Pushing Daisies

Have you ever looked fear in the face and said, "I just don't care?"

The first time I ever heard that lyric, I thought back to a sermon some years back. I know, right? What's P!nk got to do with the pulpit? Turns out, a lot  - if you venture into the cobwebbed canals of my brain vault, anyway.

"Control isn't about confidence. It isn't about capability. It's about fear. You want control because you don't want to be afraid." Yep. That's what he said. Not what you want to hear if you are, in fact, embroiled in a great love affair with control (like moi). Moreover, some fibers of your weave you just can't change - you can only snip and retwist and wind in better strands, hoping the tapestry changes for the better. There I was, Control Freak freak, wondering, "Does that flask hold water? Am I really afraid?"

Uh huh.
You already know the answer.
Two clues: I'm writing this post. I also know I'm not the only control freak out there.

Then we had this year. This 365-day (almost on the dot) cycle of hell. Life became a b*&$% on a lawnmower looking to raze our hitherto daisied meadow of love and joy. She did a pretty good job. Now, I interrupt this programming to announce to you - da da da DA! - I'm for Jesus. I don't believe in coincidence. I can't buy random twists of fate. There is no Mother Nature. And destiny doesn't turn on a dime. I believe one God is in control. I believe He does the best job, even (especially?) when I don't get Him. Which is usually when He's messin' with my fascade of control.

That year was a knock-you-while-you're-down stretch of one of those times. We survived. We even thrived. How come?

I learned to look fear in the face and say, "I just don't care." My brother would probably correct me and say, "You mean, you told fear to just f- off?" Ya. That, too. Sometimes you just have to get ugly. Crass. Dirty. Foul. This is war: in the absence of random kismit or strange fate, you have to face that bad must have a reason, must be providential. You've only got one or the other, you know? And life is hard - not always because you blew that choice or misjudged the outcome of that action. Nope. Sometimes life's just the b*&$% on the lawnmower, gunning for you from six yards over. Sometimes there's nothing you can do but say goodbye to your daisies, with a chaser of  "I just don't care. Do what you will. I have purpose. I have meaning. You can't beat me. You can't ruin me. He controls what's meant to be."

These days, I don't need to be in control...as much. Hey, I told you - didn't you read the whole snip, twist, wind bit? I find I need the control less because the fear doesn't dominate anymore. Not a bad ratio to tender come end of the day.

Know what else is true?
When I'm less afraid, I notice one, teeeeeeensy detail...that packs a pert good wallop.

There aren't as many lawnmowers out there.
Quite a few more daisies, though.

Tick-Tock: The Love Clock

I spend an obscene amount of my daily allotments of clock ticks considering what I'm not good at. Like ending sentences in prepositions (gah!), there are some habits my stubbed and lazy toe just refuses to give a good kick. Thinking is one of those.

While thinking, on its own, ain't so bad (hello, vapid damsels needing a shot of "Aha!"), too much thinking is a killer. It is the assassin of simple conversation, the wrinkler of a smooth line. And I am guilty of such murder.

Still, I consider what I'm not good at (Preposition again), and I can't seem to kick the habit. So I think, and I think about love the most. Really. Not money: I'm a pretty good saver and thrifty by nature. Not time: most days, there's enough of it, and I'm content that I did not fritter. Really, my list of not's is longer than not. But love. Ah, now there's a rub.

I don't think I'm exactly bad at loving others, myself, and God - Who must sit atop all lists always. It's more like I'm assuming my line of good can become better; that better can increase to best; and that best is a term dependent on how far out I draw my line of definition...which means "best" can always be stretched to new limits. The danger may lie in never being satisfied and, I reckon, I'm sometimes guilty of that, too. But if I remain unsatisfied, my glass is raised to a sentiment expressed just like this:

If my definition of best be short of Yours for my heart, for my time, for my hands, God, then make me think about more. About better. About stretching my line of best.

I want to love like Him.
Here's a guy who gets that, too.
So I thought I'd share it - just in case you want to think about it, too.

