Spirit

Anyone obsessed with the competition of that cheer, “We’ve Got Spirit, Yes We Do!  We’ve Got Spirit, How ‘Bout YOU!?!?”  And then the ensuing, “WE’VE GOT MORE!  HEY!”  Over and over until one turns hoarse?  Well, it’s going through my head today as Pentecost unfolds….the day of celebration.  Celebrating the arrival of the Spirit.  A Spirit that never gives up or leaves us.

Today’s Pentecost.  We celebrated last year too and MUCH of that impetus came from an acquaintance, Hugh Donnelly.  He helped lead a great seminar at the Annual Recreation Workshop that Matt and I attended at Montreat back in May of 2010.  Hugh shared practical ways to bring the church calendar into a tangible reality for kids (and often times, for adults too!).  So, Pentecost became one of those weird “tongues of fire”, “speaking in many languages” situations that could be tackled with the kids.  An attempt to create some reality around it.

So, in the month of Gough birthdays, we put up the festive decorations and are celebrating the birthday of the church today.  I’m teaching Sunday school (I get to make cupcakes with the 3rd graders….can you beat that for a Sunday School teaching assignment?!?!).  Matt’s teaching the Middle Schoolers (and bringing donuts) and our kids are in festive wear at home.

Alex deemed himself “Pentecost Boy”.  Super Heroes, church style.  LORDY, BE!

I often wonder what our boys will glean from us.  So far, it’s a hodge podge of emotions, words (not all good ones!) and funny wardrobe choices, but I’m hoping that it also includes some basic understandings of God’s immense love and joy over them.

Last night, Alex was asking about the church….he said something like, “The church is a place with a lot of singing where you give money.  It’s just a building.”  Matt and I exchanged a look and thought about the truth to that.  Matt shared about how the church is actually much more than that…..it’s about the PEOPLE.  A tough concept for a five year old, but one to really impress upon him, I think.  Especially today.  Celebrating Pentecost, the birthday of the church, is so much more than a building.  And money.  And music.  It’s celebrating the birth of a new journey and adventure.  One which left the sad, scared and mourning followers of Christ with a new energy, resolve and passion for following the One which had guided and led them.   Despite his departure, he had left a Comforter.  He had given a Presence to walk with them.  He had gifted One who would settle, inhabit, and dwell within.  

So whether you put on your red, superhero Pentecost gear or not, may you feel a fresh wind of his Presence today….settling, inhabiting and dwelling within.

 pentecost 2011

 Acts 2

When the Feast of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Without warning there was a sound like a strong wind, gale force—no one could tell where it came from. It filled the whole building. Then, like a wildfire, the Holy Spirit spread through their ranks, and they started speaking in a number of different languages as the Spirit prompted them.

 ^5-11There were many Jews staying in Jerusalem just then, devout pilgrims from all over the world. When they heard the sound, they came on the run. Then when they heard, one after another, their own mother tongues being spoken, they were thunderstruck. They couldn’t for the life of them figure out what was going on, and kept saying, “Aren’t these all Galileans? How come we’re hearing them talk in our various mother tongues? 

   Parthians, Medes, and Elamites; 
   Visitors from Mesopotamia, Judea, and Cappadocia, 
      Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, 
      Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene; 
   Immigrants from Rome, both Jews and proselytes; 
   Even Cretans and Arabs!
“They’re speaking our languages, describing God’s mighty works!”

 ¹²Their heads were spinning; they couldn’t make head or tail of any of it. They talked back and forth, confused: “What’s going on here?”

 ¹³Others joked, “They’re drunk on cheap wine.”

I Want to Know

Philippians 3:10

“I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection.”

When I saw this Easter egg in the labyrinth yesterday while rushing to hide eggs for our church’s hunt, it struck me.  Walking the path to the center, to new life, to birth.  A reminder that we are called to walk, asking God to “lead  us” to himself.  To lead us to new life.  

