I squinted against the midday sun in summer, changing lanes and reaching water bottles to the four thirsty ones behind me.
“Mom, how does a person not have legs?”
What a great question, Foster. I quickly sent my brain’s minions to collect my mind from all the places it had wandered on the car ride home from drama camp. They were learning about the body– every part has a purpose, that sort of thing. And, by extension, the Body of Christ works together, so it wasn’t entirely out of the blue.
“So,” I began with a deep breath in,
“Well, some people are born without legs. And some people, like our friend Patrick, lost his legs in a car accident…” I trailed off, trying to make quick work of all the implications now pushing and shoving for front row seats at this lesson. I was Harrison Ford walking out over that canyon in Indiana Jones, with little idea of where to go next.
“You know, Foster, it is really interesting. God didn’t intend for us to be broken in our bodies. …But God is always at work to redeem what he made, so our friend Patrick is able to use prosthetics and our friends Kim and Merry are able to “hear” through someone’s fingers communicating. Isn’t that amazing?”
“You mean we can grow back our body parts?”
“No, no not like that. Although, that would be cool! What I mean is that God cares so much about his creation that he has given humans the ability to be creative and come up with ways to still use our bodies in incredible ways… even if they are broken.”
“Can I have a snack?”
“Yes, totally. One more thing… are you listening?”
“What? oh, yeah…”
“What do you think heaven will be like? Where we are able to live just exactly as God has envisioned life?”
“Well, we will be whole with all our body parts…”
It’s over, I know. But my mind kept going and I immediately questioned everything I said. But, Jesus had his scars after he was resurrected! And, how do the passages on body parts and unity read to someone who is differently-abled? How do I unravel everything I know and still land at a place that has always felt certain: God is good. He made good things. He is actively mending what is broken. And he is always, always inviting us to be part of that redemption story.
I blinked and barely made the exit to 166 off the 75 North highway. I mentally flipped pages in my brain, ask questions of the people who are better equipped to respond to these queries. I heard no responses, save the battle for fig bars behind me.
God, do you hear these questions in my brain? Do you know my desire to sit in a room and study questions just like these? With people who are after You instead of accolades or letters or knowledge. My shoulders were lonely to touch some kindred spirits, but just then I turned onto Sylvan Place SW. We unloaded bags as if we’d been gone a week and I went through the making dinner motions, mental math-ing substitutions and extra guests and singing the prayer together.
I still don’t know if I would say it all the same or change it completely. I suppose this is the part where I am not able.
The muscles in my neck are protesting my pillow. Or, is it just the place anxiety has found to rest? Maybe it is both. I hear Sho Baraka’s clever lyrics rhythm my own mind’s conversation. Today, I write with a full view of the dogwoods in the backyard. They are catching autumn color early for lack of rain. I imagine the roots reaching, searching, hoping for a drink that hasn’t come.
How does a root ask for a drink? I wondered in my nature journal last week. I know now they are connected, all the trees. Their roots reach out like fingers and share their ailments and abundances like neighbors and cups of sugar. The network is much, much wider than the spread we get under for shade, invisible and vast and quietly keeping everything alive while the crown of creation makes all manner of trails and highways and best efforts at gardens just inches above.
There is growth in our garden, but I’ve forgotten the wildflowers I planted and I’m not sure how to tell if the thick collection of green is intentional. And, I remind myself, some weeds are not bad. Some weeds are just plants someone decided they didn’t like. But, then there are the invasive kind and there is no good argument for those.
I sketched a fly and a mosquito today as I sat with Foster for Science class. When my mind wants to make the wrong noise– to mirror the droop of my shoulders and the resignation in my throat– I look and listen for an invitation to the present moment. And there is always something. The leaves dancing in shadow on the deck chairs. Blue jays and cardinals and wrens chatting in the morning. We compare notes and sketches and try to figure out if I placed the legs in the right place, or are they arms? Feelers? Stingers? His web is an abstract attempt and I shoo away his apologies and disclaimers to pronounce it good.
And I wonder if he questions the authority I have to pronounce anything good. And he’s right. I don’t have any. I’m just a person.
Last night, I was sharing this idea I had with someone… where we would gather a list of questions from kids and then find real humans in our networks who could answer their questions. The idea, of course, is that within our networks we have vast, beautiful storehouses of knowledge and we could have our question answered by a human with eyeballs instead of a search bar with an interface.
