Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness.

For we do not know what to pray for as we ought,
but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.
And He who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit,
because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

Romans 8:26-27

My sister saw Obama in person.

AND shook his hand.

Beautiful red-headed girl in gray sweatshirt, in first photo above and almost all the way to the left, in second directly above him with her fist raised.

She was a wee bit excited about it... (the phrase "best day of my life" was heard. And the email including the photos was titled, "Your sister is best friends with the president!!!!").

Dang do I love that girl!

Eucharist.

I love taking Communion- at my church we call it the Eucharist- more than virtually anything else. "This is My body. This is My blood." It is intimacy with God. And it is tangible and unconditional to how I feel or what I can say. This hard numb year, that tangible, unconditional, every-week intimacy with God was more important than I could ever express.

A couple of months ago, I started helping to serve the Eucharist at church. For fifteen straight minutes, I get to repeat, "The blood of Christ, the cup of salvation" over and over, as people drink wine and receive it- receive Him. I am strengthened by doing this more than I ever predicted.

At our church even small children can take Communion if they've been baptized. I was curious as to what the rationale behind this was, and so I picked up a little informational booklet on the topic. The explanation given moved me a ton. I may be 22, but I think this applies to adults completely as well.

"Psychologists have helped us to see that there is a level of human understanding... that is non-verbal and non-rational. We now know that this unconscious level responds to reality as it is conveyed by means of symbolic forms and actions...
Children experience much that they cannot verbally articulate. We do not delay the first bath until the child understands hygiene, nor do we require knowledge of nutrition prior to the first meal.
The child experiences many baths and many meals- really experiences them- and at the most basic human level apprehends their meaning through the experience. Children may not understand the Holy Communion, but they certainly understand acceptance and rejection.

What we as adults need to understand is that all our intellectual articulations about this sacrament are but feeble human attempts to comprehend the basic mystery of God's unconditional loving acceptance of us, His children.
Reception of the sacrament by those among us who don't "understand" as we "understand" should serve as a reminder to us that we must always experience grace before we can talk truly about it."

-from "Why Children Receive Communion", Rev. Ronald Fisher

other glories.

My sweet friend sits on my couch and cries, for the kids she loves so deeply and works so hard to help. For the lives they return to every night after they leave the after-school program she runs: lives of absent parents, of poverty, of drugs and violence. She cries, and there is no solution to tell her. I hold her hand and she tells me their stories and I hear in her voice and her tears the same realization I am coming to.

So often after a visit full of laughter and finger-painting, when an 18-month-old runs to hug my legs when I walk in the door or a two-year-old knows all his colors, when I make a run to the dentist to act as translator or we successfully get a mom her insurance card, I get that rush of exultation. "YES! This is why I do this job, this is what it's all about."

Except that last week I sat at a kitchen table, while a strong and capable mom wept. They left Mexico because it is so violent, she tells me, they could not let their children grow up there, scared to leave the house. But here they are, without papers, without rights, without money. Without language, without their families- it is too dangerous to go back to visit even a relative dying of cancer, even for a beloved sister's wedding. She weeps with me, finally, this mom whose adorable and thriving kids come home every day to a clean house and her warm hug and help with their homework, because she does everything to protect them. I hold her hand, too... I grasp and pray for something helpful. I tell her she's a good mom... and then I finally just tell her that I'm sorry. And then we just sit together. I have no words for her, either.

Later, in my car, I am silent, even to myself and to God. Because she did not say, "And then, you came and started doing educational activities with my toddler and now our lives are SO MUCH BETTER!!!!".

Yes, it is a good thing, it is an addition. Tamara's after-school program is a good thing, it is an addition. But my "This is what it's all about, this is why we do these jobs!" mindset is changing. It has to be. Because then what do we have, when the strong mom is finally weeping with me about how she doesn't think she can take it anymore- and I have no power to get them the immigration papers they need to make a real better life? What do we have when Tamara helps the kids with their homework- and then they go home to filth and alcohol? If it's "all about" when we win, is it worthless when we can't?


If our hope is based on success, it will fail. Mine did, after Bolivia. I had thought that I was a hopeful person; no. I was optimistic. They are not the same thing. I'm still figuring out what hope is. But it can't be optimism. Sometimes you have love and prayer and hard work- and young parents still weep and children are still not safe. Thank God that sometimes things are made better on earth. But Lord, change my heart, that I fight Your battles because they are Yours, not because I will win. Show us Your heart, here.

Give me gratitude for the privilege of participating.

Give us strength to continue, and to find joy in the long defeat.

"i have joined the long defeat
that falling set in motion
and all my strength and energy
are raindrops in the ocean
so conditioned for the win
to share in victory's story
but in the place of ambition's din
i have heard of other glories."

-sara groves, "the long defeat"

Daybook: Oct 10

Outside My Window

First off, my window is OPEN and it smells like fall! Outside of it, just our side yard. It's dark out.

I am Listening to

Wind through the trees through the open window. And some traffic in the distance.

I am Wearing

Jeans, olive green top.

