2011 was, for me, completely packed with changes. New: state, job, house, plot of soil, goals, community, school, and the minute details that are involved in each. It was very ebb and flow; for example, a long and lazy Summer, deeply experienced and meditatively approached, was followed up quickly by a fast-paced Fall with a vigorous work schedule and the re-awakening of driven choices.

One major choice was that of returning to further my education. As I wrote about recently, my first choice was giving me pause and I stopped to listen to that pause. I listened long enough to hear a gentle nudge in another direction, and discovered a Waldorf Teacher Training program in Wisconsin that partners with a local accredited college to allow students to also receive federal funding for most of the courses as well as eligibility towards a Masters in Education with Waldorf Emphasis. Being “only” 8 hours away, this solution was gloriously ideal.

I applied to the schools (the training institute and the college) and found out that Foundation Studies begin in 3 weeks! My head was spinning a bit, trying to merge all the logistical details into one semi-organized spot in my brain before brainstorming ways in which it could work for me to start on such short notice. Armed with the strength of hope, I got passed my fears and uncertainty about asking for help and sent out a “campaign” of sorts to raise the funds by taking pre-orders on my handmade goods through the Fall. Within 2 days I had enough orders to pay the registration fee, and within a week a few other generous donations towards other logistical costs (car rental, gas, food, babysitter, books). I was at once humbled and enthralled! The support of my community, both financial as well as emotional/spiritual, was opening a door for me that seems improbable if not impossible a year ago.

Next Friday night I will be sleeping (hopefully!) in a dorm in Milwaukee, having begun the first course that evening in my Waldorf teacher training. To say that I am overwhelmed would end 2011 with the understatement of the year!

The course itself, guided by the texts How to Know Higher Worlds (Steiner) and Meditation as Contemplative Inquiry (Zajonc), is definitely right up my alley and a part of my life that greatly needs more focus to bring my whole self into balance. To slow down and live consciously and mindfully has rarely been my strong point. My will and ambition often bites off a bit more than I can chew, and my fear of failing other people too often drives me to complete whatever I’ve set out to do — even when my health, home, and family are the sacrifice. If I am to become a teacher within a Waldorf model, then this is a wonderful place for me to begin — at perhaps my greatest personal struggle.

I have been repeating a Steiner verse to myself and to the kids often these last few weeks. I gravitate to the very thing I find so hard to do at times: find my Inner Quiet, my Silent Self… Christ in me.

Quiet I bear within me,
I bear within myself,
forces to make me strong.
Now will I be imbued with
their glowing warmth,
Now will I fill myself with
my own will’s resolve.
And I will feel the quiet
pouring through my being,
When by my steadfast striving
I become strong,
To find within myself
the source of strength,
The strength of Inner Quiet.
–Rudolf Steiner

2012 will quickly find me GOING – off to start this next adventure, trying not to be insanely worried about my kids back home! (aahhhhhh!) But my intention for the next year is not to be GOING so much. I want to become more of a human being, and less of a human doing. I want to have more time to notice what is right in front of me: when my garden needs water, or my kids’ need some cuddling, or my kombucha needs to be fed, or my sister needs a phone call, … or my body needs to rest.

Simply put, my sole New Year’s resolve is to better live in the present.

Happy New Year, friends.

Since moving to Columbia and starting up discussions with the local waldorf book group each week, I have come around to my own spirituality and beliefs in a way I haven’t in a long time – or maybe ever. It is as though parenting, storytelling, Steiner, etc has opened up a back window to my house of faith, and this new entry carries with it many familiar sights and smells, but I am caught by the fact that there seems to be way less personal baggage from this route — the new angle has allowed to me the view from a different side, and I am grappling with tenets of life and faith in a way that is removed from some of the intention, suspicion, and experience of my past. Coming at it from this direction has way less cobwebs. It is a refreshing experience.

