Category: Life Insight

I just want friends who aren’t cool, like me

“Am I cool, mom?”

I was standing there, looking into the bathroom at my most tender child while he sat on the toilet, and I responded like any mom would– like I thought he would want me to respond.

“Yeah, buddy, you’re one of the coolest people I know!”

Silence. So much toilet paper.

“I don’t think I’m cool. I just want to have friends who aren’t cool, like me. Because I like who I am! And I just want them to like who they are. And I could like who I am.”

“You know what, you’re totally right and that actually makes more sense. I’m not cool either and it feels really good to be around people who just like who we are. Wow, that’s a really wise thing you said.”

Flush. Silence. So much toilet paper.

I love this kid so much it hurts. I’m wild about him. Tonight after family devotions, he preached a sermon in some of the straightest language I’ve ever heard about how the meanness inside of us is violent toward other people. His delivery is at times hard to follow because he weaves in and out of teaching and illustrations (accompanied by an entire scene acted out where he is all the characters). That’s how it was tonight, but every time Pat or I thought to insert a teaching point or help him along, he just kept right on going and by the end of his rambling we were both affirmed with wide eyes, “Wow, that’s really incredible.”

The funny thing is, he’s asked this before about being cool and I always emphasize just how cool he, in fact, truly is. But I know now we weren’t speaking the same language. He said “cool” and I heard “that invisible quality that pushes some people to the fringes and keeps some of them close to the center” and assumes that the center is where we all want to be.

I learned a lesson about language, looking at my boy on the toilet tonight. I need to listen more. Ask more questions. Make less assumptions. And, if I’m looking for it, the lesson might be for my spirit, too.

Posted on by Caroline 1

who we are and who we should be

“She can sure tell a short story!”

“She didn’t ask me to do a single thing at that party!”

“I love how nonlinear her thinking is!”

“My, she is indestructibly composed!”

I just read that last description in a novel and couldn’t stifle the laugh. Composed is not who I am and not really who I have ever been. If you walk into a party at my house, there is a good chance I’ll need your help cleaning or cutting the chicken or telling my children that playing hockey with tree sticks is probably not a good idea (you would end that like a question because of course you wouldn’t let them play stick hockey in the house with a rock for a puck while they rollerblade, but I have, indeed, done just that). All the other quotes above are just things I imagine no one has said of me, ever.

I was once so fully committed to the haphazard confetti of my personality that I dressed as a Christmas tree for a costume party and plugged myself into the wall for the whole thing. I’m a lot of years removed from that party in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, but I remember the absolute joy radiating from my face (or was that the Christmas lights around my neck?) like some people remember winning a championship. I didn’t win anything that night (not even best dressed), but I just loved being in my skin.

Now, in the year 2024, I have somehow time-traveled to my sixth grade year but with the saggy skin of a mid-lifer. I am unsure who to talk to, what to say, and how to share the little gems of myself at a reasonable rate while also making sure to stay reasonably curious about the needs and treasures of the folks around me. That last part is the 30 years since sixth grade, but it all seems to be overlapping in strange and vulnerable ways. What is it about our characters and our personalities that is meant to be sanctified and what is just who we are?

How do we come to have our preferences and habits and rhythms and weekend plans? Is it a series of events that have us arriving at an enneagram number and a different set of variables that defines our Meyers-Briggs? Or is it all the same information just organized differently? How much of who I am right now is the same as my six grade self (who wrote journal entries about the first day she wore shorts to school and the seating placement in history class and the rabbit skin that showed up in my locker as a gift from the locker next door). What of who we are is who we are meant to be?

I’m very much not sure about that. As much as I have lived and seen in the three decades since sixth grade, it seems that I (metaphorically) have spent the whole journey walking around the same tree. Every once in a while, I’ll turn and notice something in the bark and with the passion of a EUREKA! epiphany will declare the new knowledge to myself and others only to discover a journal entry or a blog post from 13 years ago that boldly declares the same truth. Things I learned in those early years of discovering God to be personal and holy and good are lessons I am waking up to these days like I’ve never heard the news before.

Can I be sanctified into indestructibly composed? I would settle for uncompromisingly gentle or abundantly kind. But, it’s just hard to know what is possible, you know?