“The love for equals is a human thing--of friend for friend, brother for brother. It is to love what is loving and lovely. The world smiles. The love for the less fortunate is a beautiful thing--the love for those who suffer, for those who are poor, the sick, the failures, the unlovely. This is compassion, and it touches the heart of the world. The love for the more fortunate is a rare thing--to love those who succeed where we fail, to rejoice without envy with those who rejoice, the love of the poor for the rich, of the black man for the white man. The world is always bewildered by its saints. And then there is the love for the enemy--love for the one who does not love you but mocks, threatens, and inflicts pain. The tortured's love for the torturer. This is God's love. It conquers the world.”
                                                                 ~ Frederick Buechner

Disturb Me

Disturb: to destroy the tranquillity or composure of;
      to throw into disorder;
           to put to inconvenience;
                  to alarm.

About a trillion years ago (15 in real time), I was in a Bible study. I'd been a believer maybe a month. Two if I want to stretch it. I also lived in a dorm; a giant dorm, in fact, housing about 1200 souls just wading through the grit of a life season spent trying to discover what in the heck they're all doing here.

I trekked to college to get a degree. 
Maybe gain a few friends.
Discover myself.

I discovered Christ instead. 

And, one day, about a trillion years ago, I ended up in a Bible study - the singular last X I would have ever marked on my map. Into that teeny 11x11 pad, though, we all squeezed. Searching. Seeking. Gazing at each other, asking, "What the heck are we all doing here?" 

I could fill pages with what I learned in that room from Him through those young women, but this is the nugget for today.

Never - ever - ask in prayer for God to do what you do not want Him in life to actually do.

If you ask Him to break you, sturdy your back. 

If you want Him to change you, prepare to adjust your dial. 

If you want Him to move you, pack your bags. 

If you want Him to show you, take off your shades.

If you want Him to disturb you, say goodbye to your tranquility. Diss your composure. Kiss off your lovely little order and say "Pleasure" to inconvenience. Alarm is about to be your new reality.

What made me think of all that?
This. From here.

I am stirred in the deepest corners of my soul.
I am moved to move.
I am paused to reconsider.

Which reminds me of another nugget.

If you can't look away, can't put it down, can't shake it from your fingers, close your fist: He's asking you to do it.

How to Guard a Heart

Above all else, guard your heart for it is the wellspring of life. Proverbs 4:23

The thing is, when you're a little girl, you don't know much about the heart. Which isn't to say you don't have feelings: little girls are surely aware enough of those to express them in all sorts of manners...streaming tears, stamping feet, pouting lips, and toothy grins all come to mind. But they don't know much about from whence those emotions come.
They just live.
And wonder.
And later, maybe, worry.

The thing is, when you're a little girl, you don't know much about guarding the heart. Seems to follow if you don't know much about the heart, I'd say. And what's all this talk of "the wellspring of life"? Can an unguarded heart lead to death? What, then, becomes of the befuddled lass who knows little of the heart and even less about guarding it?
She just lives.
And wonders.
And, perhaps, worries.

Well, not if you've got one of these...

       
  to teach you about this...

 

so you never end up like that.

If these are the times that try men's souls (thank you, Mr. Paine), they must be the days of absolute peril for women's hearts. Each generation seems less sure of the ins and outs of love and value and self-worth - probably because the rules of the game seem to change with each turn of daughter-become-mother.

And maybe that's where we get it most wrong. Perhaps mothers can't teach the lesson their own hearts are wearing on torn, mended, and torn again sleeves. Perhaps it be the fathers - who maybe have done some tearing of their own - who see most fully.
Teach most effectively.
Guard most rigorously.

Recently, Grace got dressed up for a date with her father, a Daddy-Daughter Dance to be exact.

 
Amidst great excitement, she painted her nails. And curled her hair. And buckled her first pair of fancy-heeled shoes.