“That’s so cool! What would your areas of expertise be?” he asked, like a gentle giant of fairy tales. Because, well, he is quite tall.
And I froze. I’m almost 40 and I am actually speechless when it comes to what I have to offer. Isn’t that funny? I mean, it’s hard to package “been rescued from a hike on a mountain where wild pumas roam free” and “taken multiple rides in cars with strangers” and “frequently attends theology and philosophy conferences without knowing a soul, not for a ed. requirement but just because” and “loves youth ministry, loves to dance” and “has kids, interest in spiritual formation.”
What I said was, “I’m not really sure. I have lots of questions! I just learned today that the dynamic of slavery in the Greco-Roman period could really change how we read Bible passages about freed people and how they relate to former owners and, therefore, how the message of the Gospel looked like an alien religion because it united people across classes in a way that nothing had ever done before. I’m interested in that!”
As I write that, I realize that what I said last night was more like, “Um, I learned this thing about Greco-Romans… interesting.. reading Ephesians…”
Does anyone have imposter syndrome about being human? I always think of Satan holding out some delectable sin– something sparkly and sinister and obvious. But, lately (always), it seems Satan has taken a more subtle tone with me. His garden question sounds more like, “But, were you actually worth making, compared to all this other glory He made? Did He really forgive you? Has God given you anything good to offer?”
And to be honest, there’s a lot of evidence stacked against me. My anger with the kids, my impatience with the ticking minutes, my resignation after a bad hour of the same work I was made to choose. It’s self-sabotage and Satan’s behind it. So, I speak it to the leaves and the sunshine on the dancing philodendron and the flies hovering above the dried smoothie on the table.
It’s this song, the bridge especially. And, there is no more time so this will publish unfinished but with these incredible beautiful harmonies.
The sunlight is unlikely, striking blank spots on the wall and tangled hair clumps on the floor and my second born on the table again. He tilts his head with a toothy smile and doesn’t apologize. That light follows like shadows, attached to us— our little lives framed and exposed. Making real shadows of paper scraps and crayon pieces and odd-ends strewn across countertops, light. And my mind, it is nearly outside the reach of rays. But only nearly.
If the chairs in our dining room are pushed against the wall, it means I’ve had a go at the food scraps and broken crafts underneath the table. I’ll probably host a middle school dance someday, but for now, the chairs line the wall because my kids are entertained or sleeping or throwing things down the stairs and I have a minute to really sweep.
I used to hate sweeping. The repetitive motion and the trace dirt left behind was straw on camels backs and I was not strong about it. And it’s always. Like, if you’ve swept a room… don’t consider it done. It will need it again, now always. So, don’t even put the broom away— just strap it to your belt loops or something. Nobody wears belts anymore.
Thursday and foggy, low hanging clouds. I hear myself soft laugh, but no one is in the house and I can turn up the roots acoustic station on Spotify and laugh for real if I want. But I don’t, because I like being alone and I like quiet-ish. And I like cleaning now, too.
I keep my sanity with the repetition and liturgy and intentional pauses. A stream of constant internal chatter keeps me company; there is a thought about my 3-year-old’s wispy hair curling around her ears, a question about how long the shingles can last on our roof, and another about how to stretch the random assortment of groceries in our pantry that is all of one drawer.
Another day. I rearrange Zella’s closet, again, and turn around to see an elaborate scene set up for a doctor’s office – or is it a veterinarian? or, also is it, maybe, a musical theatre doctor for animals?
Back downstairs, I wipe down the counters and hide the clutter in recycle bins and drawers I never open. I talk back to NPR about what economists are saying about the national debt, make a mental list of vegetables versus breads we’ve eaten today, think through what bills have been paid, and intend to call a friend. I make goals and revisit a theme for this year. What day is it? I should go on a run. I need to let Margaret know we want to plant a garden. She said she already started hers, so I feel behind and I don’t know what I’m doing with this southern soil.
>>Hey, I’m gonna leave and meet up with Ben at 4. Cool?
