Bees in My Bonnet

 For a number of months (maybe years) I've been exploring the theme of repentance - what it is, isn't, how it's been presented and portrayed, and what I may have gotten wrong about what it means to repent. I have more thoughts than what landed in this poem - thoughts on shame, guilt, cleansing, bondage, freedom, agency, and hope. Maybe I'll come back to it and explore and elaborate more. For now, here's a smattering of reflections I gathered in my musings. Repentance  Do you think you may have lost your way?  I have, so often.  More than you know!  More than even I know.  I think the castle that is me  Is hospitable for a holy indwelling.  And surely that Presence  Makes holy every crevice  He may enter.  Could it be  I might not see, Or know, what lurks in hidden  Passages of my soul?  Not only a healing balm,  And Comfort's grace,  And Beauty's kindness,  And Wisdom's help,  Do I need.  Ther...

  Today I'm reflecting on our marriage which began 26 years ago today; not only our  marriage, but marriage in general, and then marriage in the Christian sub-culture.  There are certainly numerous resources - podcasts, books, seminars, Bible studies, what-have-you - that address how to be married, stay married, fix marriage, navigate marriage, theologize marriage, and the whole 9 (or 900) yards. I'm not going to step up and offer some sage advice about marriage on this milestone. I'm only going to notice. Wonder. Contemplate.  It has been as much of a pilgrimage as a journey. And an adventuresome one at that. If we think of a journey, we recognize a destination. So what's the destination with marriage? Wedded bliss, of course! I jest. A devout fundie-Christian would say the destination is: Sanctification, of course! Ooooh, sign me up!!! I jest, yet again. So, those thoughts aside, what is the destination of the journey of marriage? I'll take a stab at it. I believe...

  It didn’t happen all at once, like in the fairy tales. By it, I mean love. Not what people think of when they think ‘love.’ Not the love that flutters the heart and weakens the knees. The love grew over time when the caught breath and hormonal impulses had found their proper place, behind the choice and mature yielding of the soul to another.  The man loved his woman until it ached. He got up each day, though weary and less than thrilled with his daily labours, and set out to win the bread for the home, wife, and children. The job was interesting on some level. It suited his gifts, a luxury to be sure. In the early days he had resented having to work. How much he’d rather fill his life with more meaning, more purpose, more self-pursuits. But he loved his woman, his family. He needed to serve their needs before his whims. He dedicated himself to providing, and it was his privilege to do so.  He might have pursued a perfect life, where every endeavour was perfectly suited...

 How can we talk openly about our lives and experiences? I think this is my driving need, my yearning, longing, deep desire. I want to write and share what is in me - for real. But I fear. I want to tell the truth of what I've known, seen, understood, and have yet to understand. And I freeze. There are other desires that lie buried in us - in me. One desire is that I can frame and shape my telling to in some way absolve myself of responsibility. To explain my own shortcomings. To make it look like even in my failings, I did the best I could. And there is a temptation to lie - to say, "I had this awful experience (or interaction or breakdown), but they were doing the best they could." What if we could simply own up to the truth. I DIDN'T do the best I could. So much of life seems to be about improving - my abilities, my status, my spirituality, my relationships, my diet - you name it - there is a beckoning from without and within: Be the best version of yourself.  I he...

 Today is March 8 - the day between. On March 7, 2016, I got the unexpected phonecall that Dad was not responsive and couldn't be woken. And then the journey of grief, loss, and sudden, unexpected change. Having had 2 parents for 39 years felt normal and familiar, even if it wasn't the best relationship or easy. I had never not had both parents. And so began a new kind of life, and learning. I learned what death means in a new, real, heart-rending way.  Fast forward to 2022, March 9. We got the call March 8 that Mom was unconscious and would likely not survive the night. We got in the car with a few kids and drove through the night to Arkansas to try to get there to say goodbye to her unconscious body. We wanted to be with Cathy in that lonely, fearful, painful time. Two hours before we would arrive, Mom breathed her last. It was around 7 in the morning when Cathy called to say Mom had been taken home to glory. And so in every year since I have found March 8 to be the day betw...