Yesterday at breakfast, Alex asked, “What is Easter all about?  Is it about chocolate, eggs, and bunnies?”  I started laughing.  Mostly laughed because it’s the question you almost wish your child would ask.  The perfect opportunity to share the real meaning.

Wanting to know…this WANTING TO KNOW is dangerous.  It is never easy.  It is often a journey filled with many questions.  Few answers.  Some fear.  The rest of the verse in Philippians 3:10 says, “….and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death.”  Wanting to know means also walking this path to death.  Becoming like Christ.  Sharing in his sufferings.

On Easter, though, I still want to know the power of his resurrection.  To REALLY KNOW IT.  To GET it.  To understand the enormity that Christ conquered death.  To know he acted in deep love to fully enter into our deepest sufferings and pain.

And luckily, even though the road isn’t easy.  Even though the story to be written in our own lives never promises a journey without pain.  Despite all this, I wanted to tell Alex, “THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING….”

From Girl Meets God, via Mama Monk….

“The Last Battle, the final volume of Lewis’s Narnia chronicles, pictures the end of time. Aslan—the lion who represents Jesus—has returned, folding all of culture and humanity into his kingdom. In the novel’s lasts pages, he tells Lucy, a child from London, that everyone she knew back in Blighty is dead and raised to new life. And as Aslan spoke, writes Lewis, “the things that began to happen…were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beninning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were begining Chapter One of the Great Story, which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better that the one before.

On Easter, we glimpse the beginning of Chapter One.

-Lauren F. Winner, Girl Meets God (193-194)

Happy Easter

may you know the power of his resurrection as chapter one unfolds….

Waves

Last Friday I was driving to school and these amazing cloud formations kept ebbing and moving and forming and shifting.  They continued for 2 hours.

I was out on yard duty, pounding the pavement/blacktop, making sure that the kids weren’t stirring up too much trouble, and drew many of my students’ attention to the sky.  It was like this light came across their face…seeing nature in the midst of the asphalt.

Light in the midst of the power lines.  Light in the midst of the portables and buildings and play structures and flying soccer balls.  Immediately many started pointing out what they were seeing in those clouds.  Imaginations and creativity running wild.

And today, a full week later, at the end of Good Friday, I still find myself thinking about last Friday’s sky.  The wonder, beauty and creative potential of the clouds and light.  Blue, clear, spring-like skies are balm to my soul, but there are some things that just aren’t possible without clouds, storms, impending rain.  Beauty that can’t be fully appreciated without some fear and hardship.

This morning, a colleague prayed with gratitude for the hard times that allow us to see the beauty of the good moments.  My friend Susanna’s blog is titled, “Good, but Hard” because, as she writes, “sometimes life is good; sometimes hard; most of the time, it’s a little of both.”  And as each day ebbs and flows, the good with the hard, I think about how to quickly push through the hard moments.  Today those included classroom management “moments”.  They included talking about the racial prejudice that existed during the Gold Rush to Indians, Chilenos, Chinese and African Americans….as the only Caucasian in the room.  The gift of delicious laughter at the end of the day….just finishing out “quiet” clean up in record time and having one chair cascade off a desk, knocking chair after chair down in domino fashion.  Sometimes you just have to laugh at the hard.

So as Good Friday winds down today, I feel so far from a place of reflection and prayer.  Wonder where the time exists to think on Christ and his sacrifice…..when screaming kids are fighting bath and bed….when 4th graders are waring with words.  Where is time for thinking about what this day really means?

But it has to be woven in the midst of each of these thougths and interactions….in the midst of seeing the beauty and uniqueness of clouds.  In the words of a Gold Rush discussion.  In between popping bubbles in the bath and flying food at the dinner table.  These everyday moments, the good but hard times, that I cling to the fact that Christ is present.