What I do know is that the God who made me is full of grace and truth and is incredibly patient. I do know the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. I do know that those who abide in the vine will produce fruit. The Father gives us every opportunity through the Spirit to discover Him and, in discovering Him, our truest selves will come into view. Where I want to measure myself against others or my own ideas, God applies a measurement of the heart that might make little sense to the world. Whatever that truest self needs to shed and whatever it needs to grow by sanctification, I know the plumb line is sure, steady and stable.

I might ditch the novel. The theology of the 60s and 70s in England (as it’s portrayed in this book) really perverted the incredible early work of Augustine and Ambrose. I’m not sure I can keep everything in its tidy place anymore. The day is what late summer dreams are made of, so we will read outside and go on a neighborhood walk and eventually land at the library and Zella’s first band practice. And I will show up to all those places as my unfinished self, no matter how many eurekas I’ve had today.

Now, the task of embracing what is unfinished with humility and not shame, because God is glorified in my growing.

Posted on by Caroline 2

the grace you’ve been given

O Lord, we pray that your grace may always precede and follow after us, that we may continually be given to good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

It’s always humbling when a children’s book speaks Truth that (ahem… pushes glasses up on nose) adult literature has progressed beyond. I’m not surprised anymore, but I’ve noticed that if I don’t keep a curious posture, I might miss it altogether and be like a lot of adults out here skipping childlikeness like it’s last week’s meatloaf.

So, I had to pause when Bayard the Truthspeaker was talking about a son who had strayed away from his father and rebelled. I even read the whole exchange twice for my kids (let me not lie, it was for me).

“Does a tall man deserve to be tall? Does Prince Steren deserve to be the son of a king? A bird might think he deserves to swim as well as a fish, but if he sits moping on the riverbank instead of using the wings God gave him, the fox is going to eat him. “Your brother would rather have his own way than be happy. He’s thrown away the grace he was given because it’s not the grace he had in mind.” The Truthspeaker paused to reflect on that. “There’s not much hope for a person who won’t live in the grace he’s given.” – Secret of the Swamp King by Jonathan Rogers

The Collect this week is simple, but the real-life  working out of it can sometimes feel complicated. What my mind may grasp and even my actions may reflect, my heart can be sluggish to believe. We know the heart is both deceitful above all things (Jeremiah 17:9) and the wellspring of life (Proverbs 4:23)– a true and literal war within our bones that reveals what we want the most. I want the fruit of the Spirit, but I also really want to be very good at something and to binge watch a cooking show and to forget the laundry and to escape inside a book. My childhood pastor used to reference the often quoted Psalm 37:4, “Delight in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart” and exhort us that it was our “wanter” that would ultimately be changed to desire what God desires for us. 

It’s taken me decades to begin to understand that changing my “wanter” is not a task God has given me, but a grace that precedes and follows after me. Changing my “wanter” is not so much a prize I can win, but is accepting the reality that the victory is won and I’m clinging to the cloak of the One who has the crown. My current pastor once preached a sermon where he described us arriving in heaven holding on to the edge of Christ’s garment. My “wanter” is concerned with that kind of clinging, knowing that only my closeness to the Victor will bring me into glory.

The grace of God– the grace that hems me in on all sides– this very gift of grace is initiated and accomplished by the Maker Himself. And we pray we would align with the reality of that truth that we may be given to good works. Because, as we well know, grace without works is dead (James 2:14). And works without grace is a life of striving. The only way to do any good thing is to notice that it is grace that both paves the way and pulls you along the road. 

I sometimes read books in the philosophy section and recently the book “On the Road with Augustine” has been quite the ride. The journey of faith is a strange one, full of paradox, and this book has been a comfort to me especially knowing that so many have considered the questions that seem to constantly inhabit my mind and my time. In the chapter on freedom, James K.A. Smith quotes Gabriel Marcel,

“You are hedged in; you dream of escape; but beware of mirages. Do not run or fly away in order to get free: rather dig in the narrow place which has been given you; you will find God there and everything.”

And you, friend– do you question the place and space where God has you? What grace have you been given this day, this season? It may not be the grace you had in mind. Maybe you had in mind different neighbors, a more fulfilling  job, a tiny home on a mountain in Spain, a byline in the NYT, or a full family photo on your desk. But, what do you have? Dig in (with me!) to that grace and we will find God (Jeremiah 29:13) together.