 I have been slow in bringing words to the blog. I began to process the past two years, and I guess my whole life, actually. And then I stop and get sucked into the current dramas of my life and days. There have been plenty (I'm sure this comes as no surprise). And part of the process is realizing I can't share everything that goes on in our household. There are other people's lives navigating the twists and turns of life. There are young people emerging, finding who they'll be, what they'll believe, how they'll engage with the world. There are pleasant and unpleasant discussions. For me, there is a moment-by-moment discernment of how much to correct and how much to pray over and trust the Lord to correct. I see my children growing, considering the things that go on in the world, form opinions (some or many of which I might find disturbing!) and realize they were never mine to own, only mine to steward for a season. That said, when children hurt, make terrible j...

I turned 48 last month. My sister turned 50 this week. I'm beginning to measure life through the lens of decades rather than years. I can frame who I was, what I was, how I lived, where I lived, who I lived with, in pockets of time, and now I near the end of the 5th pocket of time, the pocket of decades. Timo's accident last year was like being put in a washing machine - the kind with the window in front, where every few turns you see the splash of bright colour of a favourite garment, only to be whisked away and replaced by earthtones and stained dishrags. It felt like the world was spinning and I was spinning with it, and being disoriented, and confused, and drowning. Truth be told, it wasn't just last year that was like that...it's been much of my life. I can measure seasons of depression and disorientation through the lens of adolescent life, transitioning countries, relational transitions - from daughter, to friend,  to student, to teacher, to single, to married, t...

  For Previous post, click here At this time last year I had sat up all night, driven the hour to Chicago, wondering if my child - man-child, but still child - would be alive to greet me on the other side. The moments in the E.R. were stunning, shocking, bewildering. I barely spoke a word. When it was almost time to move him to the helipad, I stood by Timo and stroked his head. In the previous few years he had not been very conversant with me. (Parents who have never had teenage boys: this is normal, not a sign of distress, but a development where they want to make their own way in life. This is not to say they don't need us, and our input - they do, but the dynamics change). I often overstepped bounds with him, and frustrated him. I tried to give him space, but there were times my fears took over. Our relationship was not strained - he knew I loved him, he knew my care for him. But Mothers are often not easy for teenage boys. There's hardly a way around that. We birthed them. ...

Click here for previous post (part 1)  Sam and I made our way to where we were supposed to find him. We noticed the roads were blocked off and there were lots of flashing lights. "Hmm, there must be an accident ahead - I wonder how we'll get through," I thought. I began to think that maybe there was something ahead, something I didn't know or wasn't ready for. "I'm not going to worry," I kept telling myself. "He sounded fine," I almost spoke the words aloud. The policeman tried waving us past, and we said, "Our son is back there." We were waved past the barriers. We pulled up to an intersection and parked by the roadside. As we got out of the van, Sam reached over and grabbed my hand. I still haven't talked to him about that night. A year has passed and we have hardly processed it. I don't know what he was thinking. I wasn't afraid, yet. I felt the world seemed to slow down. The night air was muggy, damp, and not too h...

 I just began to journal...and it made me realize I never concluded the previous saga of the lost wallet. There is more  to that story, I tell you.  My journal began..."Sometimes I think my brain got fried. The ability - really, the capacity - of my soul to hold grief, pain, trauma, suffering, silencing - I'm guessing has been greater  than most. I used to think of myself differently; blaming myself for being weak, fragile, IN-capable. But if I honestly look at my life journey, I must arrive at a different conclusion than before.  I sacrificed myself on the altar of survival ." I stopped there.  Yes, that last line describes decades of my life. I needed to find a way through, a way to cope and survive as a mother of young children, in a struggling marriage, in a world that has normal everyday demands that a severely depressed person can barely hold up underneath. It's not the world's fault. It's not having children, or a husband, or any of these things that...

 This morning I was having tea with a friend and discussing a particular child's recent ADHD diagnosis - what that might mean for us - what it means for their future. And, as she was such a great listener, I began to tell all about my own and our various family members' experience with neurodiversity. I started to tell her about my experience raising kids and how different ones had different gifts - various blessings - bestowed on them during their early years. I told of how overwhelmed I was with young children and how when Mom Logan came to live with us, I was so grateful for her presence, I simply handed the youngest (then, Andrew, 11 months) off to her so I could get a good night's rest.  In my previous post ( here ), I mentioned near the end how Mom Logan has recently transitioned from this earthly life, to her heavenly home. And how my lost wallet had been hinting to me that life - our own very selves - hold gifts that are meant to be used. As I told my friend today a...