Glimpses of Summer

Here is a photo dump of some of our sunny moments. This summer is amazing, and sometimes scorching. I am not posting any pictures of my children arguing or crying or being ANNOYING, because pictures like that might lower your opinion of me. These pictures are hand-picked. ;-)

 Mt. Rainier

 My girl

 He looks just like his dad when he is mischievous.

 This boy melts me

 The roll above the elbow is my favourite

 

He is just fun

Transfirguation (post script)

In the Transfiguration the disciples were seeing the glory which was Christ's from all eternity but had, up to that point, been veiled from their eyes. Today I realized that I was experiencing an actual veil-lifting.

Seattle is surrounded by mountains and the most breathtaking of them all is Mt. Rainier. It stands alone: a snow-topped volcano southeast of Seattle, 14,411 ft in elevation, dangerous and dazzling.

Because Seattle is rainy and cloudy much of the year (stop feigning surprise), I sometimes forget about Mt. Rainier. I don't see it, so I forget that it's there. But then on a day like today, clear, brilliant and summer-splendid, I see Mt. Rainier and am stirred with awe. The veil of clouds lifts, and my eyes see what has been there all along.

Transfiguration

Last November, around the time of the anniversary of Dad's death, the story of the Transfiguration of Christ was brought to my soul three times in two days. I was paying attention. I was surprise-struck, tinglingly aware that I was standing in a thin place. There have been times in my life that are punch-in-the-gut strong while being sweeter than the sweetest melody (times I have not conjured from my own wishful thinking) when the veil is thin, almost translucent for a moment, between this life and the life to come. It was so at Dad's deathbed, and has been so a few times since.

Today is Dad's birthday; he would have turned 63 years old. There were apple fritters on the breakfast table. Yesterday the text of the Transfiguration, from Matthew's account, was the basis of our sermon. I am paying attention. I don't claim to have any original, profound thoughts on the topic, but I find myself under the umbrella of this greater story and want to have open eyes.

I do not think that the disciples were expecting to see Jesus in his glory when they went up the mountain to pray with him that day. Surely, praying with their master was a regular rhythm of their lives, a spiritual discipline and habit. Never before (that I know of) did Jesus' face shine like the sun, and his clothes become white as light. Never before did Moses and Elijah appear. As my friend Kimberlee Conway Ireton writes, "Only when they fully awaken do they come face to face with mystery: they see Jesus in his glory, a glory that is his from before time, but which has been veiled from their sight until this moment when they finally see him as he truly is."

I don't blame the disciples for wanting to make tents on that mountain. I would want to bottle up that glory, to savour and make my home in it. It was good, but it was not time. My finite mind and sinful heart can not bear the majesty and strength of God. It was not time for the disciples to set up tents, and I can't claim that I am ready, either.

The partings of the veil are a gift, and I want to make space today to recall that I have known thin places in my journey. Just because I can't see something doesn't mean that it's not there.

The parting of the veil fills me with awe and delights my soul, but it also opens in me a yearning, a deep and almost painful desire. For in glimpsing this fleeting beauty, I become aware of a mystery - that there is more to life than usually meets the eye - and I yearn to enter more deeply into that mystery and to lie in those moments that shimmer with a radiance that is beyond what we usually see or know. 

- Kimberlee Conway Ireton

But in the search, in the lost wandering, heaven slips in and out with just enough grace to lift the head, to squint the eyes, to call us to look and see. Mystery penetrates the mundane and holiness tames the longing. Though aching with loss, while sorrow tears through fragility, He shows us heaven. With a whisper and a nudge, He pulls back the roof and the walls tumble down. He cracks open the door and lures us to come and stand in the light of our Home.

Oh, I know that no eye has seen and no ear has heard what He has prepared for those who love Him. But let us with eyes and us with ears, us with homesick hearts and wandering spirits, continue to find the thin place, the light of a cracked door. Where we know that though we are planted on earth, we are rooted in heaven, and all headed Home.

- Settle Monroe

Awakening, unpacked (a little)

"What are the next steps we should be taking for your musical life here in Seattle?" he asked. We were in the kitchen; I was cutting his hair, some regular Lenten evening in February.

Silence. An unexpected quaking began in my bones.

