Bees in My Bonnet

 "Oh teach us to pray!" the disciples yearned: As children try on language, stumbling, awkward, We long to speak with words our God, our Maker, will hear. In settled calm, He teaches us, "Pray:     "Your will be done. Here in me, on this earth,     Do as You will, as it goes in Your homeland." First He teaches; then, He shows, "This is how:     I come to a Garden. Remain with me, Pray for me.     Pray with  me. My prayer is still, 'Your will be done.'" To stay with Jesus, here, now, in darkness, uncertainty,     Can I  pray, "Your will be done." ? "You found me sleeping," I confess. "Your spirit is willing; your flesh is weak."     My struggle is held with grace. He taught us once to pray, "Give us this day our daily bread." Then later, He breaks the bread: "This is my body: I am the manna."  I need this daily bread! The bread given.  In it, I am for given. How God is for  giving!! He gives His...

  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...

 Just a poetic meditation for today. And that is all. Where we hurt Can I find the place,  The hidden cavern Crested , unexplored,  The fountain-head,  That point of pain - Where it begins  Its crimson stain Which flows, reaching  Every stream of me?  Can I wonder over Every part of my being - What is seen, what is unseen,  To detect where hurt resides,  Seeking a blanket, a balm,  A cool cup of water?  I will seek I will find There I make a nest, Cradle the ache. Tread softly  Listen  It speaks, "Hear me!"  I will go Leave the place I've come to know  Let rest unbind tight-woven dread Take slowly life's breath Into every crevice yet to be seen; I entrust myself to Love.  "My burden is light," I am told,  And laughing, gasp, allowing doubt to speak, "Oh really?"  A burden - light? How can it be?  The answer came long before: "Cast your burden upon the Lord, and He will sustain you." 

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...