When I began to understand the power of story, particularly stories told aloud to children, in the book group and through what we are reading and doing, I was lead, (and I do mean “lead”, as I felt this unmitigated pull from one book/resource to the next, having the subject opened to me layer by layer without at first even realizing the correlations between each, ) to a short personal study on myths (i.e. Joseph Campbell) and then began to look at religious myths and the role these play in integrating mankind to their Creator, throughout history, throughout cultures.

What I once saw as fake, legalistic, empty, ritualistic, etc, I began to get from a standpoint of human development and consciousness, (and by no means do I mean that I now understand it is I am getting at here – I have only tapped the surface of this subject).

I felt myself drawn to the mystery of my own religious heritage, the history of my church, the stories of battles and adventure and reformations… and even towards its sacred text (the Bible), in much the way Brian McLaren urges people to read it, not as a “rule book” but as a “narrative”. I wondered why, if I celebrate and honor the sacred stories for other people groups as important, crucial, real, and magical for that culture – why do I not see my own beliefs in this way?

In other words, perhaps there is a different way to approach my faith beyond that of a passive submission, unquestioning and often too full of pride, folly, ignorance, and judgement, OR the other extreme; a dogmatic, theological discourse on every verse in the canonized bible taken literally (and an inevitable exasperation with that discourse that leads to living a life of fairly inactive personal faith, because I can’t help but feel like it is missing the whole point!). And that different way would look something more like the ancient stories of my faith, as archetypes, and that in embracing this story in such a way, I could experience the true elements of the story (of any story) in a deeper way (much the way I am learning to craft stories for the kids, and let them sit with a story, and let it resonate deep within their being in the way that Waldorf education promotes).

I have immersed myself this Summer with some of my old favorites, like Thomas Merton and Kathleen Norris. I have been reading about storytelling for children while understanding its importance for adults as well, through authors such as Joseph Campbell and Thomas Moore. I have been setting my listening preferences to things I would have never expected – Gregorian chants and chanticleer! I am craving something sacred and I am finding it, and it is lighting up something within me that has felt displaced and wandering for some time now. For crying out loud, I am even falling in love with liturgy! I have been going through the Morning, Mid-Day, and Evening prayers in Shane Claiborne’s “Common Prayer; a Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals” each day and finding them tremendously meaningful and beautiful. I have been attracted to monasticism, reading several books on monk habits, including the Rule of St. Benedict, and looking up local monasteries where I might go stay for a retreat and understand more about this way of life. In my desperation for liturgy, I attended Vespers at a Greek Orthodox church here in town. This week I rented “Of Gods and Men” and just balled – I felt such a kinship to the French monks and let the movie really move me in a deep way — (they really did a great job with this movie – you must watch it!).

It is pretty bizarre to me, this refreshed thirst. I have very little experience in a liturgical setting and most of it wasn’t pleasant. But now I can’t get enough. Where for many years I cringed at the word “discipline” or “ritual”, I now feel like it has been a crucial missing ingredient in my life. As I am beginning to see how a child needs his parents leadership to push and stretch his will, so do I need my own (strong, ahem) will stretched and pulled. I need to make my bed each morning. I need to do the dishes as soon as I dirty them. I need to embrace the mundane, tedious, sacrificial daily work of being a homemaker in much the same way that monks embrace God’s call to a life in constant communion with Him through the mundane and unglamorous tasks at hand. Each scrub of the bathtub, cleaning up of my child’s vomit, chopping vegetables for dinner, or the discipline of keeping my checkbook balanced and home uncluttered can be a prayer; can be a meditation on being in the moment, of sobriety and depth, of thanking God in silence and solitude or chaos and confusion; of the losing of my life in order to truly gain it. Imagine that.