"Do you have any ideas for what would be feasible right now?" Gentle, harmless probing. The uninvited quaking began to rumble. I blinked hard.

"Do you want to start to inquire at the Faculty of Mus..."

"WHY ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT THIS RIGHT NOW?"

Orion blinked back at me.

"I. KILLED. MUSIC. TO. MOVE. TO. SEATTLE."

I wept (more than I am used to) for a day and a half.

I was torn open, wide open, and my wound was gushing. I didn't expect it. I did not conjure up the drama. It was very real, and sickening. I was blown over by the storm.

I guess that months, turned into years, of stuffing (parts of) your heart and passion can do that. Turns out I didn't make them go away at all; the stuffing did not erase them. The act of stuffing the dreams did not snuff them. I ignored them for a long time because it was all just too hard. I love my babies and we're renovating a house and I'm still figuring out this new city and I just tried to play Strauss but got interrupted and it's just too hard.

We've had conversations like this before, Orion and I, and have made half-hearted, lip-service attempts towards musical resurrection. They were fruitless conversations.

So I wept and thought. I don't know if I prayed or not; I don't know if I consciously prayed much, anyway. I *did* start talking, talking to people who loved me, to people whom I thought might understand. Usually it was just a snippet at a time, never a complete conversation, but subtly, powerfully, the tide began to change.

Encouragement can look like a lot of things. Sometimes it looks like your mom reminding you that she loves you. Sometimes it looks like a new friend sitting on your couch and listening to your crisis with tender eyes. "The Chinese character for crisis actually combines two characters: danger and opportunity," she says. And sometimes, encouragement looks like the sudden appearance of an old friend, a Jamaican-born, Toronto-based, prophetic tenor kind of friend (you don't have one of those?) who has been wowing the masses at Carnegie Hall and speaks Truth over you like a hurricane.

I've spent a lot of time fearing that I'll never again make music at the level at which I am capable. I've spent a lot of time being invisible to that world, not climbing ladders. I've spent a lot of time fearing that I won't be seen as good enough for anything more than playing a monthly offertory, or the odd wedding, or teaching someone's three-year-old daughter. And the truth is that I would rather not make music at all than be reduced, exclusively, to that.

But the storm came, and it broke down that walls I've been building around my heart. I am daring to hope, and daring to believe that something (bigger than me) is on the move. My gift had to fall to the ground and die, and die it did. And yet, I am now done with all my it's too hard and no one cares. I am taking steps to walk in my gifting, more fully as the person I was made to be. I don't have any fruit to show yet, but I have hope and I'm not letting it go this time.

For a season, it was too hard. I had to sacrifice something I loved for others whom I love. I did not make a wrong choice, but I am re-thinking my identity and calling out subtle lies that have wound their way into my image. I will not flog myself for the season I have been in, for these years of invisibility. I will be kind to myself, and I will walk in hope towards what lies ahead.

Lent

Sometimes, the tune of Lent is grey and minor. This year, Lent is singing a strong anthem of awakening.

I have hope, and it's solid.

Maybe it's my distance from post-partum haze. My thoughts are clearer, my emotions more articulate.

Maybe it's the increase of sunlight, a life-giving sunlight that warms down to the bones.

Maybe it's grace, all grace.

In the bleak midwinter 

Christina Rosetti 

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,

Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;

Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,

In the bleak midwinter, long ago.

Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him, nor earth sustain;

Heaven and earth shall flee away when He comes to reign.

In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed

The Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.

Enough for Him, whom cherubim, worship night and day,

Breastful of milk, and a mangerful of hay;

Enough for Him, whom angels fall before,

The ox and ass and camel which adore.

Angels and archangels may have gathered there,

Cherubim and seraphim thronged the air;

But His mother only, in her maiden bliss,

Worshipped the beloved with a kiss.

What can I give Him, poor as I am?

If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;

If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part;

Yet what I can I give Him: give my heart.

Dad

Twelve years.

Sometimes, remembering looks like celebrating.

Today, it looked like sharing apple fritters with my children. I hope they always associate apple fritters with their Grandpa Alvin.

The master called the woman to himself.
'Child, please take this basket to the river, and return it to me.'
The woman ran to the river and dipped the woven basket into it, but when she returned to the master, it was empty, for the water had seeped through the small holes in the weave.
'I am so sorry! Please, I will go again to fill my basket with water.'
So the woman ran again to the river, dipped the basket in, and returned with an empty basket.

