Driftwood

Laws and Ordinances

2012-01-26T06:54:00.001-05:00

I've been reading in the psalms lately and have noticed a common trend that I found bizarre. The psalmists spend a lot of time thanking God for his rules/law/precepts/ordinances etc. I don't know that I have ever thanked God for his law, so I've been thinking about this a bit and have come up with some parallels in my every day life that help me to understand gratitude for rules.

1. Job Descriptions
Imagine being hired for a job with no specific job description. Or being a builder without a blueprint to follow. Or perhaps just having a supervisor who has vague expectations for each task-- write a letter, crunch the numbers, give me a budget. A letter to whom? About what? Is it formal? Informal? And what numbers do you want crunched? (I think of the Office here.) How much money do I have to work with in order to establish this budget? What are your priorities? I think you get the idea. When there are no clear objectives, no clear guidelines or rules, there is no basis by which to begin a relationship. No definition of the terms -- are you my boss, my co-worker, or am I your boss? But when I have a clear and specific objective for a task or position, I operate much better because I know exactly what is expected of me. The framework within which I work might be very rigid and defined, but it is within that definition that I find the freedom to do the work I've been given. I am not chained to doubt and confusion.

2. Children
There are days when we need to shake up our schedule a bit. We stay out later, push back dinner, skip a nap, wake up earlier. Once in a while doesn't seem to do too much damage, but several days in a row of missed sleep or poor eating habits and my children turn into demons in training, or begin to appear as if they are possessed by demons. They wake up screaming in the middle of the night (night terrors?) and have a hard time waking up in the morning. They cry about everything. But, when we get them back on a schedule, give them the proper foods to eat at the proper times of the day, and make sure they are sleeping enough, they return to the energetic happy people they were before the shift in their lives. The structure provided them gives them the boundaries within which to live the fullest and healthiest life.

3. Diet
I love sugar. Three spoonfuls in my tea in the mornings, three spoonfuls in my tea at lunch, several semi-sweet chocolates a day, a couple of scoops of brown sugar in my oatmeal, a quick munch on a chocolate-covered cookie dough truffle... mmmm. Sugar.

Brandon and I are on day three of the Whole-30 Challenge, a detox type diet that eliminates all grains, sugar, dairy, legumes, white potatoes, and other unpronouncable ingredients in food. There's a specific list of foods we are supposed to avoid in order to help our systems "reset" from all of the junk we put into our bodies. On day one of this diet, I had the maddest craving for sugar I have ever had in my life. All I could think about was how badly I wanted chocolate. I needed chocolate. It was nuts. I even had a headache most of the day from the sugar withdrawal.

But after just two days of following this regimented diet, both Brandon and I are feeling markedly better. I feel less heavy and slow; his stomach isn't bothering him nearly as much as it usually does. We are disciplining ourselves to cook and eat healthier, to deprive ourselves of fulfilling every desire of the flesh (SUGAR!!!!) and to feed ourselves the food that will make the vehicle run the best.

I am thankful for these kinds of systems and guidelines in my life, because by operating within clear precepts and laws, I have the freedom to live a full and healthy life. It only makes sense, then, to praise God for the same laws and rules he's provided to give structure and direction for how to live the healthiest and fullest of lives on Earth. Even more so with the Holy Spirit living within us to serve as our guide. So, praise God for his laws and his rules, for the system he has established to instruct, rebuke, correct, and restore.

Finalist for T.S. Eliot Prize

2012-01-23T11:59:00.003-05:00

I am extremely delighted to announce that my collection of poems, Pruning Burning Bushes, was selected as a finalist for the T.S. Eliot Prize through Truman State University Press. It was one of five finalists out of 450 submissions. While the judge did not ultimately select my manuscript for publication, she had this to say about the manuscript:

"I really enjoyed reading this collection, and it even has one of the best titles of the submissions. It’s unified, well-organized, and would make a fine published book as is. It balances the author’s spiritual life with humor such as “Jesus Walks Into a Bar.” There’s the bawdy life of carnivals and yet a true spiritual practice mixed harmoniously in. One marvelously original touch concerns a wound “bleeding” maple syrup from the broken glass of an Aunt Jemima bottle. The pregnancy/birth poems are genuine, unaffected, and purely firsthand. She stands humble before her subjects. Some poems I particularly like are “Last Born,” “Hymn of Skin,” “Crater,” “Assailants.” It’s a book I would have liked to publish with my own chapbook press, if it were a little shorter. The personality of the author comes through attractively."
—Sandra McPherson, 2012 T. S. Eliot Prize judge

Certainly a bright spot for me to kick off 2012! And now I can stop worrying about what to put on the cover of my book, for now anyway ;)

Getting My Martha On

2012-01-17T22:32:00.000-05:00

Like most nights when my husband is working, a good hour needs to be dedicated to demolition clean-up after the kids go to bed. Between whatever the dog destroyed during the day (diapers, stuffed animals, Legos, etc.), the food left over on the table, chairs, countertop, and walls, toys that migrated all on their own from the basement where they are supposed to stay, and the dozens of sheets of paper that have accumulated from coloring, story-telling, backpack explosions, card making, etc., it takes at least that long to give the interior of the house the dose of loving kindness it deserves.

Part of the reason it takes as long as it does is because there's a handful of fruitless attempts mixed in there to keep Beans from licking the silverware and dirty plates as I load the dishwasher, or to keep Beans from chewing ev-er-y-thing in the living room, except his chewy or dog toys, or to keep Beans from barking at the real squirrel or the imagined squirrel, or to keep Beans from drinking out of the toilet (kids! keep the toilet seat down and the door shut! gah!).

Sometimes I'm very cranky about this nightly process. The house will be wrecked again in the same way tomorrow, after all. Is it really worth the effort, when most of the house will be asleep or at work/school while the house is clean? How did the food get on the wall anyway? And what is the deal with this dog? Whose idea was it to get a dog (...)? All I really want to do is get under a blanket and write. Okay, all I really, really want to do is get under a blanket, eat chocolate, and watch The Biggest Loser.

But instead I'm chipping away at the dried banana and rice cereal on Henry's high chair. That stuff could be a substitute for concrete. Instead, I'm unloading and reloading the dishwasher. (The dishwasher that I love, trust me. It's awesome and courageous and strong and can bench press all of my stickiest, caked-on something or other pots and pans, with one arm tied behind its back.) Instead, I'm corralling all of those delinquent toys that escaped all on their own from the toy room and shepherding them back to their corners. And I'm doing all of that with this joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart. Really.

But there are other times when this cleaning is a cleansing process, a sort of decompression that permits the stress and thinking of the day to be rinsed down the drain. When I'm done and I have a glass of wine in my hand, a blanket across my lap, and a pillow behind my back, I can sigh a tired and contented sigh and know that the house will be clean for a whole ten hours before the day starts again tomorrow. I can survey the kitchen and not see spilled something-or-other on any surface, and it is a beautiful thing. I can turn off the light as I shut the door, closing down for the night in satisfaction. Nothing is hidden or left undone. Aaaah.

This exercise in creating order from chaos is what I'm thinking of as "Getting my Martha on". Martha is the super event coordinator for Jesus and his disciples in the New Testament. Sometimes she gets grumpy about it and asks Jesus to tell her sister to get off her rocker and start helping her. Other times, she's the gracious servant, hosting her recently raised-from-the-dead brother and all of his friends.

I think when Martha is at her best, her preparations and hospitality are an act of worship. When Martha is at her worst, she's just busy and bitter about it. I need to decide which Martha I plan on being-- cranky Martha, or worshipful Martha. Some nights it's easier than others to choose to engage in household chores as an act of worship, because the kids made it easy - they cooperated throughout the bedtime routine, they sang their sweet little prayers and asked for hugs and kisses. Other times the night doesn't go as well, and buying into the joy of the Lord is much harder.

But I think that's part of the point. Can I worship God even when I don't really feel like it? Can I make these mundane tasks that are necessary every day more than just scrubbing down the counters, especially when worship is one of the farthest notions from my mind? I'd rather not receive the rebuke of Christ in my mutterings and make every effort to turn bitterness into fruitfulness, crankiness into praise. And, okay, sometimes I'm going to choose "the better way" and just plain shirk my household chores, opting into prayer or Bible study... or DVR'ed episodes of Hoarders. At least someone is getting some cleaning done then.

What Chamomile and Honey Can't Do

2012-01-05T21:37:00.000-05:00

I'm pretty sure I've had a cold/sinus infection since December 1. It has backed off a little here and there as some kind of bacterial mercy move, but for the last two weeks (or something like that), it's been no nonsense, in your face (and nose, and eyes, and ears, and chest), Die Hard with a Vengeance. It even persisted beyond the power of the almighty z-pak, which I finished off two days ago.

So tonight, after going back to work for the first time in two and a half weeks, I wasn't really up for much of anything with the kids. Unfortunately, they can't bathe, feed, or put themselves to bed yet, so I couldn't just burrow into bed with an electric blanket and call it a night. I at least had the foresight to pull a big pan of macaroni and cheese out of the freezer and ask my awesome Henry-sitter to pop it in the oven this afternoon so that we could eat before 6:30. And there's the Blessed DVR to entertain two of the three little people.

The usual bickering and silliness ensued throughout the night. Nothing new, really. And the dog, that ridiculous dog that I liked so much a month ago, kept getting into the trash and eating Elvis's Legos and whining to be let out and then barking incessantly at the front door to be let back in and THEN trying to eat diapers and tissues and all other sorts of disgusting. And then bathtime with all three kids, water everywhere, Beans trying to drink the bathwater and lick Henry's face and drink out of the toilet and chew on the towels.

"I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." John 16:33 -- Yeah, trouble. T-R-O-U-B-L-E. It ain't just a Travis Tritt song. Or a Ray LaMontagne song. I've had more serious seasons of trouble and worry, for sure. These little things, like sinus infections and being alone a few days and needing to take care of the business of life on my own, they are nothing really, but sometimes the little things catch me and I get downhearted. The world hands me a little trouble. But, thank God, he's overcome the world. And you want to know how he did that for me tonight?

I was ready for bedtime tonight. Normally, each kid prays and then I pray, and then each kid picks a song. I thought I'd speed things up a bit and skip the whole kid-praying thing and just wrap it up with a quick "God, thanks for everything. Please help me feel better. Give us sweet dreams. Amen.", but after I finished, Lydia asked if she could pray for a couple of people really quick.

How do you say no to the request of a five year old to pray? Okay, so I thought about it. I mean, come on, the space between my ears is hollow and I can't close my mouth without whistling through my nose. Let's get the show on the road, here! I got trash to take out and a couch to get to. I let her pray, of course - a kid who wants to talk to God should not be stopped from talking to God.

"Dear God, please help **** walk. She's already starting to walk some. And thank you for..." (There's a girl in her class who has a disability.) Lydia prayed for all her family and friends, and then Elvis asked to pray, too, singing a song they learned at preschool: "Thank you God, for our food, and our many blessings, thank you God, Amen."

The prayers of my children shore me up against weariness and bitterness. They help lubricate the gears that need to keep moving until the trash is taken out, the dishes are in the dishwasher, the laundry is folded, and the kitchen is tidied up, until I can sink into the couch cushions with a blanket and a few Bible verses and ruminate away about faith and the power of praise.

So the other verse that has me doing my own praising tonight, even with my runny nose, is this one: "Through the praise of children and infants you have established a stronghold against your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger." Psalm 8:2 That's right. Through the praise of my little ones, the enemy and all his trouble and worry is kept at bay. There's power in those prayers. I'm reinforced. Encouraged. Blessed.

Aaaand, ready for Nyquil.

My Thirtieth Year

2012-01-03T21:59:00.000-05:00

As something of a kick-off to my 30th year and my mom's 50th, we ran a half-marathon back on December 3. It was cold but dry and sunny, and we finished! Now, I have ambitions to run a marathon with one of my good friends (who is also turning 30 this year) in May, but I'm not sure whether my knee can hold up - it hasn't felt right since the half-marathon. Also, there's this thing about time commitment. I enjoyed the structure and discipline required to train for the half-marathon. Someone plotted out the miles I needed to run and which days I needed to run them, and I did it.

No one does this for me for writing. Nobody sends me a schedule and says, SWells, sit down and give me 20 pages, and tomorrow, I want 20 more. Plus, the time I've dedicated to running has filled any time or energy I had for writing. I want to run this marathon (I think I do, anyway... I'm suffering short-term memory loss from the half-marathon). But I also want to write, now that I've gotten a few essays done, toward a book-length manuscript. I'd like to make year 30 the year I finish it, but that might be too ambitious.

There's a few other things besides writing and running I'd like to have happen in Year 30:

take a family vacation
go on a fancy date with my husband
go line dancing at least once
take Lydia and Elvis on two special one-on-one "dates" each
cut our credit card debt in half, with a two-year goal of being credit card free by our 10th anniversary
blog once a week
read ten books
run a marathon (maybe... at least another half-marathon)
write six or more essays toward the manuscript
incorporate Bible reading and prayer into daily life more
write twelve new poems

My immediate goals for 2012 are to get well - this sinus infection needs to go away - and to survive the next week of Brandon being out of town. He's had a lot of work lately, and I'm ready for him to be home and around more.

Thirty years old July 30. This is a crazy life. I wonder what challenges and opportunities God will give us in 2012.

Appliances are a Girl's Best Friend

2011-12-27T22:20:00.001-05:00

Belated Merry Christmas from S.Wells!

Our family just got back from a snowy trip to Mansfield for dinner and a little shopping. BW came home early this afternoon from working in Louisiana over Christmas, and it was lovely to be able to get out of the house with him and the kids for dinner at Cheddar's. I am so grateful that our children are capable of being civilized creatures at restaurants - it is a minor miracle that "dinner out with kids" is actually enjoyable, given that they are 5, 4, and 7 months (going on 24 pounds...). It is not always so, but tonight, they were goofy little saints.

After dinner, we wandered around Menard's and exhibited impressive amounts of self-control, only buying a laminate remnant for our bathroom floor, appropriate accessories to make the magic happen, and an air filter for the furnace.

Come on, people, three cheers! We were looking at carpeting and wood flooring and almost committed the crime of impulse buying, diving headfirst into the bottomless pit of home remodeling. We're really good at spending money, so if you have any money that you need to spend, just let us know. We'll take care of it.

So, leaving the store with only $42 worth of merchandise to complete a desperately needed smelly olive green bathroom carpet replacement is a serious victory. P.S. I really like adjectives and adverbs. Really.

I was feeling pretty good about myself after the Menard's victory. The kids were continuing with their above-average behavior and only climbing on some of the boxes of laminate flooring and rolls of remnant carpeting, so I thought I'd take a chance on Kohl's while we were out. I had Kohl's cash to burn and a couple items to return, plus some money from my in-laws, and believe it or not, Kohl's was having a sale! Surprise, surprise!

Well, the witching hour hit and my well-mannered children turned into giggling hyenas while I waited in the service line, but we managed to push on and spend my Kohl's cash, 20% off, in-store credit, and Christmas money on a fine looking Dyson vacuum cleaner. Let me tell you right now, Marilyn Monroe got it wrong. It's appliances, not diamonds, that are a girl's best friend.

If you haven't been in our kitchen lately, you'll note the new stainless-steel refrigerator and dishwasher that were early Christmas presents to ourselves (Home Depot was also having a sale!). The refrigerator comes complete with an in-the-door ice and water dispenser, cool blue lighting, a thermostat that actually works, and a choir of angels that sings every time I open the door. On the other hand, the new dishwasher doesn't wake the neighbors when it washes the dishes. And it actually washes the dishes, unlike our previous "dishwasher".

I never dreamed that kitchen appliances and vacuum cleaners could bring such joy and lightness of spirit, but it's true: I am a happier human being because of Dyson, LG, and General Electric. I smile every time I open the refrigerator door, every time the dishwasher runs and I actually forget that it's running! And if it weren't for my sleeping children, I would be happily dancing around the living room and up the stairs, vacuuming with glee. Merry, merry Christmas to me!

Minor asterisk: While I love my new appliances, I certainly do not shun jeweled, chocolate-covered, musical, floral, sparkly, or perfumed gifts. Just in case there was any confusion about my enthusiasm for appliances. I am an equal-opportunity gift-receiver. :)

AND, I need to share my happy news that an essay of mine, "Those Summers, These Days", was recently published online by Ascent Magazine! You can read it by visiting: http://readthebestwriting.com/?p=1097

Swimming in Troubled Waters: Writing about Faith

2011-12-17T11:30:00.000-05:00

I started another essay a month or so ago that is about (or will be about) swimming, obedience, and faith. It starts with Elvis jumping into the pool at swimming lessons after his floatation device was off and nearly drowning. I want to return to working on the thing but I just haven't had the time to do it, and to be honest, I'm a little intimidated by the project.

After reading lots of Christian nonfiction and Christian self-help-ish kind of books, I have this mental block about faith writing. I'm so afraid that I'm going to come across cliche and shallow in my attempts to write about faith that so far, I've avoided it in any in-depth way, outside of peripheral references to church. I'd rather not write about God at all than to do so in a way that would be off-putting to readers.

I don't have as difficult a time with poetry because I can write about God or my relationship with God in metaphor. I can talk about God without talking about God. I can meditate on the things of this world and the things of Christ without using Christianese to do it, without using direct references to scripture except maybe in an epigraph. When I begin to try to write about my faith in essays, I fall right into devotional and didactic language, reference Bible verses and start writing as if my audience has been regularly attending church for the last decade.

I don't want to write to a strictly Christian audience. I like y'all, but I want to write something with universal truth, something that is good and true and real and beautiful, well-written, layered, accessible, and moving, something that doesn't rely on the premonition that the person reading already buys into my ideologies. I don't want to write persuasive arguments to convince someone to follow Jesus. I want to write about events in life that have caused me to see God in the every day, to see how he intersects, overlaps, and infiltrates every area, the spiritual colliding with the physical and emotional world in such a way as to be inseparable, and how that has changed me and the way I relate to the world. No big thing.

The added challenge is that in order to write convincingly and authentically about faith, I need more time. Honestly, it is easy for me to sit down, blather on this blog about some spiritual flicker that caught my eye during the day, pull out a corresponding Bible verse, and call it a night. I can do that with relative ease -- and I'm grateful for that gift. But to develop something with greater substance and length takes time and extra meditation. I need to write and write and write, and then read and edit and revise and write some more and think while I'm not able to write and then write again. Yeah, that's just about the way it goes, so you can see the barrier.

There's no doubt that I love the life that Brandon and I have made, with our three children, our careers, our home, our church, our hobbies, etc., which makes it very hard to choose into writing time at this stage of life. Something's gotta give, after all, so what's it going to be?

I keep reminding myself that Christmas break is just a few days away, and then maybe, maybe I'll be able to sit down and do the work that good writing requires.

With regard to the topics-- faith and swimming and obedience, and why not throw in some fear-- I think I just need to do it, without inhibitions, and fish out the cliches and didactic language later. I just need to employ the same skills I use when I write about other topics and hope that it holds water. Literally and figuratively.

Message for Christmas from Last Year

2011-12-12T21:51:00.001-05:00

I thought it would be fun to look back on a couple of posts from earlier years, and my post from Christmas last year was a nice reminder about this season. So here's a link to last year's meditation on the season...

http://driftwoodtumble.blogspot.com/2010/12/keeping-christ-in-christmas.html

No Writing November?

2011-12-12T21:20:00.000-05:00

It has been one very busy month, which is my lame excuse for not blogging. My self-imposed once-a-week blogging rule broke to pieces all over the internet. A whole month. No writing. Gah.

BUT, all is not lost. I ran a half-marathon last Saturday with my mom. (Me! Non-athletic, uncoordinated, Walker's World me!) We ran it in about 2 hours and 24 minutes. And we finished! Hurray!

Aaaannd, this weekend, we celebrated Mom and Dad's 30th wedding anniversary with a really nice dinner at Punderson Manor, followed by a surprise party back at their house.

So that's what I've been up to... just a bunch of living. I'll get back to writing again someday.

On the Eve of the New Appliance Delivery

2011-11-15T09:03:00.001-05:00

Potmaster 600, you have left

oatmeal dried on the cusp of my bowl

again, and I am shifting my weight

at the kitchen sink, picking at it with my

thumbnail, getting dishpan hands.

The silverware are soaking in a cup

of soapy water after another

wasted round in the dishwasher.

There are only twelve hours left until

the delivery truck arrives to take you

out of these cabinets, out of our house,

out of our town, to where they take

twenty-two year old appliances, and soon,

I will be rid of you, loading every dish

without pre-rinse, into a stainless-steel

mid-range tall tub high-efficiency

silverware jets included dishwasher,

one that doesn't need to be called Potmaster—

it is and will be the master of the pots.

Occupy Tea Wall Party Street and Why I Dislike This Conversation

2011-11-02T16:56:00.000-04:00

This afternoon I posted a link to Dave Ramsey's "Dear Occupy Wall Street" blog, which raised some discussion on Facebook. I am a fan of Dave Ramsey's no-nonsense, pull yourself up from the bootstraps approach to personal finances, and I like his spitfire and sarcasm. He is straightforward and pulls no punches. He also holds strong opinions about Occupy Wall Street. Several times I thought about jumping in to my Facebook wall's exchange, but after several typing sprees and then lots of backspacing, I decided to just let it go.

Political commentary-- left, right or dead center-- makes me really uncomfortable because it tends to be emotionally driven and confrontational, and I am a confrontational wimp. You can almost hear the atoms start splitting in a room of mixed conservatives and liberals, and when it happens, I put on a frightened smile and wiggle deeper into the couch cushions.

Why is it that we generally cannot have a rational conversation between sides about the economy and government? Instead, one dissatisfied party shows disdain for the other and vice versa, when really, both parties should be rallying together for solutions.

The best way to ensure that nothing changes is for both sides to start flinging mud at each other. Criticizing the Occupy Wall Street movement because they look like a bunch of camped-out, jobless hippies completely dismisses the fact that people feel so strongly about something that they are protesting. Protesting is not a small deal. Criticizing the Tea Party movement because they look like a bunch of gun-toting, anti-government rednecks dismisses the fact that "gun-toting hillbillies" are actually organizing. Rallying for reform is not a small deal, either.

One thing is certain: The people, all of them, are dissatisfied with ____________.

Both camps -- OWS and the Tea Party -- are made up of culturally different groups of people (generally speaking), and because they don't understand one another, they think they are fundamentally at odds and so they do not want to be associated with one another. The media picks up on this dissonance and discredits the whole shebang because there are camped-out jobless hippies and gun-toting rednecks raising a ruckus, and if you can turn general dissatisfaction into ranting extremists, then the majority of people who don't consider themselves extremists won't affiliate with either side, and, like me, will probably keep their mouths shut for fear of being associated with a group of crazy people. Instead of fostering discussion and dialogue, the media and other loud people shut down all lines of communication, turning the cameras on the crazies instead of on any kind of useful debate.

By far my favorite response to "the other side"-- left or right-- is sarcastic dismissal, ruthless jabs, and defensive one-liners. There's no better way to isolate one's self and raise the emotional static in a room/facebook wall than to drop your favorite critical bomb on a topic, forcing the crowd to take cover under throw blankets.

