Words.

These are the words we had read at our wedding. I love them.

I love that they were part of the day we started our marriage; I'm continually surprised by how often they come to mind and help shape the life we are creating together.

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“When over the years someone has seen you at your worst,

and knows you with all your strengths and flaws, yet commits him- or herself to you wholly,

it is a consummate experience.

To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial.

To be known and not loved is our greatest fear.

But to be fully known and truly loved is a lot like being loved by God.

It is what we need more than anything.

It liberates us from pretense, humbles us out of our self-righteousness,

and fortifies us for any difficulty life can throw at us.”

-from The Meaning of Marriage, by Timothy Keller

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“I might seem to be comparing something great and holy

with a minor and ordinary thing,

that is, love of God with mortal love.

But I just don’t see them as separate things at all.

If we can be divinely fed with a morsel and divinely blessed with a touch,

then the terrible pleasure we find in a particular face

can certainly instruct us in the nature of the very grandest love.

I devoutly believe this to be true.

I remember in those days loving God for the very existence of love

and being grateful to God for the existence of gratitude…

 I realized many things I am at a loss to express.

There is no justice in love, no proportion in it, and there need not be,

because in any specific instance it is only a glimpse or parable

of an embracing, incomprehensible reality.

It makes no sense at all,

because it is the eternal breaking in on the temporal.

So how could it subordinate itself to cause or consequence?” 

from Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson

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“...Watching him and watching myself in my memory now,

I know again what I knew before, but now I know more than that.

Now I know what we were trying to stand for, and what I believe we did stand for:

the possibility that among the world’s wars and sufferings

two people could love each other for a long time,

until death and beyond,

and could make a place for each other that would be a part of their love,

as their love for each other would be a way of loving their place.

This love would be one of the acts of the greater love that holds and cherishes all the world.

...And so I had put myself in [his] hands,

mindful also that he had put himself in mine.

We were each other's welcomer and each other's guest.

And so we had come to our place."

-from Hannah Coulter, by Wendell Berry

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"I thank my God every time I remember you,

always offering prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all...

For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you

will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

And this is my prayer: that your love may abound still more and more

in knowledge and depth of insight,

to the glory and praise of God.

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit.

Rather, in humility consider others more important than yourselves.

Each of you should look not only to your own interest but also to the interest of others.

In your relationships with one another,

let your attitude be the same as Christ Jesus, 

who emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant.

Always be full of joy in the Lord.

Let your gentle spirit be evident to all.

The Lord is near."

-excerpts from Philippians

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I miss this space! Maybe I will try to use it regularly again.

If you are interested: these days, for whatever reason, glimpses of my life are more often found here.

(*just begun and so not fully developed; imperfectly formed.)

"...The surgeon is... a grim man,

impatient with unlabeled brands of inchoate* faith.

In his view, a man should know his craft,

so that a smith should know his forge,

a farmer his plow, and a chaplain his creed.

He has made plain his disregard for me and my ministry.

The first time I preached to the company,

he observed that in his view a sermon that did not dwell on damnation

was scant service to men daily facing death,

and that if he wanted to hear a love poem

he would apply to his wife."

-from March, by Geraldine Brooks;

a book based on the unknown life at war of the father character from my beloved Little Women.

I found this description(-through-counterexample, I suppose)

of faith

provocative and resonant.

Inchoate faith...

faith that is not fully developed, still imperfectly formed.

Doesn't sound so terrible to me.

Lots of room for mystery and grace?

"Aslan," said Lucy, "You're bigger."

"That is because you are, little one," answered He.

"Not because you are?"

"I am not.

But every year you grow, you will find Me bigger."

-Prince Caspian

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I love that reading aloud to each other has been a part of Ben's and my relationship since our very first date, the one neither of us was sure was a date. We're working our way through The Chronicles of Narnia, which to my shame I had never read past The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. I can't get enough- I love every one more than the one before.

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I have no idea why I haven't written much in months. It's been a rich season, for sure (see above), but I don't think that's why I haven't. I miss it, and the deeper reflecting writing can lead me to. I hope to do more this fall.

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This is a way late update, but: Matt and Mitch got married. It was the best.

...loving Smitten Kitchen's pumpkin muffins (three times this fall so far);
I double the pumpkin pie spice and put in a full 15 oz can of pumpkin instead of just one cup. Especially amazing with a simple maple-cream cheese frosting.



my quote wall makes me happy.

what happens when you leave your car door unlocked in a small town:
you get back to find someone left you $20.





Saturday morning six-year-old soccer games.

She had a surprise for us. It was... her pink toothbrush!!