Her earrings were dangly, her lips just a bit glossed.
She felt grand, I think - a child-turned princess escorted to a ball.

But her "date" wasn't a perfect prince: neither was he a warted toad.

You know, the stuff of the real-life heart is rarely so simple as streaks of black or ribbons of white. We are all flawed, broken, mending, and growing...men included.

So, if you're taking lessons about the heart, why not from a teacher who loves you the most? One who's flawed, true, but nonetheless captivated by your authentic beauty.
That particular curve of your jaw.
Or the way you hold your pen.
Or your giggle when he makes you laugh; your frown when he 
     makes you mad.
How he watches you so intently when you tell him your story.
And reminds you to continue when all within you longs to stop.

The thing is, this little girl is learning about her heart from the one  showing her how to guard it...one giggle, frown, glance, and reminder...one dance...at a time.
Incidentally, he's also the same one showing her Him: the Father
    who gave her a heart in the first place.

So she can live.
And wonder.
Without worry.
And hopefully a bit less harm.

For a little girl, the heart is risky business, a perilous journey of rise and fall, win and lose.

But this business of learning and guarding: well, maybe that's not so bad.

Especially if the lessons come by dancing with her Daddy.

Whacked Out Underdogs

Give me an underdog, and I'll root for 'em.
Unless they're underhanded, nasty, or reek from the stench of greed, disloyalty, and rage.
In that case, I'd have to turn the channel from "The Bachelor".

Ba-bum-bum. And don't go clicking the red x quite yet - I promise I'm going somewhere with this.

I don't like the show, mainly because I think it borderlines prostitution and makes a mockery of any version of love you can give me...except for the one that's steeped in the hot waters of greed, disloyalty, and rage. But, given that that's not love anyhoo, I reckon I'm safe.

P.S.: If you really want to get into a blurb of excellent notions on the matter, check out one of my fave bloggers over at her writing pad. She gives some pristine insight on the subject of The Final Freaking Rose.

P.S.S.: If you're still wondering when I'm going to deliver on my promise of going somewhere with this, it's comin' at you right now.

There really is something good to be found in most of the bad's you scrub. "The Bachelor" is a perfect example, actually, for if I were to list some of the high-qual women I know who tune in every....wait, what night is that disaster on?...you might not actually be shocked. I mean, we can all read the Nielson posts. But you might stop and ask the same question that halts my gait: Why do so many good folk watch such a bad show?

Because they don't think it's bad. Or not bad enough to stop watching. Or not so bad they actually feel bad about watching it. Also, they are good people. And, while I'm at it, I could up with a thing or two - or thirty - I have engaged that aren't bad at their seed: they're just not great quality, either. They're empty. Or pointless.

They're also a release. So why not let it be what it is? Do I really see God as so small that some rich guy with bad hair, bad manners, bad common sense, and bad girl history can outreach His touch on us all? 

So here's the crux: In a world gone so grossly bad, good people are the underdogs I'm rooting for. The rest of it is just a preoccupation from a dastardly world that would rather chew us up and spit us out than put us before a red curtain and shower us with roses.

Or was that last week's episode?

All Year Through

Charles Dickens is one of my favorite writers. Hold back your hollas of agreement groans of disgust to hear me out. Yeah, he was a wee bit droll and - here, here - some of his longest paragraphs are about as desirous as a crocodile in your swimming hole. Nevertheless, the man knew how to tell a person's story. And stories - yours, mine, and ours - are just about my favorite beguilements on this planet o'mine.

Which is what most readers of the classics know. The rest of you just don't care. Which is just dandy because that's not my only point. (You wish). Nah, here's the kicker: Dickens had a thing for Christmas. If you've seen A Christmas Carol, then you already know he wrote about it. He also tidbitted the occassional interview with it, too. And, thanks to the handy internet, I didn't have to pull out my grad school books to find some of those very literary vittles. Thank you, Quote Garden (fave, fave, fave).

 I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.

 Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childish days; that can recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth; that can transport the sailor and the traveller, thousands of miles away, back to his own fire-side and his quiet home! ~ The Pickwick Papers

By far, though, this is the one that plays the sentimental chord on my heartstings:

I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round, as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.

Emphasis added. Because I love that last part. A writer with a skilled pen captured the nugget that slips easiest through my searching fingers...and comes up with the truth that unites in lieu of divides on Christmas Eve and Morn.

It yums the festive up in families - mine included, for sure - so we can celebrate the traditions of the season. Like attending service on the Eve with my mother-in-law, Sandy, and standing for flash after flash (thanks, Kim!), until you get the one.

Or eating our annual family dinner out, opening all our presents, and then picking up Mom again for "midnight" mass...a relic from my own childhood alive in present day.

It's in the belly-laughs of the boys' "gut bumps" in their Eve jammies

and relishing the smells (new leather!), sights (an "It's Gross!" section), and subjects (Habba-who?) of Elijah's new Bible.

Along the way, we can't forget the rock stars in our lives - like Uncle Tim. They all wanted pictures with his gifts to them...rather like getting a backstage pass or autograph at the concert, I s'pose.

When we intersect on this journey, I find that Dickens is right. Again. Our hearts really do open: whether closed by the scars of pains long-carried or wounds and hurts only just buried, we catch a draft of hope here and there. We pause and breathe and remember the best of what we have rather than the worst of what we've lost.

For me, I see them

 and how only they can make this "us".

Seems to me, we could all remember a bit more intentionally that the folks to your left and right, before and behind, aren't just the schlubs rubbing you the wrong way or - flip the coin - the bests of the bestests, arms entwined with yours. We're all fellow passengers on a journey to the grave, and life is short -
    if I can get that into my heart, maybe I'll find it even easier to carry the Christmas spirit...
           all year through.

That Was You

11. What's so great about 11?

Yeah, if you don't care - I get it.
  And I normally wouldn't, either.
   Except that, today, I do.

Because it's the 11th year since she came.
And made contact.

And a family.

 And a dream come true.

In these pictures, I see the first time she held Aunt Jessi's hand; the first time she met her Nana and nuzzled her cheek - as she still does today.

I regard the way she engages the world with her simple approach of love mixed with authenticity peppered with gentle compassion and quickness to giggle at all manners of humor.

If children are hope for the future, then our "ahead" will surely be better than what lays "behind" for I have met few so abidingly pleased with the white-bread, everyday pleasures of a life spent simply living.

She has grown from baby to little girl

to young woman bloomed.

She is a sister twice over.

      Part artist...

       















part dreamer...

...if you opened her mind, horses would stampede out.

        
She is an in-the-flesh reason we know blessings exist.
The first in every category we'll face together.
Our original "you and me" come to make "us".

Perfect? No.
Polished? Maybe.
Paramount? Definitely.

What's so great about 11? The Story of Grace: much in the same way she made numbers 1-10 equally brilliant. Because she's perfect and ever-pleasing and without any flaw to force constraint, not so much.

But because she came.

And made contact.

And a family.

And a dream come true.

Yes, Gracie. 

That was you.

30 Days of Thankful

Each year for the last three, I've purposed every day of November to faithfully carve time on Facebook to write one entry. It's quite the important entry, I dare say, because it's shaped my entire month - one 24 hour chunk at a time.

I hear the murmurs in increased numbers - the plaintive melodies decrying FB's lack of merriment, of honesty, of good 'ol kindness even. Okay. I see that. But I offer this in retort to said decriers: You do realize, do you not, that the networkers et al - NOT the actual network - are the guilty offenders? Because, see, the network's not alive: it's nothing without the content we put in it, post on it, spread through it. And - yes, yes - we can hide some posters, limit our feed exposure, or flat out unfriend, if you're really interested in spreading your point. But, then again, few people accompany their unfriend with any feasible explanation. So, here's the rub for you....