I know this is totally a "can't we all just get along?" post, but really, can't we all just get along? Okay, so I think the fundamental difference between OWS and the Tea Party is that one is for bigger government and more control and the other is for smaller government and more freedom. One presupposes that the government should know what its doing and regulate the people/corporations who don't seem to know what they need, and the other presupposes that the people are responsible, ethical, fiscally motivated, and smart and don't need the fist of Big Brother jabbing around in their business. Those are two very different perspectives.

Meh. I can't handle any more. I'm afraid I might form an opinion and be classified as an Occupy Tea Wall Party Street member.

Creativity in Worship

2011-10-24T22:44:00.000-04:00

Recently I started working with the worship team at our church, and I've been having so much fun. I don't sing, and while I might be able to toot a tune on the ol' licorice stick, there isn't a whole lot of room for a clarinet in our contemporary worship band. Unless we start playing songs from Fantasia. So at first you might wonder what a tone deaf ex-member of the marching band is doing on the worship team.

We are blessed to attend a church that is not afraid to experiment. On any given Sunday, you can expect to hear the worship leader say, "We're gonna try something different today." Sometimes we have choreographed dancing. Sometimes we have painting. Sometimes we have flags. We haven't brought out the snakes yet, but if the Spirit moved... well, we'd probably move to another church. ;)

Every week, the worship team talks via email or in person to start planning for the following Sunday, or a few Sundays ahead. I love the intentionality, the enthusiasm, and the creativity that is permitted and encouraged. I feel as if we are each given the freedom to use the gifts that have been given us, and it gets me just plain excited to be a part.

For those of you who are tone deaf, like me, but enthusiastic about worship and find yourself yearning for a way to use your gifts, talk to your pastor or worship leader and bring your ideas forward. I've only been at this with our worship team for a month and a half, so I'm still learning lots of things, but it has been such a fulfilling experience that I can't help but share what I've learned so far.

Here are a few tips for bringing your creativity to Sunday morning worship:

1. Don't be afraid, ashamed, or embarrassed by your creativity. This is important and might seem like a no-brainer, but I know from experience that self-doubt and negativity can weigh in on you and convince you that what you have to offer either isn't good enough or no one else will understand/appreciate what you have to offer because you are too different/unusual/strange. Every good gift is from above, after all, and what better way to use what yo daddy gave you than in worship? Be bold and courageous. Do not be afraid, do not be terrified. The Lord your God will be with you wherever you go. Even in front of the congregation.

2. If you write poetry, write a poem about God/faith/forgiveness/grace/mercy/love/prayer/fear/justice/etc. If you paint or sculpt, interpret a passage of Scripture. If you dance, choreograph a praise song. If you love to read, read a passage of Scripture or a story. If you act, work with a writer in your congregation who wants to do a skit. If you sing, by all means, sing a new song unto the Lord. Whatever brings you joy and passion, bring that to worship, and not only will your worship experience be more meaningful and alive, your authentic worship will help others to worship too.

3. Be other-focused. Your creativity is an act of worship, yes, but don't forget that the congregation is trying to engage in worship, and through your writing/dancing/painting/singing, you are leading worship, too. So that poem with all of the literary and biblical allusions and cross-references and utter brilliance that leaps from one image to the next and requires several in-depth reads in order to fully understand... that one you might want to leave in the notebook.

4. Talk to your tech-y people, your musicians, your video people, your dancers, your writers, your public speakers, and your photographers. Collaborate with other members of the congregation and see if you can't approach a topic from several different angles-- some people engage with sound. Some people with movement. Some people are visual. Some people are tactile. Diversify your worship pallet to engage all of the senses, and not only will you help more of the congregation to connect, you'll build up each other as each of you continues to become the fullest version of yourselves in Christ.

5. Approach the throne of grace with humility, awe, prayer, shouts of thanksgiving, reflection, mourning, rage, distress, fear, and mystery. Praise and worship is acknowledging God in every season, and it is good to lay before him the full range of our feelings and emotions. It seems appropriate to me to reflect this same element of worship in the corporate worship setting. Sometimes we need to mourn and wail together. Sometimes we need to move from wailing to dancing. Sometimes we need to stand in awe. Sometimes we need to be silent. Our worship planning ought to be sensitive to the place of the congregation.

6. Listen to the prayer team, pastor, and elders of your church and pray over your worship planning. The Holy Spirit knows better than us all what needs to happen in our hearts and minds, so make time to listen before you leap into all of your amazing plans, which are truly amazing, after all.

7. Don't get too caught up in presentation and execution. Remember that what you are doing is worship, too, not just a means for other people to worship.

8. Don't be afraid to fail. Allow the congregation and the worship team to flex its muscles, strain and push. Some weeks, what you thought would be awesome might fall flat on its face. Other weeks, what you thought might seem hastily planned could be the most authentic worship experience your church has had in months.

9. It's not your job to carry the congregation. It is the Holy Spirit's responsibility to move in the members of your church, during worship and beyond. You might be a catalyst for that experience, but surely the Holy Spirit will be speaking into the hearts and lives of those he knows are ready to hear and be so moved. Worry less about how the congregation is going to respond to what you've prepared and concern yourself more with approaching God humbly, executing your part of the plan to the best of your ability, with grace and attention, as part of your act of worship.

10. You are part of the body of Christ, and every limb and nerve ending of the body doesn't need to be in motion all at once in order to be active. Let parts of your worship team and plan take a break from time to time.

11. Be intentional. Just because you have the ability to do sound, lights, video, reading, full band, flags, dancing, communion and candles doesn't mean you should do them all at once.

12. Do not give up meeting as some are inclined to do, but keep communicating with the members of your worship team and listen when someone volunteers or even hints at wanting to contribute, and follow-up with those people. Sometimes us creative folk need an invitation, or several invitations, to come forward. And if you are wanting to get involved, don't wait for an invitation. Your desire to contribute is an invitaiton from God to get involved, so go with it.

13. Encourage one another regularly. Just because Joe has been leading worship awesomely for months doesn't mean he believes he's got this thing nailed. Sometimes all we need is one or two attaboys to keep the energy up.

Above all else, come with love and grace. We're all working toward completion and wholeness, and we're all going to screw up some time or another. The beauty of the body of Christ is that we can hold each other up, forgive, heal, and be restored. I'm not sure exactly how this last part applies to worship and creativity, but surely we can put love and grace in everything.

So bring your gifts to the altar and let them shine! The whole church will grow in faith and praise alongside you.

Apples to Apples

2011-10-14T10:58:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago I decided to try my hand at making homemade applesauce. Unfortunately for my pot, I forgot that the apples were boiling down on the stove, and I burnt the bottom - both inside and out, since I'd allowed the darn thing to boil over. For ninety minutes. The pot might be done.

In spite of the burnt bottom, the applesauce still turned out great, so I can't imagine how a batch I don't burn turns out. I have a 10 lb. bag of locally grown apples waiting for me start peeling and slicing. Let's see if I can ruin another pot.

A week or two ago, I started trying to feed Henry rice cereal. This posed a small challenge, because Henry won't drink formula, and I'm sorry, I just won't pump breastmilk to mix with rice cereal only for him to eat a teaspoon of it. I love my kid and all, but that's too much work for too little reward. So for starters, I mixed the rice cereal with water. I'm a little surprised to report that he actually ate it.

Now that we have the hang of the spoon and the opening and closing of the mouth, I wanted to find something to mix in with the rice cereal to give it a little bit more flavor. I don't know why I'm so apprehensive about these things, or why I rely so heavily on the internet to grant me permission to try new stuff, but anyway, I sat down and googled "introducing new foods to baby" and discovered a wealth of information on when and how to introduce fruits and veggies, etc.

Now with Lydia and Elvis, as soon as they started eating solid foods, we might as well have bought stock in Gerber. It might be the culture we're raised in, being inundated with ads and coupons and convenience every five seconds, but up until a few days ago, the thought of making my own baby food sounded prehistoric (see "a whole lot of work for little reward" above). When someone tells me they make their own baby food, I picture dozens of glass jars lined up on the counter, three pots stewing various vegetables and fruits, mysterious preservatives and canning equipment, aprons, house dresses, and tidy little buns. I'm intimidated.

But lo and behold, "making baby food" is not that complicated (all you crunchy moms out there can start "I-told-you-so"-ing now)! First of all, how much solid food does a five-month-old baby need, even my gigantic five-month-old baby? A few spoonfuls? Yep. And guess what? You can prepare baby food at the same time you're making lunch for the rest of the family! Hello, mashed banana. Hello, applesauce. Hello, real people food. If you can puree it, you can make it happen. Why, WHY did I think that the only acceptable food to put into my baby's mouth needed to come pre-packaged and with another cute little baby face on it?

I'm really excited about this for some reason. Maybe because I bought three containers of Gerber baby food today for convenience/travel sake, and they each cost around a buck, when I can use one-half a banana and cover Henry's solid food consumption for the day.

It isn't the cost-savings that has me motivated, though. When I peeled, cored, and sliced the apples a few weeks ago, allowing them to boil down in my (now-burnt) pot, eating something I prepared, with my hands, from a local farmer added something intangible to my burnt applesauce. Mixed in with the mashed apples and cinnamon was satisfaction, delicious and palatable. Yes, baby Henry, your mama just mashed up this here banana into sweet creaminess. I get the same satisfaction from breastfeeding--I am making something valuable and nutritious for my little man and he can only get it from me. You can substitute formula and bottle-feeding, and I have with Lydia and Elvis, and get similar warm-fuzzies from holding that cute little person as they guzzle down their bottle, but nothing compares with that tug and pull, that quieted-down, instant gratification of mama and her milk. Oh how I'll miss it when it's time to stop breastfeeding. (These are words I never thought I'd utter. "Utter" makes me think of "Udder". Ha. Ha. Ha.)

This growing baby is really excited about his bananas, and I bet he'll like the applesauce, too. And when we're on the run, Gerber and its pre-packaged goodness will do just fine, too.

The Table of No Return

2011-10-02T21:44:00.000-04:00

I just finished going through the stack of papers that have accumulated since Thursday on the table of no return. Surely you have one of these--it's the counter/hutch/bureau/table/drawer where the mail, bills, newspapers, checklists, kids' drawings, homework, and other stuff that needs your attention goes when you need to clear off the dining room table to eat, or just regain sanity for thirty minutes or so.

There's a guilty satisfaction in sweeping up all of the papers off of the table and dumping them in a neatly shuffled stack on another hard surface. They look organized, all tapped into a rectangular packet of Scholastic order forms, Market day, school pictures, and permission slips. Breathe it in, yes, you are accomplished. Yes, your dining room table is clutter-free, yes, yes, you can eat without worrying about spilling water and crumbs on your daughter's homework, and yes, it's true, you will forget about the forms so strategically arranged on the hutch.

Tonight's table-of-no-return surfaced a field trip permission slip, a moms and muffins invitation stapled to a book fair flyer, a school pictures order form, an evening event registration form for Lydia, and Lydia's homework. And that was just the stuff that needed my immediate attention, never mind three newspapers no one read, coupons I meant to snip and take with me grocery shopping this weekend, a new hotel rewards card for Brandon, fifty sketches of our family in varying colors and sizes, a dozen oversized Handy Manny coloring book pages, papers with L-Y-d-i-a and M-O-M and y y y y y y y y y y y (Lydia needed to practice her y's), an old invoice for afterschool care, a checking account statement, three unopened envelopes, the Y schedule and the Kroc Center schedule, and a newsletter each from Lydia and Elvis's schools.

Since Lydia started school, I have been experiencing minor anxiety attacks each week (i.e. SOCCER! Ah! LUNCH! AH! Pick up Lydia! AH! Soccer pictures! Ah! Library books! Ah! Gym shoes! Ah! Pick up Lydia! Ah! SOCCER! Ah! Soccer! AH! Lydia! AH! Brain! Ah!). Does this end? Someone tell me, will there come a day in the next twenty years of our lives where we do not panic that we've forgotten some minor yet critical component of our children's lives?

I should amend that last sentence - where I do not forget some critical component of my children's lives. Brandon does not seem to have this problem. Brandon remembers to pick up his daughter from school and remembers to remind me if I need to pick her up. Brandon texts me from out of town to pack up the soccer mom van.

People, something needs to be done about the table of no return. It's a reflection of the state of affairs in this house, and I'm feeling rumpled up and crinkled around the edges. Every sheet of paper seems to shout MOM!!! LOOK AT ME!!! WE NEED YOU TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS OR ELSE YOU WILL BE CONDEMNED TO THE OUT-OF-TOUCH PARENT CORNER!!! ATTEND THIS EVENT!!! CHAPERONE THIS FIELD TRIP!!! BUY THESE BOOKS SO YOUR SON'S CLASS GETS MORE BOOKS!!! THEIR FUTURES DEPEND UPON YOU, MOM!!!

Table of no return, it is Sunday night. You are empty. The forms that need my attention have been strategically relocated to the coffee table of immediate action, next to my wine glass and a pen. Let's get to work. There are future shelves of no return to fill with extra wallets of a goofy preschooler and a series of Fancy Nancy books. Better to buy them now than to pay to have them on-loan for all of eternity from the library.

You May Say I'm a Dreamer

2011-09-20T21:45:00.001-04:00

Over pizza tonight at Brookside Park, Elvis and Lydia shared how they are going to live next door to one another when they grow up, and they will visit each other every day. We asked where we will live, and they said that we can live next door, too.

Brandon said, "Lydia, you can buy John's house, and Elvis, you can buy Tyler and Alicia's house (our next door neighbors)."

Elvis interrupted, "No, I'm going to buy a farm."

"Oh, yeah?" We chuckled. "That's great buddy!"

"Can I build a baseball field on it?" Brandon asked.

"Yeah. And I'm going to have a garage for my tractors," he said. "Lydia will live next to me, and you guys can live next to her," only he said "zur guys" because he's just that cute.

"What about Henry," we asked.

"He's a baby!" he said, "He'll live with you!"

Obviously.

Clearly, our kids have their futures all planned out.

Anniversary

2011-09-20T08:30:00.001-04:00

Eight years ago today, we had a vision for how the wedding would go. All of our plans came to fruition-- the bouquets were held, our friends and family played music, our pastor spoke, we exchanged rings and shared communion and lit a candle, there was cake, there was dancing, the bar was open (and restocked, several times), the food was eaten-- it was by all accounts a beautiful and celebratory wedding. Our hopes for the future were there, too, but I don't think either of us ever dreamed about where the next eight years would take us.

In the last eight years, we've painted every wall in three different houses together. We have taken new jobs and quit old jobs, left churches and joined churches. We have made new friends and sustained old friendships. We've bought cars, sold cars, leased cars (oops), traded in cars, and fixed cars. We've learned the hard way that you need to replace the air filter on your furnace if you don't want your A/C unit to freeze up. We have brought three children into the world and miscarried four. We've attended dozens of concerts and eaten at Japanese steakhouses for many a special occasion. We've slammed doors and cried and held back and let go. We've forgiven each other and loved each other more deeply. We continue to become better versions of ourselves in Christ.

I can hardly remember the girl in the wedding dress eight years ago, jumping around in a circle waiting to go down the aisle. She's a happy, two dimensional shadow of who I am now. I am so blessed to be yoked with my husband who has helped shape me, who supports me, and who partners with me in the great task of raising our family, running our home, and growing closer to God. I am so proud of you, Brandon, and always grateful. Happy anniversary to us!

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner

2011-09-16T21:33:00.001-04:00

It's been a while since I made a casserole.

My default meals involve lots of dairy. I am the queen of stuffing and cheese. Chicken, stuffing, and cheese. Broccoli, stuffing, and cheese. Rice, chicken, and cheese. Beef, sour cream, and noodles. Chicken, sour cream, and noodles. Bottom line: what can we mix together with sour cream and/or cheese that will bake in an hour or less?

This would be just fine if my husband wasn't lactose intolerant and if my son would eat combination foods (i.e., anything mixed with anything else... broccoli? fine. cheese? fine. broccoli and cheese and stuffing? not fine). And, believe it or not, eating all that dairy isn't the healthiest way to go. I have to admit boredom with these recipes, too. Mostly, I want to be able to feed my family things that won't make them sick (husband) and things that they might eat (son). Lydia and I, well, we'll eat anything.

I grew up meat and potatoes, all-American, spaghetti and marinara sauce, pizza on Fridays. It isn't a bad way to eat. I've always been intimidated by cooking outside of this box-- there's too many unknowns! How do you cook this? How do you saute? How do you broil? What's a julienned carrot? Help!

Allrecipes.com has changed the way I cook. It has added variety to our evening meals. It has lessened the amount of produce I throw out. It has significantly decreased the number of frozen and packaged foods I buy. Stuffing-based casseroles have fallen off the Wells menu, and in its place-- honey-glazed carrots, steamed broccoli, garlic butter pasta. Did you know there are more ways to cook pork chops than in a frying pan?

One of the best features of the website is the ingredient search. I grew a whole row of cilantro this summer, and I love cilantro, but there's only so much corn salsa one can make. So I punched in "cilantro" and, wham -- cilantro lime chicken. Black beans a la Olla (mmmm). Cilantro lime rice (mmmm). Variety!

Time is always of the essence. I get off of work at 5 p.m., and we need to eat between 6 and 6:30 in order to be ready for baths by 7 and bedtime routine by 7:30, bed by 8 p.m. There's no time for lengthy food prep. However, there are dozens, maybe hundreds, of fresh and healthy food combinations that can be prepared in an hour or less. All it takes is a little multi-tasking, and you can have a pot of rice steaming, broccoli steaming, and salmon baking, timed out so that everything is ready almost simultaneously.

The other thing I've learned is the value and beauty of herbs and spices. There's so much more to life than salt and pepper! Nothing satisfies like a fresh, healthy meal that tastes good AND didn't take forever to cook. Yay food!

Pedal through the Bumps

2011-09-16T14:04:00.000-04:00

My kids wanted to ride their bikes to school this morning, so we headed out at 8 a.m. on the drop-off circuit. I put Henry in the Baby Bjorn, our new dog Jelly Beans (Beans for short) on his leash, and my travel mug of tea in my right hand, and the Parade of Wells headed down Phillips Avenue.

For the most part, sidewalks in this city are level and smooth, but I think it is up to the homeowner to maintain them, so there are a few sections that are less-than-perfect. Tree roots and frost have driven the concrete up in sharp angles, and driveways worn down past their gravel cause detours and slow-downs in our commute. Over and over again, I tell the kids to pedal through the bumps. Lydia understands better than Elvis, for the most part, and she's able to buckle down. When adversity comes, she stands up and pedals harder.

I think I'm a lot like Lydia. Out on my morning jog, I like when I make the turn from Budd to Katherine Avenue. I like the slight incline, the tangible strain in my calves and thighs, the sense that I am working hard, and when I turn again from Katherine to Mifflin, I can see the crest of the hill and push for it even as sweat starts to drip down the side of my face, because I know after the uphill is a steady slope downward, a chance to breathe, an opportunity to let my legs coast without a whole lot of effort. There is a reward for battling through the trial.

But if Elvis's tire hits the crack, he stops, looks up at me with a perfect pout on his face and waits for me to nudge him out of it. He might sit there all day waiting for someone to give him a shove. For Elvis, this walk is one he'll claim was uphill both ways.

You can't stop on an incline and expect to keep rolling forward. When you see a slant in the sidewalk ahead, do not slow down. Do not panic. Push harder, hang on tight, and pedal through the bumps. Pedal through the bumps! Elvis seems to get stuck at every one of these cracks. On the bike and off, he needs a push to get through. At lunch today it took all of the coaxing, threatening, and encouraging I could muster to get him through half a ham and cheese sandwich before rest time.

Sometimes he's lazy and just doesn't want to try harder. But sometimes, he's just plain tired, and the effort to chew seems too much because he's struggling to keep his eyelids from falling down. And so sometimes I'm like Elvis. Sometimes I hit my limit, and it just isn't possible for me to pedal through the bumps. Sometimes, I need a good shove from a friend, my husband, my pastor, my parents, my family, my God.

The beauty of our walk is that it just might be uphill both ways, but that means it is also downhill both ways. There's a climb, a struggle, a challenge, a strain, but there's also a chance to coast, to catch your breath, to appreciate the crisp fall air on your face. Sometimes this walk feels more like uphill all the way, and every struggle stops you in your tracks. And then someone with a little more strength comes along to give you a push over the bump, and that someone will be there again at the next bump, and the next bump, and the next bump.

Yes, persevere through the trials. And yes, ask for help when the trials seem like too much. One way or the other, you can get beyond the cracks in the sidewalk.

Kindergarten and Everything After

2011-09-09T22:07:00.002-04:00

Lydia just wrapped up her second full week of school, and of course she loves it and seems like an old pro at this going to school thing. It is hard to tell exactly how well things are going though. I can't be on the playground to see if she is making friends. Are the kids nice to her? Does she talk to the teacher? Who does she sit with at lunch?

On the mornings when I drop her off, she walks up the sidewalk, the gigantic lilac colored Disney fairy backpack bouncing. She pins her hair back with barrettes bought by her granny, and she doesn't want me to adjust it at all because she likes it that way, and it is perfect that way - her curls loose in ringlets pulled back from her face and layered past her shoulders. She wears pink leggings under the blue-jean jumper she picked out for her first-day outfit and Hello Kitty ballerina slippers. She doesn't just dress herself, she accessorizes herself, prepares herself, gives me a hug and I say I love her, and she strides toward the door without looking back.

I have nothing to worry about, except that her beautiful little soul might be damaged by some mean-spirited kid. Isn't that what we all fear when we send our courageous children out into the world?

What I do know is that Lydia came home the other day and said that she got a Tootsie Roll for helping Ella. She said that Ella is made different than we are and that she crawls instead of walks, and then she showed me how she crawls. She said she sat with Ella at lunch along with another girl who comes to visit her class sometimes.

Lord, wrap her beautiful little soul in bubble wrap for me. Keep her heart soft, even while mine cracks open.

The Ninth Psalm as Rendered by Laurance Wieder

2011-09-09T20:57:00.000-04:00

I stumbled upon this tonight in a book called The Poets' Book of Psalms, and I really liked it, so I thought I'd share it. That's all :)

The Ninth Psalm

If I could tell it all,
I would say thank you
for the toppled statues,
for the dusk of gods sung
only in dead languages,
for wild grape vines tangled
in the timbers of a century
that frame our little picture
of eternity. And I remember
there was justice, maybe, since
I hope the dead might be
remembered, though their names,
outnumbered by the sontes
once used to mark the exit spot,
are worn down, in an alphabet
that can't be read aloud.

Not always and not ever, maybe
masters will stick in the mud
of what they most admired,
boasting how their acts
engraved in stone erased
accounts of people sacrificed
to feed the maw, the pointless
grim machinery of nations:
If there is something other
than our selves, they will not win
forever, will some time remember
they are human, and may even
know themselves, and feel afraid.