 

 

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He is looking bigger to me, this year.

Set down here precisely.

all quotes from this.

"I praise each day splintered down,

splintered down and wrapped in time like a husk,

a husk of many colors spreading,

at dawn fast over the mountains split."

"If the Greeks had looked at Mount Baker all day,

their large and honest art would have broken,

and they would have gone fishing,

as these people do."

"'Teach me Thy ways, O Lord'

is, like all prayers,

a rash one..."

"All day long I feel created.

I can see the blown dust on the skin on the back of my hand,

the tiny trapezoids of chipped clay, moistened and breathed alive.

There are some created sheep in the pasture below me,

sheep set down here precisely,

just touching their blue shadows hoof to hoof on the grass.

Created gulls pock the air, rip great curved seams in the settled air;

I greet my created meal, amazed."

"Had she been new, or old?

Had she mated and laid her eggs,

had she done her work?"

"Of itself it is nothing,

but the view,

as they say,

is good."

"Is this the only final beauty:

the color of any skin in any light

and living, human eyes?"

"You spill your breath.

Nothing holds;

the whole show rolls."

"...all the landscape's occasions,

to all its weathers, colors and lights."

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"

"but always beautiful."

This week I re-read with joy, for the dozenth-plus time, a book that's been one of my favorites since I was nine years old. Because "when you read a book as a child it becomes a part of your identity in a way that no other reading in your life does..."

I always love returning to the beautiful, simple story of a kind family and their life beside the sea.

...Most of all, Margaret Mary loved Cassie's family and the talk of boats and fishing. And the sea.

"What's it like," she asked James, "to be out there? Are you the only boat you can see?"

James, his face touched by the glow of the lamp, his eyes narrowed as if focused on a faraway view, told Margaret Mary.

"Sometimes alone, most times one of many. It's like a giant, or something bigger than all of us, has taken the sky and tucked it down securely all around and kept us safely bobbing within."

Cassie, her fork caught midway between her plate and her mouth, stared at James. She'd never heard him talk this way before. Or seen his look of contentment.

"But there are storms!" she protested as everyone turned to look at her.

Her father laughed. "That there are, Cass," he said.

"But after the storms," said John Thomas, smiling, "coming home with the gulls and terns following us, some even daring to sit on the boat, waiting for scraps of fish, it is like..." John Thomas, not used to long speeches, searched for the right words.

"Peace," said James quietly. "It is peace."

"And," said Cassie's father, as if adding to a chorus, "that's the way it has been for hundreds and hundreds of years. Just the men, the boats, and the sea."

There was a long silence. It had never occurred to Cassie that they loved fishing. She had always thought they did it because they had to.

"It is somehow always the same and yet never the same," said Cassie's father. "But always beautiful."

.peace of all peace be mine this night.

"At St. John's I discovered the true purpose of vespers, which is to let my body tell me, at the end of a workday, just how tired I am...

[I'd sometimes] recall the maternal mercy of Abba Poemen,

who when he was asked about the problem of monks falling asleep during communal prayers, had said,

'For my part, when I see a brother who is dozing, I put his head on my knees and let him rest.'

Sitting in the choir, in the wooden seats that hadn't seemed so hard at morning prayer, or at noon or at Mass,

I would realize that I'd been running for hours on nervous energy.

Grateful for the quiet flow of vespers that had nudged me into acknowledging my weary state,

I'd become more willing to do what my body asked of me:

let the day suffice,

with all its joys and failings,

its little triumphs and defeats.

I'd happily, if sleepily, welcome evening as a time of rest, and let it slip away, losing nothing."

-Kathleen Norris,

The Cloister Walk

.beauty and joy in the bleak midwinter.

our town's 100+ year old library.

beautiful yarn for a new project.

crocuses in the kitchen.

quiet.

friends.

new favorite books + new favorite music.

dance parties over skype.

valentines.

toddlers crawling between legs and falling asleep on shoulders.

looking through my phone to find out that letting a kindergartner use the camera that morning

had produced a fabulous amazing series of self-portraits and my new favorite photo of his sister and me

(he put them all in b&w himself!).

teenagers whose nail polish match their bible covers.

ceramic glaze.

the copper bowls and teakettle i got for christmas glow so beautifully in afternoon light they make my whole kitchen feel warmer.

a quick trip to the thrift store revealed vintage dresses clearly sewed by hand and with such care attention to detail that it actually made me choke up...

the surprising loveliness, and wondering the stories behind them.

the skies, trees and fields of this place feed my soul. daily.

 

being reminded of truth at my kitchen sink, on a chalkboard, and by my community.