with artistic excellence

Disclaimer: I hope that in writing this post, I am not justifying myself, but merely sharing the freedom I've come into and the lesson I'm learning...again.

" It is assumed that one will have talents, materials, subjects – perhaps even genius or inspiration or vision. But these are traditionally understood not as personal properties with which one may do as one chooses but as gifts of God or nature that must be honored in use. One does not dare to use these things without the skill to use them well. …To use gifts less than well is to dishonor them and their Giver."
- Wendell Berry, in “Christianity and the Survival of Creation”


I embarked on our recent retreat (see post below) with many questions for God about my purpose in life. I am interested and passionate about so many things:

- education
- nutrition
- beauty
- hospitality
- deep friendships
- community development
- mentoring
- gardening
- parenting
- teaching
- writing
- and more, I'm sure, but these things are always near the front of my mind.

It is not uncommon for me to try to major on all of these things at once. And I know others who seem to be able to do it. But I've come to realize lately that I might not me one of those amazing, can-do-it-all sorts of people. My garden is barely identifiable this year. I am frustrated with my kids and just about everyone else. The nutrition I was providing for kids was made with at least as much stress as it was with love. The small neighborhood beautification projects I did became ugly again. I had several writing goals I didn't begin to attempt. And my friendships have become rushed, stressful things to maintain instead of rich things to be enjoyed.

The things I want to do are all good things. But too many good things make for a lot of bad things. It means that, though I'm taking on plenty of noble tasks, I'm not doing any of it well. And I hate mediocrity. I think God does, too. I went to the retreat knowing I needed to prioritize.

While we were there, we spent an afternoon at the Cincinnati Art Museum. They have an entire wing showcasing the work of Cincinnati artists. Apparently there was an arts community there in the late 1800's. (Maybe? I'm horrible at remembering dates.) Perhaps it was simply because they lived in such close proximity to me that I found them particularly interesting. Maybe it just made them more relatable. Maybe I just thought them more ordinary for that reason and was all the more impressed with their work.

Regardless, the work done by those artists was wonderful. There was a particular sculpture there that caught my attention as having been done with excellence. (Just about everything there was done with excellence, but this was particularly so.) It was "Eve Hearing the Voice" by Moses J. Ezekiel. The way she is both hiding herself (face, nakedness) and pushing the Voice away is striking. (This image is more striking, but even though it is not pornography -- we are obviously meant to be looking at the woman's soul -- I didn't want to post a female chest on here in case some people didn't want to see it.) This sculpture was slightly larger than myself, appearing a little super-human. I found myself, much like God probably did, looking for her face.

(photo from Quantum Interceptions)

This was one of the first pieces I saw on our visit and it was the one I could not forget when we left. There were so many beautiful things to look at and so much time represented in the works of art there. Each piece took so much thought, time, and effort to create! So much time that could have been devoted to others, to the poor, to justice, to community development, to whatever other direct dealing with making the world a better place. I wonder what their lists of "good things to do" would have included. I almost began to judge them for having spent so much time working with copper, or colors, or wood, or whatever instead of with people. But these artists did one thing well and that one thing still speaks to me today. And that was their contribution.

(I realize I am making assumptions here. Perhaps they were also very involved in their church or community. Maybe they gave all they had to the poor. Maybe they fed the hungry. I don't know. But the point is that they made a lasting contribution to humanity whether they did those things or not.)

Like all of us, I have many things I could try to do well. But (at least for this season of my life) I need to pick just one. So for the time being, I will be devoting my energies to making my house a house of peace that is nurturing to me and my family and welcoming to others. This means saying no to a lot of things that could justify my existence and make me look great on paper. It means saying no to things that are helpful to others. There are people -- two girls, specifically -- that I will be spending a lot less time with. But I'm hoping I will have better time with them and with others as I am a less-stressed person to be around.

Right now, I'm reveling a bit in this new freedom of "just being a mom" (or wife, or household-manager, or whatever). I'm looking forward to doing my "one thing" with excellence. Here are a couple of my gifts from God. I hope to use whatever skill I have honor both them and their Maker.

sustainable faith

Last week was the last week of our summer break. Most of summer did not feel like a break, as we invented volunteer opportunities that took a lot of time. We considered a field and bought it, bringing another 10 years of work to our own personal property. We worked on finishing the upstairs. (Still not finished, but much closer....) We enjoyed visits with old friends.