It’s also been really neat to watch Ethan this month, and my own mothering, as a result of some of this searching… We have made certain times of day even more sacred, particularly bedtime. I began collecting poems, verses, hymns, etc awhile back which correlate for different times of the day, and different seasons of the year. It’s a daily journal, in a way a daily office, but for our particular family. Ethan seems to really relish the spiritual songs. After our nighttime reading (we have finished the first four books of the Chronicles of Narnia since moving to Columbia, and he just eats them up. He is loving Prince Caspian right now and asks so much questions about Aslan in relationship to Jesus… its very dear), we light a beeswax candle and I read a verse about the flame being our reminder that God hearing our prayers and lights up the darkness, etc, then together he and Ver blow it out and in the immediate darkness that surrounds us, we begin to sing the Our Father. From there we may sing other songs, like Take My Life, Doxology, Be Thou my Vision, and Let Their be Peace on Earth, his favorites. It requires me to set aside my impatience and any feelings of bitterness or exhaustion; I am extending my evening but I am gaining so much by laying in the darkness with my children and having a time of family worship before bed. I have often been shy and unsure about bringing my faith into my children’s lives, but lately I have felt compelled to infuse their childhood with this mystical and beautiful story, and to enrich the growth of their souls with the words of these powerful spiritual songs.

And tying in with this topic of personal ah-ha’s and such, I’ve been coming back around to the topic of community, and going through some hardships here in Columbia at what community shouldn’t be, how much I miss my communities in other states, and how easy it is to give up and move on when things don’t go as we would like. By no coincidence I am sure, I had read Life Together (Bonhoeffer) earlier this year, and just last night before bed read a quote from that book in another I am reading, “Monk Habits for Everyday People” by Dennis Okholm. It was left with me shortly before bed. When I woke up, ate some pancakes, and we all ventured out to try a new church this morning, what do ya know it, they shared the exact same Bonhoeffer quote in the sermon (and the experience of the new church was very encouraging and sweet — we have settled on calling this one our local church “home” and look forward to getting more involved, yay!).

Things like that have been happening all over the place for me. One little trail leads to the next and I see this little glimpse of the corner of the tapestry my Father is weaving for me, for all of us. It is a nice confirmation internally, to feel like you are where you should be, that you are experiencing (whether pleasurable or painful) the very thing you are meant to experience at this time. It is a comforting thought, and one that sustains me today, through unknowns and disappointments, and amidst exciting possibilities and beautiful new connections.

After the flat and all that earlier this week, we got “new” used tires on Friday and then on Saturday the same one was flat again. Me thinks the rim is bent. Ouch.

And of course, like the wonderfully zen mama that I am, I got all bent out of shape about my second flat tire for the week and through a nice little inner fit. My mind went everywhere – including the ever present question, “should we just sell the car and go back to Portland?!”

I came home, still having an internal fit, which of course is all too apparent to the kids, and in a huff sat down on the couch and opened “The Imitation of Christ” (Thomas a Kempis) which I picked up for a whopping .25 cents at the Salvation Army a few days ago.

Curiously, there was a bookmark already in it, so I flipped to that page. The chapter it opened to was called, “Of the Consideration of Human Misery”. Awesome, I thought in my self-induced pity party. How apropos.

And then I got a nice kick in the pants from Mr. a Kempis. Here’s what I wrote down in my journal, as I laughed at myself for the incredible immaturity I had been displaying over a flippin’ automobile (and bank account balance):

“Why are you so troubled when things do not go as you wish or desire? Who is there that has all things according to his will? Neither I, nor you, nor any man upon the earth.

There is no man in the world without some trouble or affliction, be he King or Pope.

… you see that all these temporary things are nothing; in fact they are most uncertain, and rather a heavy burden…

Man’s happiness is not the having of temporal goods in abundance; but a moderate portion is sufficient for him.

… for there are some who cling [to this perishable life] so closely (though even by laboring or by begging they hardly have bare necessities)… oh senseless people! and unbelieving heart, to lie buried so deep in earthly things…

Oh how great is human frailty, which is ever prone to vice!

… now you purpose to be on your gaurd, and an hour after you are acting as if you had made no resolution.

Justly then may we humble ourselves, and never think anything great of ourselves, since we are so unstable.