Over and over, this woman ran to the river and became broken-hearted as the basket was always empty on her return.

'Child, what did the basket look like when I gave it to you?'
'It was dirty.'
'And now?'

The woman gasped.
'It is clean.'

I heard a story a bit like this from a pulpit years ago, and I'm living the truth of it now. Again and again and again, I try to retain

coherent thought
self-discipline
a thriving prayer life

and again and again and again, I fail. I come back empty. My intentions are so good, but the holes in my mind, in my heart, in my soul just seem like a gaping drain.

And yet.

And yet, I am cleansed in the cycles. In my weekly returns to the Table, taking the broken Bread and the poured Wine, I am cleansed. In the daily cycles of sleep, I am afforded a bit more refreshment and strength. The seasons turn, the rhythms repeat. I am dust, lavished with mercy.

* * *

I used to think that life was pretty linear. A leads to B leads to C. Study well, get good grades: check. Meet nice man, get married, have babies: check. Learn the repertoire, make connections, make great music: check. Learn basics of the faith, grow in faith, stop making stupid mistakes .... darn.

My Sunshine

why I haven't been blogging much

Guys, I feel like I'm starting to come out of the brain fog. Really! At least in this moment, I am feeling as though there might be more to me than momhood (though momhood is pretty amazing and totally consuming most of the time). I've been inspired by a number of shockingly wonderful things recently, and I just want to live fully, spending it all. Maybe it's just because I'm on my second cup of coffee and the sun is shining today, but I'm remembering that I need to be more than a dishcloth.

Gifts for Dust

My mom gives gifts as smoke rises upwards. Some days I would come home from school to find a new shirt lying out on my bed or a stack of 'new' 50-cent thrift store pants for me to sort through. I remember when she handed me the first clue in a treasure hunt that lead to me to my very first set of eye shadow. Mom prepares for Christmas and birthdays months (and months and months) in advance. When I went away to university, I received far more care packages than anyone else I knew, and those bits of home meant the world to me, a prairie girl transplanted to the mountains and studying my bleary eyes out as I was testing my wings. And now that I am living in Seattle with her grandkids, her momentum has not waned. I mean, we even received a package to commemorate Canada Day, complete with Coffee Crisp bars (yes!) and pencils brandished with Canadian flags.

One card I received while in university contained a note pointing me towards Psalm 103, and it has been a favourite passage of mine ever since. I find immense comfort in the psalmist's painting of God's expansive power and grace, and in the shocking magnitude of my forgiveness.

I was reading this Psalm a few years ago, pregnant, weary and stretched beyond all reason, and my eyes fell on verse 14: "For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust."

HAL.LE.LU.JAH. This has been such a consolation to me ever since, particularly in the smallness of these mothering-of-little-people years.

I am trying to be very intentional about being with my kids. I like them, and I just want to really walk with them, not simply point them towards a destination and tell them to go. But when I'm overtired, my physical body lacking some of the stabilizing abilities that my heart and mind depend on, being with the kids is emotionally exhausting. I ride all of their feelings right along side of them, vibrating in perfectly discordant harmony with their highs and lows. When all is peaceful and quiet, I am calm and grounded. When two or more are screaming, I easily become ... ahem ... slightly agitated.

'Tis bittersweet. I wouldn't trade it, and I won't regret it, but it's depleting. Hence the comfort of knowing that He knows I'm dust. When I can't connect two coherent thoughts, He knows. When I can't muster the energy to form even the simplest of prayers, I can just be. As a friend reminded me, we are more than minds; we are spirits too, and intimate friends can be together without words. What a friend we have in Jesus.

A stranger, a woman who is a generation ahead of me in the journey, wrote this to a woman who is very much in the same stage as me in the journey:

He can cope with your less than adequate communion with Him because He's the One who sees the heart, not the performance. Trust me, I battled the same thing years (and years and years) ago when I was at your stage of mummage... and now at grandma stage, I've found that He and I are still together and I love Him even more now... and I get more time to read my Bible... hang in there... this too will pass.

What a gift.

