Bees in My Bonnet

 Infancy is weak, fragile, cute, maybe even a bit scary. I know infancy. Not only holding my own infants, but the infancy of hope in my own soul: the infancy that seems only a tiny spark of light in a long, dark, tunnel - this is a fragile and even scary dawning of hope.  These 24 hours are some of the hardest of the year for some: there are hopes, fears, expectations, longings, moments of despair, regrets, losses, hardships - this list is not exhaustive. And somehow the hopes and expectations seem to all land on this day, and how easily we forget space must be made to accommodate the losses and hardships as well. In fact, even the lack of fulfilment of hopes needs space to be grieved on a day set aside for celebration and joy.  "The hopes and fears of all the years are met in Thee tonight" - and as we sing this Christmas hymn, we mean it. The hopes AND fears - of this loooooong   year - these meet together in this infant child, Jesus.  I imagine the time of Jesus' birt

 I like the thought of 'turning' - in this case, turning the number of my age, the years I've completed of life I didn't volunteer for, of life that was handed to me, that I now know has been a gift - an unasked for gift, a surprising gift, but a gift nonetheless. On birthdays we typically receive gifts (unless you are Chinese - then on your birthday it is a chance to give gifts to all your friends). And I wonder if this is to try and remind us that our lives are gifts. Even the dark days. The lonely days. The 'Well,-that-didn't-go-like-I-thought-it-would' days.  In Spanish you don't 'turn' a number - you complete a year. It is a more accurate rendering I suppose - the "cumpleanos". Turning 47 doesn't mean I'm beginning my 47th year. It means I finished it. I feel a year older already!! But in this turning is a chance for reflecting. Today was another day in my life. A completed day. A special day, to be sure - I only get a birt

 Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and start to imagine the worst. I think of all the things that could be going wrong in this moment. I imagine what might possibly be harming my kids, both from without and within. I may dabble in worry for a time before other imaginings take over. My mind may go down a spiral and end up with the whole world falling apart - not only rumoured wars, but actual wars, disrupting the safety of all who inhabit planet earth.  I think of those who prepare for the end of the world and imagine them as lonely wanderers on the earth, finding all the others who prepared and stepping over the carnage of those who weren't (us among them!) Then, when I've mused about all this, I swing back to the immediate and wonder how we'll make it through the next week or month. Is it just me, or do our own hearts sabotage our rest, feeding us with potential far-off, unlikely fears, while also tasting a daily dose of very potential and likely fears that lo

  I can't believe September is done. It feels like a gap in my year - that a whole 30 days was swallowed into some black hole or vortex of suffering. I don't know how all those days went by when I wasn't paying attention. On October 3, I usually remember the line in the sand of my life - that fateful day when I witnessed violence and fear like nothing I'd known before or since. (Link to that saga here)  It is one of those days - a before and after, where my life is forever marked as having crossed a bridge that can never be reversed. In other words, I can't unsee that.  This September feels strangely similar. Timo's motorcycle accident has thrown me face to face with the unpredictableness of all of life.  One moment I was heading to bed, the next, I'm riding an ambulance...it's still so surreal that I actually lived through this, and even more, that Timo did! And then two all-nighters, back to back. And to sit dazed in a hospital room, stunned, numb, and

 The existence of fairy tales and their universality tells me something about the condition of the human heart: We love neatly contained stories with closure. It comforts us to feel the end of a story coming, and to know there will be a resolution, even if imperfect, brings a kind of relief. Most fairy tales have happy endings, some have gloomy endings, but they all seem to have a kind of solidly-footed ending. It wraps up the package, the telling: the journey for the hearer is complete. And I wonder if this universal yearning isn't also re-worked within Christendom to promote ideals that may yield fervour on the one hand, but despair on the other. For our fervour, consistency, zealous striving, and success are all prone to wane at times, and we may expect more from ourselves than is possible or realistic. Yet that doesn't stop Christian publishers from churning out books that beckon more from each seeker.  Who am I to complain? I wouldn't read such things anyway - though I

 Let me tell you what prayer looks like for me: it involves all the feels, if I have any, and often I feel nothing. Absolutely flat. Unfeeling. Blank. Numb. Even in those states, I pray. Sometimes my words are more thoughtful, sometimes they're a jumbled mess. I don't think it really matters to God - THAT  I pray, I am convinced, delights His heart. These days my head hits the pillow and my whole body slows down and then the feelings come. "I don't want this, God. I feel like You, in a single instant, handed me a pathway of suffering, of pain, of regret, of darkness. I know You were there, protecting my boy. I know You spared Him. I'm grateful, I'm SO grateful." Then I pause. I think about gratitude. What does it mean that I'm grateful? I open my heart before God and say, "You have been good to me, to him. I know it. His suffering is great - and ours, watching him suffer, is great too. I know it could have been worse. But in this moment, I want to

 I realize people of Christian faith, people of other faith, and people of no particular faith, read this blog. And all are welcome here. Thing is, I sometimes ponder my own life of faith through an external-journalistic eye, and pronounce my own opinions of myself: Sarah, your faith is just crazy. Even in my prayers, I express this directly to the God I believe is there: "Lord, is this just a fanatical, pie-in-the-sky sentimental thing that I do - praying to You? I sometimes feel crazy trusting You this much ." Here I am, in those moments, asking God if He thinks I'm as crazy as I seem to think myself. Sometimes I trust God so wildly, so boldly, so almost-stupidly, that I think I'm more than a few cards short of a full-deck. And then I tell God what I think of my trusting Him so much - I analyze it and say, "There's a word for this in psychological terms: Magical thinking."  Lately I've been trying to wrap my head around this concept: magical thinki

 About 2 weeks ago I received a short message from someone saying she had finally made it to visit my parents' grave - to remember them and their impact on her life. She added a picture of herself next to their headstone. I messaged back that had I known she was in town, we could have met. We were not very well acquainted or connected, and she didn't know I lived in the Chicago area. She was leaving the next day, and we had enough time to catch a deep-dish pizza lunch together. She had met my parents in 1979 when she had escaped from Vietnam on a boat - many were fleeing the country at that time. My parents had just begun to work in the refugee camps in Hong Kong. Winnie got her English name after asking my Dad to give her one. When she became a U.S. citizen she made it official - taking a Western name, given her by a western man who once took her to the dentist when she was in great pain. She never forgot his kindness. She wanted to bless his memory somehow. I asked Hannah if

  When I come to myself - Realize there is a self to come to, A space, a moment, an in-between - I find surprise - there is a me beyond the doing. The doing of things is necessary, A blessing, even. But a self that thinks, That feels the ground beneath my feet That beholds beauty and is awestruck, This is a gift - the first gift to me Is me. I am taken with the Giver - From His hand come all good things. But would He not have me welcome this first gift? To know it, receive it, accept it? I think He would.

 I was about 15 when I first read the small tract-pamphlet, "My Heart, Christ's Home" and I'm not quite sure how I felt about the message it brought. I think I cringed a little. It felt like I was tempted to hide parts of myself from God, for fear or shame of what He must think of me. It evoked something contrary in me...something...amiss? I can't quite place words to describe my misgivings. Even so, it left a seed - a thought-seed - in me, to germinate, ponder, and dialogue in prayer, asking, "Lord, are You welcome in every crevice of my heart?" And I lay that before God and we explore together, even the darkest corners of my soul. I believe in the exploring there is grace. And discovery - not so much for God - surely, He knows what's there before I do.  Many years later, I discovered Theresa of Avila's Interior Castle. It harkened back to that germinating seed - is my heart Christ's home? Her writing drew me in differently somehow. I suppos