A Chronology of Paying Attention (5): names give meaning

Two of my sisters and I spend a few minutes talking about the meaning of our names and why my niece's middle name is Hope. (pardon my low-tech skills, please!)

p.s., You can see a few "bonus features" from this video conversation here.  Scroll down to #3 for some back story photos.

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In this season that I do not have time to write, this is the idea God gave me:  For me to ponder and notice again the words I've already written once, to keep praying the beads of memory to discover this sacramental life.

Won't you join me?  

I'd welcome your company along the way.

Do you know the meaning of your name, and why your parents chose it? 

A Chronology of Paying Attention (4): God and sisters are not to be ignored

Seeing You

for my sister Kaley on her 2013 birthday

I will not 

rationalize --

Love is truth.

Indifference blinds

like a sin. Even

in our close quarters

your closet crib,

I don't remember looking 

in. Your baby days came and went 

the usual number of 

sweet years. The 

days swaying on

the tire swing on the tree 

in the side yard next

to the white and

yellow porch.

Scattered over two acres

the dandelions

we picked for 

Mother's Day, paper

bags full. Scattered over

Dad's bent back, we

three kids on the golden

yellow carpet.

None of us is innocent.

Even a five-year-old bears

the taint of genes,

the tendency to ignore

or neglect. Your cheeks

and nose and mouth

(we shared some of these

in common);

mine are creased now

with tears and time

and sun.

I study your face now

in your sons. It is impossible

to achieve perfect

recollection; let that

be my pardon:

Each photograph, we're wearing
matching Holly Hobbie

bathrobes at Christmas, each 

church duet, cute and

funny story of our

sisterly connection,

puts pieces back in place

and will now not be forgotten.

But, when I

was five and you were none,

I forget.  When I was teened 

and peeved, you were 

lightness and brightness and

ten and kind.

I was blind.

God and sisters

are not to be ignored, wait 
to be seen. Now I look

at you both and remember

what friendship looks like.

*adapted from a poem by Luci Shaw, "Permanent I.D."

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In this season that I do not have time to write, this is the idea God gave me:  For me to ponder and notice again the words I've already written once, to keep praying the beads of memory to discover this sacramental life.

Won't you join me?  

I'd welcome your company along the way.

A Chronology of Paying Attention (3): my first best friend

The missionary neighbors who lived upstairs rolled us around the yard in their shipping barrel.

Our vagabond days*

for my brother on his 2013 birthday

We'd hide in those years, Todd and me, inside the best places
in the parsonage —sneaking up from our first floor, certain

mother or others didn't know. While she vacuumed, we tip-toed
up the back stairs of the mud room peering for Lady Chatterly**

the African Parrot chattering Bible verses to her missionary family
whose teenaged son shot BB pellets into our father's tomato garden.

We lived as sheltered vagabonds then, roaming the church halls
in shared clothes from the missionary barrel, slipping through the cribs hung

on nursery walls, the wooden bars for a make believe zoo. The church bell at
noon announced our father's lunch at the formica table in our little kitchen.

Later, in the low glow of a Mickey Mouse night light, our day tucked
in with bed time prayers. I prayed with Daddy for Jesus to come

into my heart -- and yours.  When you decided to postpone your salvation
I chattered night-light altar calls from my bed to yours. Only half mindful

of your wellness, electric whispers in the passion of my conversion, more due
to the fact that you were my first -- and best -- friend. 

*adapted structure from a poem by by Bernadette McBride

**where my memory fails, I make up a few details

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In this season that I do not have time to write, this is the idea God gave me:  For me to ponder and notice again the words I've already written once, to keep praying the beads of memory to discover this sacramental life.

Won't you join me?  

I'd welcome your company along the way.

Five Favorites: books from January and February

This week: We took our Kendra to visit her potential college home in Denton, TX  The campus tour was lovely, but it's the gigantic used bookstore Recycled Reads that sealed the deal for me!

Five Favorites: my 2014 reading list

-- 1 --

1  The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell: (Ballantine Books, 1997. 408 pages) 

This novel just about wrecked me -- in mostly good ways. Since it falls in the category of Sci-Fi, I'd probably not have picked it up on my own.  But some dear friends shared how much they'd loved the story of -- well, a Jesuit priest in outer space. With only a little bit of experience reading science fiction, I've quickly learned that the power of the genre -- for me -- is the way a well-told story of an imaginary land and its inhabitants can help me reframe the powerful drama of my own land and species in the most surprising, touching ways.  This was the case for me reading about the brave team of space explorers hoping to give and receive love on the planet Rakhat -- for some, even the love of the Gospel of Christ.  The devastating results of offering pure, but misunderstood, love mirrors all the great tragedies we know since the beginning of man.  And the beginning of my very own life on Earth.  