Yep, totally cool.<<
I am 100 percent positive my face looks like I’ve been interrupted, even though no one else was talking. Because, there was that conversation and then there was this present one… which started a whole, separate and random stream of consciousness. //Yes, of course that’s fine. Will you be back for dinner? I was going to use the car to get groceries but that’s totally fine because…. yep, I can whip up a soup out of leftovers and it should be edible. Hm.. both kids are running on no naps, but um… maybe I should grab the stroller from the trunk? Should we start keeping that in the closet? No, there’s no real room in there. I should organize that front closet. There actually is a lot of room up there. How could I use that space at the top? We don’t need the stroller, I guess. Oh, Foster’s poop is smooshing out his diaper.//
I search for sunlight and it’s hitting every single crumb from the last four days under the table and how is that possible. I set the broom out as the screen door squeaks and hits the frame. I hear the tck tck tck of the second hand, keeping time like a metronome on the clock in the dining room. Why can’t I talk like a normal person with all the words I know? I know a lot of words! I love him, why didn’t I say I love him?!
I arrange a school craft situation on the kitchen table about Egyptians, her most recent obsession, as I line the chairs against the wall. “I’m really curious about the Egyptians, mom.” Cool. Let me quick reign in my sin self so I can let your curiosity do its wonder work on both of us. Also, why you so curious about Egyptians!?! Jk. This is actually perfect because now I can sweep. Foster is rolling a giant marble around, so I should have a good 5 minutes between the two of you.
But, also that conversation – why couldn’t I just filter less. Or why can’t I just explain that my brain is like lines of computer code running in opposite directions across the screen and I’m trying to read it all and talk about the rich soil along Nile River? Why is that so hard to do? Because I don’t actually know computer code, that’s probably the problem. Or is it that the computer code I described actually has that terrible beautiful English ivy weed climbing all over it?
I probably have 30 minutes left before the house is full again, before my loves get back and I get to jump inside their wonder. I want to read some pages from, “Color of Compromise” —an adult book you should also read— so I can’t explain what just happened on these keys.
Thursday, February 21 at 1:26 pm
Thank you for letting me let you inside my mind, interweb family. Holler back if you know the English ivy scrolling computer code brain language I’m talking about. If I ever figure it out, I’m going to make a “English ivy scrolling computer code brain language for dummies” book. You’re welcome.
**And, though this post was written 4 1/2 years ago, I had an eerily similar experience today as we left the neighborhood block party and overheard Pat inviting neighbor friends to Sabbath dinner. Because we had not completely synced up about Sabbath prep and the night’s activities, I got caught in the cobwebs of my mind’s English ivy. Now, I have a few minutes while the challah rests and the chicken roasts with the beets and potatoes… a few minutes to sing sad happy songs and ask God if my brain will ever be still.**
“Ugh! Don’t you think it’s just so frustrating that we can never actually hug?!”
She’s acting out the question like it’s a modern dance prompt. “I mean, we’re just covered in molecules and there’s no real way that you… I mean the real you can really hug the real me! We’ll always just be separated by our skin!”
I’m not sure if I get the sweats because she’s so like me and I can so clearly visualize the mountains she’s climbing in her head OR if I get the sweats because she’s so unlike me which means there is a whole different set of mountains in there. Either way, I get overwhelmed by the barrage of questions and thoughts and the speed which is eerily similar to Rory from that one show I never watched in high school. The whole business of “we’re hugging but we’re not” was too existential for the post bedtime moment when it was introduced, so I shooed her off and snuggled into the end of one of three books on my nightstand.
Tonight, we walked the Beltline in search or Kombucha. Just two nerdy ladies making loud commentary on everything from fall weather to friendships to socially acceptable fraternizing.
“What’s singles night? Who goes to it? If you can get drunk on alcohol why do you drink it?” And she interrupts her own thoughts– “Oh, mom look! That place opened up! We’ve been waiting for it to open and now it is.. oh and looks like kind of a hula theme, okkkk! Oh, there’s the climbing gym. I sure love that place. And also why are there so many memberships but they are so expensive? You know, in heaven that will be so cool…
“Oh, you mean we will have all the memberships?”
“There won’t be any because we will all be in the same club!” I smile and she reaches for my hand. Now, we’re back to fall weather and sweaters and, oh! Here we are again. Back at molecules hugging.
“But, mom it really is awful that I’ll never actually be able to hug you. Like, really hug you, because we are just covered in skin and molecules and… ugh!”
