Praying today.

When I don't know what to pray, this book's words are so helpful for orienting my heart.


"In the strong name of Jesus
we bless all that is living,
and recognize in all that lives
the reflection of the Word
who said,
'Let there be life',
and it lives.

Teach us to care for
all that is entrusted to us,
and nurture every sign of Your presence.

May the blessing of our love
and our strong joy in blessing
call out new growth
in everyone we know and meet."

-from "Ninian- In relating to the whole of life"

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.

.reminded, on the way home today.

"Everything is His.

The door, the door jamb.

The wood stacked near the door.

The leaves blown upon the path

that lead to the door...

the wind that is tripping them this way and that way,

the clouds that are high above them,

the stars that are sleeping now beyond the clouds

and, simply said, all the rest.

When I open the door I am so sure so sure

all this will be there, and it is.

I look around...

I turn and enter His house, and close His door."

                                                                                                         (Mary Oliver)

Fairy godmothering is the sweetest of privileges.

light tonight.

I'm in love, I'm in love, and I don't care who knows it!!!

A semi-regular glance at this blog would suggest that it is about:
Jesus, poetry, family and friends, and reflections on a small, happy life.

It's not.

It's about what brings me joy.

And I wrestled with posting about this because I prefer to pretend
I only love everything above.

But:

I HAVE FALLEN IN LOVE WITH

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA.

The Sci-fi show that ran from 2004-2008.

I am so deeply enamored, on so many levels

that I've been alternately embarrassed/concerned.

IS THIS NORMAL?! WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?!

First of all,

it's a TV show.

I like relaxing to Grey's or Bones on Netflix like the next girl,
 but I've certainly never considered buying posters of my favorite shows' casts to hang in my house...
before now.

Second of all,

It's called BATTLESTAR GALACTICA.
HELLO.

THIRD of all...

I am IN LOVE. ENAMORED.
(I started to write "obsessed", but that gives the wrong image. I've been obsessed with unpleasant things before. This is a happy and joyful obsession.)

Like, I've journaled about it IN MY PRAYER JOURNAL twice in the last ten days.
I brought it up as an example in class.
...I have on more than occasion had to catch myself before I started talking about it in response to the question "What's new".
Weird. Pathetic?
Right?!

I was reassured, however, during one of my many recent google searches about the show's history (are you seeing this?!), to discover that this is apparently a common phenomenon.

All of my (normal, thoughtful, engaged-in-life) friends who've seen it immediately validated my experience.
"Oh, of course you're obsessed. That's what happens."
"We lost months of our life to that show. It was great."
"So have you reached the Battlestar-evangelist phase yet?"
(at which point I pulled out my phone and showed them the multiple texts I'd sent to multiple friends that day begging them to start watching it.)

THIS SHOW IS MAGIC.

I'm in love! I'm in love! And I don't care who knows it!

So.
My spring-in-small-town-Oregon life...

is filled with lit candles, rising bread dough made with home-grown herbs,
sewing projects and walks past vineyards and small children doing crafts upstairs and friends over for dinner.

And in my home, right next to the fresh flowers in a vase on the windowsill and the twinkly lights strung all over...

you very well may soon see a giant poster of the Battlestar cast, hung up with pride.

(Do you think I should tattoo one of Kara Thrace's quotes on my body somewhere? Oh gosh I just love her.)

.my small cup of life.

loving my sunny tiny home in the spring.

loving filling it with friends and flowers.

my girls came over on sunday to help me garden.

kim went to the farm store with me the night before to help me pick the best seeds for cutting bouquets.

everyone out and about in the warmer weather

means afternoons at the park

and more spontaneous drop-by visits

(9th grade boys knocked while I was melting old wax down; so they made candles too).

potted plants and watering new green,

vases full of color in every room,

lots of dates at the town bakery, dinners and baking and walks...

i am enjoying this season.

"[The wren] delivers such a cantering praise-

for what?

For the early morning, the taste of the spider,

for his small cup of life

that he drinks from every day, knowing it will refill.

All things are inventions of holiness...

window note by Avery across the street, age 7.

left in our shared laundry room by my next door neighbor.

a 10-year-old doing homework at my kitchen table

(requested no face in the picture. note the socks.)

Fawvers made new counters. It's way exciting. I "helped" (ate their food while they worked).

...every morning, there's my own cup of gladness."

-Mary Oliver