Matt chopped back these dead apple tree limbs with a vengeance just months ago.  And they now spring back to life….in the middle of the hard things, the pruning, the tough conversations, the non-ending/child screaming/whining/I NEED SOME MOMMY ALONE TIME! hours, we shall be given grace to face what is in our path.  Grace given to us through the sacrifice of Christ that we remember today.  Not the glorious GOODness of Sunday and Easter and trumpets and banners and chocolate eggs and triumphal hymns.  But in the hard things.  In the darkness.  In the not knowing.  In the “never ending”.  Chances to remember that we need not “fear fear”.

“The promise is not that we shall escape the hard things

but that we shall be given grace to face them,

to enter into them, and to come through them.

The promise is not that we shall not be afraid.

It is that we need not fear fear.”

~Esther de Waal, Living with Contradiction

Grace & Time

I got giggling when I looked down and saw this sentiment on my tea bag a few weeks back. Mostly because I never feel like there’s enough time. Or maybe MANY days, feel like there’s TOO much at the wrong moments. But the sentiment shared in this Celtic proverb is so true.

In November’s issue of Real Simple, the following quote graced the intro pages—

You say grace before meals. All right.
But I say grace before the play and the opera,
And grace before the concert and pantomime,
And grace before I open a book,
And grace before sketching, painting,
Swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing;
And grace before I dip the pen in the ink.
–G. K. Chesterton, from an early notebook (mid-1890s)

Do we see all time as ENOUGH? That each moment truly is, in and of itself, Grace? Grace with the capital “G”? All events…each place we find ourself….each instant is Grace. Even in the moments when time feels unstoppable, we are still called to enter each with a moment of stopping. A moment of gratitude. A realization—Grace allows us to be present and offers us a choice of how we engage with the time given.

As Holy Week unfolds, starting today with Palm Sunday, the seven days and their events seem familiar to me. Yet, speaking of time—who would have imagined how much could go “down” (and up…ha ha) in seven days?

From kingly moments, riding through Jerusalem to the waving of palms

to the intimacy of dinner with 12 friends

to a night of fervent prayer to an arrest

to trial and a painful, long walk to Golgotha

to death

to waiting and a tomb

to surprise, disbelief and resurrection

to new life.

All in one week.

Time. And Grace.

May you feel this invitation to enter in to all that time offers.

And in the midst of that time,

to feel Grace,

bigger than circumstances facing you,

wash over each moment.

Burned

My step-mother-in-law gifted me with this fun bag about a year ago.  You can’t go wrong with bright colored, 50′s designed oil cloth products.  Last week I was driving the clan around in the car, running errands, and looked down and saw the burn mark on the side of the bag.  If you squint, you can see it too, I bet.  Everytime I see that, I get a little sad.  Bummed the bag got a **LITTLE** too close to the heat.  During our trip to Yosemite last fall (posted about it here), this bag carried dirty dishes to and from the dishwashing sink and one time, it inched too close to the fire and melted.

I look at that burn mark and mourn the loss of the perfection the bag once displayed.  Last week, though, I realized the scar that remains is a reminder of one of the sweetest memories of 2011.  Our trip to Yosemite, while FREEZING, while filled with a few sleepless nights, while riddled with temper tantrums….was such a gift.  A celebration of two birthdays (one for a one year old, the other for a 42 year old).  A few days in some of the most amazing beauty California has to offer.  Eating outside.  Reading by the campfire (with 30 layers on).  Watching the sun rise on snowy peaks.  It was magical.

So today, when I tend to look at the scars, the hard places, the imperfections and feel discouraged….I’m going to try and see the good behind it all.  And when my mindset is in a negative place, that’s hard.  An uphill battle for my mind.  But, we are all burned in some way, shape or fashion.  The challenge is to see beyond that into the blessing.

Never Stopping, Never Giving Up, Unbreaking, Always and Forever Love

The lead up to Easter often gets the shaft for many of us.  There is no pre-planned 2 week holiday and focused time of “Advent-esque” type preparation.  The events of Easter, while no doubt as gory as childbirth in some ways, are not quite as packaged and polished as the Christmas story.  Or at least as PACKAGED and POLISHED as Hallmark likes to make Christmas.  Not too many Christmas cards are sold in the “scratch and sniff” stable variety.

