was possible. But it was Evie, Evie, looking on eagerly, and squealing, grunting, shrieking with anticipation, who really astounded me. For once she realized that the cannon was capable of such a mechanical feat, she would not rest until she could shoot it herself - a near impossible task for a one-year-old with chubby fingers! But Evangeline was persistent; she would make the thing shoot. She plied and plied... And then it happened - once, as if by accident, the spool went up, up over the sail, bounced onto the carpet, and glided cleanly across the wood floor.

Such a look of smiling satisfaction broke out across her face that we all erupted with smiles - smiles and whoops and cheers. And I wondered to myself how the world had ever grown tired of such old-fashioned games.

the beach dream

2010-09-09T22:12:00.001-07:00

16
Even the reality of the six days we spent meandering up and down the beach and patronizing (in the old sense of the word) the donut shop, has a very hard time standing up to these photos...

Hat's Off

2010-09-09T21:28:00.000-07:00

Laughter

2010-09-07T17:17:00.000-07:00

We've been home more than a week but I am still wading through all the photographs... Watching both girls fall to pieces as their father's silliness reached new heights was only one of the many highlights.

Thank.You.

2010-09-06T22:29:00.000-07:00

It was the moment before they ducked their glowing faces into the gleaming white car and waved goodbye. I stood barefoot on the paved road, my camera resting on some forgotten table or chair, just smiling and smiling. A thousand thanks go to Betsy, for her gorgeous touch!

Pocket Donut Umbrella

2010-09-01T21:22:00.000-07:00

She has just begun assembling her own outfits... I think spots and stripes are always a winning combination, especially in Manzanita where, up and down Laneda Avendue, strangers stopped to look.

2010-09-01T21:20:00.000-07:00

A Living Work of Art

2010-09-01T10:21:00.000-07:00

I hope it will not be perceived, in the eyes of the artist, my aunt, as an act of impertinence that I am displaying one of her unfinished pictures, but the portrait's subject - my grandmother, Frances Stallone Anfuso - is so lovely, the rendering so beautiful, so colorful, and so inspired, that I cannot help myself! It was pure dumb luck that I happened to visit her on the afternoon that she was painting it...

Last Days

2010-08-27T22:45:00.000-07:00

The Sound of Singing

2010-08-26T22:02:00.000-07:00

Did we in our own strength confide,
our striving would be losing,
were not the right man on our side,
the man of God's own choosing.
Dost ask who that may be?
Christ Jesus, it is he;
Lord Sabaoth, his name,
from age to age the same,
and he must win the battle. ~Martin Luther

In 2 Chronicles 20, Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, is given word that a great army - vastly outnumbering his own - is fast approaching from Edom, from the other side of the sea, with intent to confiscate his land and kill its people.

It is a scene poignant enough to rivet even the most sophisticated reader, rivaling anything found in the greatest works of ancient literature.

In great distress Jehoshaphat declares a fast; and, after the people have assembled from every town in Judah, he issues an earnest prayer. O Lord, God of our fathers are you not the God who is in heaven? You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations. Power and might are in your hand, and no one can withstand you.

He appeals to God on the basis of His covenant with Abraham, “your friend,” to whom the land was first given and to whose descendants it was promised to pass on. What is more, he reminds God that these aggressors are the very same people to whom, out of obedience to God, the Israelites showed mercy after they had left Egypt. “O our God,” he concludes, “we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you."

When his voice ceases, men, women, children, and “little ones” stand listening, waiting expectantly, desperately, for some kind of answer… In the silence that follows, a priest by the name of Jahaziel becomes spontaneously filled with the Holy Spirit and offers the people this reassurance: "Do not be afraid or discouraged because of this vast army,” he says, “For the battle is not yours, but God's.

The people are enthralled. They are filled with awe and wonder. They fall on their faces in worship – they along with Jehoshaphat. The next day, as they are marching out to battle, Jehoshaphat calls to his men, “Have faith and you will be upheld!”

If this weren’t enough, Jehoshaphat goes further: in defiance of all the laws of reason, and perhaps even custom, he places into the hands of the men at the head of the army, not weapons, but instruments. Musical instruments. He appoints them – not to fight, but to sing as they march into battle, praising the Lord for the splendor of his holiness.

