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

A Mentality of Abundance

Poverty vs. Abundance.

I've had this theme clanging around in my head and heart for the past few days.

I've whined often enough in this space about how I'm tired, about how I feel like I'm spinning in circles even though life is charging forward at a dizzying speed. Most of the time I don't feel like I have enough          

• time
• creativity
• patience
• love
• vision
• perspective
• gratitude
• holiness
• energy

I become a miser in my activities because I haven't had enough sleep. I become stingy with the intentional attention I give because there are so many people demanding it right now that there just might not be enough to spread around. I evaluate (judge) whether or not those around me are meeting their Duty Quotas, because the Duties can feel suffocating. I hoard my energy for the bare essentials of day-to-day life because there just isn't enough.

In sharing her struggle with sleep deprivation after her first child was born, Olive Chan writes:

I’d been operating out of a poverty mentality. Afraid that I would run dry, I became a miser, hoarding my energy and limiting my commitments like a cheapskate. My Creator was inviting me to see things differently. God was asking me to adopt a mentality of abundance. To believe God is more than enough. To dare to give generously and lavishly because God’s resources are never ending.

Why is it easier for me to trust God with my finances than my strength for the day?

I am trying to remember that there *is* enough. I worship the One who takes our meagre offerings of loaves and fishes and multiples them beyond count.

If my night was too short, I can choose to start my morning with thanks-giving for the horizontal time I *was* given and look to Him who never sleeps to sustain me. When my children appear bent on mutual destruction before 7:30 am and I can see my day stretching out before me, bleak and jagged, I actually *can* rest in Jesus - He has more than enough (love, grace, joy) for me to draw on as deeply as I need to and to then pour on those around me.


I do not want to operate out of a poverty mentality in any part of my life. I want to dance in the freedom of the truth that I am enough because He is, has, and gives more than enough.

TIred, joyful, torn, okay

So the problem is that when I have moment to think, when the joyful cacophony of my little people is paused for a rest and the kitchen isn't a total disaster and I know the next meal will be alright and we'll have some clean clothes to put on in the morning, I'm just too tired to write. The here and now takes all my strength these days, and it's so precious that I don't want to shove it aside. Sometimes creativity feels selfish (I'm pretty sure that's a lie, but most days I don't have the energy to disembowel it). I turned 33 on Sunday, and the truth is that I too am in the midst of my tired thirties. (Sarah Bessey, though a total stranger, sheds some light onto my surroundings more eloquently than I can).

I am 21 weeks pregnant, and we got to see this little person via ultrasound on Friday. It was absolutely incredible. The child is healthy and beautiful, and we give thanks in wonder. Seeing the ultrasound pictures has really made an impact on the kids too, once they came to understand that the child isn't actually gray and fuzzy.

I am tired, yet feeling really healthy. I am not yet large enough to be constantly uncomfortable, but I feel this child dancing more strongly with each passing day. Schooling is really quite fun, and I love being part of the boys' 'aha!' moments. Orion is pretty much the best.

We are all pretty healthy, and I am still grateful. Speaking of gratefulness, there had been a real grumbly attitude among the kids over the past month or so. Any special treat was met with indifference, any act of kindness met with a sense of entitlement. No matter how many times I told them to say 'thank you,' it was never spontaneous, never coming from the heart. And a 'thank you' said with rolled eyes really doesn't cut it. I was ready to throw a hissy fit at a moment's notice, reminding them of all I do for them and how I really am good at things besides cleaning up their messes and how someday they would come to see me as a person and would regret all of their childish selfishness and would extol me for all I sacrificed for them, memorializing me as a saint. So as a good, righteous mother, I started praying for their hard little hearts (because that's where it all starts, right?). I prayed for God to give them grateful hearts. And you know what He told me? It starts with you.

The nerve.

My gut reaction was 'Oh, come on!'

I am mature like that.

But He who is Truth was right, and He is slowly changing my heart. And as I remember to be thankful in the kids' hearing, things are slowly changing.

I ask no dream, no prophet ecstasies
No sudden rending of the veil of clay
No angel vision, no opening skies
But take the dimness of my soul away

The softening of my own heart can be the biggest miracle of all.

...must...keep...trying...

Hiya.

You know how sometimes you get all inspired and are all, like, 'Hey, I'm going to start a blog!' and things are going along alright and you keep going despite your lack of creative genius and then suddenly life gets too much in the way and your family is sick non-stop for two months and you are dealing with the first trimester of your fourth pregnancy on top of all the never-ending house renovations and the adjusting to a new city and all of a sudden it has been two months since your last post?!?

Ya, I didn't think you'd understand. But there you have it. That's what it's been like.

But I'm happy to report that I'm comfortably in my second trimester now (no longer feeling like I'm constantly gagging, and not yet large enough to be uncomfortable in all my swollen glory). Also, we are so so so thankful that our entire family has been healthy, non-stop, for a solid two weeks now. It has been wonderful.

So we are plugging along, and I am determined (again) to write. I don't aim to write because I have delusions that the world needs to hear my voice. I just want to write because I want to. I need to, too, I think.

Here is one anecdote before I go to play some Brahms. Orion and I went to a performance of the Seattle Symphony on Saturday night. I was preparing the boys ahead of time for the fact that Daddy and I would be at the concert, and their eyes grew big and sad as they said 'I want to go to the symphony too.' (Be still, my heart!) I told them that on a special Saturday morning in March, they were going to get to hear the Seattle Symphony play Prokofiev's 'Peter and the Wolf' (which they love). A smile spread across their faces in a flash, but then Son #1 grew concerned and said 'Maybe just Peter will be there.'

It took a few moments of calm explanation to convince him that there would not, in fact, be a live wolf at the concert.