So, as we approach Easter, it is easy to find it upon us before we realize it.  And knowing how to share about the events leading up to Easter Sunday, without scaring our littlest munchkins, is something to think through.

Yesterday, with my MOPS group (Mothers of Preschoolers), we created Resurrection Egg kits.  The idea behind resurrection eggs is to compile 12 objects that tangibly help children remember the key elements of the Easter story.  You can purchase them here and a great book to use alongside them is Benjamin’s Box.  They really aren’t too hard to make, though, and once I gathered the supplies, we each made our own kits within minutes.  As I researched online, I found MANY different permutations of items to include.  The one I settled on wasn’t even the same  line up as used in the book, Benjamin’s Box.  Nonetheless, it didn’t seem to bother Alex who was obsessed with them for hours yesterday—to the point of having a temper tantrum last night when I wouldn’t do the egg activity for the umpteenth time screaming at me, “BUT MOM, THIS IS ABOUT JESUS DYING.  ABOUT HIM BEING NAILED TO THE CROSS!!!!!!!!!!!”  Oh, Lordy Be.  Pastor’s Kid.  Screaming about wanting to talk more about Jesus dying on the cross.  And I, model Mom, is pushing my own agenda…”LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE!!!”

For my youngest, approaching 18 months, the activity we created yesterday isn’t too useful….except for ingesting and wrecking havoc.

This developmental limitation did not stop my eldest from trying to use them with his brother….and surprisingly, the youngest seemed interested and was actually—wait for it———quiet.  Yes, folks, Drew was….QUIET.  And he “listened”.  Our own modern day miracle.

I have found two books to be especially helpful when telling the stories of Easter with my eldest.  When he was 2 1/2 to 3, we used the Read Aloud Bible Stories by Ella K. Lindvall regularly.  They are very simple in regards to language, concept and illustrations.  Volume 2, of the 4, has the story that ties into Holy Week.  Here’s a snippet of it to give you a feel….

Soon, I assume we will start using these stories more often with Drew, our youngest….most likely when he stops trying to rip up every single book he gets into his sticky little fingers.  For Alex, we have used the Jesus Storybook Bible for the last year (from age 4 on) and love the way Sally Lloyd-Jones shares the story of God’s grace and redemption, from Adam and Eve all the way through Revelation.  It is truly incredible….not to mention the artwork by Jago.  OH MY GOODNESS.  I could seriously frame the entire book.  Here’s a glimpse of the Holy Week through that book.

If you would like to create your own set of Resurrection Eggs, here is a PDF of the page we used for the cover label and here is a PDF of the explanation we used.  There are two versions, one for using only six eggs, with younger kids, and great language that makes the story approachable.  The second version uses all twelve eggs.

Last year we made resurrection rolls.  Here was the result of that last year…the post’s title is “Jesus Fell Out of the Oven!” if that gives you a clue about how it went!  Anyhow, it’s kind of a hokey activity, but I’m a sucker for hands on experiences and the message seemed to stick for my then 3 year old.  We also used the amazing artwork Ann Voskamp shared on her blog for our Easter Tree.  If you are interested in downloading the artwork and devotional for doing your own Easter tree, click here.  The artwork is all gorgeous…some more familiar to our adult eyes than others.  Some of the images are fairly real and a bit gory, but I love the conversations they seem to start with my oldest.  A little less tame than the illustrations from the two books I shared earlier.

This year, I also found this post by the writer behind the blog “Mustard Seeds” to be really great.  TONS of book recommendations which promptly went on my library order list and some other activities you could pick and choose from.  One of my favorites was creating a little “tomb” diarama of sorts with Alex last year.  The post I wrote about it, entitled “Apathy” of all UPLIFTING topics, showed some pictures in case you want to try something similar.  These examples of that same concept are a bit more picturesque!  Here and here.