Why not change the content we post? Better choose what we spread? How about we claim Facebook for the beauty it can offer rather than the crud it can spew? (I suddenly feel a bit like Amy Madigan's character, Annie, at the PTA meeting on banning books..."Come on! Come on! Let's see those hands!" Yeah, think it. Post it. See it for fun.)

So, come October, I start compiling my list of 30 - which isn't a lot when you see your life through the lens of thankful, I note. I think of who matters deeply; what's changed me; which nouns fill my happy place of want; which nouns faithfully fill my treasured column of need. I reflect and pray and smile quite a bit actually because, in the end, I'm left with nothing but a cup running over...nothing but love.

So, come November, I practice what I preach. Some were on the list...some strolled in just by being.

Either way, it's good to contemplate your content. To contemplate your life. It's even better for the soul. Well, my soul, anyways. And just maybe yours, too.Which doesn't have to happen solely in the eleventh month.

  

     Thankful is funny like that: 

it's cool any month of the year, like a superpower that never runs out of juice.

So here's my contribution to the good juice...in the order I posted my thankful's.

For stacks of essays waiting to be graded that remind me teaching is who I am, not just what I do...I am truly thankful.

For a treasured friend - a necessary part of my core - whose quiet strength and Godly perspective signifies Comfort to all whom she loves...for Amy Roek Cunningham, I am truly thankful. Love you.

For 9 pounds 9 ounces of miniature Craig who has grown into 4 feet of his own soul-blessing self...I am gloriously thankful. Happy Birthday, Elijah: you will always be my best reminder to laugh hard and live big. I love you.

For words - long and short, skinny and tall, juicy and dry, clean and...not - for the way they are alive and fail only when they should: I am thankful for words.

For the "A-Ha!" moment that lights my students' faces when they get it, do it, and like it once they're done...for that singular moment of superb connection, I am thankful.

For the moments that have defined me and for the grace that made them sacred...I am blessedly thankful.

For a day to celebrate the birth of my friend who represents depths of loyalty and devotion I can only aspire to reach...for my hysterically insightful Jessi Chavez, I am beyond thankful.

(Here's to one that's true every year. Of course.) For indoor plumbing - and the creature comforts it so faithfully provides through cold, infirmity, and dark of night...I am blissfully thankful.

For having had the extraordinary opportunity to live in The Last Frontier, where all that is most beautiful remains still untouched...and called Alaska - I am an awe-inspired thankful.

For pumpkin. For bread, coffee, creamer, muffins, cheesecake, candles, lotions, and even the big ol' orbs we place on the stoop...for pumpkin, my scents are delightfully thankful.

For your bravery, your resilience, your valiant belief in duty before self and God above all...you are my daddy, my friends, and my beloved Craig most of all...for my freedom, I am humbly thankful.

For the Chai Spice walls of a cozy parlor awash in the glow of afternoon sunshine...and a Kindle to go along with it...I am thankful.

Because I woke this morning with his arm around me and listened to him breathing beside me...for the presence of my soul mate Craig, saturating every day of life until it's just the right side of dream come true - I am ever thankful.

For 4'11'" of golden locks, dimpled cheeks, artist's hands, blue-green eyes, and the warmest heart of compassion I've ever encountered...for my only begotten beauty-girl, Grace Abigail, my mothering heart is thankful.

For my Someone, my Peach, my reminder that wisdom isn't separate from humor and all that glitters really IS golden...Michelle Rice Zitzmann, there aren't words for the depth of thankful I am for you. Love you.

For lists that get trumped and goals that get traded in favor of what's better, grander, more beautiful than any I'd imagined...for learning to yield my Type A to His "Type Perfect", I am infinitely thankful.

For a warm bed to climb into come night's fall; for a roof that shelters the heart as much as it does the home; for a full pantry, a cool fridge, clothes that fit, and soap that cleans...for having everything I need more than than everything I want, I am thankful.