**wrote this for my church this week and thought I might as well re-post here**

Posted on by Caroline 3

do I have a “native” habitat?

We decided to naturescape for the birds and the bees, in the beginning. Planting native wildflowers, clover and grasses on top of crunchy pecan leaves that would eventually be mulch. But pecan leaves are a pain. They start falling long before the autumn equinox, when trees have the nature’s okay to turn color and create the palette we stand in front of for family pictures. They cover our lawn in one way or another for most of the year, so naturescaping meant peacemaking with the pecans.

I’m not quite there yet (at peace with the pecans), but we did watch fritillary butterflies grow from skinny ‘lil babies to chrysalis plump. We noticed wrens and cardinals and mourning doves and mockingbirds and eastern towhees and tufted titmouses (titmice?) and downy woodpeckers. And we noticed a handful of other birds in different seasons, sitting early on the front steps in the morning. Listening. Is it nature taking back our yard as a habitat or is it just that I am listening?

Maybe it is both.

Some of the neighbors don’t mind. Actually, one of our sweet neighbors is a designated wildlife area and another has a 10 year plan to reclaim their yard to benefit the ecosystem where we live. So, we’re not the first with the idea. We’re just doing our best with free cardboard and harvested seeds and letting those blasted pecan leaves help where we can’t. They are cover for little insects and they are food for the ground and eventually compost to create a rich mix of soil for those little native seeds to grow.

I can’t help but think of native things. The idea that something– a plant or a person or a bird– belongs somewhere. This whole wide world in the mind of its Creator– with rocks carved out for waterfalls and mountains capped with snow and long, flat stretches of flowing wild grasses– is full of places and spaces designated specifically and uniquely to be a home, a place of belonging for something or someone. Cardinals and monarch butterflies and arctic foxes– they all have a sense of where they are supposed to be, to grow, to hunt, maybe even to die.

Humans are a bit more complicated. And not the least because our whole existence has been displacing people and plants and primates to make room for our ideas and inventions and ill-motivated conquests. We are not the world’s next best thing. We show up on the shores of places and we destroy. If we look at the long history of humanity, stretching back even further than the disasters of European explorers, we find destruction at the beginning or ending of every story. I’m no history expert, but as our home studies ancient worlds and middles ages, the stories all start to sound very similar.

I have a few moments now, while Pat puts finishing touches on our free book library out front. The cicadas push back the quiet and I wonder: what is native to our hearts? What belongs there, originally before the sins of self started to eat us from the inside? What has been choked out by invasive species that someone told us would be good to plant? What has been a nice, Bermuda grass landscape that has made my heart uninhabitable for the good, wild fruits to grow?

Thankfully, God is both the prologue and the epilogue to the books of history. He is before and after every place of destruction, inviting us into redemption season. Like a forest decimated by a fire, God invites us into the miracle of something new, green, and good growing up from the ashes of human destruction.

The analogies blur and my mind shakes back to our neighborhood picnic in an hour. Carrots, tomatoes, should I pack the BLT’s sitting on the table since we haven’t eaten lunch yet? I need to pick up my friend’s kids and find a cooler…

I do wonder if there is a place on this earth that a human feels “native.” Does that exist uniquely for each human or am I dreaming?

We started naturescaping for the birds and the bees, but maybe it is for my brain. Maybe I need to ask questions about why things are how they are and what needs to be ripped out. Maybe I need to let the soil inside rest so I can see what might grow when given the chance. Maybe naturescaping is a thing that can happen on the inside, too.

Posted on by Caroline 3

the part where I am not able

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.

Posted on by Caroline 3

reply to Ecclesiastes

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.

Posted on by Caroline 2

bravery of a small life

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.**

Posted on by Caroline 0

the news is good because of the Giver

The stress of Sunday felt like a 7 layer dip I got buried inside. We rolled out of church just before the lights shut off (as per uzh) and Pat looked at me and said “Should we get doughn–?” and I interrupted with, “Well, I don’t really want to clean u–” and then he said, “So, pizza?” and I was like, “…invite Margaret!”

We were all like, “yeah, totally YES AND!” in those beautifully spiritual words of improv. And after pizza and catching up with our friend, we had to stop for eucalyptus and then also garland and then by the time we got home… well, there wasn’t much time for sabbath rest before dinner and hosting preparations began.