“Wait, so you want our bones to hug? Our blood? What is it you envision hugging that would be more me than with my skin on?”
I was pushing, prodding… not because I knew what she would say and definitely not because I knew the answer (who even does know if molecules hug?). Today, she learned about dust mites (thank you Science class for introducing us to a world of terrors we cannot see) and she’s convinced we are all being “hugged” by tiny, terrible insects most of the time. Gross. But no, I think I was pushing because I was genuinely curious about where her thoughts would land.
“No, not blood and bones! I don’t know… Maybe, I don’t know, maybe I wish our souls could hug! Is that it? Like I just really think there is so much in between us kind of.”
“That’s it!” I said maybe a little too loud but it was okay because the DJ at the singles night was bumping. “I think I get what you’re saying!” And all at once we both summited a mountain in cozy sweaters in our separate brains and I realized God is seeing me, loving me, tending me, through the mind of this exquisite young lady. And I can see her a little bit more clearly in all her bursting, 9-year-old glory.
Indeed, what a wonderful day it will be, Zella Ruth, when our souls can finally hug.
There is no one on my lap, no one honking my nose or jungle gymming my back or gripping single strands of my hair with tiny, dimpled fingers. Adults crowd tables that look like high school chemistry class, but everyone is spaced out in socially appropriate bubbles and no one is doing experiments. I sit with three vacant chairs, staring at the exposed ceiling and pretend to vibe to the relevant music obscuring human conversations and clinking keys.
Caroline.
I am always too ambitious about being alone. My bag is stuffed with luxuries – Lord of the Rings, computer, daily liturgy, journal and some pens. I open a tab to make a list about all the things and it overlaps my stream of consciousness: articulate our family’s approach to discipline, write/rewrite a social media post, finally get more garlic at the grocery store for goodness sakes, breakdown our budget to weekly cashflow, look at houses for sale with/without boards on windows, think a whole thought, look through emails for things a normal human would have responded to already, reach out to realtors and lenders, look up “what to say to realtors and lenders” on community resource pages, decide whether my kids will ever be the kind of kids who wear real pajamas, write something down with a pen, look adult and confident and busy and important, watch people for a relevant reference, drink something all the way at the temperature it was when I ordered it, ̶w̶r̶i̶t̶e̶ ̶a̶ ̶b̶o̶o̶k̶, , make a plan to write a book.
…
Days later, here I am again in the freedom of alone at a different coffee shop, this time in our neighborhood. We – my neighborhood and me – are less cool and more practical. Aluminum folding chairs, computer, coffee, days-old hair and I think I slept in this shirt. I sit by the window and try to still my streaming thoughts, try to distill a sentence or a political commentary or even return to some of the list left unchecked from my last moments alone. But, I also have a dentist appointment this morning and I took too long ordering that ice coffee…
…
Again, alone. I came on my bike today, breathing the wet that comes after rain and feeling different muscles work to keep me in motion. My body battles back at me – creaking out something about, “use me more, not less.” Ok, I say under my breath, and I tilt my head toward giant, shining magnolia leaves and lean in so my shoulders can feel the rhythm of my pedaling as I duck under a flowering tree that hovers over the road. Morning is good for yard work and neighbors are in front lawns and on porches. I smile and my hellos surprise me. The world sounds so fine without my voice in it, with just the crackling neighborhood morning sounds. I beg my arms not to surrender to the weird fungus that appeared in the crease of my elbows. Did I sleep last night? My hands kept feeling like eczema fire and I remember flopping around with Foster – trying to get him to tell me what the trouble was, but our conversation was half-asleep. Must not have been serious because he woke up happy at 6 am.
Being human is broken.
Some people, I guess, can sometimes feel like everything is kind of okay. Like– maybe the world isn’t perfectly ordered, but their lives seem to be and it feels good. I’m not one of those people, or at least I can’t remember ever being that person.
I like the tension of longing. I think I even long for it. Maybe the act of longing sets me squarely in the present but connects me beyond it – recognizing deep in my spirit that all is not well right now, but it will be. It has been. It is in heaven. From night’s groggy end to it’s dusky beginning, I busy myself inside the ordinary moments while searching for that unnameable something that connects me outside them.