Soccer Mom Fail

2011-08-25T22:13:00.000-04:00

I know I dress like an adult, go to work like an adult, and pay bills like an adult. I've got a mortgage and a car payment. I make decisions about budgets, buy groceries, compare health insurance benefits. Stuff breaks--dish washers, power steering lines, toilets--and we have to get it fixed. Us--the adults of this household.

But this week, I feel like I'm back playing house again, and doing it poorly. I'm not adult enough to have a kindergartner who is also starting soccer, and clearly I can't keep kindergarten, preschool, infant care, work, after-school activities, and meals together. Monday, even though I had 5:30 on the calendar, we showed up at 5:50, and I thought I was ten minutes early. Nope... twenty minutes late. And I forgot her soccer ball. And her water bottle. Of course, she didn't care, except that she was surprised practice was so short.

Today was the first try at preschool-child-care-infant-care-soccer-dinner, and it was also a flop, since, well, I forgot about practice. We pulled into the driveway at 5:27 after picking up Lydia and Elvis from their babysitter's and Henry from a friend, and by some miracle the phrase "soccer practice" floated through my brain as we started to get out of the car.

"Ah! Lydia! We have soccer practice tonight!" We ran around finding cleats and shin guards and socks and appropriate practice attire and got back into the car, ten minutes late. Meh, at least I remembered her soccer ball. Arriving at the practice field, I told Lyd I would just drop her off and then park, but as I pulled away I saw her standing where we had practice last time, apparently not with the same team. With Henry and Elvis still in the car, I parked behind a few other cars and ran out, the heels of my dress shoes sinking into the turf, to try to figure out where Lydia's team was. Thank God for some church friends who knew our coach and could point us in the right direction, to a different field. I ran back to the boys in the car and found a more appropriate parking spot.

I fed Henry in the SUV and then watched the practice, realizing at water break that I forgot her water, again. The coach let me know that, next time, I should put the shin guards inside her socks. Oh. I didn't play soccer, obviously. Okay. I didn't play any sports after seventh grade volleyball when I got hit in the face with the ball and my braces stuck to the inside of my lips. I don't know what I'm doing, clearly, so someone please rescue my poor child.

Then it was Dairy Queen for dinner, Henry sucking and drooling all over my bicep while the kids took for-ev-er to eat grilled cheese. And heck, yes, I will have a chocoholic blizzard made with chocolate ice cream, thankyouverymuch.

I know it's just one of those weeks, and there's hope, especially since tomorrow I have the day off. I might be able to fool the people at work and church into believing I am a responsible adult with leadership potential, but my kids and husband know me better than that. I'm just a really good pretender.

End of the Residency

2011-08-06T21:52:00.000-04:00

Another MFA residency is behind us, another group of students have begun their writing journey at Ashland, and another class has graduated. What a great two weeks! Everyone is off to their hometowns, and today, I enjoyed a nap, a movie with my kids, a walk, and grilling some burgers and vegetables. It was quiet, relaxed, and without agenda. Ahhhh. Now, the husband and I are in our respective positions - on the couch watching ESPN and behind the computer typing away. I love normalcy.

Tomorrow, we're celebrating Elvis's fourth birthday with family. Four years old already. Yeesh. It feels like a lot longer than that since we were in the hospital with him at Children's. What a blessing he is - even when he's whiny and cranky ;)

Henry will be three months already this week, and as anyone who has seen him the last two weeks knows, he just keeps getting chunkier. He is such a cooperative baby - he cries when he's hungry, stinky, or tired, and that's about it. I can't imagine how the residency would have gone if he had been a much more difficult baby. This is the first year that all of the kids and Brandon have stayed in town the full two weeks, which was nice. I'm glad that we were able to make it work without too many hiccups.

And as always, the residency was inspiring. I always leave the two weeks with new ideas and projects in mind. Now to find the time to explore them.

It's no alarm clock Sunday tomorrow! Yay!

The MFA Administrator Responds to Email at the Residency

2011-07-27T16:45:00.002-04:00

The MFA Administrator Responds to Email at the Residency

- A Found Poem

The washer
and dryer require
payment,
but they aren’t
coin operated.

You’ll need
to swipe a gift card
you can buy
from the bookstore.

If it is broken,
we will need
to submit
a work ticket
to fix it.

Great Is Thy Faithfulness

2011-07-25T23:04:00.000-04:00

I woke up with yesterday's frustrations heavy on my chest and lodged in my gut, a physical ache I'd like to attribute only to a glass of wine before bed and not enough water. I padded down the hall and wondered whether I could convince Henry to go back to sleep after he ate so I could sneak back into bed too, but quarter til six is pushing it. Daylight crept through the blinds and spread itself indiscriminately on the rocking chair, crib, and dresser. Henry flailed around like a turtle while I changed him, my brain flailing about as well, grasping at bullet points on my list of things to do.

There are a lot of days left in this week. It's only Monday.

Lodged in my head was a little verse repeating - they are new every morning, new every morning, great is thy faithfulness, O Lord, great is thy faithfulness. It's hard to believe those words after a long stretch of nothing-going-right, but the song kept looping. I preferred a new song, maybe something about going home and loading my shot gun and lighting a cigarette, something raw and country and kind of angry-like. While feeding Henry, I read some verses for the day, a few psalms, a little of David's story, a little anger at Galatians and a little of Jesus's story.  Henry seemed satisfied, and I tried to get him to go back to sleep, but it didn't look like it was going to happen.  The sun was up, after all, and that must mean it's time to be awake.

After a few minutes he slipped back to sleep but by that time, going back to bed seemed silly.  Instead, I went for a jog around the block, the humidity heavy but at least cooler than the last few days. I felt the tightening of my leg muscles, exhaled and inhaled to the rhythm of my run, the swish of my ponytail, arms pumping, all in time to a mental metronome. Except for the pad and thump of my tennis shoes, the occasional twitter of birds, and the hum of an early commuter's car, it was quiet.  Sweat trickled down my back and chest and nose. I encouraged my legs to make it to the next stop sign, and with each puff of air, I felt some of the world right itself.

Afterward, I listened to some musicians sing praise to God while I showered, and I joined in, eventually. I turned on the iron, checked the label of my skirt, and adjusted the temperature to high. It was going to take a lot of hot air and steam to iron out the wrinkles.  I put on makeup and dried my hair. While my tea pot heated up I went out to survey the garden, lifting the damp and prickly leaves of the zucchini plant to see whether any new veggies sprouted overnight, but the only thing that had grown was some crabgrass. I pulled a few weeds. The tea pot whistled.

The morning burned away the dew. My skirt is wrinkle-free. The garden is weeded. The water is hot and ready to steep the tea leaves. I am breathing, and smiling, and sipping my tea.

Morning by morning new mercies I see...

The Day in Two Parts

2011-07-19T22:14:00.000-04:00

I.
Tonight I want to be ten pounds lighter. I want to have written more pages of an essay that sounds brilliant instead of boring even to me. I want to have weeded my back patio more thoroughly. I want my day lilies to still be blooming in two and a half weeks but I know they'll be spent out already. I wanted to deliver a dessert to a new neighbor and they weren't home so now I have a casserole dish of peach cobbler and no one to eat it except me, which will be great going down and then I'll find out that I need to lose fifteen pounds instead of ten. I wanted to run a mile but mapmyrun said I only ran three-quarters, and it was in the rain and now my shoes are wet and smelly. The crunches aren't working fast enough. My zucchini and cucumbers are going to be ready during the busiest two weeks of the year and I won't be around to pick/eat them. Henry had to have shots today. My husband is playing poker at a friend's house. I feel frumpy and old and tired. I can't get the dirt out from underneath my nails. One of my kids put a cup and a sticker in the upstairs toilet and I had to fish it out. Someone else drew pictures on the wall above her bed, and we're blaming a kid that doesn't live here. And the nightlight cover was jammed into the vent. I am discouraged and tired and lonely and depressed and impatient and disappointed and sad and discontent. Alexander has nothing on me and my terrible, horrible, no good very bad day.

II.
But I baked a mighty fine-smelling peach cobbler. The kids and husband and I took a walk around the block with its pleasant aroma wafting up through the potholders. And now it is waiting for me in the oven. Henry smiled at me. Several times. Lydia chased me down the driveway at lunch encouraging me to have a good day at work and see you after rest time and I love you! I made eggs for everyone at breakfast and didn't break anybody's yolks. My toast was still hot when I buttered it so the butter melted. My tea was just the right kind of sweet. Sometime in the last 48 hours my husband told me I'm a good wife and mom and he loves me too. Elvis snuggled up next to me on the couch and I could smell summer in his hair. My boss thought I had a good idea during our meeting. Lydia thanked God for God at dinner. Everyone ate their food, and everyone got ice cream. The run in the rain was refreshing and funny and I didn't even dodge the puddles. I ran faster than I have since the fall. The number on the scale keeps going down. We read two picture books before bed, one kid on each side of me. Elvis chose Mickey Mouse to sleep with tonight. They went to sleep without getting out of bed again. The air-conditioning is working. George Strait is singing "Carrying Your Love With Me".

I am running on empty, sure, but I have everything I'll ever need, I'm carrying your love with me.

I have these days sometimes, when the pessimist in me shrieks and squalls until I pay enough attention to him. He bleeds out into all the crevices of my consciousness so that I only see his ugly face and all of the negative ways he appeared today, in the sweat and the grime and the dirt. He blots out the satisfaction of living, that deep breath, that gratification, that swelling of joy at a job well done, that quiet peace at the end of a day thoroughly spent. It's hard to shake him once he's fixed his eyes with mine, but this staring contest has to end. It takes more than just looking for the positives in the day, I must rely on God who makes all things new, whose faithfulness is great, who redeems and renews and brings us to completion even in the face of grumpiness. He's conquered sin and death, I think he can conquer crankiness, too. It sounds trite and easy, sure-- turn to God, problem solved. But the promises he has made and the salvation he bought has the power to wipe away all of these weeds and replace them with the fruit of the spirit. And let me tell you, I much prefer love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control to the laundry list of feelings above. That fruit is waiting for me. I have to choose into it.

The Freshmaker

2011-07-12T22:10:00.000-04:00

It's official - maternity leave is over. The transition back hasn't been too painful so far. I'm fortunate to live so close to home, and that my baby is just about the best and easiest little guy ever. Not only has he slept as many as eight hours overnight, he's waking up to eat just when I need him to, and sleeping at the best times of the day to have a sleepy baby. He's been awake, for the most part, from 5 p.m. until 9:30 p.m., so I've gotten a good hunk of baby Hank lovin' the last two nights.

After the other two kiddos went to sleep last night, I took Henry out for a walk. It was a really beautiful night after some storms blew through, a cool breeze and sailor's sunset. Henry has grown to like the Baby Bjorn, and I prefer it to packing him up in the stroller... mostly because I can play with his feet and chubby thighs and kiss his cute little head. We walked around Ashland for about an hour, running into a few friends while we were out. It's one reason I love living here-- wherever you go, you are bound to run into a friendly face.

I'm glad to admit that I'm excited to be back at work, especially with the residency just ten days away. There's a lot that needs to be done before then, and after the residency, I have some ideas for recruitment and promotion along with program development that I'm looking forward to exploring. I can't ask for a much better situation with my job and family life. By the time Henry goes to sleep, I'm definitely tired, but the energy spent after work is even more valuable than the energy spent at work. It reminds me of a verse in Ecclesiastes -- "Sow your seeds in the morning and at night let not your hands be idle, for you do not know which one will succeed, whether this or that, or whether both will do equally well."

I try to live this way, even though sometimes the lines blur and I find myself checking and responding to email after hours. Okay, so that happens all of the time. More often than the reverse, morning work intrudes on evening work. Someone somewhere (real specific, right?) said not to forget to live while you are earning a living. Maybe Dave Ramsey. Anyway, the last couple of days have been full, no doubt, but they have been full in a great way -- work has been fulfilling, walks and dinner and books with my kids, satisfying the needs of my newborn, watching the All-Star game with my husband, even getting some writing done -- this is the way I'd like to live all of the time. Don't you feel like you are in the middle of a Mentos commercial right now? But really, if I could maintain this kind of balance all of the time, I could testify regularly to the statement, "godliness with contentment is great gain."

I'm going to take Solomon's advice now, and eat my food (strawberry shortcake) with gladness, and drink my wine (merlot) with a joyful heart... and then sleep. Tomorrow's a full day.

Devotional

2011-07-06T19:01:00.000-04:00

"Devotional"

In the morning when I rise give me
a hot cup of tea. Burn away the bitter
with a couple dabs of melted butter
on a bisquit dripped with honey,
or a steamy bowlful of old-fashioned
oatmeal, strawberries and brown sugar.
If only every day began with all this sweetness.

For Freedom

2011-07-04T10:18:00.000-04:00

"I will walk about in freedom, for I have sought out your precepts." Psalm 119:45
"Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment." James 2:12-13

"In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence." Ephesians 3:12

"Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom." 2 Corinthians 3:17

"Live as free people, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as God's slaves. Show proper respect to everyone, love the family of believers, fear God, honor the emperor." 1 Peter 2:16-17

"It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." Galations 5:1

"You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love." Galatians 5:13

Isn't freedom beautiful?

These verses remind me that freedom in and of itself is to be valued, but possessing this freedom comes with responsibility. Yes, we're free to do whatever we want, but that doesn't mean we should do whatever we want. Today, I am celebrating the freedom in Christ from guilt and shame, the freedom to work toward the best version of myself through Christ, and the freedom to do so in a nation that does not persecute me for proclaiming the name of Christ. I am celebrating the freedom to choose good over evil, to serve humbly in love. I am thankful to those who serve to preserve freedom. Today, I am celebrating with family, and friends, and BBQ, and watermelon, and wine, and fireworks. Enjoy your Independence!

Peace, Not War - Online and Print Publication

2011-06-23T08:01:00.001-04:00

In the last few days I've been thinking again about publication. Unlike my last meditation on posting poems to a blog site, my most-read post to-date, I've been thinking about how hard we all work (and how much money we all spend) trying to get our poems published in elite literary journals, like Poetry and the likes. I must admit to submitting every single poem I've written to Poetry in the hopes of publication (their online submission manager is FREE!!!!). And I've submitted nearly every poem I've written to Rattle (they take email submissions, and they are FREE!!!!). But of the poems I've had accepted for publication in the last two years, the ones that have gotten the most readers have appeared online.

I do not want to knock the literary journal, that ambitious little creature surviving off of grants, institutional support, and buckets of blood, sweat, and tears from their editors. Writers in academia require the juried selection of their work by their peers in order to secure tenure and to give evidence of their mastery of craft. This selection process is long, painful, and subjective-- I've learned as much working with a journal-- and when a publication boasts a 1% acceptance rate, that means 99% of submissions receive a generic note apologizing for not being able to publish it, encouraging the writer to submit again and granting best wishes for placing their work elsewhere. What an honor and privilege to be among the 1%!

Besides building one's CV for tenure, publication in the big guns builds a writer's reputation in the literary world. Work is exposed to the broader literary community (supposedly). Submitting to the patriarchs and matriarchs of the literary journal is worthwhile and encouraged, so long as those grandparents of literary publishers are still being read.

As more and more opportunities to access literature open up online and in digital print readers, writers and publishers of writers need to reevaluate the way we spread the word, so to speak. I don't think it is any surprise that print media subscriptions are slip sliding away. In light of this fact, in order to stay current and accessible, journals need to begin exploring alternative means of delivery and additional ways to lure subscribers and readers to their material.

There are some very worthy examples of journals that have embraced the digital age and are broadening readership by doing so. One such journal here in Ohio is the Kenyon Review. A quick peek at their homepage shows a full acceptance of the changing of the times-- they are blogging, posting excerpts, offering eBook editions, sharing interviews, and airing podcasts. Compare this to journals that may have a website with subscription and submission information, but tracking down any actual writing in that journal requires ordering a back issue.

The sad fact is there are hundreds of literary journals and a handful of faithful print subscribers. Journals like Kenyon Review, Rattle, Poetry, and others are making the wise move to providing alternative access and bridging the gap between the print version and the online version. Given the choice between having a poem of mine appear in a journal with hundreds of other poets who will all mostly scan through until they find the page their poem appears on and then look to see if they recognize any of the poets in the table of contents, and publishing a poem online, where I can link to it on my blog, share it on Facebook and Twitter, email it to friends and family, all without any cost to me... I'd rather go online.

As an administrator at a university rather than a faculty member at a university, my primary interest isn't in building my CV, although being able to wave the flag of a hot journal in my list of acknowledgments down the road would certainly be nice. My primary interest is in readers. I'd like to be able to share what I've written with friends and family while still adding to a list of publications, which will serve its purpose toward book publication, someday.

The print journals that make the leap into hybrid forms of publication and alternative delivery are the ones that I expect to survive and thrive. The online journals that are popping up and delivering the same level of editorial selection as the highly regarded print journals will continue to grow and gain respect. The journals that resist technology are likely to fade into the past along with the land-line telephone and the typewriter-- two devices that served their purpose for a time and still exist today but are becoming endangered species, dangerously close to extinction. Except, of course, in academia.

In the Center Ring: Motherhood vs. Work

2011-06-18T13:46:00.000-04:00

Ugh. I am three full weeks away from the end of my maternity leave.

You people must know I love my job-- I do. It is one of those job descriptions that feels as if it was written precisely with me in mind. I've been at Ashland for four years now, helping to build a low-res MFA program and manage a poetry press and a journal, and there have been few days where I've come home frustrated or upset about work. I have a strong working relationship with my boss and the editors of the press and the journal, good co-workers, great support from other departments on campus, and perhaps most importantly, I have earned respect and trust, granting an autonomy I value. For the most part, I am trusted to do my job, and to do it successfully. Besides a paycheck, I earn the satisfaction of a job well done. Work might be stressful occasionally, but it is that good kind of stress that doesn't suck the life out of you.

Okay. So what's the big deal about maternity leave ending?

I am love, love, LOVING motherhood right now. In spite of the interrupted sleep and a demanding infant who wants to nurse RIGHT THIS MINUTE OR ELSE, waking up at quarter til eight to a silent house and a cool breeze through the window to sip a cup of tea and wait for Baby Hank to wake up is pretty near to that sacred place I mentioned in my previous post. The casual summer schedule of showering, oh, whenever, and the impromptu walks, piling into the car to go to the waterpark, listening to the giggle of Elvis and Lydia in the pool, and holding that precious little Henry... all of it, even the squalls and squabbles, makes me wish this time would never end.

It's an odd place to be, yet again. Back before Lydia was born, I thought for sure there was no way I would want to work at all ever again no thanks. And then, she arrived, and three-quarters of my brain died within six weeks. Please, please, please let me come back to work! I begged, and after eight weeks of maternity leave, I started back at being an adult, connecting neurons and earning back a few brain cells while my little girl slept in a pack 'n' play in the closet of the Development Office where I worked. When school started up and it was no longer possible to keep Lydia quiet or immobile, we found a great stay-at-home mom to watch her for us, and that's where she hung out for forty hours a week the first year of her life.

When the opportunity to work at Ashland came, BW and I made a decision that drastically changed our family structure-- I would work full time, and he would be the primary caregiver of our two children under two. Bravely we arrived in Ashland, buying a home in late October and carrying along our faithful redbone Tex, Lydia (18 months) and Elvis (3 months). Anyone who has stayed at home with toddlers and infants can sympathize with Brandon--I, on the other hand, was blissfully ignorant of how difficult life was. It was a tough year and tough transition for all of us, but I think it is safe to say it was hardest for Brandon.

Not once since returning to work in 2006 after Lydia's birth have I felt a significant pull to be at home with my kids, until now. Sure, I entertained the notion when Brandon started getting more work with ESPN, and at every job posting he emailed, I insisted that I would be happy to be home with the kids if he found something he loved doing that could support us. Always the thought of giving up my job, the job that fulfilled a deep need for me to be creative, solve problems, and work hard to achieve great results, made my heart ache. I couldn't imagine leaving.

Five weeks into my maternity leave, over half-way through, and going back to work seems impossible right now. Maybe it's the sleep deprivation and the loose schedule of waking at nine and going to bed at eleven. Maybe it's the sunshine. I think it's the kids' fault, mostly. I didn't think I would enjoy the mundane daily routine, but I am so content with hanging out and doing lots of nothing... how could anyone expect me to return to work, given this level of contentment with life?

Oh, I'll go back to work. In three weeks, I'll wake up at 6 a.m. to shower, eat, feed Henry, and head out the door on my bike to my office, and I'll remember how much I love what I do. We will adjust to working-plus-family-plus-baby and restart the hectic routine we abandoned back on May 10 when Henry arrived. In the meantime, I am going to keep reminding myself to treasure these minutes because they will expire July 10. Pout.

Balancing the Writer Life with the Mom Life

2011-06-01T13:47:00.000-04:00

Last night I wrote a poem for the first time in several months. I go through seasons of creativity - like the seeds I just sowed in the garden yesterday, it takes a while for my ideas to germinate. Eventually, the seeds pop, the stems poke through the soil, and before you know it, you are picking bowls full of cherry tomatoes.

Some writers are able to chisel out a very structured and sacred writing time and space. I envision an overstuffed armchair, an open window, a morning breeze, a couple cardinals too-weeting at one another, and a hot cup of tea. Probably some James Taylor playing on Pandora, too. And my lap top, since I write and revise with greater efficiency on a computer, though I can never retire the writer's notebook, that essential tool for when you are on the go and trying to use a smartphone notepad just doesn't cut it quick enough. I can see that sacred space in a corner of our bedroom, waiting to be created, but let's be honest, when in the next decade will I be able to sit in that overstuffed armchair?

So let's revise the first sentence of this blog entry. Last night, I wrote a poem between nursing and rocking Henry, who decided to be cranky when he wanted to fall asleep, which also happened to be the time I decided to try to write. Last night, I balanced my baby on my lap and my laptop on my knees, Henry's head propped up with my elbow and my wrist bent at an awkward typing angle. I chicken pecked the keyboard, one. lousy. letter. at. a. time. while he nursed, and then we switched sides. I slid the laptop back on the coffee table and stood up to rock and bounce Henry to the rhythm of iambs, rehearsing the words I already wrote and revising in my mind. Last night, I eked out a poem. Probably a bad poem, but at least it was something.

The sacred writing space, both physically and temporally, just can't exist right now, and I'm okay with that. In fact, in the time that I've been writing this blog, I've needed to get Lydia allregy medicine, change Henry's diaper (and onesie since he wet through the diaper), and change loads of laundry. Though it isn't a writing space, there is still something sacred here, in this tending to babies and the daily tasks of living. It is in these daily tasks and relationships that the writing is conceived. The plucking of the fruit has to be something of a family affair for now. A season of quiet for writing will come later down the road.

Confessions of a Tubal Ligation

2011-05-19T09:33:00.000-04:00

It's been a week since our newest, and last, son - Henry Delbert - arrived safely into the world via c-section. He is absolutely beautiful, perfectly content and as predictable of a baby as I've experienced. Ever since we became pregnant with Henry, I've been coming to terms with this being our last baby - treasuring every little bump and kick in spite of heartburn and general discomfort during pregnancy, and now, as each day passes and Henry grows (and cries, and hiccups, and chirps, and poops, and sleeps, and stretches, and eats), I find myself experiencing similar bittersweet emotions about this phase of life coming to a close.