I wrote the Magnificat on butcher paper in pink to acknowledge the subtle relief we feel this week as we light the candle of Joy. I found myself pausing, even as I haphazardly decided to bake and frost cookies with sprinkles an hour before people were supposed to arrive. My pausing was a mental one, connecting the bright dots of light across the sky behind my eyes and seeing a picture emerge while the chaos of color and sound happened in my view.

Constellations. It’s the best way I can explain how something can connect so completely inside my spirit that I am almost convinced I’ve known before and forgotten. And as I traced dots of light in my mind’s sky, I saw a different way to consider the absurdity of Mary’s worship. The news that she would give birth to the son of God was actually the worst news for her reputation and for conversations at family gatherings and for a “honeymoon” stage of marriage and for her young body that would shapeshift to hold the baby. When I asked the kids Sunday night what emotions she might have felt when receiving the news from the angel, they answered the way I always have, “Scared!” … “Nervous!” … “Confused!” … “Afraid!” and their answers hung just under the strings of eucalyptus and leaves and evergreen branches on the ceiling.

And yet, I have no problem picturing her joy because I’m on THIS SIDE of Jesus’s birth. I know it will be ok. I know she will be an outcast, but she will also be visited by shepherds and angels and far away kings. I know the crude manger scene will give way to assimilating into some sort of regular life where he gets left at the temple, teaching rabbis. I know her Son, my Savior will be the Messiah because I believe the historical fact of his birth and kingship more easily as I look backward. I am believing with the whole picture of what He came to accomplish and living in light of His victory over the grave.

But, Mary.

She may not have known that her baby boy would one day walk on water, but she did know the character of the One who made the waters and the winters and the womb home inside her where Jesus would reside. She did not know most things about how the Savior would do the saving. But as she is caught up (and us with her) in her song of joy, I am struck by how her worship was fueled by all she did know about her God.

The news was not good in the way we might celebrate the joys (ahem…success) of the past year on a Christmas card: job promotions, marriage, babies, trips, renovations, awards and Pinterest worthy hosting events. Mary’s update to her family and friends might have read something like, “This year, angels appeared miraculously to Joseph and me to tell us we would be the parents of God’s son, Jesus. We are overjoyed! We write to you from a long, lonely walk to Bethlehem and hope that we can find lodging there. We have had a hard time finding work and maintaining friends, but we are hopeful that someday soon you can join us in this joy that we know to have come from the Maker Himself. It is truly amazing!” She probably wouldn’t even write the sad parts which read passive aggressive now, as I read them back.

Mary’s joy somehow sat beside, and was not overshadowed by, the sorrow in her heart. And though this news would flip her life like a temple table in Jesus’ hands, she stepped into the miracle of it and sang for joy. I wonder if, like the words of Elizabeth when their wombs met, their access to such joy came because they weren’t afraid it would displace the appropriate ache of all the other things. The injustices in the land. Stress and tension among family. The sorrow of lost loved ones. The pain of estrangement. The everyday toil of torn muscles and stretching work schedules.

It was past dinnertime last night, our guests were running late and Pat would be walking in just moments before their arrival. I was a flurry of motion, praying the paprika chicken would be edible while I made dough balls for naan and let Vesper run between my legs. I spoke slowly and directly and sternly to the children in my charge, “I need your help. I’m asking you to help me because I cannot do this alone.” The crack in my armor was showing and Zella responded in her too-grown way, “Mom, you seem stressed. Ok, let’s say 5 things we’re thankful for, ok?”

Anger boiled behind my slow breaths, because I don’t run a tight ship in my house and it felt like we were sinking. But, her words glittered like stars in the darkened sky of my anger, above the sinking ship of my house. Somehow, by the grace of God, prayers of a friend and my daughter’s convicting words, we righted the ship under a less sailors-take-warning kind of sky. The pride and the pain in me are resistant to Mary’s type of worship because I want to know, “exactly how, God?” How will this turn out good, in the end? I don’t see your purpose in it. I don’t understand my role in it. I can’t work out the specifics of this type of saving.

But what Mary knew was enough: the giver of the News is what makes it Good.

God, heal my unbelief.

P.S. Dinner was fine. It was more than fine, it was wonderful. Both Advent and our guests last night were truly a gift from the One who knows my name. And I am humbled because I could have worshipped before I knew that the chicken was delicious and the kids would warm to candlelit trivia about Mary and our living room would fill with joy and honest prayers. I missed that opportunity, but I pray I won’t miss the next one. When I receive the words (however they come) that God is good, I pray my first words are rejoicing ones.