And even what we have at last just acquired through grace and with great labour, may soon be lost through negligence.” [um, like a new tire gone flat again... doh!]

Anyway, this is my great insight for the day… nothing new, I know, but a good reminder. This world and its things are uncertain, and a heavy burden — would that I could do without them completely! — but even when what I have and/or think I need faulters, the reality is that my hope should be fixed on something far bigger, more eternal, more stable, with no burden but an easy and light yoke.

Practically speaking, I don’t know what we’ll do about this car. It’s far more money to fix a rim than a tire, so we’ll have to see how it goes. I’m going to look into the bus system here better and see if we might be able to do without a car, but I worry about cold winter months spent at the bus stop in the morning to get Ethan to kindergarten…

Two things I know – far worse things could happen (and are happening in the lives of people I love every day). AND… God is still good.

It is Sunday morning, a morning I’ve held space for church attendance for many, many years. However, this morning, as has been the case for several months now, I crave to go “down to the river” as the ol’ spiritual song says — to seek out the Father in the baptismal flow of a stream and the worshipful song of the birds and fellowship with the trees. There are a good many labels for this and a good many folks I knew in my conservative, fundamentalist circles would catch themselves saying a prayer for my salvation right now (nature worship?! hell bound, for sure!). Oh well. I can only go back to what I know. I and everyone I know was born from this dust, whether you believe this happened over millions of years or 6 thousand. We are made for the Garden and it for us. Why can’t we can do as the legend of Adam and Eve, walking through the trees and communing with God? Or as Jesus, retreating to the wild places and the gardens to contemplate and pray? Perhaps if our churches looked more like a greenspace, modern religions wouldn’t be so disconnected from nature as a place of worship and from the earth as a place for peace…

More on these thoughts…

We have been ingenious in this century finding ways to hide from nature, and in the process we have let enchantment recede piece by piece. Then we wonder why we now have a religious and spiritual crisis. We blame each other for not having the moral fortitude to maintain traditional values and sustain church commitments, but we don’t complain about the commercial obliteration of nature by the great screen of advertising that lines every American town and city road, or by the ever-present noise and light of an insensitive culture that keeps nature’s presence blissfully blocked out.

The only explanation for our acceptance of these commercial insensitivities is that we have forgotten that nature is the prime source of the spiritual life. Block it out, and we obliterate the source of the spirit that our souls thrive on. Erect another billboard, another neon sign, another rack of halogen lights, and we push spirituality farther into repression.

On the other hand, build a real market, invite the neighboring farmers into the city, keep animal nearby and cared for, let the songs of birds and insects penetrate the sounds of machinery, let the darkness descend at night to gently envelop every business and every home, and you will see the spiritual life begin to rise and glow, and you might hear the voices of those spirits, nymphs, little people, and ghosts that were heard generations ago, that fed the quotidian imagination and excited a spirituality not yet divorced from good creation.

…Give nature a place, and you introduce egoless and unambitious spirituality, a spirituality that serves well as the starting point and base for other forms. There need not be any conflict between this natural spirituality and more evolved forms of theology and church, and if there appears to be such a conflict, it may be a sign that the spirit has lofted too high above the earth, has forgotten the goodness of creation, and is serving human ambition more than the community of beings that inhabit the cosmos.

… Spending time by a river teaches us many things, one of them the flow of life, and its constant movement, and it’s clear that the enchanted life demands an appreciation of this flow. As soon as we try to stop it, problems arise, and the psyche of a person or a community begins immediately to show signs of rigidity and dryness.

…If anything, we have lost the one thing that would sustain our intimacy with nature — a religious sensitivity to the sacredness of all forms in nature. The oceans are not only a bountiful source of fish, transportation, and recreation; they are also one of the supreme sources on the planet for contemplation and other aspects of the spiritual life, but we could know this only if we were deeply schooled in the necessary virtue of reverence.”