Brandon and I decided this would be our last baby almost before we were pregnant with him. I have to admit that I love being pregnant, and I love having babies, in spite of the discomforts that come along with pregnancy and c-sections. We planned on having my tubes tied several months ago, though in my heart I could only commit to being 95% sure this should be it. After all, I'm 28. Most of my friends and acquaintances my age aren't even considering starting families until they are safely out of their twenties, and here we are, putting a stop to the baby making business?

However, last night as I was feeding Henry, I realized that we've been trying to make babies, recover from losing babies, or birthing babies every year since we got married. I've been pregnant every year since 2004, counting my three living and breathing miracles as well as four miscarriages. It has been a long season of baby-making, baby-losing, and baby-birthing, and it feels good to be done. I will remember this period of life as one of significant growth, spiritually and emotionally, and rejoice in all that has happened in these seven years. All good things must come to an end, after all, and I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to carry these babies - for my three children, Lydia, Elvis, and Henry, and for the lost babies. God carried us through some very difficult chapters of our marriage the last eight years, including those miscarriages, and though walking through those valleys was probably the hardest time of our lives so far, it also taught us a lot about God and our relationship with Him.

Now that the decision is official, and permanent, I am surprised at how relieved I am to be closing this chapter. I am sad at the finality of it all, but every month with any sort of delay or abnormality won't be plagued with the anxiety of whether or not I'm pregnant. I can claim back my three c-sectioned body (once it heals). We can plan our future vacations knowing we will need one roll-away bed in our hotel room and space for three car seats in our vehicles. It is finished. And a brand new season is beginning. :)

On the Eve of Henry's Birthday

2011-05-09T15:26:00.000-04:00

We're creeping up on the final hours before Baby Henry is born, and we're all eagerly waiting his safe arrival into the world. It is hard to remember what it was like to have Lydia just over five years ago now, especially compared to how Elvis came into the world. I have to admit to being a little anxious about the delivery and post-delivery in light of the trouble Elvis had when he was born, but I also know that worrying over these things is absolutely fruitless. Plus, God carried us through that storm, and no matter what happens tomorrow and beyond, we can rest in his presence. Any time those little worries start to creep up, I've been praying them straight to God -- he can handle them better than I can.

I'm enjoying this last day with the kids and my husband as a family of four - we've gone to the playground and had lunch together, and now we're spending some time outside on the deck at my mom- and dad-in-law's. Lydia and Elvis picked a bunch of wildflowers from the woods. The beauty and detail found in nature is marvelous - I love the variety, subtlety in color and scent, and seemingly effortlessness of growth. And then there are the little hands that are picking these flowers - simple, sweet gestures of love. And now I am sentimental and mushy. :)

Probably the next time I write will be in between diaper changes and feedings :) I can't wait to share details of our new little one's life.

Vessels of Wrath and Their Destruction

2011-05-02T13:11:00.000-04:00

In light of varying responses from Christians, non-Christians, Republicans, Democrats, et.al, it's tempting to just say, "no comment" and move on with today's news that Osama Bin Laden was killed last night. Status updates on Facebook and Twitter feeds keep us within a certain character limit that is nowhere near sufficient for reflection. If you find cause to celebrate the end of a decade-long manhunt to capture or kill the man behind the deaths of over 3,000 Americans, someone is sure to post a note about it being God's to avenge. If you are a believer and post something about loving your enemies and praying for those who persecute you, your more patriotic friends and acquaintances flare up and declare that justice has been served. Everyone wants an opportunity to step up on the soapbox that is social networking, spit out something clever and/or abrasive, and wait for the likes, retweets, and comments to roll in.

I think it is good for us to post these things - it keeps us thinking and dialoguing with one another - but I also think the world is complicated, and I think God's ways are mysterious. As I refresh my wall on Facebook, I find myself nodding, yes, yes, love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you, and then another, yes, good has triumphed over evil, yes, he is gone, an enemy is vanquished, a step is taken toward victory in what seems a neverending war against powers of darkness. I think, yes, it is true that vengeance is the Lord's, and he will repay, but then I think, God has given the people of the world governments to uphold justice. Government is "a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil" (Romans 14:4). I think, yes, it is our hope that none shall perish but have everlasting life in Christ, but also God is sovereign and raises up vessels of wrath, prepared for destruction.

Pray for our enemies, yes, pray for their souls. David prayed to God that he would be delivered from his enemies. Often that came about the same way we have been delivered from our enemies - at the hands of men in an army of a nation. I want to tip-toe through this minefield, but I do believe that upholding good and fighting against evil is a charge and a responsibility that God has given the governing body of this country. I think we can all agree that bin Laden and his mission were evil, and that left to his own devices, he would have done much more than 9/11. Of course we pray and hope that the world would lay down its weapons. But as long as evil continues to strike down the innocent, I hope we will not deny the sword its power to serve justice.

Explaining Easter

2011-04-24T09:07:00.000-04:00

Explaining Easter

for Lydia, my three-year-old

Imagine your marshmallow Peeps devoured
by your brother without one lick
of sticky sweetness, giant chocolate rabbit
melted in the sun. Even your mother and father—
those great false gods—have eaten every jelly bean.
You hold your basket, empty.

This is how Good Friday feels, waiting
to be taken to the playground all day, then
rain, wanting to wear pink but asked to don gray.
And then tears—you are scolded—
told to sit still for three minutes.
This is more than you can bear,

but be still, consider how much
you had hoped for that delicious
candy basket, how you had dreamed
to wear purple sparkle shoes
and flower prints, to savor
those puffy, yellow Peeps. Now, child,

let us rejoice—time-out is over,
see the basket overflowing, Cadbury eggs,
Reese’s pieces, pastel M&Ms, more chocolate
bunnies and sugar-coated marshmallows
than you could ever eat, sweetness you can share
with the whole starving world.

---------------------------------------------------------

Have a Blessed Easter! He is Risen!

Last Words Series, Part Six - "Enough"

2011-04-21T16:33:00.000-04:00

Enough

“Jesus called out with a loud voice,
‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.’
When he had said this, he breathed his last.”
– Luke 23:46

Here I am, my son.
Your struggle is over.
It was near impossible
to keep from turning
toward your cries.
I felt each lash,
wailed as they
drove the nails.
I blacked out the sun
so as not to see
your suffering.
Come to me now,
let me bandage
your wounds. Drink
from the spring
and rinse clean, rinse
until the water
runs clear. This part
of the journey
is finished.
We only need
to wait a second
for morning.

-----------------------------------------

Probably one of the most difficult tasks for a parent is to watch her child suffer, and next in line is probably the tough love of discipline. While nothing is too difficult for God, surely watching his Son suffer and die hanging on the cross must have been anguish, even knowing the end result. I'm probably projecting my own humanity onto the God of the universe, but the God that created me and my emotions must be able to feel, as well. There are plenty of examples in the Old and New Testaments of this very God experiencing and expressing rage, joy, and grief. So why not here, too?

Unlike Mary's personal grief, which must have been coupled with bewilderment and the limitations of perspective, God the Father knew the end results of this suffering. He can see all of eternity, and this earthquake in the middle of time is a mere blip on the radar, a blip that changes history. Can you visualize the reunion of Father and Son? I imagine it would have been like the reunion of father and child when a child returns from war. Or after a car accident where one's life is spared. The child that returns is transformed by the experience - physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, psychologically. The father receives him, unconditionally grateful for reunion, scars and all.

The best part about the reunion of God the Father and God the Son is that Easter Sunday is right around the corner, and all that was promised to be accomplished on the cross is indeed finished and realized when Jesus returns to earth, bringing the Holy Spirit and the Kingdom of God with him.

Tomorrow is Good Friday. I've always thought of the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday as the darkest day in the Christian calendar. Baffled disciples of Jesus went into "what now?" mode - the man they put all of their hopes into was gone, and how do you recover from that kind of an encounter, that kind of a disappointment? Thank God it was just Saturday. Can you imagine having to hold out longer than that to find out that Jesus really is the Christ, after all? Saturday is enough. We only have to wait a second for morning.

Last Words Series - Part Five, "Drink"

2011-04-18T11:14:00.000-04:00

Drink

“Later, knowing that all was now completed,
and so that the Scripture would be fulfilled,
Jesus said, ‘I am thirsty.’”
– John 19:28

The fount of living water
bellows drought. I want
to lift a ladle, cold and pure,
so you could be relieved.
But I’m deceived with ease.

My cup is sour, dilute
the wine from dirty
cisterns. Nothing I
can offer satisfies.
Are you glad you chose

to filter septic water,
offer your body to be
my purifier? How I love you.
Keep taking this cup:
Drink up, drink up.

----------------------------------------------

This, too, was a verse that stumped me. It's a very human moment - Jesus is thirsty - and what is offered to him is a sponge soaked with wine vinegar. Commentaries talk about this drink as being one that quenches thirst, but my initial reading imagined a strong vinegar drink as being quite repulsive. Keeping with the reasons why Christ is on the cross, I imagined myself offering Jesus a drink, but I am unpure, human, and he is the source of living water - whoever drinks of him will never thirst. Jesus is the great Brita filter for the soul, the city water treatment facility. He accepts all of my waste, my contaminated life, and decontaminates it.

In light of what Jesus does for me, what baffles me are the same words of Paul, "For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do--this I keep on doing... What a wretched man I am! Who will save me from this body of death?" (Romans 7:19, 24). In spite of what I know to be true in Christ, my offerings to him continue to look suspiciously like chocolate milk. But, "Thanks be to God--through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin. Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death" (Romans 7:25-8:2).

I don't want Jesus to have to keep taking this cup of mine. But I am grateful that he did indeed take the cup back on that dark day, that God did not let the cup be taken from him, like he prayed in the garden. And his cleansing and purifying continues in our lives every day, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in us will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

Last Words Series, Part Four - "Fear"

2011-04-13T09:02:00.000-04:00

Fear

I taste the juice of forbidden fruit

dripping from Adam’s mouth.

And in my hand, the dagger

that killed Cain’s brother. My arms

are sore from building Babel.

Abraham’s fear rolls in my gut.

I cling to Sodom as it burns, connive

for the birthright at Isaac’s bedside,

stand by as my sons slaughter a city,

hear the roar of weeping women

whose husbands die by the blade

of my knife. I go into a prostitute

and father two sons by my daughter-in-law.

A slave now free, I wander the desert

longing for Egypt under my feet.

I take the vow of a Nazirite and eat

from the carcass of a dead animal,

kill thirty men for unraveling a riddle.

The men I’ve murdered to marry their women.

The cold shoulder I’ve given to collapse a kingdom.

All of this and more,

borne upon my spirit, every crime

a hornet in my chest. I ask and know

the answer, groan the question anyway,

out of this agony, “My God, my God,

why hast thou forsaken me?”

----------------------------------------

Ever since I can remember, the words of Jesus on the cross, "My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?" have confused me. This was probably the hardest of the verses for me to imagine or write about, because it is Jesus, Son of God, who feels abandoned by God. I can understand any other normal human crying out to God about being abandoned, but this is Jesus. In that dark moment, God the Father had to stand by and allow all of the wrongdoing of mankind to rest on Jesus. He had to carry that massive burden.

In writing this poem, I needed to find out where "My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?" came from, because Jesus is actually quoting scripture here. If you have some time to read Psalm 22, it's worth it. This psalm expounds on what Jesus must have been feeling, beyond that single sentence. If the Son of God is the epitome of faith, then this moment on the cross embodies the opposite extreme - fear. Here, every dark thought, word and deed buzz, stinging and sapping strength. This is what we are spared.

It's Out of Your Hands

2011-04-09T21:39:00.000-04:00

I've been feeling some anxiety lately, that nasty little bug of an emotion that crawls in between your sheets each night, wriggling around so that all you can do is focus on it and where it might wriggle to next. Normally I'm not much of a worrier, but occasionally worry sneaks up on me and I find myself rolling around in bed trying to stop thinking and start sleeping. And you know how effective trying not to think is.

Worry and anxiety manifest themselves in two forms for me: what could happen to me and what is happening to other people right now. These scenarios have two things in common - both are almost totally out of my control. I say "almost" because there is one thing I can do in the face of worry and anxiety, and it's spelled out for me in Scripture.

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus." I love this passage from Philippians 4:5-7. What it doesn't say is pray about this and surely God will change your circumstances. What it does say is pray about this and surely God will make it possible for you to cope with your circumstances.

When circumstances seem beyond our control, they probably are. They probably need to be turned over to God. We can always pray for God to change our circumstances, or pray for the best possible outcome, or pray for miracles, and I think God hears those prayers. But when those requests are not answered the way we hope and we're faced with a difficult person, an unchanging job situation, a health complication, or some other anxiety-producing life circumstance, the one thing we can do is share our anxieties with God. Give it over to him. Let go of whatever silly notions we have of controlling the situation or changing the person and invite God to change us and how we are responding to the situation.

So much in this world is beyond our control, but we are able to control our reactions and our attitudes. When the weight of anxiety, fear, and worry press down on us, God invites us to lift the burden off and hand it over to the one who spun the universe into existence in the first place. He replaces that weight with peace and his strength to carry us through. On the other side of the storm, God's work isn't just holding us together but refining us, and the suffering that produced perseverance that produced character also produced hope. It's a tough road, weathering the storm, but with Christ, it's worth it.

Last Words Series Part Three - "Mary at the Cross"

2011-04-08T15:49:00.001-04:00

Mary at the Cross

I am not old. A bewildered mother
since conception who stored up
each moment. Now I will recall
the way you reached for me, a babe,
and only see your outstretched arms.

Son, do not abandon me—every hour
has been mystery, how my Lord suckled
at my breast, relied on me to learn
the ways of men. Standing here watching
you die is my own death. I am afraid.

Yet even now, you look down and know
my thoughts—who will lead me through this,
on whom can I depend? By the power
of locked knees and women I stand,
resigned and resolute. I will soon be without

my son, my Lord. Dear woman, here is your son.

---------------------

Just like he did with the criminal on the cross, Jesus keeps on looking out for the needs of others, even while he's dying on a cross. Seriously, is this guy the Son of God, or what?

In this poem, I wanted to receive the words from Jesus as he gives her John as her son, to take care of her and minister to her needs now that he's dying. This puzzles me because Mary has other children. I don't know if it is because the others are much younger or because Jesus wanted to entrust Mary to his brother-from-another-mother, John, because he knew that John would be a spiritual rock for his mother once he died. It really doesn't matter in the bigger picture. Jesus - suffering, bleeding, sweating, aching, dying Jesus - looks down from the cross and sees his confused and grief-stricken mother and meets her needs.

As a mom, I can imagine the temptation to say to my son, look, just stop with all of this high-minded Son of Man stuff, deny it and live out a happy, quiet life. I wonder if Mary, who treasured so much of her early memories in her heart, worried about the direction Jesus's life had taken in his teens and twenties. Was this rebellious, revolutionary, peace-speaking, Pharisee-scolding son of hers always going to be getting into trouble? Did he embarrass her by not meeting her expectations, like many of the others who met Jesus while he was alive?

And now she's standing at the foot of the cross with a few other women and the only disciple that hadn't completely abandoned Jesus, staring at her son. Her SON. This isn't just the Savior of the World. It's her son. I'm taken back to those early days of our son's life, when he laid in an incubator, intubated and limp, his very breath mechanically administered, and how unimaginably helpless we felt. Of course we loved him already, before he was born, but now he's almost four years old, and we know him. How much harder it is to imagine him suffering now, after this relationship has evolved so far. What must it have been like for Mary, who loved Jesus for every second of his 33 years, to know him the way a mother knows a son, to watch him die?

Last Words Series - Part Two, "Breath"

2011-04-05T08:23:00.003-04:00

This poem wiggles around on the page and has funky spacing, but I thought I'd give it a shot here, because I don't think you need to have the visual effect in order to read the poem. In fact, I've changed some of the line breaks for this post, just because. :)

Breath

You are wondering why I am
up here with you, why
our blood is mixing together
in the dirt, why our lungs
heave out as if we have
the same spirit
in us
begging to be set free,
why we keep
breathing.

Each inhalation,
a gasp.
All I want to do
is breathe out
a final time. You, a criminal, exhale.
I inhale
your air.

Do you feel the weight of it
rising
off your chest even now,
before your final sigh?
You wonder why
suffering
must last
so long.
For this breathing—
guilt
and grace,
guilt and
grace, guilt
and grace—and yet

I assure you,
today,
you will be with me
in Paradise.

-----------------------------------------

This poem relies on what Jesus says to one of the criminals next to him on the cross ("I assure you, today, you will be with me in Paradise"). When writing this poem, I wanted to evoke the physical strain of breathing when suffering, and I also wanted the process of breathing to be that exchange between guilt and grace - salvation at work. I was also thinking of the "breath of life," breathed into Adam by God back in Genesis, and how Jesus's breathing on the cross could serve as a second wind, so to speak.

It is phenomenal that Jesus can look over at this confessed criminal and declare that he will join Jesus in paradise that very day. In the face of suffering and grief, the last place I tend to look is at other people's suffering-- my focus is on my own pain and troubles-- but Jesus extends mercy, even with his hands and feet nailed through to the cross, even with the weight of the earth pulling at him. Take a deep breath - inhale that mercy. It's awesome, isn't it?

The Sigh

2011-04-01T10:06:00.005-04:00

We're rolling into week 34 of this pregnancy. Whether due to oxygen deprivation, lack of quality sleep, or growing excitement for Henry's arrival, there has been a significant increase in the number of times I sigh each day. In fact, my husband counted my sighs yesterday morning while I got ready for work.

Brandon and I had a good laugh last night about "The Sigh" - you know, the one that takes place right after the lights go out and it's quiet in your bedroom, but there's still something unsettled between you and your husband, so you initiate "The Sigh" instead of addressing whatever is bothering you. I am an expert sigher, well-seasoned from early on in our marriage. Unable to work up the courage to actually talk about how angry I was about ________ or sad I was about _______ or disappointed about ________, I waited and sighed, sighed and waited, until one very pissed husband would ask, "Is there something wrong?" in his best restrained voice.

And I bet you know my answer:

Sigh...."Nothing."

Brandon said everytime he hears me sigh, his toes curl.

This morning I am still smiling about this, grateful that we seem to be beyond "The Sigh," at least for this season, and can laugh at our younger selves. There's a reason we're not supposed to go to bed angry, and it's because of "The Sigh", the toe-curling, teeth-clenching, unresolved frustrations of the day building up between you and your spouse, collecting in the crevices of the sheets and puddling on the pillows. Lately, my sighs have little to do with my husband (other than the budding new life we've created together), but it's funny how those deep inhalations can spark memories of our own early growth as a couple. And look where we are now: sighing and laughing our way through our 7th year of marriage.

Last Words, Part One - "The People Stood Watching"

2011-03-28T11:24:00.006-04:00

Last year for Easter, I participated in a project at our church to reflect on the seven stations of the cross and the last seven statements made by Jesus before his crucifixion. I thought maybe I'd share a few of these this year. A couple won't show up right in the blog because of formatting issues, so I probably won't post those. Writing these poems forced me to really consider the words of Jesus, why he said what he did in these final moments, and reflect on my engagement with and role in the Christian narrative. We're four weeks away from Easter now, so I'll try to post once a week before Easter, maybe with an additional narrative about the writing of each poem.

The People Stood Watching

“Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” - Luke 23:34

Come, see a man who told me everything

I ever did. A man who healed my eyes,

fed me bread he multiplied, poured my cup

of wine, washed my feet, called me out

onto the sea, cursed the unfruitful tree,

received my kiss on his way out of Gethsemane.

Come see a man who raised me from death,

beckoned for me from my tomb, knew me

in my mother’s womb. See him, how he saved

me?

Let him save himself, if he is the chosen

one, the Son of God, of Man, a Nazarene.

Come draw lots with me—which piece

of clothing do you need?

In this poem, my goal was to put myself in the place of a person who stood watching Jesus raised up onto the cross, especially a person who had experienced so much of Jesus's ministry up until that point. I wanted to feel that statement, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing" in light of all that he has done. I think if I were to write this poem again today, I might personalize it even more and reflect on those things that Jesus has done in my own life, and what my lousy response has been, how forgetful I am. In fact, I might do just that. Why not, right?

Mercy Me, It's Broccoli

2011-03-14T18:41:00.003-04:00

In the ongoing saga of Elvis: To Eat or Not to Eat, the plot recently took a surprising turn. In a world where parents battle preschoolers over eating anything green, where anything labeled "vegetable" is spit out and gagged upon, in a world where kids slip miniature cheese-covered trees down to the dog underneath the table who promptly chews it up and spits it out... in this hair-pulling, fist-pounding, teeth-clenching world, my son shouts, "I LOVE broccoli!"

Broccoli. Really.

Elvis finished eating all of his food first tonight, all the time commenting on how much he loves broccoli. Lydia, the more typical preschooler, suffered through her broccoli and then moved on to the pierogies, slowly but willingly eating her least favorite item on the plate first to get it out of the way. There was much rejoicing.

Yes, yes, my son, I too love broccoli. Verily I say unto you, he that enthusiastically partaketh of the tiny green tree shall reap much reward, in the form of evening movie selection and chocolate ice cream. And sweet daughter, thou art not forsaken; ye, too, by suffering and perseverance shall devoureth the broccoli. Thine inheritance shall be apple crisp and vanilla ice cream. In the words of the author of Proverbs, "May your father and mother be glad; may she who gave you birth rejoice!" (23:25).

Dinnertime, Part II

2011-03-08T19:27:00.002-05:00

I've been thinking more about our predicament with Elvis, and the thing is, even if we gave him his way and let him not eat dinner, the child would still be one of the crankiest little saps on the planet. He is thoroughly crabby. I am rather certain that the glass will always be half-empty for this little boy. So how does one train the pessimism out of a person?

The only solution I have, at least presently, is to pray hard that the Holy Spirit would settle in his heart and help him to have joy and contentment. Forcing him to sit at the table and clean his plate every single night, crying, is unlikely to convince him that all kinds of food are good to eat. Forcing him to take one bite of his food, to at least try it, is a reasonable enough request, and if at that point the child still insists on not eating, then so be it. No dinner. There are plenty of children around the world who do not eat three meals a day and have grown to be healthy human beings. If he changes his mind, then I'll warm up the dish and he can eat.

I can't remember if I've said this already, but I do not want to get into the habit of making Elvis a special, separate dinner, and that isn't going to happen. Granted, if I know that what I've made is an "experimental" dish, I'll make something that I know they will eat, or I'll prepare a variation of the dish that leaves out whatever it is I can bet isn't going to be palletable for preschoolers. But making mac and cheese or hot dogs or PBJ for dinner in addition to whatever I've prepared for the rest of the family isn't going to help matters much either. He already gets all of the potential nutrients from these dishes at lunch time.

I do not think it is unreasonable to expect my kids to try the food that we've prepared for them. It might be going too far to ask them to clean their plates when it is clear they don't like what I've dished out. So as long as they are fine with not eating anything for dinner, then I'm fine with them not eating. After they've tried their food.