At the beginning of the summer, we had a business meeting where we set goals in the areas of "fun," "work," and "church." Many things on that list remained undone as our last free week approached. We debated on what to choose. We chose "weekend retreat for two." We allowed it to be a week-day retreat, because, well, we could. We are so glad we did.

view from our window
This was a great place to swing.

We spent our time in Cincinnati in a space designed for personal retreat: an old convent building now run by Dave and Jody Nixon. I was first introduced to the place about 10 years ago and have visited it 3 times by chance, it seemed...until now. The space is so...

quiet.

It is free of everything. Free of clutter. Free of noise. Free of agenda. And it is full of everything. Full of (quiet) music. Full of time. Full of rest. Full of good company if you want it and solitude if you don't. Meals are taken care of. Dishes are taken care of. Good books are provided. A dish of chocolate sits on the table. Dave happily prepares coffee for you -- by the cup -- if you want it.


This very affordable haven is called Sustainable Faith. And that's exactly what we were looking to have. And it is what I hope I have brought back with me. We're simplifying. I'm simplifying. And planning on a life with less stress and more beauty. (Did I mention the Cincinnati Art Museum is free and about 5 minutes away?) Here's to Sustainable Faith!

~a bit blurry in the art museum~

~a small part of their garden~

That banana peel just talked to me!

>

I preached the first sermon at youth camp this week. In that time, I said God was always speaking, always putting his word out there. And it's true. I've been learning a lot about God this week through my kitchen scraps and I thought I'd share. It starts off with the kids' memory verse for the week:

"Blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in HIM."

This week, we’ve talked about how important it is to hide God’s Word – the book, the person, the spirit – in the clay of your heart and let it grow there into something way bigger than it started out being. Pat talked about how important it is to have the Word of God so we can resist the enemy, because we are in a real battle, here. We’ve talked about how we make ourselves too hard for the WORD to get in, how we have an enemy who tries to steal the seed, and how other people and things try block growth and kill the plant. That’s other people, a powerful demon, and even ourselves going against God’s Word taking root in our lives. Seems like a lot to battle, doesn’t it? Have you wondered what kind of heart you have? What kind of attack you’re most vulnerable to? Anyone feel like hiding and growing God’s Word is a little too much to ask of someone already dealing with life? Maybe you just feel like your life (or at least part of it) is too messed up to try and do something good with now. Does it sound like a great idea, but you’re just not sure you can really do it?

I have a great idea for you: Compost.

What is compost?

It’s the best kind of dirt. But it’s not just any dirt, or else, they’d just call it “dirt.” It’s made out of things that were alive, but now are broken, half-dead, not good to eat or useful for anything anymore. You know, the part of grass that gets too long. The ends of carrots no one wants to eat. The apple that got really gross. The sticks that fell out of the tree during last week’s storm. The leaves after the kids are all done playing in them in the fall. Even…poop. No good. Gross. Gone bad. Dead. Ugly. Whatever.

Who makes compost?

Well, first let’s see who doesn’t: the grossed-out person who would throw the nasty apple in the trash, the person who only wanted to use that coffee bean and then throw it out, the person who thought that the grass was too tall, or that the grape was a little too wrinkly. The knife doesn’t make the compost, either. And neither does the animal or the wind and lightning. They didn’t turn the broken branch into compost. You know what else can’t make compost? The dirt.

If you’re feeling like you can’t possibly make your heart right, well…you’re right. You probably can’t. But the farmer can. And we know who the farmer would be in this story, right? God. Our Father. The one who cares for us. Our Redeemer – the only One who can take all the bad things and make them into something good: compost!

So have you thought about it? Do you feel like maybe there are too many weeds in your life? Do you feel like the real you – the good one – is being crowded out? Are you feeling a little shallow? Like there should be more to your life, but you’re always just short of it? Have you been walked on over and over again like the path and just become too hard? Maybe you made yourself hard so you wouldn’t get squashed the next time. Maybe you’ve had some seeds stolen from you in life. Maybe you need some compost.

Can you see where I’m going? Maybe other people just see a bunch of mess. Maybe you just see a bunch of mess. Or you have a bunch of dead stuff lying around in your life. Bits and piece of broken things that are good for nothing anymore. Like stomped-on leaves or broken branches. Maybe there are parts of good things left over that you don’t know what to do with. Things you had to offer the world that just weren’t needed – that got cut off. Like the top of a carrot or a blade of grass. Maybe you’ve been neglected. No one (including you) has paid attention to certain things about you and you’ve sat in the refrigerator and gotten all moldy and soft and yucky. We all have junk lying around. And there’s nothing to do with it. We have broken relationships. Things about us that just aren’t right. Things in our life that aren’t ever going to grow again. Wasted. Needing to be thrown away. Maybe you feel like your whole life needs to be tossed out. Maybe you just wish you could start over and want to scrap it all.