Posted on by Caroline 2

no better place

There is no place like home, it’s true. There is a familiar comfort in a cozy corner or books arranged systematically in a way no other human soul could understand or the steam rising from a freshly baked loaf cooling on the counter. But sometimes home isn’t home enough. It’s unexplainably lonely and cold and quiet, even as the joyful shouts of children smother your thoughts and you shuffle around with three layers of your husband’s socks. Just me?

How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord Almighty! My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God. Even the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may have her young— a place near your altar, Lord Almighty, my King and my God. Blessed are those who dwell in your house; they are ever praising you.

Psalm 84:1-4

This morning, after a mess and tangle of extra limbs in my bed and water requests before I opened my eyes, I remembered my home. I put the water on to boil, measured the coffee extra strong, and gave my littlest ones cereal in bowls with milk that I mentally prepared to clean up off the floor because they wanted to share a chair. Muscle memory pre-heated the oven to 460, because I have a hunch my oven runs cold. I formed the dough while the hot water rested, then rested the dough while I ground the coffee.

And, I thought of home. It’s a refuge I know well, but a place I have never lived. It’s the home God made for me and where my heart rests its head sometimes without my body fully participating. And it feels so desperately far from where I am. I sang the words with my winter-cold voice and it cracked extra as I achieved a level above the din of hide-and-seek madness circling three rooms.

I wanna be in Your presence, I wanna be near Your heart
I wanna know You’re close even when I’m feeling far
I don’t want what this world would offer, I want the living God
‘Cause there’s no place better than where You are

from Caroline Cobb’s “No Better Place”

I poured fluid ounces of meticulously heated water over coffee grounds and I cried. “Do I?” The thought surprised me, like reaching deep back into the freezer for a chocolate long hidden only to turn around to meet a child’s curious gaze. Shame and love warred for a moment– and I paused, wondering what my exposure would produce in me. I sang again, believing that singing my love for home would remind my heart where I belonged.

As I prepare for advent this year, I’m listening. I’m listening to Howard Thurman and Tish Harrison Warren and Fleming Rutledge. I am listening to old saints and seekers, monks and martyrs. And I am yearning with them for home. I am believing with them that Light has come, will come and is a Light that cannot be overcome. This is the Light that illuminates my true home. My yearning for this home feels fragile– wrapped as it is in my human understanding.

As I listen to others, I also hear my own condemnation. No matter how much I know, how many times the Spirit convicts, how often I face the facts of spiritual failure in my own life, I cannot accomplish my own mending. The ripped garments of my choosing can only be repaired with the torn veil of the Temple and the broken flesh of a Savior. And, those tiny words formed in a question hidden in the noisy kitchen chaos this morning, beckoned me, “come.”

Come, child. Come sit inside my mending. Come repent and rest. Come without all your defenses and reasons. Just come be in this Light and know that the exposure allows you to see, actually see the home I’ve made for you. Be here. Be with me. Sit with me. Listen to me. Come, child. Listen to the stories I tell of a world I made right, a world I am setting to right, a world I am actively mending by the blood of my Son, Jesus.

Warren writes about the prophet Isaiah pairing repentance and rest (Isaiah 30:15) and how it might seem curious at first. We might assume that turning from sin is work. It makes sense, because resisting temptation is work. But, in our turning we are also accepting the joy of the true work accomplished. In Christ, our repentance is not work but freedom. In Christ, we walk through an open door to be both fully exposed and fully at rest. Home. Not a home with dusty corners or shadows or shame. The home we have in Christ is rest and my body relaxes into a deep and yearning sadness to be fully arrived mind, body and soul. There is no better place.

Now, I return to the hide-and-seek madness as we prepare for Sabbath. A little one will sit on my hip as I vacuum and another will keep me company on the kitchen floor while I clean and bake. I will tend the sick one with sips of Sprite and listen as another regales me with tales of the worlds inside her books. I will share elbow space with my partner as we set to the tasks of the day. And I pray all day I will hear the refrain, “there is no better place” and think of the invitation into the Lord’s presence somehow, mysteriously, in the midst of it all.

