Matty.

Today, from 3,000 miles away, I have been gratefully reflecting on and celebrating the life of Matt.

Who over the last 12 years has been to me
a youth-group leader, mentor, example,
baptizer, landlord, counselor, navigator,

encourager, pray-er, listener, hugger,

brother, third parent, and dear, dear friend.

Outer Banks, 2006


Grateful on his birthday for him and his life,
and for the tangible reminder of God's love he is to me.

Christ minds.

"Sometimes a lantern moves along the night,
          That interests our eyes. And who goes there?
          I think; where from and bound, I wonder, where,
With, all down darkness wide, his wading light?

Men go by me whom either beauty bright
          In mould or mind or what not else makes rare:
          They rain against our much-thick and marsh air
Rich beams, till death or distance buys them quite.

Death or distance soon consumes them: wind
          What most I may eye after, be in at the end
I cannot, and out of sight is out of mind.

Christ minds; Christ's interest, what to avow or amend
          There, éyes them, heart wánts, care haúnts, foot fóllows kind,
Their ránsom, théir rescue, ánd first, fást, last friénd."

-Gerard Manley Hopkins

Theology through poetry.

mistakes and flowers.

i messed up at work last week. i got stage fright in an important meeting and totally choked on explaining details that mattered. i recovered, other people covered for me and the person most affected by the outcome of the meeting had way more important things to deal with and i doubt even noticed.

but i was SO UPSET.

i did the things i think we should do when we make mistakes:

i fixed it as best i could.

i owned it in the debrief, and i apologized sincerely.

i am genuinely feeling better about it today, because i didn't make the same mistake at a meeting this morning.

even though officially all is well,

i'm working on some ways to fix it even more in the days to follow.

but.

i really, really hate making mistakes.

i SUCK at keeping my "mistakes are good" rule in my own heart. 

i'm realizing more and more what a strange, closet perfectionist i am. i hide it because i am totally fine with being nothing close to perfect or best at things i don't care about, or don't think i should be good at.

i don't care about running fast, getting especially high grades, sewing straight seams, and i clearly don't care about cleaning my house before people come over. i enthusiastically speak my undoubtedly grammatically incorrect Spanish to every patient Mexican friend or acquaintance i have. i invite everyone and their mom over to try recipes i've never made before, figuring that if i wreck it i can just order us all pizza.

i can even give myself a decent amount of learning curve space with something brand new... 

but a mistake in an area important to me,

that i "shouldn't" have made?

i will lie awake at nights, man.

i've been ruminating on how maybe the most effective way to teach my girls that mistakes are good and God loves us when we make mistakes,

is not necessarily making them repeat it over and over,

but letting them see me make mistakes and be truly okay with them.

sooo... it would probably be easiest to "let them see me" do something...

that i actually can do.

i guess i should continue this "hard look" process at what feels so very not okay to me about making mistakes.

i'll keep y'all posted.

******

stories from two important people in my life helped me the next day.

i spoke on the phone with a close friend, one of the most intelligent and hard-working people i know. he sympathized with my story, mentioning casually he'd made a mistake at work last week too.

his mistake cost his company the amount of money that could buy...

could buy...

it's significantly more than i made in an entire year at my first full-time job. the one that was a good job with benefits.

hurray for what Brene Brown calls the shame-defeating power of "me, too"...

and miss hannah took a rough spill off her bike this week :-(.

involving lots of blood, a possibly broken tailbone, a sprained thumb,

and a trip to urgent care.

my poor baby!

amy asked her if she was going to be scared to ride her bike again.

"...She looked at me like i was crazy and said, "Um, no! Riding my bike is fun. I just need to learn how to use my hand breaks better."

girlfriend inspires me.

*****

back to work, lady.

mistakes are good because they're how we learn.

god loves us even when we make mistakes,

and can redeem them all

no matter how many or few zeros were attached.

riding my bike (or sewing, cooking, hostessing, therapizing, or meeting-facilitating) is fun.

i just need to learn to use my handbreaks better.

i'll keep practicing,

and then i will continue to enjoy the ride.