Well, I’m here to tell you that there’s more than one way to throw dead, broken things out. You can just throw them in your trash, where they’ll stink and be nasty until someone else comes and gets them and then they’ll be nasty somewhere else and nothing good will come from them. You can litter them around so everyone can see your mess and your drama and it can make even the places around you look nasty. Or you can give your trash to God and let Him do something with it. It takes time. It takes a little skill. It takes some heat and letting Him do some digging around in there, but it produces something He can really work with to make some beautiful, tasty stuff.

And that’s not about trusting yourself. Nowhere in the Bible are we told to trust ourselves. But what is your memory verse for the week? Blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in HIM. We can trust God with our good, bad, and ugly. We can trust Him with the stuff we can’t do anything good with. He’s the only one we can trust with it. He’s the farmer who knows what he’s doing and he can make it into something different so no one can go digging up the nasty stuff anymore. That’s what “redeem” means: to give something its true value. He can redeem your life, and He does it by taking what’s useless to Him making into something very usable.

two lines of reasoning

Me: "If we're lucky, we'll leave and go to camp tomorrow."
Israel: "I'm not lucky."
Me: "You're not?"
Israel: "No. Are you lucky?"
Me: "I don't know."
Israel: "Dad's not lucky. Eden's not lucky. I'm not lucky. You're not lucky."
Me: "Wow."
Israel: "So does that mean we're going to camp right now?"

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

Me: "Eden, you're a pretty cool kid."
Eden: "No."
Me. "Yes you are! You're a cool kid and I like you!"
Eden: "No. You do not like me at all because...that's my purple."

Yes, she knows what color purple is. No, we had not been talking about anything purple and there was nothing purple in the room. But here is a picture of my silly little girl and some of "her purple."

recording small voices

The kids love to make up songs these days. They both really love to sing a song they know with different beginning sounds. Eden will sing, "Blah, blah black bleep," and Israel sings, "Pah, pah pack peep, pa poo pih-pee pool!" Sometimes the songs get more creative than the kids are aware.
But they also love making up songs about whatever is going on...or whatever is not going on...and for Israel the songs often involve bodily functions. Gross. (I asked when boys grow out of that phase and I was told they don't.) These made-up songs have no real melody line, and at times I've mistaken them for yelling in the house (which results in me stifling their creativity often). But I know this is one of those things that will not last forever, and I wanted to at least take a stab at doing some sort of recording of it.


Eden loves to perform. (Here she is conducting her and Israel singing "on stage" at Natural Bridge.) She will sing a song for you about anything you name. On the drive down to Kentucky, Pat was making up a story about a deer that got lost in the woods. The story took place before the fall of mankind and Pat said the deer could sing a song then that no one has heard since.
"Israel, do you want to sing the deer's song?" I asked, trying to take up more time.
"There's not a deer song," he answered, factually.
"Sure there is. Eden? Can you sing the deer's song?"
Without waiting a second, she jumped in singing something like, "And the deer! It has a deer...because...because it has a deer...!"
"See, Israel? That's exactly how it goes."

Israel sings songs about anything and nothing, but for better or worse, the other three of us are almost his only audience. This morning, he took his (stringless) toy guitar to the couch, sat down, and was singing this worship(?) song for Eden. I will not remember the words entirely, but it went something like this:

Jesus, some people don't love you.
And I want you to know
that some people don't love you.
And whenever somebody doesn't love Jesus...they can sing this song.
because they don't love Jesus....
But I try to love Jesus
because I try not to disobey.
But sometimes I am not obedient.
But I try to be obedient because I love Jesus.

His song had more lines to it, restating the same ideas different ways, as most of his songs do. I wish I had caught it on tape, because I had quite a good laugh from him preaching to himself and Eden from behind the "guitar." Oh, the things that go on in the mind of my little Wrestles-with-God!

working toward rest

We have successfully made it through Pat's most recent semester and into the summer. We could not be happier about it. Pat is still on the Dean's List and even won a scholarship this year! Good stuff.