For coffee - all kinds; and its packaging - cups or mugs or paper carriers; and its smell - nutty, sweet, slightly bitter; and its warmth - through my hands, across my lips, down my tummy...for my sensory love affair with coffee, my taste buds are thankful.

Gettin' this one in under the wire: for the simple pleasure of cuddling with Elijah beneath a fuzzy blanket, belly-laughing-until-tears watching old The Cosby Show episodes...my merry heart is thankful.

For the gift of knowing and being known, for counting people as gifts and realizing, "They see me and let me seem them, too...no hiding required" - for the gift of acceptance, my friendship meter is thankful.

For Good Wife dates with Jill Singleton Bailey including decaf, pumpkin pie, pajamas (for me), and delightful chats on solving life's great puzzles...the plot of the show among them - for a 30 second drive to hang with one of the smartest, wittiest gals I know, I am thankful.

For my last name: a tangible gift my husband gave to say I belong to him. It's a reminder of legacy and of love. It's alliterative (and that's just cool) AND, even after 15 years, I never tire of being called "Mrs. Covak"...for a name far greater than mere signature, I am thankful.

For our house - more than walls and paint and windows, it's a dream we built together with sacrifice and faith, stitched together by three hands intertwined...His, Craig's, and mine. We've brought our babies home to this house, watched them take their first steps here and, one day, will watch them walk out of it to build their own homes. For the realization that a house loved becomes a home where your story begins, I am thankful.

For the perspective of joy: realizing I have a blessed life is rarely based solely on circumstances and always based on perspective. When I see through eyes of love and peace, I don't see circumstances...I see the bounty of the good life. And I am blessed. For the perspective of joy, my happy heart is thankful...and hoping yours is, too!

For the Day After traditions: halls are decked, leftovers consumed, carols a playin', and pizza is gettin' eaten. Welcome Holidays!

For beer. That's right - beer. For blondes and pales and schillings and every seasonal there is. For the foam and the hops and the finishes, too. For the pilsner, the stein, the pint, and the weizen...for all the fashions in which beer arrives to please the the palate, I am thankful. (No belching, please.)

For LG 47, boys, girls, men, women - Christ the center of all: you are a rich group who make me laugh and think and feel and DO better and bigger than without you...for Steve, Michelle, Jessica, David, Lynne, Micah, Becca, KJ, and Craig, my never-alone heart is thankful.

For my second-favorite lefty who's all giggles and smiles...until he's not; who lives life all in and teaches me what it means to love with heart wide open, especially when he says, "I love you, Mommy" about 50 times a day - for my miracle Judsen Ames, my smile is surely thankful.

For the unexpected gifts that rearrange moments, days, and even years of my life: for every one from snow days to drop-in guests, from marriage proposals to sticks with two lines, my life has been full of rearranging...and I am thankful for it.

(And, to be posted tomorrow….) For the memories of what made me then, the adventures carving me now, and the dreams and hopes deferred for tomorrow…for His promise of “the best is yet to come”, I am eternally thankful.

The Door Latch

I was thinking lately of how many idioms we have using the door as metaphor. Can you come up with a few? Yeah, me too.

• "Bar the door, Katy!" (I don't know what that one means, either)
• Falling through the trap door
• Beat a path to your door
• Door-to-door
• Get your foot in the door
• Dead as a door-nail
• Go back door

And let us not forget the door's most famous euphemism: When one door closes, another opens.

Seems we Americans like our doors...as long as they're gleaming red with polished brass handles, sturdy knockers, beveled glass panes and very - and I mean VERY well-oiled hinges.

I'm reading a memoir about an author's varied, heart-wrenching-and-elating adventures as an ambassador with Population Services International, with which she works to improve Public Health on a global scale. As is always the case with memoir, the reader must enter into a dual willingness: to become - however temporarily - a part of the writer's world while also distinctly separating enough from it to actually consider it. After all, one gets quite little from a life story they become rather than experience.

