Easter As Told By a Cheesy But Meaningful Analogy.

This week was INSANE. In-sane. I'll leave out the wretched details for the sake of my pride. But let's just say that all because of mistakes on my part, a lot of money got spent, several trips were scheduled and rescheduled and cancelled and rescheduled again, other people had to change their plans and weeks and give time and energy and money, and it was INSANE.

Vague, huh? Well, I want you all to still like me. I will just hint these few things:

-Don't ever lose the keys to a Volkswagen.

-Really, really don't lose the keys to a Volkswagen when you're staying with friends in rural Idaho hours from the nearest VW dealership.

-Really, really, really don't lose your driver's license along with your keys.

-Don't schedule three separate trips having you in four states in a week when each one is dependent on the last one's happening on schedule.

-Don't forget to check in to your flight online, and if you do, get to the airport at least three minutes earlier than 27 minutes before scheduled flight.

-Don't cancel an entire round-trip flight when you thought you were only switching one leg of it.

-Read your trip insurance before you buy it to make sure it covers things like flakiness and not just deaths in the family.

Are we tracking?

It was bad, people.

So here's the part that relates to Easter.

One of these trips was that I was supposed to fly from Portland to LA to spend this weekend with my dad and Allie. This was starting to seem quite impossible given the fact that I was stranded in Idaho until who knew when and that I had-had-had to be at work on Monday morning.

I had a tearful phone call with my dad on Thursday-ish, where I said I was so so sorry I wasn't going to be able to make the trip.

He was lovely and understanding and reassuring and all other sorts of things I did not deserve (did you read the above hints carefully? get whose mistakes you are learning all these things from?)...

and he also really really wanted me to come.

We rearranged the flight.

And rearranged it.

AND REARRANGED IT AGAIN when I missed the damn red eye flight by three minutes (I'm still upset about it).

It got crazy, and expensive, and just started to seem more and more like it couldn't possibly be worth it.

And I kept saying DAD. I AM SOOOO SORRY. ARE YOU SURE. THIS IS INSANE.

And my dad kept saying,

"I don't care how much it costs. I don't care if we have to get up early to get you to the airport. I just want to see you. I'm so excited to be with you."

My crazy, ridiculous father, despite the fact that his lovely, organized plans for me coming had been completely screwed over by my repeated inability to function as a capable adult...

Just. Wanted. To. Be. With. Me.

So I finally freaking made it to LA. We went to Disneyland and we went out to dinner and we had breakfast and coffee and talked and laughed and hugged and processed grad school and fought (I mean, we're being honest here, right?) and I was still stressed and tired and overemotional and I mean seriously, had been all over the Northwest by the seat of my pants in the last three days and by the time I got there I literally could not remember the last time I had showered.

And my dad kept hugging me and kissing my head and posing us for pictures and saying, over and over,

"I'm so glad I got to spend time with you! It's so wonderful to have you here! I just love being with you!"

So, this Easter weekend,

let me offer up my flakiness as a real-life parable I got to live out this week:

Fathers would do anything to be with their children.

Even when it's costly.

And more costly, and really getting absurdly costly.

Even when the children don't deserve it.

Even when due to their own mistakes they throw away the opportunity and then the other opportunity and the other one.

Even when it seems like they will barely make it by the seat of their pants and they're exhausted and crabby and tearful and dirty and are wondering how anyone could possibly have thought all this trouble and expense was worth it.

Fathers would do anything

because they so want to be with their children.

He has Risen.

He has Risen indeed.

Alleluia.

Happy Easter.

Dad and Em on Tom Sawyer Island, March 30, 2013

Homeschooler.

I love the idea of being a homeschooling mom someday. I want to have a home full of books and art and music. I want to teach my kids fractions through baking and science through nature walks. I love the idea of getting to enjoy my kids on driving-free days and of creating a family culture where memories and experiences are shared with siblings.

(...Should I stop mentioning this to boys on the second date?

I digress...)

In high school, Mary and I used to plan how when we grew up we'd bring our kids over to each other's houses and homeschool together. We'd take them to the zoo and parks and she could do art classes and I would have them write and illustrate their own stories.