Posted on by Caroline 2

the habit of meeting together

It started raining at 4 pm, the kind that comes sideways slowly like a mist you can ignore but then somehow soaks your jacket and requires windshield wipers. We were expecting company within the hour. I never check the weather. I even told folks earlier in the week– I won’t check the weather, we’ll just pray. Our house is small, sometimes shrinking with our own dinner shenanigans, six pairs of hands and shoulders jostling for storytelling position that often ends in a pair of feet standing on a chair.

We love our little house. It is warm and safe and insulated from the harshness on the other side of the world. As we prepared our table in the rain, with borrowed decorations and mismatched chairs in candlelight, I thought of the horror lighting up backyards and neighborhoods in Gaza.

French loaves and round loaves baked while the ingredients for squash soup simmered and adjusted to my seasoning whims. I threw ice cubes in the oven, my made-up hack for a water bath, and prayed my haphazard disregard for timing and instructions would still produce something edible. I tripped over the 1 year old and had words with the 8 year old who insisted every art supply was needed for the gifts she was preparing for our guests. The 6 and almost 4 year old were, as per uzh, completely oblivious to the fact of hosting at all. Although, they managed to pop up every 17 minutes to ask, “When is the party starting again?”

The habit of hosting is spiritual warfare. It is perceiving books pushed off the shelves in the movie Interstellar to reveal an entirely different dimension, a time and space of different rules and a kingdom where the right rule is perfectly reflected. Heaven. The picture of God as Host is perhaps my most intimate understanding of my Maker. It’s about the inviting, the preparing, the knowing, the making space… and all of it for the purpose of existing in the same room, in the same moment. That is the reward. That is the joy of the Maker, the delight of the Father. To be with me. To be with us.

Sometimes, in my immaturity, I wonder if I host to better know this truth– to heal the unbelief that He hasn’t actually invited me or won’t actually follow through with the plans for the feast in the land of Zion. There’s always a moment, pre-party, where I wish we get rained out– or that some external factor would relieve the stress and failure of the hosting mayhem. But, then the mist clears, the crowd comes, and the imperfect party feels like the kingdom of heaven. Surprise guests arrive. Kids spill the “kid wine” and refuse indulgent mashed potatoes. The candles are perfect for 15 minutes at dusk and then nearly light hairs on fire before burning down past the candle holder and providing less than ideal light. The night hides the outdoor tables and crunchy pecan leaves land in the potato salad. And it feels like the kingdom.

The habit of hosting is spiritual warfare, but what a miracle of a reality that, if we invite Him, the King of heaven and earth and all creation shows up in all His glory to proclaim the battle is won. Hosting is acting out the belief that the King of heaven has held nothing back in His invitation and as we reflect that likeness, neither should we. It is a battle cry that doesn’t reverberate or echo in the hollow chambers of the interwebs but comes alive inside the hearts of those present.

It got loud, there were tumbles and offenses and hurt feelings and demands for more pumpkin mousse. But, in the middle of it, we made sure to name where we were directing our thanks. We prayed a prayer as we broke the bread that the delight in our tasting of it would pale in comparison to our delight in the sharing of the Bread of Life. We prayed again as we built little ebenezers as a family to remember the way the Lord had been faithful in the past year. The Lord be praised, for He has shown up!

The habit of meeting together is a spiritual act of resistance! We proclaim the Lord’s name as we crucify our desire for perfect behaviors and pinterest tablescapes. We proclaim the Lord’s name as we lift up the sounds of a rowdy game of tag or a very involved play daycare situation that has developed on the deck. We proclaim the Lord’s name as we invite in new friends and friends of those friends. The Lord, the Lion and the lamb, is on the move. There is something about gathering together that reminds us that this spiritual battle is not a local one. The habit of meeting together is also the habit of mobilizing, training, and joining the global resistance led by the servant king of heaven. The boot camp is the kitchen and the art studio and the garden and the tool shed and the writing workshop.

Our habit of meeting in the glow of our little house is a direct response to the horrors happening in the dark world because the kingdom of God is not a local kingdom– not a national kingdom, not a government or a movement. The kingdom of God is a reality that we embrace as we meet together, imperfectly and wherever we are in the world, and desperately seek His face.

Come, Lord Jesus! Heal my unbelief that I’m not invited to your table even as I invite others to ours.

Posted on by Caroline 2