Seven Months

You came teaching my girl. You came teaching. You turned seven months on May 1st. You grow more beautiful each day. You have spunk and sparkle and you are good at jumping. I was talking to a friend today about how it feels to be a mom...how sometimes- maybe most of the time- you don't quite feel like a person. Caring for others constantly forces you to forget yourself. And I guess that's what I mean by 'don't feel like a person'. You don't have time to stop and just be. But then she said, 'Don't worry. You will feel like a person again someday. Just a different person.' And then it hit me. It hit me how much we change as parents. How someday we will emerge from caring for kids constantly but we'll be better at a lot of things and wiser and older and humbler and better at this thing called love. Man, it's hard sometimes. Loving.

I see now how little I knew about real life back in college- back when everything was a theory...and I was pretty sure I knew everything. Some things, maybe most are things you won't understand until you use your life muscles a little bit and get dirty- get in the trenches. Life is really gritty and really scary and so real. And to go from all theory- all thinking- to all doing, doing, doing is a strange paradigm shift. But jumping into the deep end of marriage and parenthood wasn't so bad.

In this culture I'm young to be married and even younger to have a kid. Remember that place in between worlds in The Magician's Nephew? A forest full of pools leading to other worlds- dying worlds, worlds about to be born. I often feel like I'm there and I belong to more than one world- more than one pool. Everyone my age is discovering themselves- their career- their soul-mate- who they are--- and everyone with children is a decade older than me. So I'm caught in a world where everyone is in a different place and sometimes it feels pretty fragmented. But. Maybe that's the magic of living anyway- that we're all in different pools-different worlds..and somehow, sometimes we meet in the middle--this world--these bodies--this thing we have in common. We're all drifting souls that bump into each other and it all seems random and wild sometimes but sometimes it seems so not.

Like I meet an old man riding a horse on the Fullerton trails and he's telling me how he fought in world war II and how his wife passed away and this is her horse and he soled his because he didn't need two anymore and the jackass bikers always ride too fast and they better slow down 'cause they don't know what a 190 pound horse can do to their rear-ends and just remember to savor every moment of it cause even when you get in little spats it's ok 'cause in the end all you have is each other and you need each other and then when they're gone you miss them sorely and there's nothing like living you're whole life together and thank you so much young lady for your time talking. it sure was nice talking. and he gets this distant look in his eye and I can imagine him sitting by himself at home eating dinner and what it is to be alone. And just like that our lives collide and they mean something in the other's.

Anyway, I'm glad to be here-- changing and colliding with these souls. And this little Winter soul we met seven months ago is especially wonderful. You came teaching my girl. You came teaching.

Rashes and Runny Noses

When I remember what I have, what I don't have get's smaller. It fades away into the distance like a forgotten nightmare. I tend to focus on the flaws, on the problem. I'm good at finding the flaws- in an idea, a person, my piano student's finger technique. But soon the little flaw, the little speck of dust starts getting pretty large and I start freaking out because it's actually a black hole coming to devour every bit of joy and peace I have. And just like that I loose. I feel awful. Nothing is right. Everything is wrong. It's the end of the world.

The speck and the log...remove the log from your own eye so you can remove the speck in your brothers eye. How often do we turn specks into logs and miss the actual log? There are logs. There are big problems in our lives that need removing. I just think we're not usually aware of them. Judging others is a big problem but I feel like Jesus is pinpointing a human tendency that is deeper- one that is constantly devouring us. Our perspective is limited and therefore our perception is flawed or at the very best, incomplete. We don't see the universe from the right angle. We don't have a good vantage point. We are tiny ants in a huge kitchen. Two-dimensional beings in a million-dimensional world. We are not God and we are small. And our limitations make us extremely vulnerable to blindness.

For weeks now I've been stressing about Winter not sleeping through the night, about a rash on her bottom, about runny noses, about money, about friends. And whenever one stressful thing ends, I pounce on another and turn it into a black hole that devours me day after day, night after night. God, I want to be done.

Our lives are filled to overflowing with His grace. His love is everlasting. It surrounds us and hems us in on every side. He is our rock and our deliverer. He has plucked us out of the flames, rescued us from death. He gives good gifts and He knows what we need. He is strong and good. I'm weak and pretty bad. So why is my default to try and figure things out for myself until I'm really stuck and then cry out to God in panic. The thing is, we've all been doing it since infancy. This aching pull to be independent, to do things ourselves, which really means breakdown of relationship, breakdown of vulnerability and love...we've been doing this since birth. We've been living in the echo of Adam and Eve's loneliness for thousands of years.

On the second day of Winter's life I noticed something. When I tried to pull her in to breastfeed her she would squirm and wriggle and complain. When I let her find the milk herself, it took longer but she wouldn't complain. I don't know how it's possible for a such a young life to already be tugging away, already trying to do things for herself. Is it always wrong to be independent? Of course not. We have separate bodies. We are built for independence. But we are also built for dependence. The tension moves back and forth like the tide. We are forever in need of each other. We are forever standing alone before God's face.

I have a vision often, a strong impression of what it will feel like to stand before Him- before all of that greatness and splendor and love. Before the face I ache for every moment. Before the face that is the answer to every pain, every tear, every fear and darkness. In that vision I feel my aloneness more than I have ever felt- not loneliness like i feel on earth- my utter nakedness in the universe...every pain and joy of my soul exposed...but the nakedness is comforting. Somehow before Him, I am glad I'm naked. In that vision I am home. Probably my deepest fear is losing someone I love to death- David, my sister, my parents, Winter. And I wonder, could I face Him even in that- in His taking away could I still look Him in the eye. And somehow I know I could. I know that His face is enough.

Beyond the log, beyond the speck...is His face. Beyond the real logs- the darkness, the turmoil, the longing, the fear...is His face.

And in the meanwhile. We have each other's faces. To remind us of joy, of love, of hope. To ignite and reignite the image of God that we carry. To acknowledge, to comfort, to weep and rejoice with. To remind us that the black holes aren't so black and holey...and the rashes and runny noses aren't so bad.