This week I stayed with one of my favorite families and while the parents were away for the day, I WAS IN CHARGE OF HOMESCHOOLING four of their youngest kids!!! I was so, so, so excited.

We went for a long walk, stopping to feed horses and to notice the colors in the field.

We baked shortbread, practicing multiplication as we doubled the recipe.

We cuddled up in the big chair and read out loud to each other.

When we couldn't find something we needed, we paused right where we were and spontaneously prayed about it.

IT WAS AWESOME.

Last night Russ and Lisa got home, and the kids were excited to tell them about their day.

I got big hugs and sincere thank yous.

Very casually, as we were setting the table for dinner, Lisa asked...

"Just out of curiousity...

did the boys get to,

um...

their schoolwork today?"

I glanced over to the desk in the corner and saw...

the carefully organized stack of notebooks and math flashcards and spelling words

all ready for...

you know.

Homeschool.

Knew I forgot something.

.recent knitting project.

it's called a saxon braid!

so fun to do.

and super hard. don't look too close. many mistakes!

it's arrived at its destination,

so i can post pictures now...

pattern: i changed it a lot, but it's based off of this one.

yarn: caron simply soft in bone.

Modern [psychotherapeutic] Family.

Me: I just emailed my parents to tell them I don't like their favorite psychology theory. It's basically exactly like when you told your parents you're gay.

Matt: Wow! What made you decide it was the right time to come out to them?!

Me: I just need to be my real self!!

My mom: Sweetie, lots of people experiment with different theories in grad school. I think this is just a phase.

Me: (facepalm)

My dad: Em, here, please just read this essay I wrote on psychoanalysis!! It will really help you understand this better. I'm sure that what's really going on is that you're confused about what psychoanalysis really means.

Me: (facepalm)

My mom: You know, I think this is really about that you're so deeply psychodynamic that you can't even see it right now. Probably it scares you.

Me: (facepalm)

Matt: Just give them time. It's hard for parents when kids don't turn out how they expected.

always better when we're together.

my favorite spring + community + rural poem.

I'm going out to clean the pasture spring;

I'll only stop to rake the leaves away

(And wait to watch the water clear, I may):

I shan't be gone long-- You come too.

I'm going out to fetch the little calf

That's standing by the mother. It's so young

It totters when she licks it with her tongue.

I shan't be gone long-- You come too.

robert frost,

"The Pasture",

1910

Josh & Meg.

My sweet friends the Cutherells came out to from Wheaton to the Northwest to hike for a week!

They came to Newberg on Wednesday and I brought them to my favorite restaurant...

I love these two. They are honest and straightforward, adventurous, and incredibly giving and encouraging.

And I love watching their love for each other;

they have one of the most most mutually-sacrificial and grateful marriages I've ever seen.

Josh flew home on Thursday and Meg stayed on to be with me for the weekend!

I love this girl so much and miss our post-college year of small group and runs.

We're just hanging out doing normal Newberg life,

like mornings reading and studying at a coffee shop...

and hanging out with llamas.

Y'know, what everyone does with friends who come to stay.

Also, today we went into the city and went to Powell's.

Meghan is one of the only people I know who loves books about as much as I do.

This is what happens when you let the two of us in that store, even on a budget...

Rest is important.

(wooden sign how-to)

My work is teaching pre-schoolers to memorize Mary Oliver poems.

"My work is loving the world.

Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird-

equal seekers of sweetness.

Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.

Here the clams deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?

Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me

keep my mind on what matters,

which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be

astonished.

The phoebe, the delphinium.

The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.

Which is mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here,

which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart

and these body-clothes,

a mouth with which to give shouts of joy

to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,

telling them all, over and over, how it is

that we live forever."

.caitlin.

sweet friend from high school out in portland for a business trip,

came and spent a night and a morning with me.

such a blessing.

My grandkids are cuter than your grandkids.

Guess what event I got invited to?

Highlight of my week.

Possibly year.

Sweet girl I'm with in the pic above above is in 5th grade. Her beautiful sister is a 3rd grader.

I got to meet them each at their lunches, see their classrooms, and tour the library.

So blessed by this town.

I so beat all the other grandmas on the monkey bars at recess.

Fifteen things...

I am loving right now about life in this town...

