Home is asking to be wrapped. Rooms wait ready to spill out door, into arms of strangers, onto trucks, into cardboard, buried in storage, carted on boat. Too many bins and boxes for my little head: what to keep, what to store, what to sell, what to bring to Bowen, what to ship out east, what to give to family, what, where, how, when…

But I know life sits out of hand. In arms a billion star courses wide. And I take her hand, now one-year-old, and walk our path to smiling eyes. Sit in her chair at our coffee house. Visit our park, swing our swings, dip in our wading pool, visit our friends, roll all over green carpet thick, laid out under our trees, eat sushi where they remember our alaska rolls and our names.

Soon, together three, we will light new paths, grieve old ones, sit huddled in front of burning hearth, welcome friends at ferry dock and feed hungry mouths, rest weary heads in our island home. We hear the Voice who’s laid out our mornings, years, seeking Face that tells our story. These six months will set a course, I can feel it.

There is much ahead. Family to forge. Words to write. Poetry to spill. Schooling to ingest. Home to make.

I met a friend while visiting in-laws last week who told me her story. Of her travels to Romania, working with Gypsies, igniting a call to international law. She’s running toward it. This relit my heart to study more: media’s impact on democracy — how our incessant ingesting of information shapes our understanding of citizenship. Perhaps a Masters in Toronto, time and prayer will tell.

Much is afoot in my little writerly life. The book, the one about women who seek Jesus but don’t all look like suburban mammas, edgy, world-changing gals who rock tats, paint up storms, influence politics here and overseas, is out as a proposal… seeking an agent / publisher. I’ll post some pages so you can see. Poetry is being submitted, I’ll share as it makes its way onto pages. I hope to start having others share their poetry here. I’ve been inspired by my friend Emily’s imperfect prose Thursdays.

My sister-in-law, Brittany, and I have a crazy idea of starting a little onesie company, using my husband’s adorable old Scouting badges: Badge of Honour onesies on Etsy. We’re setting up shop as I type.

For now we take the days as they come, living them full, here in our home in Burnaby… Thank you for sharing this adventure with us.

“Holy God, maker of the skies above, lowly Christ, born amidst the growing earth, Spirit of Life, wind over the flowing waters, in earth, sea and sky, you are there. When we have not touched, but trampled you in creation, when we have not met but missed you in one another, forgive us. For Jesus’ sake. Amen.”

- From Touchstone, sent to me by my remarkable husband

A very goofy angel

It took parenthood to awaken me to the fragility of life. 

These days, as I make my way through the world, fearful thoughts dart through my mind: 

“What if that car, racing the red, hit me? I’d be brain-damaged, mangled. Would my daughter recognize me? When they wheeled me out of surgery would her face still crest like the sun at the sight of me? Or would she not know me at all?” 

I imagine her life without her mother and my eyes well with a flurry of tears.

In other moments, I think:

“What if something happened to my little girl? What if she had a life-threatening disease, her body shrunken to a mere few pounds as she fought for life? How would I cope with feeding tubes being laced down her throat? Would I crumble like paper or would I rise up, warring in the fight?”

I find my lips whispering prayers of thanks for life, every day. It’s a new posture for me. For most of my life I have taken life for granted. It was given. I am living it. But now, with a small life entrusted into my faulty hands, I tread lightly. I am mindful. I want to drive slower, look both ways, meander more, notice. 

It’s the way God sees, I think. He watches this spinning globe He made and hones in on a delightful little boy kicking soccer balls in Argentina. He smiles. Delights in this young child, destined for a profession in plumbing, fatherhood, public service. He sees the fullness of a life unfolding beneath dusty feet.

God is a God of love, the Bible tells us over and over. 

Psalm 33:18 reads: “The Lord watches over those who obey him, those who trust in his constant love.” 

How would our lives look differently if we believed it?

I’d be much less fearful, I think.

English countryside 2009

I’ve been thinking a lot in the middle of the night, in between the sheets of waking baby…

I have been thinking a great deal about life as story.

Each of our lives follows a narrative arc. Much of life can feel like one-offs. Like ‘why did THAT happen?’ But our lives are telling a story.