I've been feeling lately, after being way over-committed during the year, that I really SHOULD rest over the summer. But even with Pat having no more school and now the kids are out of school, too, and tutoring is over, and we are without a housemate and I am relieved even of cooking lunch for the kids down the street once a week, we are still busy. There is much catching up to do. We want to see people and pick up on neglected relationships. But we still find that our time is short. There is getting the upstairs ready for our housemate to come back in a little over a week. There is buying Steve's lot next door and trying to garden more space than we have ever taken on. And we're planning a summer literacy/learning program for kids in the neighborhood that will meet twice a week. Pat will be coaching summer basketball. We are working on applying for our pastoral license as well. Some people have a hard time understanding why we don't go out looking for a summer job. The answer is that we think God will provide for us to do the things we are called to do and right now, this is what we are putting our hands to. There is not time for consistent summer employment.

The truth is, I don't think our lives slowed down the least bit the day Pat finished the semester. I was disappointed. So, to begin this summer from a place of rest instead of from a place of busyness, we took 10 days to get away. We spent half of it at my parents' house in Kentucky and half of it down at the lake house in Tennessee. It was just what we needed to unwind and begin to think clearly. Even while at the lake house, I kept looking for ways to justify staying there for free. "We'll paint this. We'll clean that. We'll cut down that tree." Not that there isn't actually work to be done there, but there is ALWAYS work to be done there.

There is always work to be done everywhere. "The poor will always be with you," Jesus said. So will the needy. So will legitimate need.

I'm horrible at it, but I hope to practice really resting this summer. As it was put in the recent Karate Kid movie, "There is a big difference between resting and doing nothing." So I'm hoping I'm doing only those things that will still permit me to be restful. I hope for more balance in my life instead of either not having time to look my husband in the face or having no other obligations whatsoever. There must be a middle-ground somewhere called Really Living. I don't think God wants us to take a break from that because we have young kids or because we're "doing ministry" or because "if we don't do this or that, who will?"

We are doing really well right now. We are still feeling the effects of vacation. But I know myself. And we have returned to a garden that needs weeded and a church body of people who have been moving or sick or in the hospital or having to do extra stuff while we've been gone. And when I feel like I may have the least on my plate among my peers, I will quickly fill it up.

So you can pray for me/us as we aspire toward this more connected life.

Pray for us to be able to find mentors who can show us the way to do what we're doing.
Pray for our connection to God, to each other, and to those around us.
Pray that our hands (and minds, etc.) will be strong for the tasks assigned to us.
Pray that we will not try to justify ourselves by what we do rather than by Whose we are.
Pray for those who work alongside us and pray for more people to be truly partnered with. We are not in this alone by any means, but sometimes it starts to feel like we are and at least I act accordingly.

Thank you for your time and your prayers as you read this. I welcome anything you feel should be added to this prayer list!

learning about the passover

This evening (a day late, I know...) we celebrated Passover with our family. (Well, some extended family and an alien among us, if you want to get technical.) It was our first attempt at a full Seder, with much reading and the four cups and all. It was an adventure having Israel and Eden along for our first attempt. I think in future years, we will be able to re-write some to make it more easily-understood by preschoolers. And, even though my paired-down version was still long, the meal was a success, I'd say. If you're interested in learning about it and have about an hour, you can check out http://www.cresourcei.org/haggadah.html for a step-by-step on how to conduct the Christian Seder.

Highlights of our evening included:
- the kids finding the moldy bread I hid around the dining room. (It's supposed to just be "leavened bread," but I figured the gross factor would help the kids understand how we are to obey God and get rid of all things that are displeasing to Him.) Turns out, Eden found it early and someone caught her munching on it before dinner. EW!
- Eden exclaiming her love of her "special drink" (a.k.a. full-strength grape juice): "It's good! I like coffee, Mommy!"
- Israel's first response to eating the parsley dipped in salt water. The shutter missed it, but it was photo-worthy.
- having three generations at the table.
- Grandma Terry reading the story of the first Passover over dinner.
- sending the kids to go look for Elijah and Eden screaming, over and over: "I found him! I found him!" (I guess she anticipated the point that we aren't waiting for him anymore, but that He and the Messiah have both come. Smart girl.)
- Israel preferring the vegetables to the lamb.
- Israel finding the afikomen (the broken bread representing Christ and His redemption that is found at the end of the meal) and proudly holding it up.
- following a tradition that is millenia old, that was originally commanded to be taught to children. I'm not sure what was learned this go-around, but it was a joy to be together and go through this process.

Here are a few pictures we will remember the evening by.

those in our house


Pat's mom reading the story of the first Passover


Israel bravely trying the salt-water parsley a second time


yup. That herb is still bitter!


the lamb that spilled its blood


Israel proudly displaying the afikomen....


...before getting a little crazy while Pat was finishing up the reading.