Theodore

Theodore: divine gift
Alvin (my dad's name): friend

You are here, and you are perfect. Two weeks, and our worlds are completely upside down while being completely right and overflowing. You did not emerge to breathe the free air when expected, or as expected, and your labour was not what I expected (silly me, to think I knew what labour would look like, or to think that by the fourth time around I could have some control over it). You were born at home, and we know that the Lord was good to us.

Your dad has been taking incredible care of all of us, of me, so I can take care of you. And you are thriving. These are days of bleary eyes and unfinished sentences, of tears and quiet. There are moments when I am rubbed raw and figuring out how to meet 17 simultaneous needs (melt downs), and there are moments of deep peace and fierce gratitude.

I love you, little man. I am so glad to be your mommy.

Pea soup, a double-edged sword, and reflection

The double-edged sword of pregnancy, particularly when full term, is this: brain fog + increased hormones.

On the spectrum that places thinkers and feelers on opposite ends, I naturally lean towards the thinkers side. But pregnancy has robbed me of my ally. My brain is drowning in a pea soup fog; clear, coherent thought is a distant memory. I don't have my reliable filter to help me sift through my normal emotions, let alone the increased emotions that are raging through me. I wish they were pleasant emotions of elation and gratitude, but the thing I feel the most is agitation. I have constant agitation bubbling right below the surface, and I have three children whom, I swear, are thriving on pushing my buttons right now. I would be such a nice person if no one would test my character.

And that's the thing: my character is being constantly tested, and I don't like what I see. Enter: Guilt.

But I also know that failures bring humility. My failures are throwing me to my knees, and I can not deny my need for grace. I am not a nice enough person to be a parent. I do not have enough patience or creative energy. When I yell at my kids before breakfast (because they're fighting, screaming, and attempting to rip a chunk of flesh from a brother's shoulder with ferocious teeth as the only tool of torture), I can not deny our fallen nature. It is a fact, and it is ugly.

So as brain fog combines with the constant confronting of my inner junk and the constant testing of my character, I have not been drawn to blog. But I gained a little courage when I read this:

Writing is not about creating tidy paragraphs that sound lovely or choosing the 'right' words. It's just about noticing who you are and noticing life and sharing what you notice. - Glennon Melton

And I gained a little more courage when I read this:

...trust in the slow work of God. We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay. We would like to skip the intermediate stages. We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new. And yet, it is the law of all progress that it is made by passing through some stages of instability - and that it may take a very long time. Above all, trust in the slow work of God... - Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

I am so impatient for God's refining work in me to be done, but it is, in fact, a slow work. I am not an easy subject for Him to work upon, yet the failures and instabilities along the way enlarge me, just as the (unavoidable) practice of waiting for this child to emerge enlarges me. The waiting, the process, enlarge us, making us more than we were before.

And while my own frailty is a very real and constant presence, so is beauty.

There is still much laughter filling our days, and there are nature walks in the evening when golden hair is backlit by the setting sun and we delight in finding a caterpillar and a perfect reflection in a pond.

So this is what my life looks like right now. I am noticing it; I am showing up; I am owning it and begging Jesus for mercy. I am eager to hold this little one in my arms, and I am enlarged by the slow work of God.

***

A rare shot of the five (six!) of us

Stretching

It had been two weeks since many had seen me, so this morning in church I was on the receiving end of a lot of wide grins and "So when are you due again? How much longer?" queries. I guess Baby and I grew.

This is my fourth pregnancy, and I've outgrown some of the pre-natal wide-eyed wonders and novelty. I'm not in the posting-baby-bump-profile-pictures-every-month stage (I don't think I even did that with my first). I'm excited to meet this new little person, to find out who s/he is and wonder at how we ever felt complete without this new life in our lives. I anticipate the person who is coming; I'm not gaga over the pregnancy.

Don't get me wrong: it has been a healthy pregnancy, and I think I've been the most energetic and least uncomfortable this time around (nothing short of miraculous). I love feeling the kicks and stretches, and I rejoice and grin at each one. And really, as far as pregnant women go, I'm pretty cute. But I also feel the real, physical strain, the toll of being a vessel of another's life. It's just not glamourous. I won't go into details, but believe me when I say that it's just.not.glamourous.

I don't know her, but I read some breathtaking words by Jordyn Osburn the other day that I knew I wanted to steal share.