Take Jesus for example. Jesus was born as a baby. A little, fragile, pooping baby. He grew up in the family home, the family trade. He was a normal kid (except, of course, he was God.) He went to the temple in his teenage years and wowed the religious folk with his incredible knowledge of Scripture and inordinate wisdom. He did other stuff, but it probably all seemed random. He built a table with his dad, Joseph. He talked with his mom, Mary. He visited the neighbours. He went fishing. And then, when he was in his 30s, he started doing this crazy stuff like calling people to follow him. His ministry began. He healed people, cast out demons, taught a new kind of way — a way where all are equal under God, a way where compassion and love (not religiosity) win, a way where the weak are strong, the first last, the poor rich. And we all know the great ending…

Jesus’ life has an arc, a story line, and it still continues…

So will ours. 

I often look back at my life thus far and scratch my head. Why did that happen? Why did I date him? Why did that relationship end?  How come that career trajectory came to a sudden end?  Why’d I get involved in politics? Why’d I work for a Christian ministry? 

I look ahead and the question marks continue to lay like dominos. Where am I going? How will this all end up? Will I ever end up writing for audiences bigger than this blog, bigger than small periodicals? Will my voice matter? Will I have an impact on people’s lives, bigger than my immediate circle of family and friends?Will I be a good mother, wife, friend? Will I ever make something of myself in public life?

I am beginning to connect the dots, the positive dots. The good things that have happened. The steps I’ve taken. The path of rocks God has laid across the pond of my life. There is an arc to my story. There is a plan, there is a point, I am going somewhere.

Yes we are. We all are.

Through the windowpane I watch him work is magic.

He’s sitting with Mike, patiently. Waiting for the silence to break. Content with his own thoughts. The sun peeling any closet anxiety from his face, gently.

He’s waiting.

His purpose is sitting. Listening. Being. With others. Extending a hand. A word of encouragement.

And he’s smiling.

Mike’s simple words serving as Monday morning treasures.

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My friend Steve works with the disabled. I ran into him at a market a few months ago. He and his friend sat out on the patio. I penned these lines from my table inside as I watched this beautiful scene unfold.

Photo: Little Alice Gackle, in Porteau Cove, a few weeks ago 

“The way of Jesus is the way of hiddenness, powerlessness and littleness. It does not seem a very appealing way. Yet when I enter into true, deep communion with Jesus, I will find that it is this small way that leads to real peace and joy.”

- Henri Nouwen

I reread the article “Five reasons to stay in church” by Aiden Enns, Publisher of Geez Magazine, this morning, as well as this comment from ‘angela’:

“This is a re-occuring event in my life: I am sitting in church, in my pew in the balcony, and someone is talking down below at the pulpit, and I start to twitch. I shift. I look out the window, out the door. I drink my coffee and stare at my hands, and I tell myself: Self, don’t leave. You will miss out.

And it’s true. Some days, I swear I need to mount those stairs to the pew in the balcony with a sack of nails and a hammer and pound my shoes to the floor because (lord almighty) I can hardly breathe from what’s being said, and then other days I sit, I drink my coffee, and god siddles up alongside me and smashes my heart to smithereens with all that beauty he’s got pouring out of that stained glass window, that preacher’s mouth, that 200 year old song we just sang, that grandpa that camps out at church to keep the furnace going in the winter, those flaws, flaws, flaws. 

I love my church. It disapoints me, hurts my heart, leads me astray. And it elevates me, heals me, and shines God’s face on me.

It ain’t heaven yet, baby. That’s not the point.”

I couldn’t agree more.

For the past few months I have been thinking a great deal about church. In our absence from Vancouver Michael and I have been intentional about discussing and praying together about where God is calling us in this next season of life (living in Burnaby, being new parents.) A couple of weeks ago, while Michael met with Oxford colleges, I sat down and tried to put my very complicated emotions about God and Church into words. No simple task, for me at least.

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I’m sitting on a Tuesday morning sipping a hazelnut latte on Ship Street in Oxford. I’m staring out the window at a narrow lane. Three bicycles lean chained in front of a stone church nestled in this busy bit of Englandshire. A sign outside says: Enter. Rest. Pray.