– Thomas Moore, The Re-enchantment of Everyday Life

In an interview I’ve been watching with Joseph Campbell called The Power of Myth, journalist Bill Moyers questions him about similar concepts:

CAMPBELL: ‘We have today to learn to get back into accord with the wisdom of nature and realize again our brotherhood with the animals and with the water and the sea. To say that the divinity informs the world and all things is condemned as pantheism. But pantheism is a misleading word. It suggests that a personal god is supposed to inhabit the world, but that is not the idea at all. The idea is trans-theological. It is of an undefinable, inconceivable mystery, thought of as a power, that is the source and end and supporting ground of all life and being.’

… Campbell later reads a famous letter from Chief Seattle in 1854:

“The President in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land. But how can you buy or sell the sky? the land? The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them?

Every part of the earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every meadow, every humming insect. All are holy in the memory and experience of my people.

We know the sap which courses through the trees as we know the blood that courses through our veins. We are part of the earth and it is part of us. The perfumed flowers are our sisters. The bear, the deer, the great eagle, these are our brothers. The rocky crests, the dew in the meadow, the body heat of the pony, and man all belong to the same family.

The shining water that moves in the streams and rivers is not just water, but the blood of our ancestors. If we sell you our land, you must remember that it is sacred. Each glossy reflection in the clear waters of the lakes tells of events and memories in the life of my people. The water’s murmur is the voice of my father’s father.

The rivers are our brothers. They quench our thirst. They carry our canoes and feed our children. So you must give the rivers the kindness that you would give any brother.

If we sell you our land, remember that the air is precious to us, that the air shares its spirit with all the life that it supports. The wind that gave our grandfather his first breath also received his last sigh. The wind also gives our children the spirit of life. So if we sell our land, you must keep it apart and sacred, as a place where man can go to taste the wind that is sweetened by the meadow flowers.

Will you teach your children what we have taught our children? That the earth is our mother? What befalls the earth befalls all the sons of the earth.

This we know: the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.

One thing we know: our God is also your God. The earth is precious to him and to harm the earth is to heap contempt on its creator.

Your destiny is a mystery to us. What will happen when the buffalo are all slaughtered? The wild horses tamed? What will happen when the secret corners of the forest are heavy with the scent of many men and the view of the ripe hills is blotted with talking wires? Where will the thicket be? Gone! Where will the eagle be? Gone! And what is to say goodbye to the swift pony and then hunt? The end of living and the beginning of survival.

When the last red man has vanished with this wilderness, and his memory is only the shadow of a cloud moving across the prairie, will these shores and forests still be here? Will there be any of the spirit of my people left?

We love this earth as a newborn loves its mother’s heartbeat. So, if we sell you our land, love it as we have loved it. Care for it, as we have cared for it. Hold in your mind the memory of the land as it is when you receive it. Preserve the land for all children, and love it, as God loves us.

As we are part of the land, you too are part of the land. This earth is precious to us. It is also precious to you.
One thing we know – there is only one God. No man, be he Red man or White man, can be apart. We ARE all brothers after all.”

“The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are inaccessible; but all natural objects make a kindred impression, when the mind is open to their influence. Nature never wears a mean appearance. Neither does the wisest man extort her secret, and lose his curiosity by finding out all her perfection. Nature never became a toy to a wise spirit. The flowers, the animals, the mountains, reflected the wisdom of his best hour, as much as they had delighted the simplicity of his childhood.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station, through which God speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune in.” –George Washington Carver

“I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it…. People think pleasing God is all God care about. But any fool living in the world can see it always trying to please us back.” —- Alice Walker, The Color Purple

“There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more.”
– George Gordon, Lord Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage

“Some keep the Sabbath going to Church,
I keep it staying at Home -
With a bobolink for a Chorister,
And an Orchard, for a Dome.”
– Emily Dickinson

“God writes the Gospel not in the Bible alone, but also on trees, and in the flowers and clouds and stars.” — Martin Luther

“What is necessary to keep providing good care to nature has completely fallen into ignorance during the materialism era.” — Rudolf Steiner

Still, sprinkled like bacon bits in the salad of my “rough patch” and “dark night” experiences are some enduring lessons and reminders; new preparations and growth that becomes invaluable for living this amazing and sometimes overwhelming thing called life.