Maybe some of our scars won’t follow us into resurrection, I don’t know. But Jesus had scars on his resurrected body. On his hands, on his feet, on his sides. Scars that proved that he lived, and that he loved. Scars that remind me of who he is and how he loves. He let Thomas touch them. Maybe someday he’ll let me touch them.  

Is it possible that the beautiful, spotless bride of Christ looks like a body that has lived? A body with wrinkles and scars and calluses? A body that has loved beyond herself in a way that stopped caring about what she thought was perfection and fixed her gaze on the one and only Perfect One? A body even willing to groan and bleed for love the way her Maker and Savior did? I think it’s possible. I think I want to be that kind of bride.  - Jordyn Osburn

Here are tangible, beautiful ways I've been stretched.

 

 

 

Auntie Marion

My Auntie Marion died last week. Her funeral was held today in St. Louis, and my heart and mind have been there too even though my body was stuck in Seattle, over 2000 miles away.

I have been trying for days to think of an eloquent post through which to pay tribute to her, but it becomes too painful to think of what to say and so I become distracted, and it's just easier not to face the fact that she's gone. My words fall flat when compared to the dynamic, three-dimensional person she was.

Auntie Marion was truly one of the most remarkable people I have been privileged to know. She was generous beyond reason, and invariably chose joy and gratitude though her life could have be written up as a heart-breaking tragedy. She was feisty and a little eccentric, and had a funny little cuckoo clock and piano-playing bear in her apartment that was bursting with relics of the life she had lived (she called it her museum). She could tell stories from her life that seemed too outrageous to be true: stories of hunting and fishing with the men decades ago (when it was very taboo); of river boat cruises on the Mississippi; of adventures and a life well-spent; of a real-life Native American princess who was an opera singer.

Auntie Marion lived to be 99, so in many ways she already seemed immortal to me; certainly this is part of why it's hard to believe she is gone. I really cannot fathom how different my life would be without her influence and support. She put me through school; she encouraged my music unfailingly; she loved Orion and the kids hugely. We were not related by blood, but there are bonds stronger than blood.

Tonight I played Rachmaninoff for you, Auntie Marion. I hope it can begin to express how grateful I am for you.

Love you much.

Frayed

"There's Uncle Rigel's piano!" the two year old cheerfully exclaimed from the living room last night, and I nearly collapsed to the floor in sobs.

I was in the kitchen. Again. Cleaning up a meal. Again. After I'd made a meal. Again.

What do my children see when they think of me? They don't even know that I am a musician. They see others at the instrument more often than they see me there.

"Hey Silas, you can be the fire chief and I'll be the firefighter, and Annalyn can just be the one who stays home and makes supper."

And another piece of my heart broke. Is this what my sons see modelled, day in and day out? Is this what I am? Is this all I am?

I am so aware of my limitations, and right now my limitations are cutting away at my wrists and my heart. I sacrifice things I love for other things I love, but sometimes all it does is hurt.

I would never, ever, ever trade away the time I get with them. I have felt my heart get larger and stronger over the past year - enlarged with love for them: more room for each wildly unique soul. Drawing near and being intentionally present with them is my choice, and it is oh so rich. I love sitting close and drawing near, walking with them as they discover and learn and grow. The privilege of knowing them and watching their eyes open further is unparalleled. I know that we are choosing a rich life, a life of nurturing each other and showing up for each other, day after day.

But I'm tired and discouraged. The lies are blaring.

A friend was once explaining the concept of gifts to her son, and as he thought of things people in his family were good at, he declared "Mom, your gift is working!" And she died a little inside.

I am not looking for a lecture on how this is a short season, on how I will never regret this time. I can not even let myself begin to imagine life without them, because the pain of even imagining becomes stifling in a heartbeat.

Sometimes I wonder if I love too many things, and I'll always be hurting because I can never have enough of any of them at the same time. Sometimes I have more questions than answers. I don't even know what balance looks like, or if it exists.

But really, all I am saying in this moment of vulnerability and humility is that sometimes the sacrifice hurts.

This life, therefore, is not righteousness but growth in righteousness; not health but healing; not being but becoming; not rest but exercise; we are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing toward it; the process is not yet finished, but it is going on; this is not the end, but it is the road.

- Martin Luther

Seattle Spring