Needless to say, then, I find myself pulling back from some of her messages and leaning toward others. But there is one - and really JUST one - that grabbed me by the intellectual, and perhaps, emotional collar and held with the grip of human compassion - a tight-fisted advocate, to be sure. What was it? Americans are privileged. And we don't know it. Can't know it. Not really. Because, like reading a fine memoir, you can't experience it if you are it. We are Americans: we don't know any different. Nor do we know any better, actually, but not for the reasons non-Americans think: we're not ignorant or proud or self-centered. At least not all of us, and not all of the time. What we are is, quite simply, what we are. And, for as good as we've got it, there's little better with which to compare.

So what's the point? Let us not stop there! Let's go further! Do more. See more. Go bigger. However, whenever, we can. Let us not stand on the threshold of our contented door and look to the world, near and far, and say, "I am privileged. I have enough. There is nothing better beyond my door." If we do, we are then living - trapped - by our doors...our gleaming red, polished brass handled, glass beveled, oily hinged doors.


Ralph Waldo Emerson writes, "Men live on the brink of myteries and harmonies into which they never enter. And with their hand on the door latch, they die outside."

Whatever view your porch offers, THERE is your place of impact. THERE is your place of purpose. THERE is your place of mystery and harmony, waiting for discovery. THERE is your way to live.

Being privileged, you know, is not a crime. 

Leaving your hand on the door latch is.

Leave the Hunting to the Remote Control

I'm often reminded of how our society wants the "not" more than the "have". While it seems especially prevalent in women (though, then again, perhaps we're the only ones either bold or scarred enough to voice it - tough to know), it would seem it's a bit of the American Way to crave what's missing. We ruthlessly straighten curls, but dole out fortunes to curl the straight. 4 bedrooms is bested by 5; nevermind  that we've only two people in residence. In the name of a good deal, we'll spend an extra $10 to save $5. And our assortments of friends, hobbies, travels, and treasures must alter with the seasons lest we fall prey to stagnancy and repetition. Perhaps Seinfeld summarized it best: In recounting his struggle for control of the remote with his gal Friday, Jerry notes, "It's the problem of the hunter and the nester. She finds a channel and is content to watch what's on. I, on the other hand, am only interested in what else is on."

I totally relate.

But the pitfall here seems as obvious as a freefalling stone - with an equally jarring impact. If you fail to find joy in living fulfilled with precisely what you have, more will never be enough. Not a new sentiment. Nor a particularly profound one, I'm afraid. But I'm reminded of its truth nevertheless.

Perhaps we pick apart our friendships, laying them bare to a slow death. Or fail to ever find even a glimmer of hope in the daily sojourn of our profession. Maybe we can't see our children beyond the haze of our financial, emotional, and physical drains...even if we only acknowledge the blindness in our innermost depths.

Whatever the tension we build between have and have not, it is dissolved by the application of a basic truth: godliness with contentment is great gain (1 Tim. 6:6). Though the passage relates specifically to the trappings of greed, I suggest the principal equally applies to relationships, jobs, children, conversations...whatever. If the quest of the heart is more, more, more, it cannot seek have, have, have: it's too overwhelmed by the circuits of the former to even sense the surge of the latter.

It may very well be that I'm a hunter by nature, a nester by goal. Still, in matters of the heart - in all matters of the heart - I want to chase contentment or, better still, let contentment catch me in the mad spinning of the world. Likely, then, I'll have unearthed the great gain and joyfully embrace the best "more" there is to be found...

And leave the hunting to the remote control.

Winter Hibernation

It has been a season of retreat in my heart and mind of late. It always seems to be this way right around this time of year: like clockwork proffering a tick I can't resist, I feel called to withdraw a bit. From pace. From people. From blog (obviously). From the busy and the full in favor of the quiet and the less.

Maybe it's brought on by the departure of summer and the impending arrival of fall: after all, the endless barbeque's, road trips, house parties, sleepovers, campout's, beers and burgers must end sometime. When they do, I find myself asking...Detox anyone?