********

ps.

i still really, really hate making mistakes. i wish i were perfect.

*******

and on another note,

here are some pictures of recent major perks of a part-time job gardening.

.happy mother's day.

what a gift i have been given,

to know without a doubt

i am unconditionally loved.

thank you.

i love you.

Because you're our neighbor.

This one, her mom, and brand-new baby sister spontaneously helped me plant freesia bulbs today. It was The Best.

I haven't posted much lately mostly because of finals and IEP reports;

and also because I've been wanting to write more intentionally...

so I've been saving ideas and writing them in my head instead of out loud in hopes they will come out eloquent later.

Along those lines, I've been saving this thought and these pictures;

but really... I'm not sure it's that complicated.

Which is part of what's so lovely about it.

For the past year-and-a-bit, but increasingly over the last few months,

I have been so enjoying blossoming friendships with my neighbors.

As in, the people whose front doors are visible from my front door.

None of them are people I know from church or school,

and if we hadn't ended up on the same street I might never have gotten to know most of them.

And I am so glad that I have.

Small gestures have built upon small gestures and pausing for brief conversations in the driveway has gradually evolved into comfort crossing a yard to sit on front steps. Invitations in, that felt shy to give or receive started feeling natural, and eventually stopped needing invitations at all.

Turns out casually inviting a grad student far from her family to your kid's birthday party might really matter to her.

Turns out showing up for a second-grader's birthday party to which you were invited

might really matter to him, and his mom.

Turns out discovering the guy next door is a carpenter and jokingly mentioning you have mismatched shelves that have sat under your coffee table for a year...

might mean he knocks on your door one Sunday afternoon with tools slung over his arm.
His smiling wife will to help you decide exactly where they would look best,

and he'll spend an hour and a half thoughtfully hanging shelves stronger and straighter than you knew shelves could be.

(And he might exclaim as he watches the level balance perfectly afterwards,

"Damn, I am good at my job!").

(It also turns out baking for people as a thank you is extremely well-received.)

If your neighbor owns the massage clinic in town and you confess how sore you are every morning,

he might schedule you an appointment, and when you go to pay the receptionist you might find out you were scheduled under the "friends and family discount".

And if you leave your kitchen window open when their kids are playing on the street,

they might run up to talk to you, and if you tell them they're welcome in,

they might spend their Friday afternoon building a fort in your upstairs.

Their parents might even stop by to hang out afterwards.

Realizing the pub your neighbor bartends at is on the same street as your favorite coffee shop makes it not so hard to stop in to say a quick hi while she works...

which might mean sometimes she stops by your house to chat after work.

Turns out quick hi's and kitchen table chats turn into friendships.

And if you apologize as you bake cookies with the sweet girl across the street and her little boy that you have to roll cookie dough out with a glass,

she may walk over a week later with a rolling pin with a bow around it.

Turns out cookie dough made with eggs from their chicken tastes better.

Spontaneous brunch on a snow day might turn into spontaneous snowman building might turn into texted offers to pick food up from grocery stores with 4-wheel drive.

Growing bellies you see every day as moms get the mail turn into brand-new babies you get to hold when you bring soup over the first week. Babies you first saw in bellies turn bright-eyed and alert and start grinning and waving at you from the porch when you walk by.

Turns out coming home from work to find several families standing on a front lawn chatting,

and laughing with them as they all crack up at the face you make when you sip from the drink someone hands you...

is a wonderful way to start the evening after a long day.

A couple weeks ago before Meagan and Avery and I walked down the road to the ice cream store, I asked if they minded if I left my bag at their house.

Avery, age 7, stared at me.

"We don't mind anything you do... because you're our neighbor."

Turns out becoming friends with my neighbors has added more to my daily life than I ever imagined.

shelves above and below by Robbie. rolling pin from Meagan.