Amen. This is what church should be: An open door. 

I feel so broken by my experience of church. It has changed how I see God. It has stripped the mystery from His face like the curling of paint: unwelcome moisture lacing papers, slowly. 

I carry regret and hurt like a stone. 

I have quieted my voice. I fear my words sifting through air, like a vapour: gone. Can words change anything? (Actions speak louder than words…) 

So many friends have been hurting, and disillusioned. Now: J, M & A. Then: K, J, P, R, dozens of others. Still, I’ve stayed steadfast.  

God gave us the entirety of the Bible with all of its mysteries. There is no room for mystery, innuendo, or questioning in our community. I feel we are pale and one-dimensional because of it. 

Is this the Gospel? The Gospel that has spilled from century to century, confounding the wise of every known culture? Is this the Gospel that whispers beyond the heavens? Beyond creation?

To my mind, reducing God to a five-part sermon is a serious sin, the greatest act of treason to the cross, to Jesus, to His sacrifice. 

How dare we take the depth and complexity of His everlasting love for us and reduce it to a simile? 

I sit in a city where brilliant men like C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkein spent their lives in wonder, discussion and service to our Lord. These men dedicated pages, chapters and books to their questions, their struggles with this Jesus, and yet remained chaste to Him.

Should this not be our model? Should we too not reach out to touch the Teacher’s cloak? This encounter is a beginning. Our lives here, and beyond the grave, are for the knowing. And the knowing and being known lead to praise. 

There is much that I long to know in this life but it all pales in comparison to a moment, an hour, shared in the presence of God. 

His wisdom sustains and guides.

As I walked through Oxford’s streets this morning, brought to smiles by penny whistles, busking, and the birds, welcoming spring, I heard the whisper of these words:

“In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight.”

A truth I have neglected too long. 

In every step of worship God fulfills our heart’s desires. We need not fret over the trajectory. In mystery and devotion we worship, and God fulfills.

I long to be a part of a community who is free to be lost in the mystery of God, the beauty of His creation, the marvel of His plan, the pain of His sacrifice and the depth of Christ’s commitment to his father’s will. 

This Jesus is not an abstraction. If we let Him, He can become our life’s obsession. A man who in every moment set His desires aside for the best of others. This, He, is enough to sustain a lifetime of study, questions, mystery and emulation.

I am grateful to people whose life work, they feel, is to simplify the complexities of the Gospel so that those — children, teenagers, and adults who have never encountered the Bible — have a starting point. 

But the Gospel (that is, the good news) extends far beyond the introduction. What rests beyond our first meeting?

Enter. Rest. Pray.  Let us begin. 

Why are we so obsessed with secrets?

Think of the Post Secret phenom: hundreds of thousands of people writing their darkest secrets on postcards and sharing them with the world. Or consider the runaway self-help tome with the same title: The Secret. What’s it all about?

Author Anne Lamott sheds some light on the ‘secret obsession’ when she writes: “When people shine a little light on their monster, we find out how similar most of our moments are.” (From Bird by Bird, 1995)

The honesty of others gives us permission.

Lamott continues, “…when people let their monsters out for a little on stage interview, it turns out that we’ve all done or gone through the same things… We don’t end up with a brand on our forehead. Instead, we compare notes.”

Not to get all churchy or anything – but this description reminds me of the stories of Jesus moving about the ‘outcasts’ with ease. He gave people permission to be real – to be human – in a way the religious elite and wider society of his time did not.

In a controversial piece of Scripture, Jesus, who encounters a woman condemned for adultery, challenges: “They that have no sin, cast the first stone.” (John 7:53-8:11)

Jesus leveled the playing field.

Are there people in your life like that? People who have stood by you no matter what? No matter what dark secrets you’ve exposed? Do you feel free to let your guard down with them? If Jesus were here now, would you feel free to tell him?

(Image: Sculpture by Cliff Baldwin. Fulton Ferry State Park, Brooklyn, NY 1991)

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Originally posted on the SoulChat blog.