I would like to be done with the hour-long crying at the table over whether to even try a bite, though. Someday the rationale behind this will set in for my son. At least I can hope.

Because I Said So

2011-03-05T20:20:00.002-05:00

I'd like to have some kind of built-in sensor that beeps or flashes at me when I've crossed the line separating sane, firm, yet loving mother and insane, irrational wacko mom. Maybe it could make a noise like a metal detector... you're okay, you're okay, you're okay... firm enough, firm enough, firm, firm, firm, AHHHHHHH STOP!!!! STOP!!!! You've LOST IT!!!!!!

Nothing in particular has triggered this desire in me tonight. Just the usual battle against my son's attempt to starve himself every night. No, not starve himself. Just take two hours to eat dinner, one hour and fifty minutes of which he spends spinning in his seat, giggling, talking, and maybe chewing occasionally. I do not have patience for two-hour long dinners. Once I've lost all patience, there's no gaining it back the rest of the night. Everything, and I mean everything, needs to be done NOW, when I say so, and if not, the screaming begins. I'm not really much of a screamer - I guess it's more of a voice raised louder than normal. There's no screeching. But it feels like I could screech. I feel like a boiling tea pot - only some of the steam escapes, but man, I am churning up the heat on the inside.

This son of mine wins the race for the slowest human being on the planet. On some occasions, a sloth moves faster. Ask him to put his socks on and maybe twenty minutes later he'd be done. The rest of the outfit might take several hours. And it isn't because he can't do it, though of course that's his whiny little excuse... no, it's because he hates me. Okay, probably not. I don't know why he does this. I don't understand why, when asked to do something, rather than complete it promptly he takes...... a....... day....... and...... a...... half....... to....... move...... his....... hand....... to........ pick..... up........ his...... fork.

IT IS SO EXASPERATING!

I have asked the child if he likes me yelling at him. He says no, but I don't believe him. We try to tell him that he has a choice - to be good or to be disobedient - and whichever he chooses will determine his happiness. Most of the time, I'm happy to say, this works. In fact, it worked for a while tonight. Elvis needed to choose to eat his dinner, and if he chose to eat his dinner before the timer went off (an hour after dinner had started, mind you), he could have a bowl of ice cream. If he chose to continue wiggling in his chair, pouting, and complaining about the food he hadn't yet tried to taste, he would go from the chair in the kitchen to bed - no ice cream, no games, nothing. He chose wisely, and by 7:00, he had just two pieces of pork chop left on his plate. By 7:05, both pieces were in his mouth, and chocolate ice cream was waiting to be eaten, too.

Amazingly, my son turns into a ravenous wolf when ice cream is involved. If he moves as slow as a sloth when asked to do something he doesn't feel all that compelled to do right this minute, he sprints like a cheetah when the price is right. This only aggravates us more. The child has it in him to complete a task willingly and expediently. The key term in the previous sentence is "willingly", and that's what it seems to boil down to - whether it is his will, or mine, or dad's, that ultimately wins out. And Elvis does not want to do what he does not want to do. That's that.

Added to Elvis's stubbornness is our chosen parental philosophy: You will not win this battle, boy. My son wins when he has proceeded along the path of obedience. The dramatic pout and collapse to the floor causes him to lose, every time.

I don't mean to make it sound like Elvis is the worst kid on the block. By no means, and in fact, I've seen a dramatic improvement in his behavior the last few weeks - from improved manners to a willingness to serve - and those moments are beginning to outweigh the times when he flat out refuses to do what we want him to do. He really is a good little boy. But he's still three and a half years old. He's got a clever way of manipulating and manuevering his way however he can to get out of what it is we have in mind.

I really would like some kind of pacemaker for patience, though. Because I am just as strong-willed as my child. And my husband is, too. Sometimes I wonder whether my insistence on a task being complete is me teaching my child obedience or whether it's me wanting him to do it and it's my way or the highway no matter what so you better get on it because I said so. I don't want to exasperate my children the way they tend to exasperate me. I want them to respect authority, but I also want them to feel empowered to question authority. Maybe it's a litmus test I'm looking for - something I can dip into each demand and interpret the results in order to determine whether this is a lesson in obedience or whether this is me trying to run a dictatorship.

The last thing I want to do is break his spirit. I want my children to know that they are loved, deeply loved, and though I know that enforcing rules, teaching them how to obey, and teaching them the consequences of disobedience are all extremely important, this part of the parents' job is the hardest. It comes with no immediate reward. It usually comes with tears. Instead of instant gratification, this kind of love won't reveal its true value for a long time, maybe years, and even then, it won't be obvious that the end result has anything to do with this kind of love.

When I get into dictator-mode, I pray, hard, that I'll be able to rein myself in. And even when I'm not in dictator-mode but rightfully expecting obedience, I also pray that another part of love - grace and mercy - will step up on occasion, because while obedience is necessary, giving grace and mercy is crucial. How else do we learn God's forgiveness and grace except to be given it as well?

I'm glad God's mercies are new every morning, and I hope that mine can be, too.

The Weekend

2011-02-18T22:00:00.002-05:00

The kiddos are off to Granny and Pop's house, Brandon is at practice, and it's just me and my bowl of cereal for dinner. Isn't it great to be able to eat cereal for dinner?

Today was my husband's cousin's baby shower. It was so much fun to see all of the cute little baby things-- it made me very excited for little Henry to arrive. So many special moments I remember treasuring with Lydia and Elvis. I remember Lydia and I falling asleep together one of the first nights in the hospital, waking up to this tiny little person sound asleep with me. Baby bath time, too, and breastfeeding, and all of the sweet steps they take as they grow. It's such a precious time, and it goes so quickly.

I had a really nice weekend with my kids. It's rare to have a nearly agenda-less weekend, and both Friday night and all day Saturday were wide open. I never expected to look forward to a day of just cleaning and grocery shopping, but that's all we did, really. I'm grateful for days of rest.

The more I sit here, the less I have to say :) SO, enough for tonight. Go and rest.

And the plane lifted up off of the ground!

2011-02-03T21:37:00.003-05:00

Tonight, I am laying in my king size bed in a hotel room with a widescreen TV, two lounge chairs, a full bath, coffee pot, several mirrors, five lamps, and six pillows. I will sleep in this room for three nights, which will cost roughly the same as a family's annual income in Ethiopia.

Yesterday, I spent a few hours at the Cleveland-Hopkins International Airport stuck in an unplowed runway and after being de-iced, taxied back to the gate, and refueled, took off with several dozen passengers over the snow-covered countryside. Together, we flew to D.C. in less than an hour in a plane. Above the clouds. Only the people in the last century have had the opportunity to view the world from above, to be able to see the clouds casting shadows on the hills and fields in this way.

It is so easy to forget how incredibly fortunate we are, to live where we do, when we do, and how we do. Watching CNN and the coverage of Egypt's uprising tonight only adds to this feeling of gratitude, but it's a guilty, shameful gratitude. I can hear myself only a few hours ago complaining about slow service at dinner. It is humbling. I don't want to stay in this place; I want this feeling of gratitude to motivate me into action and awareness, because being "blessed" or "fortunate" or "lucky" or whatever you want to call it is not where the sentiment should end. There's more at stake than just giving praise and thankfulness, there has to be a response, there has to be action. So what does that look like for us?

Praise Sarah, From Whom All Blessings Flow...?

2011-01-24T19:51:00.005-05:00

I'm having a hard time writing this blog because I want to sound cool. This is the trouble with confession - the idea is to humble yourself, not justify every little pip and squiggle. So here it is: your church service has revolved around one person for the last six months: me. I know you must feel so deceived - all along, I bet you thought you were there to worship God the Father and Jesus Christ his only begotten Son, but nooooo, it has all been about me. And most of the time, I haven't even been there to experience your glory and honor and praise.

It's become a habit of mine to pick apart my Sunday morning church experience - from the worship music to the slide shows to the sermon to the preacher to the decorations to the congregation. Whatever took place during the hour and a half timeslot (too short! too long!), rest assured that I will have found something that could have been done better.

Here comes the self-justification: I really didn't realize what I was doing until this weekend. Up until now, I've had a little twinge of unease about the ways I've criticized church, but mostly I felt like my critique was a constructive one. The trouble with this is I wasn't doing anything to actually improve the church experience. I didn't go to an elder or to the worship leader or to the pastor and share my incredible revelations. All of my great ideas about how to do church better dissipated like (excuse the expression) a fart in the wind.

It is true, and I've been here before. Dissatisfaction with church seems to creep up in waves, flowing freely when I am most comfortable in life and then ebbing again with the depth of my needs. When I feel secure, something happens so slowly that I don't even notice a shift. Then the tide goes out and bam, look at all of that seaweed.

The ebb and flow I'm describing is the cyclical swing between pride and humility - standing in the presence of holiness, we are humble and aware that everything that exists around us, me included, is beautiful because of grace. But when the shine wears off and we start to drift away, things start to look a little bit normal, bland, and boring, especially when compared to our relative awesomeness, which somehow survived the dimming that everything else seemed to undergo. When we no longer compare our lives with God's awesomeness, the next best option is to put ourselves in the place of awesomeness and compare ourselves with everyone else. And boy, I look gooooooood compared to you!

Thankfully, the Holy Spirit invites himself in to swing our pendulum back the other direction. Actually, it's not much of a swing, it's more like a punt. That's where I am now, ankle deep in sticky seaweed.

When the wave of criticism starts to rise inside me and I find myself dissatisfied with church, the answer isn't finding another church. The answer isn't abandoning church. It isn't necessarily running off a list of good ideas I've had in the last six months and sending them in an email to the deacon board, elders, and pastoral staff (No, I didn't do this. But I could! Let me know if you want to be CC'ed.).

The answer is remembering that I am not the focal point of Christianity or of life in general. It doesn't say, "love God by finding a congregation of people who will all behave in such a way as to fulfill Sarah's every whim." Weird that it doesn't, I know. It says to love God and love one another. Church isn't about me and my experience. This became very clear for me in the lines of a pastor quoted in Kathleen Norris's book, Amazing Grace. "We go to church for other people. Because someone might need us there."

Someone might need us there. There have been many a season when I have needed the people at church. What would I have done without them, all of them? Opting out of church because it isn't fulfilling every one of my expectations is selfish. Pride. I'll even say sin. And so, I confess that what began as minor critiques of how we can make Sunday morning worship glorify God even more turned into self-centered, prideful nit-picking that has served only to drain all of the lifeblood from my worship of God and engagement with the body of Christ.

Phew. It took a lot of paragraphs to get there, but I got there. The best thing about standing in seaweed on the beach is experiencing the sunrise. A sunrise over the ocean captivates us in such a way as to make the seaweed just something squishy we have to walk in for a time. And besides that, look how small I am compared to that! Not a belittling smallness, a healthy awareness of my relative importance, that I have the privilege to participate in this scene, even while I'm standing in seaweed.

This past Sunday, I entered our church with an enthusiasm and excitement that I haven't experienced in months. There was a purpose in going to church Sunday, and it had nothing to do with me for a change. What role am I to play in the body of Christ today? Prayer for the pastor? Prayer for the worship pastor? Complete surrender into the worship experience? A hug for a friend? A warm smile for a visitor? Dear God, who might need me here this Sunday? Show me how I can love you this morning. It was a transformative worship experience, and the only thing that changed was my position in it - from worshipping at my own feet to worshipping the God of the universe.

It is embarrassing how arrogant and prideful I can be and how easily I can make it pass for assertive and important. I am so thankful for how the Holy Spirit has moved, through Kathleen Norris and her book, through my prayer group, through my small group of fellow believers, and through my dear friends. It doesn't take much for me to let myself become the center of my own universe. It tends to take a lot to move me out of that spot. As much as I wish that God would have consulted me before he created the world, I am exceedingly grateful that I am not Sarah Almighty, that you are not reading the Gospel of Our Lady Sarah Wells, and that you have not actually been attending Sarah Wells Community Church for the past six months. Hallelujah!

Harry and Henry

2011-01-10T20:03:00.005-05:00

A couple of nights ago, I finished the Harry Potter series. You might have heard of it - it's about this boy who finds out he is a wizard and goes off to a school called Hogwarts and discovers he's actually quite a famous person in the wizarding world. I was never one of those against the Harry Potter series, and when they came out, I just wasn't interested in reading them. But as it goes when you have friends who read YA fiction (ahem, Twilight?), sometimes you can be convinced to read something you might not otherwise have picked up.

THESE BOOKS ARE INCREDIBLE. Just had to get that out. I wish I could go into lots of spoiler-alert details about how amazing J.K. Rowling is at sustaining a plot from Book One all the way to Book Seven, but I don't want to ruin the ending of Book Seven for anyone, especially my good friend LeeAnn who is just at the beginning of it. I am convinced that these books, like Lord of the Rings and the Chronicles of Narnia, will be classics in the libraries of literature. Characters like Dumbledore, Snape, Voldemort, and Harry should all be studied in contemporary literature classes. And don't get me started on the biblical and historical allusions, besides the sheer merit of the battle of good vs. evil. I can't think of the last time I've read a 700-page book and, upon finishing, wanted to start it right back over again.

So that's how I spent the last week - reading book seven of the Harry Potter series while my husband was out of town. I worked and slept here and there, occasionally remembered to feed and bathe my kids, but on the whole I read Harry Potter.

Though it is hard to migrate away from the Harry Potter post, it has been several weeks, and I have so far failed to announce that we're having a baby boy in May. Named Harry. Just kidding. Brandon and I are pretty certain we've settled on the name Henry. It came up while we were in Nashville the weekend before Christmas, walking through the Hank Williams exhibit at the Country Music Hall of Fame. We're likely to call him Hank for short, especially if he likes baseball. Or country music ;)

I don't think that we've been the ones to name our kids, really. Their names surface out of dreams and coincidences, as if selected by God and deposited in some ridiculous way, like I've just seen the face of Mary in my peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Henry will be no different - it just, fits. I only know the little man based on the kicks and nudges he's giving me right now, but something in me says, this guy is going to be Henry. Little Hank. Hank the Tank?

Oh, by the way, in case you missed it, it's a new year. Tomorrow is 1/11/11. What will YOU do at 11:11 a.m. on 1/11/11? I'll probably be checking my mailbox. Maybe tomorrow's the day my poetry manuscript will be accepted for publication! By Norton! Unsolicited! Woo!

Keeping Christ in Christmas

2010-12-24T14:22:00.005-05:00

There's a lot of chatter every year about keeping Christ in Christmas, getting back to the real meaning of Christmas, etc., which is all well and good if that means peace on Earth, good will towards men. But sometimes that call, to keep Christ in Christmas, sounds like Scrooge and the Grinch to me.

Every year we debate about how much we're going to spend, what type of gift exchange we're going to do, what each family is expecting, and how we're going to make it happen. There's griping about cleaning and wrapping and cooking and shopping and traveling. We fuss and fume about the ribbons and tags, packages, boxes, and bags. Grinchiness doesn't translate well into any kind of wish for joy to the world.

In one of Peter's letters, he encourages believers to, "Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms."

Rather than talk about keeping Christ in Christmas, when I start slipping into complaining mode, I need to remind myself to keep Christ in me. The most important commandments laid out by Jesus were to love God and love one another. There are several ways we can carry out the command to love one another-- there's gift giving, spending quality time together, hugs and kisses, saying nice things to each other, and doing nice things for each other. Keeping Christ in Christmas means whatever we do, whether eating or drinking, gift giving, donating, serving food at a shelter, hosting a party, etc., that we do it as if it were God himself we were serving.

Sometimes family are the easiest group of people to get all up in a fuss about, mostly because they are stuck with us. It'd be great if we could learn to treat our loved ones as if they are really loved ones. Maybe we can extend the same grace and peace to the people who are stuck with us as we try to extend to those who don't know us any better.

I'm starting to get preachy ;) so before I go, I have one more verse that's been rattling around in my head the last few days. Ever wonder what Jesus has to say about gift-giving?

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!" (Matthew 7:7-11)

May you be filled with the Holy Spirit, who makes it possible to have love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control this Christmas.

Merry Christmas!

Mama and Papa Bear vs. Parents of Three-Year-Olds

2010-12-12T13:35:00.003-05:00

I've heard other women talk many times about when their kid has been slighted, or insulted, or teased, or ignored and their reactions to it, but I've never really related. Until now.

Out of the blue the other night during dinner, Elvis said, "My friends say I'm not growing." It's true that Elvis is the smallest and youngest in his preschool class. He's always been on the smaller side-- he's just about the cutest little man ever-- and it's likely that he'll always be on the smaller side. But HOW DARE THEY?! What provokes a group of three-year-old boys to tease another boy?

Back when I was dreaming about making babies all of the time, I couldn't wait to pick out cute outfits, sing and rock the baby to sleep, make googly faces at it, carry it around, give it a bottle, and keep it baby-sized forever (kind of sounds like my four-year-old daughter's version of mothering). This part of parenting never occurred to me. Not once did it cross my mind that I'd have to come up with a response to a sad little boy whose just been teased about something that is completely out of his control (aside from not eating his vegetables). It immediately made me think of the things that had been said or done to me as a child, the insults or teasing that shaped my personality. Remembering how that made me feel sent a mad mother bear fury into the pit of my stomach. And he's just three. We've got another few decades' worth of being almost completely defenseless when it comes to what happens to him at school in his peer groups.

To be affected so quickly and emotionally by the plight of my son at preschool makes me realize how much restraint God the Father had to have on his Son's behalf. I'm ready to track down the parents of my son's friends and give them a good talkin' to about manners and what they say at home and where did your son learn to talk like that, etc., etc., and there's Jesus, beaten, bullied, taunted by people while hanging on a cross. "Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do."

But in light of Jesus' example, what do you tell your kid? Go on the defense? Teach him some retorts ("Well, I might be small but I'm smarter than you! And cuter!")? Tell him to go straight to the teacher? Tell him to punch them in the face (mmm, probably not.)? Ignore it? How do you teach your kid to love their enemies and pray for those who persecute you?

I guess we have to show them how to do that. I guess we need to avoid teasing and making fun of people in our own homes, pray for people who have done us wrong or who don't understand us, and hope that God will work on our hearts as much as theirs. We can't control how other kids are going to be raised and how that upbringing will affect us, just like we can't control other people's actions. We can control our reactions.

May God give us the strength and courage to not punch our enemies in the noses or hunt down their parents with some mama and papa bear fury.

Blogging. About Blogging.

2010-12-08T15:27:00.004-05:00

I follow this guy, Jon Acuff, blogger at Stuff Christians Like, on Twitter and via RSS feed (Which I love, by the way. Who came up with this stuff? Sending someone's journal entries straight to my Outlook mailbox so that I know when they've been updated? Awesomeness.), and this guy is just great. I laugh, I cry, I nod, I smile. Mostly, though, I am amazed at the sheer quantity of material he is putting out there, in both blog and book form.

Since my last post way back on November 17, I've been saying to myself, Sarah, you should blog about this. Or this. Or this. And here we are, three weeks later, writing a short blog entry about how I haven't been blogging but this guy Jon has been and man, he's great.

And now it is December, Christmas is a mere 17 days away, and the list of things to do, places to be, and sleep to be had just keeps growing. I miss blogging. I miss writing poetry. (Last time I wrote a poem? Mmmm September.) Is there hope? January, maybe? We'll see.

In the meantime, check out Jon Acuff. He's pretty neat-o.

Evening Routine

2010-11-17T18:46:00.003-05:00

A few weeks ago, I realized my quality time with my kids has been looking something like this:

"Go play in the basement while I make dinner."
"Eat your dinner!" "Eat it!" "Eat the rest!"
"You guys want to watch a show?"
"Okay, bedtime. Quick, pick a short story. Now sleep."

It would be easy to blame first trimester symptoms of exhaustion, but sadly, I think the habit started before I started to feel so worn out, when the temperatures started to drop and the sun started to set earlier.

I had been wondering why Lydia was so whiny lately. I think the breakthrough came for me one Friday (the day that I have off each week to spend time with the kids) when, at 5 p.m., Lydia asked me to play a game with her, and I said that I had to start dinner. She erupted into tears, saying, "You haven't done anything with me all day long!" It was true: I had spent the day telling her and Elvis to go find something else to do while I put away clothes, cooked food, changed loads of laundry, folded clothes, etc. Way back when I had decided to take Fridays off, I thought, "Yes! A whole extra day to spend with my kids," and here I was trying to get all of these chores checked off my list while they tried to entertain themselves. And you know how well that works-- best friends one second, mortal enemies the next.

Of course I need to do laundry, and clean the floors, and put away dishes, and make beds. These things have to happen. But guess who's really, really eager to do anything I ask as long as we're doing it together? My kids. So I've been trying to engage them when I need to get some things done on the weekends.

When it comes to the evenings, I've set a new rule: no shows. The TV is staying off when I'm home. There's a window of two and a half hours in which I have to invest in my munchkins, and we really don't need to spend it with mouths gaping and eyes glazed over staring at a movie. My love language is quality time, and nothing says love to me like playing Candy Land, bingo, or dominoes, putting together a puzzle, coloring, or reading books together. There's time for zoning out on the couch after they go to bed. Unless we're sick, and then, okay, movie. Or weekend night. There's going to be exceptions, obviously. The point is, these are my KIDS. I want them to know that they are important, that they are a priority in my life, and that they are loved.

The payoff is huge.

Twelve Apples and a Blog

2010-10-22T19:58:00.004-04:00

Twelve shiny, locally grown apples are sitting on my kitchen counter ten feet away next to the cutting board, apple corer, slow cooker and paring knife. Fortunately, they are all inanimate objects who can only beckon with their glaring presence. But I have a hot cup of apple cider, James Taylor Pandora Radio, and a blog I haven't updated in over a month because I have been TIRED, BUSY, and PREGNANT.

There, I said it. Come on people, if you know me AT ALL you know how hard it is for me to keep anything a secret. In spite of our miscarriage history, I've always announced pregnancies within a week of finding out myself. I just can't keep it in! How women can go without knowing they are pregnant for months is a mystery to me... I feel like every pore of me seeps out pregnancy hormones for any human being to sniff in the air the minute I find out. I have a radioactive glow that shifts to a pale-ish green around 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. and then again around 8 p.m. It's so friggin' obvious that I'm pregnant, I don't even need to say anything.

Of course, the people that I did tell early on knew it long before I said anything. And you want to know why? TWO people in different circles said they kind of figured, since I didn't want a glass of wine that one night a few weeks ago. This says something about me that I won't point out because we're not talking about wine tonight.

This is my seventh pregnancy and probably my last. BW and I figured this time, maybe we would spare ourselves and everyone else the uncomfortable, "We're pregnant!/We're not pregnant anymore" fun, so we tried to keep it to ourselves. It was really hard the first few days, for all of the reasons I mentioned above (the radioactive glowing, etc.), but then I got excited about having a secret that only my husband and God knew about. That rarely happens - I'm just not a very private person.