The fact is, I am (we all are!) incredibly, unfathomably blessed, even if everything and everyone around me (which I cling to for purpose, identity, validation and acceptance) is stripped away. This I strive to remember. So yeah. It is what it is.

I’ll be back this week with more thoughts, quotes, pictures, and updates. Right now I’ve got a pile of homeschooling books from the library to glean inspiration from on this stormy day …

Today was not exactly a showcase of my better self. Not that it was all bad or even the worst, but as it comes to an end I definitely feel regret over parts of my inner attitude, my impatience, my reactions, my selfishness, my ego, my inability to find “quiet center”.

I don’t even know if I know what quiet center is anymore. I read about it in writing class in college and I don’t even recall whose idea it was. Tolstoy? Tolkien? McLaren? Sting? {See, no idea.}

But it struck me as some sort of ultimate goal in life, or at least one of them. To find the center of oneself… more accurately, the heart… and there find a peace that passes all understanding. To feel a breeze and close your eyes and the world stops. All that is in you and around you is the breeze. Even the sound of the trees rustling or the smell of leaves or the itchy grass below – all of it is put out to the curb with the senses as you go beyond them into just being. Just breathing. Just breezing. Communing with the universe and the Creator of all things…

The life of a stay at home mom affords so few opportunities for quiet outside of myself. Even in rare moments where you might steal away, say, before the children wake up, there is the constant knowledge which compels you to stay in your consciousness because you know this time is not truly yours – even it is borrowed and can be interrupted any minute now by the sound of a waking child.

To find quiet inside and in the midst of it all is even rarer still, though at least I believe in some transcendental way it is attainable, though perhaps only with great discipline and character. A few seconds while washing dishes, looking out of the kitchen window, trying to capture the sound of my breath, to sigh a prayer, to smile internally with gratitude for Life itself, is about the closest I have come to finding a quiet center amidst the constant demands and responsibilities of child rearing.

Even as I type, I am simultaneously caring for a child, nursing my almost 2 year old, her awkward body slumping well passed my lap so as to force her gravity towards the floor; me, legs propped and/or crossed and arms contorted around her attempting, feebly, to hold her in place. She begins to slip, carrying my breast with her as far as it will flex, until her feet are now ON the floor and she is crying, “Hollme, mama! Nini, mama! Helbme, mama!” (Translation: “Hold me, mama. Nurse me, mama. Help me, mama.”) The most comical bit to this very real scene happening to me this very real minute is that I am so intent on getting a few minutes to myself to write that I hardly notice her until she is on the ground flailing to hoist her robust toddler frame back up on my petite legs, which are incidentally sore from packing for our move in exactly 11 days. (But who’s counting?)

I’m intent to tune her out, nonetheless. I made an Ash Wednesday pledge, if you will, to spend my Lent in *focused (*which I’ve come to realize is a very RELATIVE WORD.) writing each day, and dog gone it, I’m going to give it a hearty try. I may not always share it on my blog – actually I hope the majority of it stays well hidden. Some things just aren’t meant to be shared, especially not prematurely.

Since I suppose I am just writing for the sake of writing, I’ll kinda just keep going in a stream of consciousness way, and we’ll see where this goes, shall we?

I ordered a book recently, though I’ve likely had the funds to do so for some time now (which forces me to wonder just how much I have been avoiding this whole writing-practice-thing). The package arrived today, (with that annoying Amazon smiling face that reminds me that I coped out by supporting the “man” instead of the mom & pop, but that’s another story), and I felt truly as though it was packed with a significant, symbolic promise. A promise to tune in to my voice again. The book, if you’re curious, is called Writing Down the Bones. My writer neighbor recommended it to me when we first moved here, a year ago. A year of sitting on it, thinking about it, not sure if I could really prioritize it over {cleaning and cooking and marriage and diapers and gardens and playschool and work for textbooks or hotel food & beverage or small business industries… and, admittedly, over evening movies}.