“There have been times when I think we do not desire heaven, but more often I find myself wondering whether in our heart of hearts, we have ever desired anything else. . . . It is the secret signature of each soul, the incommunicable and unappeasable want, the thing we desired before we met our wives or made our friends or chose our work, and which we shall still desire on our deathbeds when the mind no longer knows wife or friend or work.” C.S. Lewis in The Problem of Pain
I am present in my work – grabbing the leftover “pet elephant food” [marble] before it hits Foster’s lips, attempting to answer, “how did all the words get in there – in the Bible?” with some kind of pure simplicity, clean then dirty dishes and splattered stovetop and worm hunts and porch swings and toy baskets and sweat snuggles and the exhausting explanations about kindness coming from the heart.
…
I am home now, both children covered in carrot-berry smoothie. We take turns swaying in front of all seven windows. I spin for an applause of giggles. Beauty, delight, magic.
“But, I wasn’t hitting Mama! I was just patting.” “It was an accident, I think” “I wasn’t trying to…” But what was in your heart, babe? “Anger.”
I can see her eyelashes, all of them resting on her cheeks, when she says that last word. We heave breaths together, sweat mingled on all the arms. Yes, sweet girl. When there is ugly anger inside us it is incredibly hard to be kind. Almost, even impossible. She ducks into my skin, curls up and whispers, “I’m jealous.” I know, I say. And I hold them both like two wiggly fish on my lap on the floor in afternoon glow of all the front windows.
It is broken to be human and it is human to be broken.
And the bravery of a small life is to be about the work of restoration in the present moment, because of / in light of / in search of that desire that is hidden inside all of us. Eternity. It is saying YES to victory in Jesus by claiming His redemption over spilled milk and gentrification and humans who are called illegal. It is acting out that redemption in all the ordinary ways that callous our hands, not measuring a moment or a person or a question or a detour in light of its earthly value. The bravery of a small life is longing that all would be made well, knowing it is in Christ, and weighing the value of our days on the scale of His Kingdom come.
And I think I’m going to write a book about that.
**And that was 5 years, 2 kids, one house and a whole lifetime ago.**
Light dapples the deck and backdrops the August cicada song. The kids are loudly protesting quiet time and Postal Service serenades me with the windows open to the first hint of autumn cool breeze. “I was finally seeing, I was the one worth leaving.” Depravity is an idea with maybe too much mental baggage in my mind. Tulips, for me, should always and forever be considered for their beauty and elegance and never for their acronymic abilities. But, there are no tulips right now. My last zinnias are fighting for drinks in this drought stretch, reaching up at the very corner of our yard for the best light. They are bedraggled and glorious all at once.
When we started our very novice journey in landscaping, we thought “we are green people, not flower people.” The thought shames me now, but I will own it because then I know I’ve grown! My grandma, for years, wrote to all of her grandchildren on notecards that she made from pictures she took of her flowers. I almost said “her prize flowers” but they were all her treasures. She paused to notice each one blooming, sometimes letting just the bloom live in a vase inside to extend her viewing of it. But, she loved them all the same and though the picture quality was sub-par, she would lovingly write in her flowing cursive the name of the flower in the bottom right corner on the front before letting her pen update us on the weather and her clothing choices for the season and the goings-on in her neighborhood. I still have all of them in the basement. I mean to bring them up and use them for flashcards to memorize all her favorite flowers. Someday.
And, so I realize, small, little me in this small, little house of quiet time protesters… that I am the one worth leaving. My temper, my selfishness, my pride. I used to think “approaching the throne with confidence” was a badge of honor I wore, like a parade I got to make because I had every right to be in front of the King (because of Jesus, obvs) even with all the TULIPS being explained around me. You might think that as my life got bigger and wider and held more I might feel smaller. Instead, it is only now as my life shrinks to the size of our square footage that I can see more clearly just how unlikely it is that I should ever step foot near that throne. How utterly ridiculous an idea that I should be in the same room with a King, a true and holy and perfect King.
And yet, even though I am absolutely the one worth leaving, He came for me. And He comes for me now. Praise be!
“Don’t wake me, I plan on sleeping in…” what existential thoughts can I attach to this song while I sit with the crayons and the crumbs and the leftover smoothie on the table? God knows.
MUSINGS IN THE MIDST 