Whatever methods you choose to share with your kids this year, I hope that deep down, the message that Sally Lloyd-Jones keeps intertwining and weaving into almost EVERY story she includes in the Jesus Storybook Bible is this, that the entire Bible points to Christ.  That “every story whispers His name”.  Over and over, throughout each and every story—–whether Adam and Eve or Jacob, Rachel & Leah or Moses or Abraham.  Or us.

She writes,

“God rescued them—no matter what, time after time, over and over again—because of his
Never Stopping, Never Giving Up, Unbreaking, Always and Forever Love.”

That is the message that we hope, whether through Resurrection Eggs or Rolls, reading books, dying eggs, making a tomb, whatever conversations might arise, that THAT message….that God’s love for us never stops, never gives up on us, never breaks, and remains forever…..be embedded in their hearts.

Cutting New Channels

“Love is creative. It does not flow along the easy paths, spending itself in the attractive. It cuts new channels, goes where it is needed.”

~ Evelyn Underhill

Isn’t that truth about love tough to swallow? Wouldn’t it just be EASIER if we could contain, control and command love to do its thing in our prescribed way? We are called to love. To embody Love. To live out Love and be a vessel for it to move and flow and have its way.

But the truth of the matter is that love isn’t easy. It doesn’t take the simple, straightforward, predictable path. It doesn’t always chose the most scenic, idyllic path. It is a journey that requires bushwhacking, trailblazing and paying attention to needs vs wants. It isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always popular. Love doesn’t always say what we WANT to say, our deepest, truest, often darkest emotions. Love pushes us to see below the veneer for something bigger, deeper and wider.

Motherhood has challenged me moment by moment to see these hidden paths of love. Each load of laundry and dishes. Each lunch packed. Every dinner chopped, sautéed and served. Each tooth brushed and poopy diaper changed. One after the other, opportunity upon opportunity to love. To be creative. To carve new paths. To say yes to the unknown and undesirable. It is a moment by moment choice. But sometimes those new channels that must be cut, lead to new paths, new growth and even unexpected joy.

photo taken in Oregon at Munson Falls near Tillamook, Oregon by Matt in August 2009….in a very precarious, scary position….HE is the daredevil photographer, NOT ME!

May the Road Rise Up

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face;
the rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

~traditional Gaelic blessing

My colleague shared that she uses this wonderful blessing with her 1st graders and has them write their own “May you always”/”May you never” blessings.  You can only IMAGINE the hilarity  and sweetness that the kids create.

I started thinking about what I would write….

May you always have Peets coffee in your French press…

May you always have Downton Abbey episodes to fill your Sunday evenings…..

May you never worry over missing the latest issue of Sunset Magazine

and may you always find a spare day to spend at the beach, feeling the sand between your toes (or your child’s teeth!).

May you always sleep through the night without young children standing at your bedside, freaking your out in the middle of the night.

In all seriousness, those sentiments would NOT be on the top of my list.

Mostly, I would hope for that last one on the Gaelic Blessing…that you would always feel God holding you in the palm of his hand.  May you always feel deeply loved.  May you never doubt your worth.  May you always have a “brother” (or sister, or friend, or spouse, or companion) to lean on.  Because it is in these imperfect relationships that we learn and through this community that we are pushed and grow.

I felt the road rising up today.  It came through food delivery.  It came via my students who were hardworking, excited, motivated and engaged (many of you have been praying for that to happen and today, for the first time in a LONG time, it felt like we turned a corner!).  The hope arrived via a cozy, mellow movie night at home with the rain pouring down hard outside. And despite the tears, antics, loud/crazy/chaotic meals, the road rose up through our boys over dinner.  You can’t help but smile when hearing about the crazy shenanigans of the leprechauns invading the preschool.  Green glitter, upturned chairs, rolled up carpets….how can you NOT love those leprechauns!?!

Happy St Patrick’s Day

and may each of the places that feel low and in need of redemption and hope

rise up today.