But a writer is not content with not writing, because we know that not writing means not being true to the itch to do just that: to write for writings sake and with no real end to the means. To just intoxicate oneself with words and sentences and images and … well you get the idea. (Perhaps it is the intoxication behind the motivation?)

I approach the world of writing, of flinging myself carelessly into its rhythm, with a very little confidence, just a surplus of compelling instincts that make no rational sense. Will it be therapy? Doubtful – I will likely drive myself more mad. Will I gain something monetarily? Oh goodness, no. To satisfy my desire to label myself with a lofty vocational title? Puhleeze, who ever thinks “I’m a writer” is really a truthful statement anyway?

All I know is that I have to write again. I have to. I NEED IT.

That’s all. For now.

It is tough work, this life. Hanging up clothes on the line in the winter and staring down that pile of dishes that seems to magically transplant itself BACK in the sink every time I walk away from the kitchen. Sometimes I think, enough! there must be more to life than this! And indeed there is. But it’s there all the time, in the relationships, in the growth, in the stretch that burns. It’s in the clothes and the dishes and midnight nursing and the stir-crazy-lack-of-car thing and the oh-my-gosh-how-are-we-going-to-pay-the-bills thing.

It’s the endurance, the perseverance, the surrender, the trust in what you cannot see. Hard times come and hard times go. What else can I say? At least I haven’t been struck in the head by a dead bird

Instead, I bring you winter images that capture the heart of my life; the good, precious bucket fulls of grace and beauty all around me.

But one thought came to me today, and I want to share it before the moment passes by and drifts off into the land of Thoughts I Had Once.

Returning home from a large Thanksgiving gathering with family, groggy and exhausted with kids already asleep in the back, Chris squeezes my hand and makes conversation, “What was your favorite food today?”

I thought about this a bit. There was SO much food and a huge variety of styles. Finally I said, “Actually, I really liked the cornbread.”

He smiled. “Yep, that was my favorite too.”

We kept on driving in sleepy silence, passing the rolling hills of this area of the Ozarks that were wet and icy from this morning’s rains. My thoughts drifted to how nice it is to be in sync with another person. It doesn’t happen often, but even the littlest thing like favoring the same random side dish is a sweet reminder that companionship has it’s rewards.

This Fall we endured a marital crisis and once again decided to brave the hard road of trekking ahead together. Now we face exciting and frightening possibilities with Chris’ future career choices, and the endless possibilities and unknowns it brings with it. These decisions are already stretching me in many ways, showing me where I lack trust and vision, where I DON’T lack pride — but should, and how little if any good comes of my need to control the outcomes.

But mostly, I’m learning anew how very important it is that no matter what happens, we make the most of and cherish those we love.

I am grateful for a husband who gives the best foot rubs in the universe and whose heart burns with a desire to take care of his family. I am grateful for a sensitive, excitable, imaginative young boy whose presence humbles me every day, in every way, because he deserves only the best nurturing, support, and respect and I fall short in providing that every day, in every way. I am grateful for a loud independent daughter who tells you just what she wants when she wants it — but whose quiet secret is that she is indeed a sweetheart and in her shy smile she tells you of how very much she needs you and how very small she really is.

For a God who doesn’t give up, whose aim is to fix all that is broken and twisted in my heart so I can finally see how very deeply He loves me. For a God who is big enough to incorporate ALL of the broken and twisted hearts in this world in his plan.

Happy Thanksgiving.

I had the pleasure of spending a few days with Maw Maw when Ethan was little, and had not been able to make it back to see her since. I valued the talks with her, as she shared with me her vivid memories of the early romance and motherhood years of her life. She was, above all, so quiet and humble in her natural beauty and talents, always more eager to serve others rather than be served: “What you need, shâ?”