-- 2 --

2  Found: A Story of Questions, Grace and Everyday Prayer by Micha Boyett: (Worthy Publishing, 2014. 240 pages) 

I am a lucky woman.  I knew this book while it was in the "womb".  I'm so proud of Micha for persevering not only in the story she tells in these pages: learning to pray when life gets turned upside down not by the tragic, but the daily mundane.  I'm also proud of her for birthing this book while her life kept twisting in unexpected ways.  I'll write a longer review later, but for now want you to know you can pre-order the book before it's April release.

-- 3 --

3  The Class by Erich Segal: (Bantam Books, 1986. 560 pages) 
When I was home for Christmas my mom kept mentioning this book she'd just read and enjoyed.  Since she's a good mom she didn't hesitate to send that book right home with me to read on our flight.  An interesting novel based on the very real community of Harvard class of 1958 -- a world in which a GPA didn't guarantee against prejudice or for happiness.

-- 4 --

4  Holy Luck by Eugene Peterson: (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2013. 128 pages)
Ever since Brian and I heard Pastor Peterson speak in 2008 during a symposium for pastors, church leaders in artists in Austin, we have reclaimed the word "luck" as another way to say "We are surprisingly blessed, indeed!"  This small book of poetry reminds me that this man wrote the Message translation of the Bible.  And he knows he is a lucky man, indeed.

-- 5 --

5  Somewhere in France: a novel of the Great War by Jennifer Robson: (William Morrow Paperbacks, 2013. 400 pages)

I regularly fill up my library hold list with recommendations from Katie Noah Gibson's monthly blog posts.  Since I'm ever interested in the zeitgeist of Great Britain during the War to end all wars (and the one after that one), this book went on my to-read list.  It was a quick and pleasurable read.  (*If you don't like to read about the act of sex, don't read this novel.  It's not gratuitous, but it is definitely the intended -- pardon the pun -- climax of the story.)

*Go to my Book Pile page to see my reading lists from previous years.*

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A book-filled weekend for us all, dear ones.

For more Five Favorites, visit Moxie Wife!

A Chronology of Paying Attention (2): then comes the Daddy

In this season that I do not have time to write, this is the idea God gave me:  For me to ponder and notice again the words I've already written once, to keep praying the beads of memory to discover this sacramental life.

Won't you join me?  

I'd welcome your company along the way.

Then comes the Daddy. 
(especially meaningful to me this week as my Dad spends a few days in the hospital recovering from pneumonia)

The Invitation

To pull the metal hook from the fish's mouth

my father focused all attention on his catch.

I watched his puckered face and not the fish's.

With only a few finger sweeps , he’d removed

the iron sliver I thought it'd die from.

I can’t remember the words,

but hear the speechless motion, a creak

of row lock, a slap-slap of water beside us.

And I recall his hands,

two knuckled planes, one wedding band's

glint in the sun,

a flame of benediction

he raised above my head.

Had you rowed out with us that morning 

you would have thought you saw a man

fishing, a brown-haired girl sprawled across the bow,

book cover shielding the sun's flame.

Had you followed that boat

you would have arrived here,

where I pause at every creekbed.

Look how I search for trout, bass, bullhead

to find the ones that got away.

Watch as I scan every water field for ripples.

I was seven when my father

took me on the St. Lawrence,

and I did not fear the great steamships.

Slamming within their water wake, I did not think

Metal that will bury me,

christen our aluminum rowboat journey,

Poor Fisherman and His Daughter.

And I did not lift my face into the spray and cry,

We're going to be killed!

I did what a child does

when she’s invited into adventure. I leaned into the wind and

I trusted my father.

ADAPTED FROM A POEM BY LI-YOUNG LEE

A Chronology of Paying Attention (1): it begins with what my momma taught me

In this season that I do not have time to write, this is the idea God gave me:  For me to ponder and notice again the words I've already written once, to keep praying the beads of memory to discover this sacramental life.

Won't you join me?  