My landmark requirement was hearing a heartbeat on the Doppler stethoscope (no, I didn't remember the name of that device all on my own), because we've never gotten that far and lost a baby. Every night for a week leading up to the appointment, I had vivid dreams about losing the baby - miscarrying here, there, and everywhere. It needed to stop. I'm grateful for the prayers of a couple people that I'm convinced helped the dreams end-- the night before my appointment, I dreamt of an ultrasound showing that it was a girl, and that all was healthy and fine. I needed that.

This past Monday, I heard that fast-paced swishswish. My doctor, who has been through each of my pregnancies with me too, might have been as relieved as me. I'll be 11 weeks tomorrow :)

:)

Hearing that heartbeat seemed to give BW and me permission to breathe again. In the past seven weeks, we didn't talk a whole lot about being pregnant, I think in a self-preservation effort. While I began developing all of the first-trimester symptoms of pregnancy, we carried on with our lives as normal. Now we have enough to cling to in order to give in to hope. And we're ready to share that hope for new life with others, able to rejoice, if not cautiously and prayerfully, together.

So that's why I haven't gotten around to making my homemade applesauce.

I'm Going Pro-Joy

2010-09-22T16:05:00.004-04:00

Almost everyone I know has a cause of some kind -- Save the Planet, Pro-Choice, Rally for Democracy, Evangelize America, Tax the Wealthy, Go All-Organic, Buy American, Conceal and Carry, Grow Your Own ______, Weight Lift, Save Your Money -- you get the drift.

What has been bothering me, though, is that most of the time the passionate cause-people come off totally pissed that you aren't for their cause, or angry that the rest of the world can't see whole grain truth. When pro-lifers start protesting and shouting outside Planned Parenthood clinics, it makes me cringe and wish I didn't have to associate myself with pro-lifers. But I am pro-life. I just don't like to scream.

So what I propose is that people adopt joy as their number one cause. It's impossible to have joy and be pissed about how your neighbor won't give up eating a cow. Because joy radiates out from love, joy doesn't need to get all red in the face every time a sports star humiliates his hometown. I'd like to see some people who are certain about what they believe, who can give a reason for the hope they have, to simply believe those things, talk about their beliefs with humility and compassion, and embrace their passion in joy, rather than frustration.

I have never been swayed by someone screaming in my face. But in a casual conversation, a good friend and colleague of mine mentioned that his wife was the only person he knew who was both pro-life and anti-death penalty. It was said with admiration for his wife, who embodies this joy-passion formula, not with angst that the rest of the world hasn't embraced this same belief. And it made me think about the connection between these two causes, something I'd never given much thought to before.

The fact of the matter is the whole world is never going to be on the same page with me, and the whole world is never going to agree with you whole-heartedly about everything you believe. I have some really firm beliefs about humanity and faith, but I am learning more about myself, humanity, nature, faith, relationships, etc., to know that these beliefs need to be malleable. I need to be able to have an open ear and an open heart, to be able to speak AND listen, to be humble, consider, test, and evaluate what is going on in the world around me. And respond appropriately.

It isn't good to lock my beliefs in a box. Especially without any breathing holes or access to water and food. My philosophy of life should be permitted to grow and develop, and I should be allowed to retract a few of those beliefs I stood so firmly on several years ago.

But if we do not have "ears to hear," we might as well slip away into our causes so we can stand around nodding and agreeing with our like-minded peers all day long, content to remain just as we are-- ticked off that the rest of the world doesn't get it. Whatever "it" is.

Lifestyle Changes

2010-09-09T19:18:00.005-04:00

This fall, I am doing this crazy thing: I am taking off every Friday. That's right people, four-day work week until 2011. There are two huge payoffs to this schedule. First, the work week is packed, and I mean PACKED, with stuff to do. I'm not really one to sit around waiting for someone to tell me what to do anyway, but knowing that I have one less day a week to get everything done that typically needs to be done is a fabulous motivator to get in gear. Second, my weekends are almost as long as my work weeks. Obviously, right? But think about the difference between 5/2 and 4/3. It's significant. The amount of reading/family/resting/traveling/visiting/occasionally cleaning time I have just increased by 33%.

The original motivation for this schedule was financial. In the fall, my husband travels for work every weekend, and rather than have the kids in daycare every Friday while he flies or drives away, we figured we could save several thousand dimes by taking Fridays off. But I think if I have my way, I'll keep this up every fall, regardless of what my husband's schedule is.

The other new thing happening this fall is DATE NIGHT. Do you know the magic of these two words? I'd like to post a banner across every doorway in every home with DATE NIGHT on it. Since BW is gone from Thursday through Sunday most weeks and I work Monday through Thursday, the chance the two of us would be alert and engaged together at any point during the week was slim. So one weekday night each week, we have our faithful babysitter over, kiss the kids goodnight and wish them happy mac and cheese meals, and dash out the door for any destination other than our house.

So far, we've enjoyed golfing, going to an Indians game, a movie, and dinner together. Next Tuesday the Cleveland Jazz Orchestra is coming to Ashland, so we're going to go to that. DATE NIGHT was the best idea anyone ever gave to us, I think. I might be overly enthusiastic about this whole thing, but this is one more new change that, if I have my way, will never disappear from our budget. We might have to be more frugal in our DATE NIGHT selections, but I do not want to lose this time with my husband. It's like we're married and not just the parents of our joint children!

I just finished the book, Outliers: The Story of Success, which was quite good and quite interesting. As I was talking to someone about it, he asked me whether it changed my definition of success. Not really, I said, it just shed some light on one kind of success. He asked whether a plumber can be considered to have led a successful life. Of course! That wasn't the kind of success Outliers studied - Outliers looks at the people we deem as extremely talented stars, geniuses, millionaires, etc., and how they got to be where they are. The success that Michael was talking about was what I think is better tagged "fulfillment." Can the plumber lead a fulfilling life? Absolutely. Fulfillment has less to do with monetary success and fame than it has to do with attitude.

I feel like my life is more fulfilling with these new changes - extra time with my kids, and extra time with my husband - because these are the relationships that make my life fulfilling. I would rather sacrifice 8% of my salary and $50 a week to spend this time with my family. It is a worthy investment whose return is priceless.

This Is How We Do It

2010-08-21T10:35:00.002-04:00

New post over on Finding Gemstones -
http://findinggemstones.blogspot.com/2010/08/this-is-how-we-do-it.html

2010 MFA Reading

2010-08-18T11:55:00.002-04:00

I bet you've been sitting on the edge of your seat for ages waiting for a new video of me reading my poetry. Well, you can kick back and relax now, because here it is. You might have to crank up your speakers. I don't think any of the poems I read have been posted on this site, so it's all new material for y'all.

2010 Reading by Sarah M. Wells at the Ashland University summer residency

I'm the map, I'm the map, I'm the map

2010-08-17T19:14:00.003-04:00

Someone is coming to look at our house tomorrow (during naptime, while BW is out of town, of course), so the kids and I have been tidying up tonight, and now we are watching Dora. Does anyone else question the value of shows like Dora?

"Do you see the volcano?" Pause. Pause.

Pause.

Click! "That's right!"

Or... "Where are we going?" "Grampa's house!" "Where are we going?" "Grampa's house?" "Where are we going!" "Grampa's house?!" "Where are we going!!!" ".... Grampa's house!"

Gee, I wonder why my kids ask the same question a thousand times in a row and wait fifteen seconds before replying to my questions.

I don't believe in the value of the formulaic plot of this show. I guess I see how life is like a Dora episode: We have a destination, there are several obstacles, the goal is in sight, we need some supplies to get there, and all of our necessary supplies are tucked away in our singing backpack. Obviously.

And my kids love it! I don't get it. Maybe it's just that they are hypnotized by the colors on the screen. Maybe any multi-pixelated combination of bright colors would draw their attention.

I much prefer listening to the creation of their own fantasyland in which they pretend to be Grandma Rose and Pop-Pop, or Granny and Pop, or the Mother and the Son, or the Dog and the Cat, or some other role-playing scenario that catches their imaginations. Of course, I'm the one who turned the TV on so that I could quickly finish cleaning and write this blog. And after they go to bed, I'll turn on the computer and stare at Facebook for several hours.

Work in Progress

2010-07-16T11:58:00.002-04:00

Here's something new I've been toying with. I think maybe the title is too heavy for the poem, but the previous title was "In the Woods," and that wasn't enough. I hate titles. Can I be Emily Dickinson and rely on the first line of each poem as the title? When I am dead and suddenly famous, y'all can chronologically order my poetry in a collected works and give them numbers. No more titles.

Knowledge of Good and Evil

I show my children the Mayapple,
lift its waxen umbrella for their eyes
to see its single flower. My mother’s
faraway warning steers us away
from three-leafed vines with a red dot
in the center. I use her firm grip
to turn my curious pair from their itch
to explore the woods beyond the path.
She told me, too, which berries
could be eaten on the border
of the forest where we scavenge
between the pin oaks, lift branches
heavy with the ripest fruit.

Maybe someday we will walk
through the shadows in the lane
of pines and my son will stop,
stoop down to lift an unknown
to me, give me a new world.

True Confessions

2010-07-15T15:31:00.002-04:00

It has been several weeks now since I've written any poems anywhere. I'm pretending that they are stored away in my brain just waiting for a moment to spill out onto the computer screen (because, let's face it, there's no such thing as putting pen to paper anymore). Surely there's some poem floating out there for me to write. Surely.

West Chester's Poetry Conference was good for me - I wrote three poems while I was there and edited a bunch, rearranged the manuscript that promises to never be finished, and devoured the advice and good counsel of other poets who served on panels and participated in the workshop with me. It was a jolly good time. And now. Now, I am all business and no time for writing or reading.

I'd like to take this opportunity to blame the sun. It is clearly the sun's fault that I haven't written anything. Also, the weeds in my flower garden. The caramel-colored paint on the walls in the dining room that insisted on being covered up by "Timeless Taupe," which was delighted to be stirred and rolled across the plaster (I heard it giggle while I worked). The eight games of Lexulous I inadvertently started and will perpetuate as long as my opponents accept. It is also clear that the spray park at the Kroc Center is forcing me to play with my kids in sprinklers all afternoon, thus purposefully distracting me from all poetic pursuits.

I will not be held responsible for the lack of poetry being generated today. Nope.

This obvious attempt by everything in the universe to divert my attentions away from rhyming couplets and iambs will continue throughout the weekend and at least another week. And then, the summer residency begins, and I will be surrounded by a legion of writers armed with laptops and collections of poetry to battle against the outside world. Writer's boot camp will at least inspire me to write something. Or drink. One of the two.

Maybe she's born with it...

2010-06-03T21:59:00.001-04:00

New post over at Finding Gemstones -- http://findinggemstones.blogspot.com/2010/06/maybe-shes-born-with-it-maybe-its.html

Baby Spoons and the Crust

2010-05-24T12:49:00.003-04:00

A lot of thought-provokers happened today during my 30-minute lunch break, and I can't help but take a few minutes to reflect on them here before settling in with transcripts and info sheets and all of the other important tasks I have to do.

Are kids you know picky about sandwich crusts? Lydia is. Unless she's starving and there's a good deal of peanut butter smeared to the very end of the bread slice, she isn't interested in crusts. Today she polished off her PBH and left the crusts on her plate, asking if she could eat something else. We suggested the remaining pieces of her sandwich, but she wasn't THAT hungry. Meanwhile, Elvis sat staring at his plate with a PBJ cut in half, no bites taken and that face that says, "I really, really don't want to eat this, but if I make any move like I don't, I'll get sent to time out, again, so I guess I'll just sit here and stare at it." So Lydia asked if she could eat Elvis's sandwich, unaware that Brandon had used the ends of the bread to make his sandwich - only one side visible. We handed her the sandwich and she wolfed it down. All we could say to one another was, "Hilarious." And then, of course, the fact that Lydia had half of Elvis's sandwich was enough to send him into fits and sobs, even though (as previously stated) someone was about as anti-sandwich as vegans are anti-pork chop. We gave him back half of the sandwich and he went at it with the same enthusiasm Lyd had demonstrated over her quite crusty PBJ.

We don't really know what we want. Crusts or no crusts. Sandwich or no sandwich. A little bit of both. We're clueless, envious, subjective creatures.

After the PBJ episode, the kids were back to behaving like normal human beings. And then they began a conversation about heaven. We talk about heaven often--their day care place talks about heaven occasionally, and we've told them that Great Pop and Tex and the baby that was in mommy's belly (see previous post) are in heaven, so it comes up. Today's conversation started with Elvis saying, "Baby in heaven," and Lydia followed up by saying, "When the baby comes back from heaven and it grows up a little, it'll need baby spoons." Then they discussed between the two of them whether they wanted a baby boy or a baby girl.

I've often wondered whether children who do not make it to term have another go-around. It's all speculation what goes on, anyway, and why, and how, and when. Do I have four children hanging out with Jesus in heaven, waiting to meet me? Who knows? Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we cannot see, and probably this area of life--death and loss--requires the greatest amount of faith. And I believe - not in my own fantasies and musings about happy little people clinging to the robes of Christ, but in a loving, compassionate, patient, merciful, just, mysterious, and powerful God of the universe. I stand in awe of him. And because I believe these things and hope for what I cannot see, I can trust that whatever the circumstances, he is the great redeemer.

This past weekend was the first time Brandon and I talked about "the future" and "our plans" (God knows the plans he has for us... plans to prosper us and not harm us, plans to give us a hope and a future... and he chuckles at "our plans" all the time, I'm sure) since the miscarriage two weeks ago. I'm not ready to give up on more children, and he's not ready to say let's keep trying for more children, which leaves us contentedly undecided for the long term. This is our fourth miscarriage, and he's tired of this. I certainly don't enjoy going through this, either, but I guess I'm just less prepared to say enough. I can't retire my vision of our family as more-than-the-four-of-us. It is kind of nice to return to my own self - I like being able to exercise and feeling physically fit, and I like being able to have a drink now and again, and I like not being tired or anxious about whether everything's okay. But I'm happy to sacrifice the comforts of possessing my own body for nine+ months in order to have another little person in our family.

I had no response to Lydia and Elvis's dialogue, so we both just smiled and watched the two of them, and we hovered there in our land of indecision and longing. There's no real way to answer the question, "Why do you want to have more kids?" Is it because I'm wired to want to be fruitful and multiply? I don't know. I don't know why I want more children. I've heard it said, "You have a boy and a girl - that's perfect! You can be done!" as if that's the only reason people keep trying to have more kids - in order to have one of each gender. I could list off reasons why I want to have more and also the advantages to only having two. But would it really provide a solution or give additional clarity, like weighing the pros and cons? I don't know if it would. I think if I were told, you really shouldn't/can't have any more kids, I would be able to let it go, but no one has said this, except for the occasional insensitive person.

Like many forms of loss and grief, a miscarriage dominates your thoughts for an indeterminable period of time. For days, weeks, and sometimes months, the mom-to-be is focused on being a mom-to-be -- eating right, exercising right, sleeping well... and then, just like that, all of the energy put into thinking about being a mom is channeled elsewhere, and the first place it goes is into loss and grief. And that turns into questions and hypothetical situations, which turns into hunting for answers as to why this happened and sometimes evolves into blame - self, God, others, etc. And then we struggle and flounder about, gradually find other areas to channel thoughts, wrestle with God and what we believe about him and his involvement in our personal affairs, whether we believe him to be a good God or a cruel one, and what does that mean for the rest of my life? Sometimes we find rest and resolve and healing. I wonder how many of us just pack that grief into our hearts and hope that the wound will scab over if we bury it deep enough.

The Explanation

2010-05-09T10:17:00.004-04:00

The Explanation

The baby that used to be
in mommy's belly
is in heaven now
with Tex and Great Pop.
Heaven is far away,
beyond the clouds and sky,
even farther than the moon
and sun and stars. God
is in heaven, too, and Jesus,
who loves the little babies.
He lets them snuggle
in his arms the way I do
with you at night,
when we read our stories,
sing a song and talk to God
about being thankful,
even when it is difficult,
and we ask Him to bless us,
thank Him for blessings,
opportunities, and even
sufferings. I miss Tex
and wish the baby
was still in my belly, too,
but we'll see them again
someday. Someday.

Elasticity is Heaven

2010-05-03T21:14:00.002-04:00

This weekend, I swapped out my winter clothes and the majority of my pants for the bin of maternity clothes. Hello, elastic waistbands! I am twelve weeks along now. It was nice to read on babycenter.com that many women, especially women who have been pregnant before, are likely to be wearing maternity clothes already. I'm in that wonderful phase of pregnancy where you look and feel fat rather than pregnant. The fat is indistinguishable from the pregnant. People don't ask women at this phase of pregnancy whether they are pregnant because we might just be binge eating or off of our exercise routine, which we are, but not just for the food and lazing about -- there's something else going on, too.

The good news is that I think I've turned the nausea corner and graduated into heartburn. I had never experienced heartburn until I was pregnant with Lydia. It was so bad I thought I was having a heart attack. Or something like it. I even went to urgent care. After everything tested just fine, the doc recommended I get some Pepcid AC. Who knew Pepcid cured chest pains? AMAZING. And now it is back, though not as bad as my first episode. It probably didn't help that I thought everything that happened during my pregnancy with Lydia was going to cause me to lose her. Anxiety does wonders for your physical health!

Speaking of Lydia, today is her fourth birthday. Fourth. I can't believe she is so old already! I can see that kindergarten is going to be a real shocker. We had a family party this weekend for her. She was thrilled to have her grandparents down for the day, as was Elvis. They have this obsession with showing people their rooms. Elvis won't stop asking "come see my room!" until everyone has gone up to see it. Lydia follows suit. I'm very glad that we live close enough to our parents that they can come visit for the day.

I have two poetry readings this weekend, one in Marion and one in Columbus. I haven't read in quite a while, it seems, so I'm feeling a little nervous about what to read. I have a difficult time selecting poems to read at these things. I am also having a difficult time finding a sitter for Friday night. So, if you know anyone...

Mark Jarman Interview in Rattle Summer 2006

2010-05-01T09:33:00.002-04:00

I've had a copy of the 25th issue of Rattle, a poetry literary journal, hanging out in my house for several months and finally picked it up to leaf through. This particular issue has a tribute to the best of Rattle as well as an interview with a poet I recently heard read at AWP in Denver. As I've mentioned elsewhere, I continue to wonder why I haven't read certain poets before. Mark Jarman is one of those poets. In the interviewregarding style and subject, Jarman says:

I might, at this point, be said to have a subject. I think of it as the intersection of, say, the word of God with the Godless world--what happens when you see and experience in your own life this moment when God seems to be at work. That's what I usually write about.

When I read things like this from other poets, my heart does this little flutter of excitement. It is a thrill to me to know that there are other poets writing out of this same ambition. I feel as if there is indeed a community of believers (or community of seekers, even) who find this intersection fascinating and critical, who do not believe that we are "past the age of myths", beyond a belief in God.

I purchased Unholy Sonnets in AWP this year and read the whole thing on the plane ride home. It's a lovely collection, one I couldn't put down. I think this is because I couldn't wait to hear what he would say next. The subject-matter thrills me. I hope to be able to meet or work with Jarman sometime in the future--perhaps at the West Chester Poetry Conference :)

Size Six...

2010-03-19T16:00:00.003-04:00

Buying size six pants for the first time since college is a sure sign that, this month, you are sure to become pregnant. It is inevitable--that kind of purchase and that kind of regimented diet and exercise are just the sort of thing easily laughed at in the face of pregnancy.

So rather than succumb to the forces of nature that dominate the first trimester and give up my size six dress pants, last week, while everyone else in my building was on spring break, I wore those dress pants every single day. Who knows when the next time size six will be a reality. Perhaps never!

It is early yet, six weeks in, and every day I wonder whether everything is okay (you know the routine), but we're just plain excited. My first doctor's appointment is next Wednesday. Due date is anticipated to be November 11, 2010 -- 11/11/10. My kids' birthdays are all like that - Lyd is 05/03/06, E is 08/09/07.

It's a good season.

I watched the last of the Beth Moore video series on the fruit of the spirit this week, and it addressed the verse that says, "Don't you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit?" She addresses the physical fitness ramifications that surface through this verse, the fact that our physical bodies are the residence for the Spirit, and it made me think about the care and consideration I have for my body when I am pregnant vs. when I am not. I am extremely aware of every meal, the amount of water I drink, the amount of sleep and exercise I get, all when I am pregnant. When I am not? Eh, I eat. I drink. I merry. I need to remember that even when a physical person isn't dwelling inside me (weird), a spiritual being is, and he'd like the house to be in tip-top shape, too.

Off to find a remedy for my mild nausea that will satisfy my little lentil bean of a baby ;)

Season of Productivity

2010-02-22T22:04:00.003-05:00

This weekend, the family and I went up to spend time with BW's parents in Akron. It had been a while since we were all up there together, and the kids hadn't seen Rhonda for several weeks (an unusually long stretch of time). I had a very productive writing weekend because of it-- when we're in Akron, it's almost a mini-vacation for me. We lounge about, the kids have two extra sets of eyes on them almost constantly, and all of the normal distractions are absent. It's a real delight!

Adding to the mini-vacation is my attempt to fast from Facebook for lent. I've never made a serious effort to sacrifice something during the season of lent in an effort to turn my heart and mind to the things of God. When I began to think about the value of this exercise, Facebook came to mind immediately. Beyond the lexulous playing and photo uploads, I am a loiterer. I hang out on Facebook. When I feel the slightest twinge of boredom or distraction coming on, I indulge, and of all things, it was the highest on the list of personal indulgences or addictions. Like many shakings-free of addictive substances, it is a painful, difficult divorce, but also a fruitful one. Prune, prune, prune, and watch the new growth. Already I'm seeing some of the value of my abstaining from Facebook and focusing on God and other quality endeavors. Take out the space filler and fill it with something worthy of occupancy!

All of that to say, I'll probably return to Facebook at the end of this season, hopefully with a firm grasp on self-control and resistance. :)

I've read several good books lately and finished up two this weekend (no Facebook...). Over on Finding Gemstones, I blogged about The Red Tent by Anita Diamant. Great story. Our book discussion group at church met to talk about it last night, and I thought the conversation was excellent. I just finished Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell, too, and found it to be a very refreshing, easy read. While it wasn't earth-shattering for me, I could see how some folks would find it revolutionary. Probably because I've read a lot of books like it, I'm not as blown away, but nevertheless it was a good read, and I'm glad I picked it up (for free on Kindle).

Ever since Key West, I don't think I've read much in the way of published poetry, so at the urging of my pal Michael, I went to the library on Friday and took out the collected poems of Theodore Roethke and The Wild Iris by Louise Gluck: a Pulitzer prize-winning collection. I read Gluck this weekend, and wow, I am sorry I haven't read her earlier. She was fantastic. Lyrical and haunting and inspirational and inquisitive and accusatory (is that a word?)... all fantastic. I read it all the way through once and now look forward to sampling poems here and there, really absorbing her work.

Besides some real good reading, I got a lot of real good writing time in as well. Besides doing some revisioning, I wrote a couple new pieces and pulled together another manuscript for a chapbook competition. We'll see what comes of it-- maybe nothing, right? But at least it is going out. I revised the full-length manuscript too, adding in some of my newer poems and doing a little reordering. It is a good, and healthy, feeling to not be in a terrible rush to publish a book. I am not too impatient (though always a little) for results.