She raised 7 children in the little 2 bedroom home her husband obtained from family (and made additions to slowly, including a bathroom,) and remained in that home until her last day on earth.

The backyard of this little home features a shed, inside which is covered with murals my mother, middle of the seven, painted on the walls. There’s an old cast iron swing my grandpa made with his own hands (a man who taught himself to play three instruments, another humble talent). Their children and children’s children have countless memories at this home.

Over this shed there is a huge pecan tree, which graciously drops its nuts each Autumn. Maw Maw’s children remember collecting the pecans to raise a little Christmas money each year.

The day Maw Maw passed, she commented that the pecan tree was dropping. At her post-funeral gathering, a few of us noticed the rich bounty of pecans under our feet and began to collect in the cool evening air. We plan to make our two bags worth into pecan pie at Thanksgiving from Maw Maw’s tree, a small tribute to her legacy of baking for her family.

I am honored with the legacy of both my grandma’s, my namesakes: Vivian Savoy and Rose Mae Melancon, both now deceased in recent years. Vivian, my paternal grandmother, was another natural beauty as well as a brilliant mathematician with a very keen knack for just about everything from gardening, to art, to writing and story-telling. She too raised seven children, managing to get her masters and become a professor to boot! Before Alzheimer’s began to set in, she had traveled and seen more adventure than most people ever do.

Today is All Soul’s Day, a day to remember those who have passed. We have created a little table with their pictures and momentos, including a painting of Vivian’s, and covered with the last of our fading marigolds. We are weaving in a little Hispanic “Dio de los Muertos” into our tradition with these and some decorated skull masks. Later we’ll be making Shropshire Soul Cakes and singing the Soul Cake Song, recipe and lyrics can be found in “Festivals, Family and Food”.

In honor of those who came before us, today we designate in their memory and keep their stories alive for the next generation.

I apologize again that the only time I seem to have something to share right now is something I am reading. Know that it directly correlates to things happening in my life, so in a read-between-the-lines-way, I am in fact letting you know how I am See, doesn’t that make you feel better?

In truth, things are going much better this week. Husband is back in recovery and thus we are living together again; with plenty of sweet moments of reconciliation as well as difficult ones of refinement, of course. I thank God for it all and hope I can maintain and build on the eagerness with which I sought His comfort and wisdom during this difficult past month or so.

And speaking of marriage, and parenthood, and all that great stuff, I thought my Merton reading today was quite spot on:

“… marriage too is a vocation… Most men and women will become saints in the married state… [Married people] have a wonderful vocation, all the more wonderful because of its relative freedom and lack of formality. For the “society” which is the family lives beautifully by its own spontaneous inner laws. It has no need of codified rule and custom. Love is its rule, and all its customs are the living expression of deep and sincere affection.

…Married people, then, instead of lamenting their supposed “lack of vocation,” should highly value the vocation they have actually received. They should thank God for the fact that this vocation, with all its responsibilities and hardships, is a safe and sure way to become holy without being warped or shriveled up by pious conventionalism. The married man or mother of a Christian family, if they are faithful to their obligations, will fulfill a mission that is as great as it is consoling: that of bringing into the world and forming young souls capable of happiness and love… Raising children in difficult social circumstances, they will enter perhaps more deeply into the mystery of Divine Providence than other who, by their vow of poverty [i.e. becoming a monk or a vocation of celibacy], ought ideally to be more directly dependent on God than they, but who in fact are never made to feel the anguish of insecurity.

… In marriage, God’s love is made known and shared under the sacramentalized veils of human affection. The vocation to marriage is a vocation of supernatural union which sacrifices and propagates human life… All that is human and instinctive, all that is best in man’s natural affections …becomes a sign of divine love and an occasion of divine grace.” – Thomas Merton, No Man is an Island