"Everything that the Creator God does in forming us humans

is done in place.

It follows from this that

since we are His creatures

and can hardly escape the conditions of our making,

for us everything which has to do with God

is also in place.

All living is local:

this land, this neighborhood,

these trees and streets and houses,

this work, these people...

This place, this garden, is not utopia...

It is simply place, locale, geography, geology.

But it is also a good place,

because it provides the form

by which we can live

to the glory of God.

What we often consider to be the concerns of the spiritual life-

ideas, truths, prayers, promises, beliefs-

are never in the Christian gospel

permitted to have a life of their own apart from

particular persons and actual places."

-Eugene Peterson,

Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places

*****

walking to work.

*****

walking home.

*****

sunday mornings.

*****

dads who hear that my car is not working

and of their own volition come over to fix it.

(this actually made me choke up a little bit,

car stuff really stresses me out.)

*****

first fridays of the month.

*****

small town café.

*****

running into buds as we all get coffee.

*****

new babies.

(note the trolley car behind us... ?!) 

*****

gardens popping up.

*****

the produce stand is back open!!!!

*****

being greeted at the door by a dinosaur.

it makes my heart so happy that they will randomly still wear the costumes i sewed.

*****

beautiful middle-schoolers.

*****

teenage artist making my kitchen awesome.

*****

friends who respond to

"making extra brunch, come over!" texts

on a saturday morning.

*****

oregon skies every day.

.for comfort in our pain.

haven't read much julian lately,

but opened to my bookmark yesterday:

"...the other is for comfort in our pain,

because He wants us to be aware

that the pain shall all be transformed

into honor and benefit

by virtue of His passion,

and that we be aware

that we do not suffer alone,

but with Him."

-revelations of divine love,

from chapter 28.

.to you all hearts are open, all desires known.

dear jesus,

i've been really, really mad at you this week.

i'm feeling so strongly the gap between here and heaven, here and home, here and how our hearts long so much for it to be.

this week as i poured my heart out and held others' up to you, as i journaled pages and pages with scrawled, capital letters and lots of question marks and lots of 'please',
i recognized this anger.

it's the same anger i felt towards you the months i first got home from bolivia, when i walked in a daze through the streets of wheaton.
it's a little bit of anger covering such deep, deep sadness, confusion and hurt.

confusion, sadness, and hurt that you, our god,
our father, our friend, our source of comfort and the one who knit us and knows us and holds us and loves us harder than we can imagine, every day...
doesn't make it all better.
when you could.

this week's news especially, but so many other aches of the last few years, too.

so loud in my head this week, jesus, was the story of how it was all supposed to go.

each would fall in love. and be loved in return, just as hard.

babies would be conceived easily. and born whole.

hurt children would heal.

elementary-schoolers would always come home safe.

everyone's family relationships would develop into deep respect and mutual understanding, with no painful gaps.
and under absolutely no circumstances would parents do anything ridiculous like die before they are old and ready to.

my friends' husbands would be strong, kind, humble. and they would stay in love with my friends and in love with you. always.

in this version of the story, god, no one i love calls me crying from the hospital because the tests are coming back not saying what they wanted them to. no one has to look ahead at their life not sure how it's going to look after all. no one has to lay down all of their dreams and find you when their heart hurts, and very well may keep hurting for the rest of their years here.

in my version of the story, god,
your power is made perfect in ease, comfort, and wishes fulfilled.
not in weakness.

i'm ashamed to admit that i wish for that story,
for myself and my friends.
even when i know i should want most the next part of the verse:
your glory displayed through your grace sufficient.

god.
i thank you that you are big enough to hear and to hold our anger, our sadness, our hurt, our fear.

and even big enough to change my heart.
so that someday, maybe,
i could honestly say that given the choice,
i would choose your story over mine.

i thank you that you give us miracles like friendship, and pine trees, and arms that hold, and and all things worked together for the good of those who love you, and the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and cell phone minutes, and cheap southwest flights.

i thank you for mercies new every morning and faithfulness great.

thank you for the reminder, as much as i push against it:
that we were created to long for things this world will not fulfill.

and i pray that like the psalmist,
my prayers of lament would come to end in praise.

love,
emily