I continue to roll over the ideas from a few months ago about the purpose of writing and the "why I write" question, and I think I've settled somewhere in the middle. I write for my own personal exploration of truth and circumstances (not quite pomp and circumstance), and after that, if the external world wants to read what I've written, I want to put it out there. So along those lines of thinking, I am wondering if there are those who would want to receive poems I've written or am working on, and if so, drop me an email or leave a comment with your email address, and I'll start a little list for those who like my work and want to read my work in progress. I can't promise brilliance. Because I don't have it. But maybe something I write will move you in some way. Or at least leave you with a feeling. Or a thought. Or a frown. Or confusion. Hopefully not confusion.

On that happy note, I'll conclude the night. Time to sleep!

Haiti and Home from Key West

2010-01-17T21:45:00.004-05:00

Back from Key West, but it's hard to relay how wonderful a trip it was in light of the tragedy in Haiti. Brandon and I can hardly turn off the TV. We feel so helpless this far away, as I'm sure many people feel. Even before the earthquake, there were 1.6 million orphans in Haiti... now? So heartbreaking. Our prayers are fervent for the nation and people of Haiti.

The vast need, patience and hope of these people is amazing.

I did have a fantastic experience in Key West. I am grateful for the opportunity that was provided for me, both by family and the seminar itself. My workshop with Billy Collins was excellent, my roommate and I had great conversation, the panels and readings were once-in-a-lifetime experiences, and Richard Wilbur was phenomenal. Did I use enough inflated words for you? But really, what an experience. I met a lot of wonderful poets and made several new friendships I hope to continue nurturing in the future. I also savored every minute of solitude and reflection - there were few distractions all week, and while I did miss my family, of course, this retreat was much-needed spiritually and intellectually. I wrote seven poems this week, even!

Now to bring the energy and inspiration back into the "real world," writing when able. When I came home, I was welcomed by a lovely dinner cooked by my husband. Besides dinner, Brandon really took care of things while I was gone - laundry was done, house was clean, all was in order... I am so fortunate to have such a supportive husband. Really. And my kids - they were so excited to see me - I'm so glad I took the day off following my trip to fill them back up with attention and love. We must've put together half a dozen puzzles, played five rounds of Candy Land, and imagined Barbie's daily ongoings for several hours.

It's hard to concentrate on this blog right now - we're watching the footage on CNN of the earthquakes - so I'm going to go ahead and sign off. Sleep well, and pray for Haiti!

Key West Bound and Lydia-isms

2010-01-06T19:51:00.003-05:00

Happy new year, bloggers! I knew it would be a while before I wrote again, and I don't even have time to do the Christmas roundup, but I just had to blog about Lydia tonight. I told the kids that I would be going out of town for a week - on my way to Key West for the Key West Literary Seminar - and perhaps that means something to Lydia now. After we prayed and sang before bed, Lydia accused me of forgetting more words to Jingle Bells. I don't know the third verse, I admit it, but neither does she. I told her I thought there were more words but I didn't remember them, and she said, "I think God knows the rest of the words!" I said he certainly does, which brought visions of God singing anything -- maybe, "Tonight's gonna be a good night" by Black Eyed Peas, or "I am a man of constant sorrow." I wonder if more than just choirs of angels sing in heaven - maybe God joins in. Maybe he sings his own praise. Why not? If we get so much joy out of singing, couldn't God too?

Anyway, the second Lydia-moment that was just awesome: "I love you SO MUCH. I love you even when you spank me." To which I responded, "I love you SO MUCH too! Even when I have to spank you, I love you." What a moment. I am very blessed to have such amazing kids. Even when I have to spank them.

I have to get up REALLY early, so it is time to sign off, finish packing, make sure the kids are asleep and then go to sleep myself. 2 a.m. is going to come very quickly.

Christmas Cookies

2009-12-11T16:02:00.003-05:00

Christmas Cookies

This baking is taking

the fruit of some body

and mixing it with the fruit

of the earth, birthing

harmony in each small cookie,

Mary’s sowing, reaping, crushing, sifting,

the cow with milk to give, hen with eggs to fold in,

substance of life and life-giving blending.

Isn’t this season about celebrating

the melding of spirit

with flesh? Remember

our miracles blossom from trauma

and this baking is beating

ingredients, dividing

dough in heaping spoonfuls,

elements indivisible – egg and sugar,

wheat and water.

Bite in, lick the crumb from your upper lip…

Partake in this communion of saints

while the miracle still warms the wafer.

And now we are all here: laborer,

consumer, life-giver, hovering over a tray

of peace on Earth.

I'm not sold on the ending. I'm not sold on the whole poem, even, but I needed to write about this. I was baking cookies and thinking about baking cookies, so a poem needed to be born. Hope you enjoy your cookies this holiday.

The Holidays

2009-12-09T16:26:00.003-05:00

It is the season of Christmas music, Christmas lights, Christmas cookies, Christmas parties, Christmas shopping, and Christmas. Christmas. Just the word lifts my spirits. Merry Christmas to you. And you. And you over there, too!

I'd like to give a shout out to the folks over at Kodak Gallery. I ordered *stuff* from them on Saturday, and UPS says it is on its way to my house today - Wednesday - just four days after I ordered it. That's amazing! Santa Claus and his elves don't have nuthin' on these people. My order wasn't just pictures, either. I won't tell you everything I ordered, but I did order a 40 page bound photo book of my family. If I had gone the old-fashioned route and scrapbooked this baby, it would've taken me at least a year, but Captain Kodak Efficiency is delivering it, bound and glossy, to my doorstep in just four days. Wow. So, if you are looking to create a unique and attractive Christmas gift this holiday season for some well-deserving grandparents or aunts, check it out.

BW and I battled back and forth for a few weeks about Christmas shopping this year (to spend or not to spend - that is always the question), but finally settled on a maximum dollar figure for the year. We're on a mission to become debt-free - a mission that will take at least several years, just for plastic debt - so any outside spending feels like we're slowing down the payoff. But it is Christmas! Spread good cheer! Be generous even with little! Some of you will smirk at our budgeted funds - $200 - but you'd be surprised how far we stretched that money. By the way, we finished our shopping. Insert triumphant laugh.

With the holiday break only seven work days away, I've taken out a stack of books by almost all of the poets who will be attending the Key West Literary Seminar and hope to read something by all of them before I go in January. It's a hefty stack.

I just finished reading two excellent books, very different in subject matter - Still Alice by Lisa Genova and The Host by Stephanie Meyer. Still Alice was a heartbreaking story about a woman (Alice) who is diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease. The book is written from a third-person limited omniscient point-of-view from Alice's perspective and follows Alice from her thriving career as a Harvard professor through the stages of degeneration. The author does a magnificent job of bringing the reader into each scene. Alice's relationships with her husband and children change and evolve throughout the book in a very real and powerful way. The author writes with truth and compassion about her characters. It is a beautiful story.

The Host by Stephanie Meyer is almost impossible to summarize without sounding wacky. Like the Twilight series, The Host is a sci-fi book that incorporates many themes I care about - love, sacrifice, reconciliation, forgiveness - into a strange and futuristic world. It seems evident to me that the author is modeling her main character after Jesus, incorporating powerful parallels. "He came into the world, but the world rejected him," could be an opening epigram for this book. While this book did not capture my attention as intensely as the Twilight series, I found myself much more engaged and not hating the main character or feeling annoyed by any one perspective. This is a much more well-rounded book with very few lag moments.

I have really enjoyed this dive back into fiction. I missed plot and character development, extended narratives, and dialogue. I missed not having to figure out what the story is really about, although I did do that anyway.

Poetry writing has come to a bit of a standstill for the time being. I have a few ideas but just haven't had the time to write. As usual, much of the drafting might have to be done in my brain before I ever sit down for the writing. I need to figure out what I want to take to Key West for workshopping. I want to bring mostly new material to see where I could go from here. I'm excited for Key West. It is hard to think about it now in the face of this great season (see beginning of this post).

It seems we have come full circle! Time to sign off - have a blessed holiday if I don't sign back on in a while!

What Is This Really About?

2009-11-05T19:46:00.002-05:00

Over the course of the last six months (!), I've been working on shaping my collection of poems. It has gone through a number of transformations and two title changes, and right now I have six stacks of paper in the kitchen - one stack for each "theme" I think my book has. (Six. Hm. Maybe this is where I need to start - too many themes?)

I do believe that there is a thread running through all of these poems... perhaps several. The trouble is finding the thread and discovering how all of the poems are connected to it. So as an exercise tonight, I've decided to try to explain what I hope my poetry collection as a whole accomplishes, what all of the poems add up to. Wish me luck.

I have titled my manuscript, "Pruning Burning Bushes." The poem titled this is the first poem I had selected for publication, by my good friends over at Relief. The poem is based off of the passage in John 15 that talks about bearing good fruit and being pruned. Pruning removes the dead and broken branches so that new and healthy growth can be formed. The pruning in this poem is rather extreme - the shrubs are cut back very far, and then the gardener stands back and waits to see where the calluses will form -- calluses on trees are the scars left once a branch has healed over the cut.

The other side to this is that I am pruning "burning bushes" - an obvious glance back at the Old Testament appearance of God in the burning bush. So what does it mean to prune a burning bush? I'm not sure - that's why I'm writing this. Here's some ideas for what I think this could mean. First, Moses was a classical whiner. He tried his very best to get out of the mission to save the Jews from bondage. He kept trying to defer responsibility and calling on to other people. He was talking to a bush that was burning but not being consumed! I mean, come on, talk about guts and cowardice crashing against one another simultaneously. You would think Moses would have been terrified to disagree with God given his self-doubt, but he questions the God of the universe's plan at least three times. Silly, silly Moses.

So maybe pruning the burning bush is our attempt to cut back the calling, slim it down to something more manageable and less miraculous.

That's one idea.

But I don't think that's what this is about. I think this is more oriented around the idea for the poem in the first place, the idea that we ourselves are being pruned and shaped, not only so that we can bear more fruit but also so that God's calling, plan and purpose can be evident in our lives. Perhaps we ought to embody the burning bush, so to speak. We are supposed to "let our lights shine," aren't we? What light is that? Why, the light of the Holy Spirit! *bells and whistles*

This really does relate to my book because in general, the poems are all either personal or thematically applicable to this pruning and shaping idea. The shape that feels natural for this is almost chronological - it feels as if the book should move from the innocence and delight of childhood into the heavy pruning, to healing, to rejoicing, to teaching. Maybe that's it.

Right now, the "arch" of the book is close to this. I have family/cycle of life poems in the first section, darker struggling poems in the second, rejoicing/marriage poems in the third, and seeds/planting poems in the fourth. It kind of follows the movements I'm hoping to accomplish. Kind of. I'd like to think more about where the "circle of life" poems belong. Do they belong in the first section with the other poems of place and family? hm.

The best and most frustrating part about this is that lots of people don't care. Poets and non-poets alike are completely uninterested in whether the book hangs together as an aesthetic whole. Are the poems good? Do they have the same voice? That's enough. For some. I can't decide if I'm one of those people. I want the poems to make sense together - there are poems I've written that are not in the same voice and simply don't belong in this book - but I also want variation and modulation (as the boss would say). Should the book move somewhere? Does the reader end up somewhere other than where they began? Hmmmm.

I think I'll go and fiddle with the order some more now that I've unloaded all of those blatherings.

That Crazy Thang Called "Plans"

2009-10-09T15:43:00.003-04:00

It's the end of another week, and I have a bit of a headache that I'm calling sinus because if I scrunch up my nose and squint my eyes, the pressure seems to be relieved a little bit. It's kind of hard to type like this and I think all of the undergraduates wandering by my door think I'm crazy, but at least there's some relief!

I failed to report on Warren-Wilson. I don't really remember whether I mentioned on here that I applied to this elite low-res MFA program, but I did. It was the only school I applied to, figuring that since I'm not in any major rush to start working on a degree I might as well only apply to the #1 place I'd like to be. So I applied, and the WW website said that I'd hear somewhere between three and six weeks after their application deadline. Once that time period rolled around, I started to experience this serious anxiety about being accepted. With Brandon starting school and the two of us being on this kick to eliminate debt, financing a second graduate degree at this point would be rather cost-prohibitive. And the program doesn't offer any tuition reduction or scholarships. But I applied anyway, and here I am chewing my lip through trying to decide what to do if I'm accepted.

Imagine my surprise when I was absolutely relieved to be rejected! Ahhh, thank you, door of opportunity slammed shut! There's nothing quite like receiving a strong NO when you have anxiety about a situation.

I have to pull a quick quote from back in March that I stumbled upon this afternoon. It made me giggle and sigh at my own stupidity.

In many ways I don't know what to do next, in regards to poetry. I am working on a draft of my first full-length manuscript right now, getting feedback from poet friends on order and arc and what-not, but what I don't know is whether I should be thinking about going for my graduate degree, either MFA or something else, or whether I am right where I need to be. Another thing my friend said on Thursday that really struck a chord with me is that often, once we've found our niche and begin to succeed, we have a tendency to be rewarded or promoted straight out of that place that God put us - the sweet spot where we are most productive. Even though some pursuits may seem like good ideas, they might not be God's idea, or God's timing. This is something I've been thinking a lot about with my career as a poet (if you can call being a poet any sort of "career"). Is going for a higher degree right now or in the near future a good idea, God's idea, both, or neither?

When I think about it in terms of my family, I think going back to school right now would be putting myself before every other member in my family. It would be a seriously selfish move - especially since Brandon has been planning to go back to school for a few years now. I don't think it is right or fair to him or my children to take on yet another project, especially when I am already over-committed with work, church, and my poetry as it is. I think in a few years, once the kids are in school and the husband is almost done or finished with his master's, the timing will be better. And who knows where we will be a few more years down the road? I certainly never predicted we'd be here.

So how about that? Why didn't I stick to my guns, you ask? Because I am like every other human being on this planet - ambitious, big-headed, and over-eager - and don't like to pay attention to any still, small voices of reason. That's why. Have you ever been excited about rejection like this? I was thrilled! I still am thrilled! I don't have to make any difficult decisions!

In other exciting news, guess who's going to Key West in January? Oh yeah, baby, that's me, hangin' with my poet homies... you know, all those people who won't know me but I sure know them! At least through their writing... Richard Wilbur, Rita Dove, Maxine Kumin, Billy Collins and a whole host of other poets. It's going to be so fabulous.

I've also had some publication news come streaming in lately. In the last month or so, I've had three poems accepted - Christianity & Literature, JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association, and just today, Windhover: A Journal of Christian Literature. It's been an exciting month! It just goes to show that even if you've received 120 rejections in the last year, acceptance might just be right around the corner. The publications are such an affirmation, but as I mentioned in my last post, this is not why I write. In fact, if that becomes why I'm writing, I think all inspiration and authenticity about my work will go flying away. I can't write for publication. Then it is not true. Sometimes I feel myself leaning in that direction, thinking, "I bet what they'd like to read is something more like this..." and then I start to put the pen to the paper and panic because there's nothing there. No inspiration whatsoever.

Be true to your voice. Be true to your subject matter. And never think, "Oh, they won't like that subject/topic/form/word/theme/punctuation mark." They shouldn't be a thought in your mind until far beyond the first draft and multiple revisions of the poem. But it's easy to lose that focus.

I'm excited about a few poem ideas I have floating around in my brain right now. All I need to do is find the time to write. It sounds so simple...

Happy weekend!

Posting Poems

2009-09-29T16:04:00.002-04:00

You may be asking yourself, (or probably not), "Why hasn't Sarah been posting poems lately?" And the truth of the matter is I haven't written any lately - it's been a busy late summer and fall, and with all this life happening, writing isn't. But also, I have been thinking about this blog and the posting of poems, and I'm a little unsure how to proceed with the posting of poems.

You see, there are many respected journals that say things like, "No previously published work, anywhere, at all, online or off-line." But they never say, "especially blogs" or "in particular, blogging and social networking sites," which leaves me wondering whether a blog is considered a form of publication. It is certainly a form of distribution, and rarely do I post a finished product. Usually it is a fresh idea, first draft sort of poem. My revision process is always done privately and then sent out to journals and people I know will give me good feedback on stuff.

I've talked about this here before - the underlying issue is not whether so-and-so will publish this poem because it previously appeared somewhere else, the issue is, who am I writing these things for? What is the point? Am I seeking only public acknowledgement for whatever truths or stories I've discovered through the writing, or am I looking to share the fiddlings and meditations I've put into verse with those I love and the other people who happen to stumble upon this blog? And is there something to preserving poetics until it is in its final form to be revealed later?

Another poet I admired during the poem-a-day project did something of a compromise: she would post her poem today and then tomorrow, when she was ready to post a new one, she'd go back to that previous post, delete the previous poem, and put *Poof!* in the poem's place. I've done this with some of the poems that have been accepted for publication places, because for one thing the originals on here are but wintry shadows compared to the revised versions, and also because the journal has a right that I've granted to be the first place or only place to publish that particular poem. I like this idea and I think it gets me out of the "previously published elsewhere" issue - it'll only appear for 24 hours and then bye-bye, poem online!

What do you think? Poets out there, do you think there are issues with publishing poems on the internet, specifically blogs, before sending them out to journals? Are there any experts out there who know the "rules"? And should I care about these rules? Do you care? ;)

Pushing Matchbox Cars

2009-08-26T22:00:00.002-04:00

"Sow your seed in the morning, and at night let not your hands be idle, for you do not know which will succeed, whether this or that, or whether both will do equally well." - Ecclesiastes 11:6

That's really all I want to say. I've tried to elaborate on this verse for the last fifteen minutes and keep coming up with hogwash. Everything I type sounds like a lecture I've been giving myself, about the energy I've drained at work and the ghost of a person I become at home in the evenings. As a colleague of mine said today, why should people at work get the best of me and the people I love get the rest of me? Well, he said it more eloquently than that. And his didn't rhyme.

The fact is that all of our activities deserve 100% of us, and that seems impossible. Work deserves that much, husband, kids, family, friends... but usually we devote 90% of ourselves to one task, and the remaining people and tasks get whatever is left, that slouched over, heavy-eyed, mumbling self looking for a quiet corner to avoid the rest of society.

Is there a way to balance? To pull your eyes off the computer at home and let them rest on the man you married or the kids you made? Everything in moderation? Yes. In fact, that good teacher from Ecclesiastes has an even more well-known little ditty that goes a little somethin' like this: "There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die..." and so on. You know it. You are probably singing the song right now. Later on, Solomon has another refrain, "I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live." That's all. Live.

What that means is it is okay to let go. There's a time and a place for everything, and that does not mean that the time for everything is right now. Sow your seeds in the morning -- that's when we do our work -- and at night, let not your hands be idle -- that's when we play. What if the souls you are investing in after work are the very same souls God wants to use to reach a hurting world? Don't they deserve your attention, too, attention of a different kind? Here's where the self-lecture comes in that I mentioned earlier.

Mostly I want to say that there is purpose in every minute of the day. There's always something we could be investing in - our relationships, our work, our prayer life, ourselves even. I do not know what is going to succeed - whether my work at work or my work at home, and maybe the most important task I do today will be pushing Matchbox cars around the living room floor, because that will be a moment my son remembers forever, a small expression of love that embedded itself in his mind. Maybe something else will be more dramatic and important. Ya just don't know.

So, sow your seeds in the morning, and at night don't let your hands be idle. You don't know which is going to succeed, whether this or that, or whether they'll both turn out awesome. You can only invest in it all. Live fully your life. "Purpose yourself to have a good day." ;) And since you can't do it all on your own, pray pray pray. Let God be the God of endurance, perseverance, and hope.

And stop griping all the time. It's not that bad. Really. And it isn't about you, anyway, so grow up. (Mini-self-lecture.)

Painting Nails and Gettin' Dolled Up for Work?!

2009-07-25T09:58:00.003-04:00

In about three hours, the students and faculty will begin to arrive for the Ashland MFA program, and step one to prepare for the residency today: painting my nails. This is clearly the most important item on my agenda for the day, even though I rarely paint my nails, even for weddings. I even brought out the pedicure-pull-your-toes-apart things, AND used top coat. I didn't use base coat, sorry Rhonda ;) But Lydia would be proud - the color is a bit like a tangerine.

Don't be fooled by all of this girliness. The kit I own was given to me by my grandparents when I was in high school. The nail polish I used? Yup. From high school. Same kit. It might have even been in middle school, I don't remember now. Boy that was a long time ago. My nail polish is almost half my age. I wonder if good nail polish is like a fine wine ... does it improve with age?

I am thoroughly excited about the residency, which probably accounts for the nail polish. Why I didn't wait until after I showered, after cleaning the house, is a great question that we'll leave to the experts at Elle Magazine.

The family is on their way to Akron for the next two weeks, with the occasional trip back to Ashland for gym and swim class and a wedding. I will miss them, but selfishly, I'm relieved that they have somewhere to go for the two weeks. The residency is dawn-til-dusk and then later, even, and only seeing them for a few minutes here and there throughout the day would be difficult for everyone. I am grateful that our extended family live nearby so Brandon has some help.

Today begins two weeks of talking to people who all get me. Not that you all don't get me, too, but these folks are all crazy-passionate about writing, and it is SO fun. Exhausting, but fun.

So now that my nails are dry (and slightly dented from typing....), I am going to go prep for the day. Have a great one!

Waltzing

2009-06-22T09:00:00.000-04:00

Sometimes the way we move about each other feels choreographed, we've been practicing it so long. It is a good kind of dance, where your partner seems to have mastered the steps and knows right when to lead, when to dip, when to spin, how to maneuver you just right so you feel as if this dance is really effortless.

It probably doesn't happen enough - most of the time, we fight to take the lead, would rather grapevine when our partner wants to cha-cha, and just when one person is warming up to the dance, the other just wants to take a seat and have a drink. But there are days when everything clicks into place and we're primarily interested in the welfare of each other rather than our own interests. This makes all of the difference.

Jesus said that the two greatest commandments were to Love God and to Love one another, but most of the time, we are wrapped up in numero uno - what can I get, who's serving me, how am I being left out here, what wrong has been done to me, me me me. As Toby Keith (that fountain of wisdom) has said, "I wanna talk about me, I wanna talk about I wanna talk about #1 oh my, me, my what I think what I like what I know what I want what I see..." That is where I reside most of the time, unfortunately, and also most unfortunately, this is where we are most unhappy.

But when we start getting down to the basics of loving God and loving one another, when we start turning our eyes outward to our fellow human beings as opposed to focusing on our own inner wants and needs, suddenly all of those wants and needs are minimalized and we can see the world much clearer. I think we tend to slip into a cross-eyed vision - not only can we only see the end of our noses, even that ends up distorted.

So back to this dance thing. It is necessary to practice the steps every day. Somedays, we'll be full of grace, our relationships will seem effortless yet meaningful, and we'll end the day content and relaxed. Other days, the dance is all work and no fun at all - your partner is difficult and so are you, but you have to suck it up, pour them a cup of tea too, determine to be happy that they switched the load of laundry and folded the whites even though the shirts aren't creased the way you'd like and the socks are all in balls rather than tucked neatly together. Because the basics Jesus taught, love God and love one another, aren't about feelings. It is about choice. Obedience. Commandment. These are conscious decisions, not flutters of heartstrings.