I'd welcome your company along the way.

It begins with what my Momma taught me...

What I Learned From My Mother*

I learned from my mother how to love

the moment, to keep plenty of paper on hand

in case you have to rush to a birthday party

with cards and gift wrap from the closet. 

Scissors and pens also. I learned to save books

old enough to hold stories for the next

generation, to carve apple slices

from the inside out -- slice through crimson crisp skins

and flick out the pulpy bruises by knife point.

I learned to invite company even if I didn’t know

the menu, to pass around the moist excess

of lotion, to dispense tic-tacs up the pew

silently, a minty-fresh eucharist.

I learned that memories we save mean everything,

what anyone will remember is what we write.

I learned to believe I had the power to ease

hot grieving wounds like a cool cloth angel.

And shop the Salvation Army -- turn

musty neglect into a repurposed self. 
And once you know how to do this, 
you can never refuse. To every child you mother, 
you must offer healing: a blueberry cobbler you baked
yourself, the comfort of your story voice, 

your calm, cool touch.

*A POEM  I  ADAPTED FROM JULIA KASDORF

Five Favorite online reads: free hugs, teapotism and slushy flat bottoms

For all the reasons I mentioned on Wednesday I'm getting simple around here.  That means listing 5 things instead of 7 things here each weekend.  

Also, I found a way to hangout with friends at work.  It's called find a dark, empty office and invite a couple of friends to join you on your break.

Five Favorites from this week:  online reads.

-- 1 --

Love Unleashed Through Suffering: the continuing significance of John Paul II's Salvific Doloris by Dawn Eden at First Things:  I respect Dawn Eden.  She wrote one of the best descriptions of forgiveness I've ever read in her book My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints.  Her story adds weight to her recall on the thirtieth anniversary of John Paul's apostolic letter on the Gospel of Suffering.  

"John Paul uses the strongest language possible: Suffering in Christ “ unleashes” love—again, both in the sufferer, who is united with Christ at the most intimate level, and in the one who ministers to him in imitation of Christ."

And Protestant philosopher Alvin Plantinga called it “surely one of the finest documents (outside the Bible) ever written” on its topic.

-- 2 --

Is Atheism Irrational: an interview with Alvin Plantinga at the NY Times:  Speaking of Plantinga I read this interview because so many friends linked to it this week.  I responded to his defense of theistic arguments in the academic sphere with equal parts giggling (teapotism?!?), puzzlement and epiphany. 

"Some atheists seem to think that a sufficient reason for atheism is the fact (as they say) that we no longer need God to explain natural phenomena — lightning and thunder for example. We now have science. As a justification of atheism, this is pretty lame. We no longer need the moon to explain or account for lunacy; it hardly follows that belief in the nonexistence of the moon (a-moonism?) is justified."

What can I say?  I enjoy reading things that I only understand about 15% of the substance.  Things like philosophy.  And sometimes poetry.

-- 3 --

Alexander Graham Bell and his wife Mabel hold hands at National Geographic's Tumblr, Found:  Simply sweet.  Also, I look forward to every update on this daily photo site.

-- 4 --

Winter Olympic Love at Cake, Tea and Dreams:  I overheard a conversation in the office this week in which two employees mention how little they care about following the Olympics.  How can this be?!?   Katie Noah Gibson gets it.  

"The pageantry of the opening ceremonies, the bright colors of all the different countries’ flags, the hushed tension as we watch the competitions and the bursts of cheering at the end of a run, a race or a routine. I love the cheesy ads featuring the athletes, the clips of vintage Olympic triumphs, and Morgan Freeman’s voice."

Here's my idea:  I keep thinking how fun it would be to create a glossary of commentator’s terms during Olympics. Wouldn’t that be fun? Like the word “twizzles” during ice dancing, and “he fell victim to the slushy flat bottom” in this week’s half-pipe snowboarding. Am I right??

-- 5 --

Free Hugs: a video short from comic Amber Bixby  I needed to laugh this week.  I watched an I Love Lucy mini-marathon with my daughters Thursday night.  (they've never watched it -- how can this be?!?)  And I watched this video promo by our friend Amber.  Repeatedly.

Amber Bixby Headlines Live at Coldtowne for Valentine's Day 2014 from Voltaic Video on Vimeo.

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A hug-filled weekend for us all, dear ones.

For more Five Favorites, visit Moxie Wife!