Isn’t it – well, isn’t it extraordinary?

I can almost imagine it: Across the wide desert gorge, above the echo of horse hooves, the clanking of weapons, and the stomping of soldiers marching over blazing desert sands, there is heard the deep, melodious sound of – singing. A small band of God’s people, for all intents and purposes, marching to their deaths, bellowing like cattle, Give thanks to the Lord for his love endures forever!

But what happens next is most extraordinary of all – for the moment they begin "to sing and to praise, the LORD sets ambushes against the people of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir…and they [a]re destroyed.” In a hopeless case of mistaken identity, they unknowingly annihilate each other instead of attacking the Israelites (2 Chronicles 20:21-22).

It is difficult not to draw a correlative line between the beginning of worship – “...as they began to sing” – and the beginning of victory – “...the Lord set ambushes.”

But this does not mean that by our actions we are capable of manipulating God, but that in His mercy He withholds from us any visible sign of victory until we have proven – to ourselves, to Him, as well as to the watching world – that our hope is in Him; and that we understand that whatever victory we achieve can only come from Him.

In short, the story of Jehoshaphat's army of musicians is a historical narrative which expresses dramatically that which, for the Christian, remains a spiritual truth; and that is that when our focus is on Christ, we will achieve victory, not in our own strength but in His; and if not unequivocally, irrefutably, and tangibly in this life, then in the one to come.

Jehoshaphat's focus was not winning, but worship. He was not concerned exclusively with self-preservation – though of course the men wore armor and retained their battle formations – but pleasing God. In this he exhibited a hope that was not in or of this world, an astounding thing coming from a man steeped in a Judaic culture which did not explicitly outline concepts such as eternal life or eternal reward.

Instead of being in it to “win,” we are, in one sense, in it to wait; to abandon every hope of “being somebody,” and instead living to persevere with and for Christ, rejoicing with those who rejoice, mourning with those who mourn – and, above all, believing that where success or failure, justice or injustice, joy or pain, seem to reign on earth, Christ’s kingdom will come. His Word will be the last and everlasting Word, His will accomplished on earth as it is every moment accomplished in Heaven.

In the final hour, all that is not well will be well. Death will be defeated and we will stand, with shattered hearts and broken limbs restored, to let His glorious light shine on us for all eternity.

Until then, let us say with Jehoshaphat, “O Lord… we don’t know what to do, but our eyes are on you.” And let us take God’s words as spoken through Jahaziel the priest to heart: “You will not have to fight this battle. Take up your positions; stand firm and see the deliverance the Lord will give you... Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Go out to face them tomorrow, and the Lord will be with you."

*Painting by Flemish artist Frans Boels; "Jehoshaphat, King of Judah, Plunders the Ammonites and Moabites," 16th c.*

Wedding Snapshots

2010-08-26T18:20:00.000-07:00

A Provencal Experience

2010-08-24T22:25:00.000-07:00

We hadn't ventured more than a quarter mile from the Inn when I saw the sign for fresh lavender... I could smell it even before I rolled down my window and, to Dutch's profound chagrin, insisted he pull the tightly-packed car over. It wasn't the first favor he had granted me that morning: littering the floor at my feet were eight or ten Ball jars filled with raspberry-colored hydrangeas - my wedding spoils - which I assured him would add ambiance to our ocean cottage. (They did; thank you, Kate!)

Five minutes and about fifty photos later, Audrey - who was still proudly wearing her flower girl dress from the night before - and I scrambled back into the car happy women.

An Evening to Remember

2010-08-15T20:34:00.000-07:00

The wedding fete is over, but the memory of my sister, dressed in white, walking across a lawn full of flowers, remains foremost in my mind. We are happy to be recuperating in a little rented beach house on Cedar Lane in Manzanita, surrounded by hydrangeas (thank you, Kate) and a quantity of blank canvas panels. I plan to spend the next six days reading, writing, and painting while the girls collect seashells and dip their toes into the gloriously frigid waters of the Pacific ocean.