(first picture was taken at Ano Nuevo State Park near Pescadero, CA; May, 2011)

(second picture was taken after torrential rains at Yosemite National Park; October 2011)

Find the Room for Hope to Enter

My dear friend Erica wrote a beautiful post yesterday.  And these words she shared, from the hymn “Come and Find the Quiet Center”, spoke right to me as I sat next to Alex listening to a Curious George book on CD, trying to quell the volume still ringing in my ears from the day.

Come and find the quiet center in the crowded life we lead, find the room for hope to enter, find the frame where we are freed: clear the chaos and the clutter, clear our eyes that we can see all the things that really matter, be at peace and simply be.

Silence is a friend who claims us, cools the heat and slows the pace, God it is who speaks and names us, knows our being, touches base, making space within our thinking, lifting shades to show the sun, raising courage when we’re shrinking, finding scope for faith begun.

Frankly, even though my students have a rough time maintaining a quiet work environment, even when they ARE quiet, there still is the chaos, the clutter, the crowded, the shrinking.  Space, courage, faith and hope seem very distant and unattainable.  To go from that to home where screeching, constant need of attention and to do lists bombard you BEFORE you can even open the door….well, in the midst of all that noise, silence seems like a joke.  Not a friend, but a carrot, dangling before me, impossible to reach.

There is an internal struggle for me….a struggle that wages deep.  How do we find a space, a silence that allows for room to be made?  Room for Hope to come in?  Is it the tired thirties that I am waging against?!?  The never-ending assessments, state-mandated standards or the basic, unmet needs of students that keep me from seeing and claiming that space?  Or the insistent pull of my children, literally and figuratively, that holds me grounded to a stagnant spot?

And one thing kept coming to the forefront…the words of that hymn….we are called to action.  Not insane, running a marathon, action.  But called to….

Come.

Find.

Clear.

It reminds us that…

Silence Claims.

Slows the pace.

God speaks and names.  God lifts.  God raises.  God knows.  God finds.

Today, we stand in this odd gap, the 29th of February.  A time of transition from one month to the next, but a rarity in that we only find this date every four years.    I see this transition in our family’s life today.  Maybe I finally have enough time to stick my head up and breathe for a brief moment.  That moment of silence that allows God to find, speak, life and raise.

I realized my Valentine’s flowers are turning and ready to be added to the compost.

And that the end of wonderful vacation and grandparent time has come to a close (Grandpa written notes in lunchboxes, dominoes/lego and block building creations, hikes and adventures, meals at In-and-Out, researching pop up campers online)….

Trying to soak in the goodness of transition, nonetheless….the fact that though squirmy, we can still hold Drew, and my parents might not be able to pick up the chunk of boy on their next visit if he grows at this rate.  The transition to March and Spring, new life and growth….and St Patrick’s Day stickers at Trader Joes (the guy gave me a ROLL this morning to bring home to the boys!!!).

The fact that we got to enjoy breakfast (Tofu scramble!  Thank you, Hobee’s) with my parents, WITHOUT the boys!!, this morning before their departure and trip to the airport.

These transitions, turning the calendar, ending a long-anticipating visit, moving from vacation back to work and school, seeing the kids grow up….they aren’t easy and are often missed or rushed through, unacknowledged.  So, I’m attempting to find a quiet place to be silent.  Let hope filter in and be seen and heard in the midst of the stampede.  To mark the transitions with gratitude and open hands.  And maybe, if the Spirit nudges, take a few leaps into the unknown.

Thirty days hath September,

April, June and November.

All the rest have thirty-one,

Excepting February alone,

And that has twenty-eight days clear

And twenty-nine in each leap year.

Maintenance

Maintaining.  We all do it.  The need to keep things at the same level.  Often, that level isn’t realistic, but we push to maintain.  Whether is be a new exercise routine, an eating plan, staying up on the mountain of laundry, keeping our lists going at work, quickly emailing/texting or facebooking a friend to maintain the relationship.  We are encouraged to maintain.