The next time you watch "So You Think You Can Dance," remember, those steps that look so effortless, the way the partners seem to glide across the floor as if they are one, that took hours of grueling effort, sweat, and patience. Let's invest that kind of energy into our relationships, so we can move as if we are one.

Pancake Saturdays

2009-06-16T09:17:00.000-04:00

This isn’t your everyday Bisquick pancake;
we follow the supreme recipe.
My daughter begs to stir and measure
milk and mix. Crack an egg,
warm the griddle, summer whispering
through the open window –
slow rise, tea pot whistle, cooking oil sizzle –
the rest of the day impatient
to begin, percolating our morning –
Is it ready yet? No, we need more
time to spoon the sweetness in.

Potty Training Adventures

2009-06-15T20:57:00.000-04:00

I have never been so proud of bowel movements.

We began potty training our son, Elvis, a few weeks ago. We eased him into the process with the convenient yet pointless Pull-Ups and their sneaky tricks to entice you into buying boxes and boxes of them under the guise of "potty training" when really, they are just absorbent underwear, diapers without velcro tabs. Annoying.

So after messing around with the Pull-Ups for a while, we decided to go all out. It was time to buy the underwear. Naturally, we made a big deal out of the "big boy" undies and their manly navy blue with baseballs and basketballs all over them, snagging a box of Disney Pixar Cars underwear for after he goes in the potty -- "Now you get to wear the REALLY COOL underwear!!!!" And thus, the pants-wetting began.

It was slow going at first - lots of walking around in wet pants as if nothing at all happened down there between his legs. We escorted him off to the bathroom every 30 minutes, kept him in his underwear and a t-shirt all day (no sense wearing pants during this process, people), and did our best to stay patient and calm... after all, this is a big deal, this potty business.

Some people have begun potty training their kids as soon as they can sit up, and I have to admit I'm amazed and envious. How?! The child can't even feed himself but we're pooping in the potty? Amazing. Absolutely amazing. We have not been so motivated - infancy was a time reserved for bewilderment and frustration ("Why is he/she crying now?!"), and adding in random and unpredictable trips to the bathroom to prop my head-bobbing child on a potty seat just wasn't going to happen. I am certain I would have let them tumble into the toilet. I know these things about myself.

Our goal has been to potty train the kids before two hits - that momentous occasion when children decide that everything their parents have ever wanted them to do was the most ridiculous idea they've ever heard, a phase that lasts approximately until the children have children. Elvis will be two in August, and we have many a vacation and road trip and wedding to attend in the next few months, so it was now or never.

There have been many marshmallows promised in exchange for pee. Bribery is not a tactic of which I am proud, but sometimes you have no choice - half a marshmallow for pee, a whole marshmallow for poop. The kid will have diabetes by the time he is three. The first time our son finally peed on the potty, it took him ten minutes of sitting there, resisting sitting there, and then being somewhat pinned to the potty seat by mean old Mom, but once E succumbed, crying, to having to pee on the seat, there was much rejoicing. I think I screamed. Hooray, Elvis! Great job little man! Elvis peed on the potty! Weeee! Lots of this sort of thing.

The first go-around is the hardest - breaking down the fear and confusion, dissolving the idea that pee and poop in the pants is the way we've always done it, what's wrong with it, what's the big deal - these are the barriers that must be overcome. Much like any bad habit or sin, the first phase is denial - there's nothing wrong with what I'm doing. And then we move into grief - mourning the fact that I have to give up the ability to go whenever I want, however I want... even though it stinks, literally. Later, there's repentance - okay, okay, I get it, it would be better for you and me if I did things your way. And finally, reward - we begin to see the benefits and advantages of doing things God's way... or the big boy way, in Elvis's case.

And it appears as if we have arrived. Tonight, Elvis pooped in the potty for the first time, ever. A momentous occasion - one wildly celebrated by everyone in the house. Marshmallows for everyone!

Readings and Reading

2009-06-08T09:45:00.002-04:00

This weekend, I had the great joy of reading at the Columbus Arts Festival. You never know with poetry readings - there could be dozens of people, or there could be one: your husband. Fortunately for me, the Columbus Arts Festival drew thousands of people, and a few of those folks stopped to linger around the poetry tent as I read at 3:20 on Saturday. It was a great experience, and a beautiful day. The festival was huge! I hope to be able to read there again next year.

The rest of the weekend was spent with friends and family - the best way to spend the weekend. Friday, we went to my parents' campsite and enjoyed brats and good conversation around a campfire. We drove up to Akron on Sunday for a graduation party and to spend some time with Brandon's family. I love being close enough to both sets of grandparents - the kids adore their grandparents. We are so fortunate to have great relationships with all of them. I know most families do not have that support system built in.

I'm on significant revision #3 of Sustenance, the working title of my first full-length collection of poems, and it is on its way to three generous readers. I still feel a bit ridiculous referring to myself as a "poet" - I just don't take myself seriously enough - but that feeling is beginning to fade a bit.

My library books are due this Thursday, so it's time to report on a collection of poems I have been reading, In the Middle Distance by Linda Gregg.

Anyhow, the more I've read from In the Middle Distance, the more I've enjoyed Linda Gregg's work. This is a poet I should be reading - I can connect with lines like, "I fell in love. I believed people. And even now I love the yellow light shining down on the dirty brick wall." (from Staying After), and from "Marfa," "I keep thinking that if I go alone into the size of this silence, we can straighten things out. To know what to question, and what to believe. How to let my heart split open. To print in clear light the changing register of this grand world." Gregg is poking around in my territory - that land where the natural meets the spiritual and the human meets the divine - and finding joy, complexity, sorrow. There is also a lot of reflection and looking back on the past here, finding peace and love enough to reconcile all of the waiting and hurt. This is most evident in "Arriving Again and Again without Noticing". She ends with "I finally fell in love with all of it: dirt, night, rock and far views. It's strange that my heart is as full now as my desire was then." Really beautiful work.

I'm looking forward to tracking down more of her books.

Reading for a change

2009-05-31T09:23:00.002-04:00

In case you haven't noticed, I've been doing a lot of writing as of late, and frankly, I'm all poemed out. For the time being. I am tired of reading and tired of writing poems. Give me something book-length!

So I read Patricia Hampl's The Florist's Daughter this weekend and started in on Letters to Malcolm by C.S. Lewis. I had forgotten how much I LOVE C.S. Lewis. But before that, let's talk about Hampl.

I've heard it said by someone (Joe Mackall, I think), that Patricia Hampl is the only writer who can write about nothing in particular for 250 pages and succeed. Which means he thinks midwestern life without crises equals nothing. I loved this book. Set during the days and hours prior to the death of her mother, Hampl describes and explores her lifelong relationship with her parents leading up to their deaths, effortlessly gliding back and forth across time and space to accomplish a beautiful narrative. The reader is allowed to experience the love for father and changing appreciation for mother that evolves into deep love throughout the book without feeling sentimental. Her style is simply delicious. I like the word delicious. I think I use it to describe literature more often than I ought.

So, Hampl was amazing. I'd like to read more of her in the future.

We're at my in-laws' house this weekend, and I finished The Florist's Daughter around 2 yesterday, which means I was in a reading mood only half-way through the kids' naps. I found a book by C.S. Lewis called Letters to Malcolm, which, as it turns out, is about prayer. I've been thinking a lot about prayer the last few months and this was exactly the sort of book I was looking for. It is really quite fabulous. I'm only 50 pages in, but it is a short book, something I should be taking slower. C.S. Lewis is one of those writers whose pages end up ear-marked every other page, there's just so much good going on. A few favorites:

"...no one in his senses, if he has any power of ordering his own day, would reserve his chief prayers for bed-time - obviously the worst possible hour for any action which needs concentration. The trouble is that thousands of unfortunate people can hardly find any other."

And this, talking about praying for things or desires:

"It is no use to ask God with factitious earnestness for A when our whole mind is in reality filled with the desire of B. We must lay before Him what is in us, not what ought to be in us. Even an intimate human friend is ill-used if we talk to him about one thing while our mind is really on another, and even a human friend will soon become aware when we are doing so."

And further down the same page:

"If one forcibly excludes them, don't they wreck all the rest of our prayers? If we lay all the cards on the table, God will help us to moderate the excesses. But the pressure of things we are trying to keep out of our mind is a hopeless distraction. As someone said, 'No noise is so emphatic as one you are trying not to listen to.'"

And still more, of course. There's a reason for a volume entitled, The Quotable C.S. Lewis. He's just that good. I haven't read C.S. Lewis in a while so it is nice to get back in to that voice and reflection, especially on a topic I've been thinking about a good deal. I'm not really a very good pray-er -- I'm the sort who waits until the end of the day to pray or rattles off something here and there throughout the day, which is the rarer sort. At any rate, it is an area of my spiritual life in which I'd like to improve.

Happy reading!

Interference

2009-05-21T22:16:00.001-04:00

*poof!*

Measuring Rings

2009-05-21T21:47:00.001-04:00

Settle your shifting vision on the maple stump
your son is standing on, growing out
of all your ancient history. The past keeps repeating
in new rings, health you measure by breadth.
You count the number of times you’ve grown
out of the fire, the layers of heartwood healing
over scars, new branches jutting from woundwood.

Do you see the little man stomping his feet
on this stump, laughing? Stop searching
for ways to hollow out your trunk. It is hard
to distinguish redemption from regret; you must see
the heartwood for what it is – dormant, but solid –
here only so you have something to grow on,
matter to attach your sapwood.

The present flows directly from the past.
As every second dies, a new one stumbles in
to stand on the back of the last. If the sun
indeed will rise to warm your town again,
you’ll take this trail tomorrow, but it will never
be the same – you cannot pilfer this moment
in your pocket to pull out a year from now.

Without the bouncing toddler on the stump,
there is no playful coaxing down, no upward-
reaching hand, no march down the sidewalk.
Every dead and living branch you’ve wished away
would erase this knot, this casual miracle
sprouting light with every hallowed breath.

The New Landscape

2009-05-18T22:42:00.002-04:00

The New Landscape

I've bundled branches, sawed stumps low,
cut down in twenty minutes
what took years and years to grow.

What do you think the neighbors know
about the severed limbs that jut
from bundled branches, their stumps sawed low?

The taxus and squared boxwood woe
the push and pull as the hand saw cuts
down what took them forty years to grow.

A younger resident, I want to show
ambitious feats to hide my ruts
I left from bundled branches, stumps sawed low.

Even though the overgrown are gone, I know
I will remember every butt
of what took forty years to grow.

So leave the Rose of Sharon shoots to show
a fragment of the past, stubborn infant
witness to the bundled branches, stumps sawed low –
I, too, am a remnant of what took years and years to grow.

Writing About Writing

2009-05-12T18:47:00.003-04:00

My daughter is currently practicing her monkey skills by standing on my thighs and linking her arms around my neck. Yes, and I am still typing. Do you see the dedication in action??

I did a rewrite of "The Corner Stand" last night of which I am quite proud. Publishing first drafts of poems here doesn't seem like a big deal to me - it is nice to be able to share my initial fiddlings with poems - but something keeps me from posting the rewrites... especially when they are significant. I go back and forth on the topic - am I really jeopardizing my chances of poems being published? And even if I am, isn't one of my reasons for writing poetry to have it be read? I don't know - most poems I write are public poems. I am not much of a private poet (obviously) - I like sharing what has been revealed to me through poetry. It seems silly to me to not share my work when the likelihood most of them will see the light of day is so slim.

Like most things, I've over-thought this topic.

I have been working on assembling my first full-length collection of poems. It is a lot of fun to think about all of those separate files as one body of work. I thought it would be more difficult to see the arc (or vee, as it turns out) of my book, but I suppose because so many of my poems are autobiographical and narrative, it is easier to see common themes. All I really need to do is think about where I've been and determine which poems fit which stage of life ;) Yeah, it isn't that simple, but it sounds nice doesn't it?

I have had a congested face for a few days and I'm getting tired of it. Who likes constant fog? Fog is only romantic and lovely if you are inside a clear-aired home, not driving through it in the mountains.

Sydney Cast in Shadow

2009-05-05T22:26:00.003-04:00

Sydney Cast in Shadow

The garden stroll before a matinee ballet
birds of paradise gawking these palms this lushness
this pristine park dustless alley
these streakfree storefront windows
this cloudless painless blue this skyline
etched with geometric concrete waves
jutting saucer tower arcing bridge
sailboat-speckled placid harbor this paper bag
soaked in grease from fish and chips

Me too far away to see
my blurred face bare legs fingers tugging skirt hem
neverending steps the opera house
perched at cresting point behind me

This map too small in scale its cartoon skyscrapers
outlandish fountain dozen golden arches architecture
arc and angles exaggerated too whimsical
to accommodate the shadowed blocks we walked
cabs we didn't wave sweaty footprints pressed to sidewalks
heels in hand this vast gap between where we were
and where we hoped to be.

Roots

2009-05-04T22:30:00.002-04:00

Roots

Newly planted tree, water.
Douse your roots,
saturate the soil, stretch
beyond the root ball,
wriggle those anxious nerves
through burlap to new earth

and then deeper. Soak
so long the mulch rises up,
washes away, until you think
enough. No. This is not enough –
uncoil the hose, turn the faucet,
we will do this daily, weekly,

this whole season. Train
your roots to reach deep,
so when the droughts come,
you can drink from the depths.
When the winds come,
you will not be toppled.

---------------------------------------------------------
Well, as you can tell, I didn't make it through April poem-a-day but rather stammered out around April 22 and said, forget it. I'm done. I've said all I can say this month. It was a great showing, though, and I can't wait to get to the new poems and do some serious revisioning.

I've had a busy few weeks with poetry readings that were lots of fun, good experience, and even profitable! I actually sold two books! Lyd turned three on Sunday, so we celebrated her birthday with many a princess-oriented gift and lots of friends and family. AND! I MULCHED. Oh, how I LOVE to mulch. I think it is a disease, but at least it is a productive one. I also planted knock-out roses, a clematis, and split and transplanted hostas and columbine (at least I think that's the name of the flower). I am a happy little landscaper, let me tell you.

I think the rest from poetry for a time was healthy after such a binge on words and ideas. One thing I've discovered is that my best work is inspired - the Holy Spirit does his work on an event in my day or a memory of my past and out flows the beginnings of an idea. When I force poetry, like I had to do some of the days, it's as if my tongue dries up and sticks to the roof of my mouth. The words come out fuzzy. It is no good. That is poetry work, not poetry inspired. However, the other thing I've found is that poetry inspired is much harder to come by when the instrument is out of tune, so all of the work of writing leads to the inspiration, in some way. It's all a mystery, really. I'd like to summon inspiration whenever I please, but it just doesn't happen. Even when I really want to write a poem, there just aren't words sometimes.

There's a certain buzz happening right now - I don't know if it is because of the weather turning or the season I'm in, but I am generally excited for "the next big thing." Bring it! Let's go!

Thunder

2009-04-24T16:56:00.003-04:00

Tiel over at Knocking from Inside gave me this idea for alternative presentations of poems...

Easter Saturdays

2009-04-23T23:05:00.004-04:00

Easter Saturdays (tentative title because I stink at titles)

Cars full of people split the swamp where my creek flows.
They must not ponder, pause, stare at hollowed logs,
branchless trunks and wonder about the end of winter,
spring still a whisper in the trickle of cold water through the culvert.

What does all this dying mean, this surrender
after striving for three seasons? Grasses have been shedding
locks for decades, climbing out of caskets, grow and grow
over all their flawed history. We are all eating ourselves,

regurgitating what we thought was digested,
disposed and left behind. But it heaves back,
the crunch of gravel chip and seal, the steady rain falling
after having traveled the culvert just yesterday,

when I straddled the guard rail, cold metal creasing my thighs,
watching every season of my life die and be reborn.

Kind of unorthodox for Sarah, but anyway...

2009-04-21T20:01:00.001-04:00

I haven't been following the rules of one of the website's prompts, but today I wanted to catch up to my once-a-weekday, so I stopped by and found the prompt to write a poem whose first line or title begins All I want is... and then you need to fill in the blank. So I did.

All I Want is a Martini,

slim and light, a cherry bobbing
like romance in apple pucker,
its stem a curling finger.
Caramel lips the edge
of the glass, locks
sticky sweet, and I lick.

A sexy sip,
cool on my tongue,
then slow rain,
neckline kisses,
silken sheets.

The Corner Stand

2009-04-21T18:50:00.000-04:00

The Corner Stand

The pick-up’s open tailgate displays
the fruits of our labors – bushel baskets
of fresh-picked sweet corn, Sugar Baby
watermelon, zucchini, yellow squash,
tomatoes, green bell and banana peppers
all arranged in quart containers.

It is unpredictable at the corner stand –
will passersby, hankering for a dozen,
see our shining vegetables, mouths watering
for a taste of straight-from-the-vine
cherry tomatoes, pull in or drive by?

Fishermen steer into the lot towing a boat
off Lake LaDue, a long sunburned afternoon
on the reservoir rewarded with a few Bluegill.
They admire the way we’ve displayed our corn,
tassels up, baskets full, pull over
for a few ears on their way home.

We polish the dirt off cucumbers
til they shine, rake footsteps away
from in front of the stand,
chase the shade of an ancient maple,
turn the ignition and pull forward,
scrape the red awning across dirt.
We straighten the tablecloth.

It is a weekday – the rusted truck bed
does not empty. The sun dips low
behind the hill. We count the number
of cars that do not stop. The red F-150
extended cab with Edison Marine
in tow returns, demands whatever we have left,
no matter the price – there’s a bon fire

down the street – big shindig – dinner’s
a clam bake, family style. We unload
our bushels into brown bags, stack
them in the bed. They write a check
and then they’re off, leave our little stand
in the dust, a slim day suddenly jolly.

We cross the street to the Inn, buy
a couple burgers, French fries and Pepsis,
celebrate our long day at a booth in the bar.
Tomorrow is Saturday; we will pick
two truck beds’ worth, enough
for weekend cook-outs, pool parties,
weddings, baptisms, funerals.
We will feed the masses.

The Gardener Exhibits His Work

2009-04-21T09:49:00.001-04:00

The Gardener Exhibits His Work

“Let me show you my garden,” so I follow him
out the back patio. Aromas overwhelm the air –
vines of roses pruned, trimmed, and trained to climb
the trellis, blooms loosed like curls. Lilac groves multiply
their purple flowers, precision mathematic, the scent
of infinity on the breeze. The garden is strategic –
violas, azaleas, peonies, lilies, delphiniums,
chrysanthemums, holly – color for each season.

I am in awe - extravagance, investment, creativity! -
turn to tell him so but he is still walking,
ducking under split rails. I sprint after him,
leap rows of recent tulip cultivars, spy a line
of weeping cherries, orchards heavy in fruit.
He’s in the field now, weeds waist-high.
Hands stroke grasses in seed, shattercain,
poison hemlock, Canada thistle, dandelions,
Queen Anne’s lace. I glance over my shoulder
at the ordered garden behind the fence.

“What do you think?” he asks, spreading his arms
to encompass all this timeless wildness, this freedom.

-------------

I just had an idea for another poem that might be a little more entertaining and perhaps less predictable than this one. I'll see what I can put together tonight ;)

Enough

2009-04-18T22:51:00.002-04:00

Enough
I Chronicles 21:15

How many times have you said,
Enough! Withdraw your hand –
the vessel of your wrath subdued?
What invokes this rage, earthquakes,
hurricanes, bubonic plague, rampant
trauma sweeping across continents?

Why spare any? Impossible
to find mercy in so many, to look
beyond intractable justice and see
love hollow in bellies of famine-struck,
flowing like stopped-up rivers, years
of cloudless skies, millions dying of thirst.

Thank God it wasn’t worse. How much worse
could it have been? Prayers uttered
over sickness, violence, shootings,
bombings, death camps. Thank God
it stopped when it did. Nations wait,
smug faces turned – look me in the eyes,
we say, give us your signs, the proof is in
the flood, earthquake, famine, plague.

My son strains against my grip,
tucked into a bear hug, restrained –
you will listen and obey. The tears come fast,
grief rolling at this confinement,
a humbling hold until Enough.

Withdraw your hand. Sobs like breaking
thunder, tears welling, bursting, driving rain.

-----

Being that this is a first draft, I have a lot of work to do to think through this poem. I want to wrestle with this line, "Enough! Withdraw your hand," and probably shrink the earlier stanzas and grow the more personal connection. It isn't an easy topic - the wrath and mercy of God - but I think I can get somewhere with it. It's just going to take me longer than tonight :)

It has been a while since I just wrote about how things are going around here. The kids are doing great - it was a beautiful day so we spent most of it playing outside and everyone is thoroughly exhausted, including me. Brandon is in PA for baseball, and they are playing SO well. It's exciting - the only bummer for me is that it is really hard to get to the games - we haven't made it once yet. I loved that about baseball season. Hopefully we'll get to a game sometime.

I just realized my tags for this post are going to be really strange. ;) poetry, wrath, God, death, family spring, baseball ;)

Making the Bed

2009-04-16T08:45:00.002-04:00

*Poof!*

Canada Geese

2009-04-14T20:24:00.002-04:00

Canada Geese

We fly the same V for weeks, know
our destination without words and sail,
driven by a force north to calmer waters.
It is almost instinctual, the way we settle
on the lake, wingtips ripple, wait for summer.
But nesting takes its toll, days stretch out as long

as summer shadows. Our hatchlings are a handful,
so stressed, endure nine weeks of molting,
flight feathers plucked just to grow them again.
We are grounded these first days, exhausted –
hiss at threatening predators, each other,
broaden our wing spans to show our power.

Now that they’re strong enough to fly,
we migrate from the only nest they’ve known,
feel that same pull south. Wind shifts
in fitful gusts, why must this tension reign,
unpredictable? The currents turn, certainty
drifts away. Our flock edges the horizon,

uneven. I thought I knew how we moved,
how best to battle each season. Life-long mate,
please do not desert me. The V will tighten,
lean, ascend out of this turbulence. I will follow
your lead, watch for signs of fatigue, take your place
at the head for a time so you can breathe.

Lydia

2009-04-14T11:32:00.002-04:00

Lydia

*Poof!*

Two Poems - Rumble Strip and The Patient Gardener

2009-04-12T21:21:00.003-04:00

*poof!*

A Lily Kind of Love

2009-04-08T23:32:00.004-04:00

NOTE: Please, please, PLEASE if you know my brother or his fiance, do not disclose this project to them. I am rather certain neither of them are on Facebook or blogger or anything else right now, so I am going to step out on a limb and ask for a little feedback about this sonnet, dedicated to them. It's part of the poem-a-day project, so even though it is technically a first draft, I've been sitting here for an hour and a half making sure the endlines rhyme correctly. The meter is a bit of a mess, but I think I have five "beats" in each line - even if it isn't straight iambic pentameter (I'm pretty sure that's "required" in a sonnet... not that Bill and Rachel will care one way or the other).

*poof!*