Without a doubt, we spend a never-to-be-disclosed-publicly (for shame!) log of hours cleansing our body of chemical toxins and water weight; purging our houses of clutter; ridding our inbox of junk; and freeing our schedules of meetings and to-do's. But it's a discipline lit by the spark of choice that challenges us to reconsider and redecorate the rooms of our relationships.

So much of life is burgeoning with folk. We have jobs and bosses and landlords and neighbors and students and teachers and traffic all around. There is, without a doubt, no way we can exist outside of people and still operate within the world. Withdrawing now and again doesn't strike me as without profit, then. Like a good re-do, we need the fresh paint of prioritization and the new fixtures of life and laughter. We need to ask ourselves, "Where am I going? What am I doing? What matters most...and who do I want to journey with to get there?" Or, as the psalmist reminds, I must remind myself just what prize holds the focus of my eye: "You will make known to me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; In Your right hand there are pleasures forever." (Ps. 16:11, NAS)

Such answers get me back on track with a new vitality. A refreshed joy.  They leave me re-centered, redecorated, and ready to re-embrace the busy and full.

Just in time for winter hibernation.

The First Day

We've bagged the supplies; packed the lunch; met the teachers; and X'd off the laaaaast day on the calendar.

The big day is finally here!

Off I walked our beautiful 5th grader...

and our handsome 2nd grader...

who remind of all that's fresh and good and filled with hope and life.

It's a new school year, and oh the places they'll go!

Hard to believe that just one short year ago, they looked like this:

Which only proves the old adage that time flies fast before they fly away for good.

 

It was the same one-block walk to the same one-story building: the routine is one we know well.

We saw familiar faces and met a few new ones, too.

We waved to some neighbors and dodged one or two sprinklers.

Really, it's no different than it's always been...except that it was.

The kiddos are different. Bigger. Older.

One step closer to growing up and going on - a bittersweet future still a bit away.

But each year's First Day reminds me to treasure all the more the one we're in right now.

The Here. The Now. 

And all the good that is...

The First Day.

Beautiful Just the Same

Vacation is a strange neither here nor there portal that brandishes a considerable effect on the soul: it requires you to be. Usually not where you want, how you want, or when you want, granted: but, ironically, no matter how you map it or plan it to an early grave, the very "free nature" of vacation muscles you into simply being.

It comes as little surprise to me, then, that I can't remember entirely every time we stopped for gas on our road trip...but I remember how that gas powered the Silver Bullet while we shed tears of joy laughing at Elijah inquiring, "Um, did that guy singing just say he farted?" (The lyric is "She got too close so I fought it." But in Elijah's world, he heard...yeah. Funny, right?)

It comes as little surprise to me, then, that I don't care if my derriere is in the shot (at least not for myself: to you, I extend an earnest apology): I love this

because it's a moment captured of me mothering my tiniest son. It's simple. And endearing. And I don't know what that looks like because, well, I'm the one doing it and I don't have eyes outside my body. (Don't tell said tiniest son, though.) Someday, this boy will tower over me. But I'll have this picture to remember my last begotten blessing was once my tiny gift - and, in the heart, always will be, no matter his height.

It also comes as little surprise to me that my honey snapped this one since it's quintessentially me:

Even in the midst of eye-popping mountains, Aspens, and Evergreens, I must stop and check the time (being back before our designated 45-minute time slot expires is essential, dontchaknow?) But you know what else is me? The woman changed by four beautiful hearts who remind me to stop and preserve this sensory delight.

The early 20-something too focused on a task, not yet broadened and deepened by The Love of Four would have paid little to no mind. But, seriously, just look at it.

Want to hear it?

Uh-huh.

I really do have that!

Here ya go.

And let me not forget to mention the least surprise of all: that the escaping moments of vacation push me faster - deeper - into a freefall of love for her.

 

And him.

Or them.

They enlighten me to what is beautiful around me...               

beside me...

 Touching me.

And coming to life from within me.

These moments are of what the heart is made.

Not perfect.

But beautiful just the same.