I am So Grateful for

• Grace. The kind where I somehow am able to be calm and where/who I want to be for some brief time, when I need to be, completely to my amazement and humbled gratitude, because I KNOW it is so not something I would be capable of without tons of people's prayers. SUCH GRACE in the last few days. Omg. I am humbled and in awe... and SO GRATEFUL for grace I do not deserve. (Sorry if that's cryptic.)
  

• How awesome my parents/family are. I am so grateful to be their child and to have grown up in my home and to know them now as an adult and for who they are and to be who I am because of them. Wouldn't want anyone else.
  

• My new Sunday night SMALL GROUP!!!!!! Oh man what a joy and blessing these nights are rapidly becoming. I love these people who are meeting and the honesty they are sharing and how much laughter and vulnerability and acceptance there is in one room and how we all want such similar things for this group... oh. So so so great. I am so lucky.

I'm Pondering

See the Dillard quote from yesterday.

Since seeing "The Social Network" yesterday, I truly have been pondering how glad I am that my life is so much more meaningful than that of the creator of Facebook (at least according to that movie). Arrogant, but true (that I've been pondering it)... sorry.

I am Reading

I started The Cloister Walk today and am loving it so far.

I am Thinking

"The Benedictines believe that in every day there is time for prayer, work, study, and play." -from The Cloister Walk. Affirm, I'm excited to double check they're all happening in my days.

I am Creating
Hmm. Need to work on that.

I am Missing
My mom and Allie. A lot a lot.

(And for real... too many other people to mention. A lot of people I love live far away from me. If you are reading this, odds are good are that I miss you.)

On my iPod (actually, this week more in my car)

Can't stop listening to the new WEEPIES CD!!So good!

Towards Being Faithful In This Time

I'm trying to memorize Scripture before bed. I'm working on the Beatitudes. Mostly that's been wonderful and helpful. Except for the part where I haven't been as faithful with it as I should. Yell at me if I'm not next time you talk to me.

One Thing I Love About My Job Right Now

My coworkers!!!!! They are SO WONDERFUL.

One Thing I Love About My Living Situation Right Now

SO MUCH. Seriously. They deserve their whole own post. Um, but one thing... I love the hard and really worthwhile and beautiful work that living, really living, with other people is. When you learn people's strengths and weaknesses and they learn yours (yikes) and you learn how to love each other and accept each other and live well together. So special and good.

One Thing I Love About Wheaton Life Right Now

Small group. Rez. Fall activities with different awesome groups of friends. Fall. Work. Everything? Did I just write that?

One Thing I Love About My Church Right Now

Just one? Nope. Spanish service. GIVING COMMUNION. TAKING COMMUNION. The meeting for Eucharist ministry we had on Thurs. My friends who go there.

I am Hoping and Praying

To spend good time with God this week.

From the Kitchen

I made Simply in Season's AWESOME Butternut Bisque for everyone who was over for pumpkin carving on Saturday. So good. Mine was not as good as when Kendra made it... we didn't have evaporated milk so I had to sub yogurt. But the recipe rocks. I will be repeating. (And it was fun to serve everyone homemade soup!)

One of my Favorite Things

Feeling like you are right where you are supposed to be, both in the joyful and painful parts.

A Few Plans for the Rest of the Week

Work, HNGR small group, HEATHER IS VISITING!!!!!!!

A Couple Picture Thoughts:

• My sweet stepsister and me picking out pumpkins this weekend. She will definitely get her own post sometime soon. She's pretty awesome.

• Everyone in our small group!! At a s'mores-making party at Lauren's a couple weeks ago... I look awkward in this pic but I like everyone in it so it is getting posted anyway.

a good life.

"There is no shortage of good days. It is good lives that are hard to come by.
A life of good days lived in the senses is not enough.
The life of sensation is the life of greed; it requires more and more.
The life of the spirit requires less and less; time is ample and its passage sweet.
Who would call a day spent reading a good day?
But a life spent reading- that is a good life.
A day that closely resembles every other day of the past ten or twenty years
does not suggest itself as a good one.
But who would not call Pasteur's life a good one, or Thomas Mann's?"

-Annie Dillard, The Writing Life

Making Fun of Chet

He said,

"Here, you can take my car to work today...

Sorry it's such a mess."

Ohhh, look... it's a water bottle in the front pocket...

...SUCH a mess. Geez Chet.

...But how much fun can we make of him?

Why were you driving Chet's car to work, Emily?

...maybe because I locked my keys in mine.
Where was my spare?
Oh, where you should always keep your spare key... in my purse with my main set.

Awesome prize: me.

Just for comparison's sake, here's what the back seat of the quite possibly slightly ADHD pre-school teacher's car looks like (as opposed to the above pictures of the SOFTWARE ENGINEER's car). Please note the picnic blanket, the finger-painting paper and the colorful, way-educational block toy.


I refuse to consider the possibility that there could be some connection between my spacial dealings in organized chaos, and my propensity to do things like lock my keys in my car. None whatsoever.

.131.

a good way to spend an afternoon.

(leaf: from Kari.)

O Israel, hope in the Lord,
from this time forth,
now and forever...