It Takes Courage....

Encouragement...It's For Every Day

Today I had the opportunity to read (over the shoulder, as it were) two very kind messages. One was an email my sister wrote to my parents to let them know about the passing of a dear family friend they hadn’t seen in many years but still prayed for regularly. The other was a tribute that a friend’s mother wrote to her on Facebook, congratulating her on the achievement of my friend’s younger son graduating from high school this week – and marking the culmination of 25 years of committed and creative homeschooling by my friend.

Something about both of these beautifully written messages lodged in my heart. Both were sincere and heartfelt and wonderfully kind, a quality that makes my heart sing whenever I see it. But the quality that most stood out to me in both was encouragement.

Encouragement is one of those gifts that I think we get a little lazy about in the church (and in the world at large, but I’ve been pondering on this from the perspective of Christian community). We tend to compartmentalize it by saying “well, so and so has the gift of encouragement,” as though that lets the rest of us off the hook when it comes to offering encouraging words. But the Scriptures make it clear this should be a part of our daily, ordinary practice as Christians. We are to “encourage one another and build each other up” (1 Thessalonians 5:11) and “encourage each other every day” (Hebrews 3:13).

I’ve been trying to get better about this in my own life, offering kind and affirming words to others when I’m prompted to. It sounds easy, but so often I either fall into critical mode (especially with my daughter or other people close to me) or I choose not to speak because I think I’m not the person that someone needs to hear from, or that they probably don’t need encouragement since they seem to have it all together. But it’s not necessarily my place to judge how much someone needs encouragement. It’s my place, as a follower of Jesus, to just give it, sincerely and from the heart, when he prompts my heart to do so.

Encourage. To give someone courage. To inspire them with hope and confidence. I know how much I need encouragement every day. So I’m finding new ways to try to say what I often think. “You’re really good at that.” “It meant so much to me that you took the time to….” “I hope you realize what a difference it makes when….” “I’ve heard such good things about…” And with my eleven year old, sometimes words like, “I know how hard that is for you, and I wanted you to know I noticed how you kept at it.” Or even just “you’re really growing and learning!”

Sometimes it feels like the world tries to take our courage. Even when we feel thin on courage ourselves, we can still spread seeds of encouragement wherever we go.

Excavating Treasures

My week has had a strange rhythm. Household tasks (cleaning, organizing), lesson planning and trying to figure out the shape of my fall, lots of Penderwicks on audio (the sweet girl has fallen head over heels for the entire series), with VBS happening in the evenings. No other week this summer will look or feel quite like this one.

The organizing in our laundry room ~ which doubles as a sort of attic space/catch-all ~ has been interesting. I found a stash of papers that I clearly pulled from boxes a long time ago, probably during some other organizing season in my life, with the intention of doing something with them. I still haven't done much with them, beyond sorting through to see what's mine, what's D's, what needs to be filed for practical purposes (if anything at this late date) and what can go straight to recycling. It's an odd bunch of papers, ranging from receipts and other bits and pieces of ephemera to articles printed from the internet, snippets of poems I worked on a few years back, and scribbled drawings by the sweet girl at different ages.

It feels a little bit like excavating your life to come across things like this. I had a similar feeling earlier this summer when I went through some boxes of things I'd stored in my sister's attic during college, twenty plus years ago. Only that was a even stranger feeling since the layers went so much deeper.

Except for a few pages that seemed to have tumbled out of a very old writing file and gotten lost, the farthest this pile stretched back was four years. I know it's four years, because I found this little poem I wrote when the sweet girl was in kindergarten and learning to write her letters:

Learning to Write an "S"

I'm sketching a snake
who likes to skate
across my slate.

I also found essays by Kathleen Norris, poems by Li Young Lee, obituaries of and tributes to Madeleine L'Engle, annotated pages on John Granger's thoughts on postmodernism, and recipes for winter squash.

Tired and ear-achey as I am (and that's part of this week's rhythm too) I had to smile over all these treasures.

School Tomorrow

The sweet girl is in bed, and the first day of school muffins* are in the oven. The living room and dining room (our main school spaces) have been cleaned. The white board has been scrubbed, a lovely blank space awaiting the three-pack of new white board pens I've been saving up for just this occasion (the sweet girl loves to draw on the white board, so we go through those faster than you'd believe!).

Yes, first day of school tomorrow!

And we're so excited. Our third year of schooling together -- well, our third official year. We've been learning/teaching since the day she was born.

I am such a creature of habit and routine. Rituals are important to me at a deep heart level. I considered writing about that, but then I came across this blog post at Holy Experience that said it all better than I could. I resonated with this post at deep heart levels, and I joyed to the fact that the writer quotes from one of my favorite G.K. Chesterton passages of all time, a passage I fell in love with about twenty years ago when I first came across it in college.

Happy ceremony; happy firsts and repeated firsts. Happy start of the school year to all.

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*A virtual gold star to anyone who can guess how our first day of school muffin tradition started. Clue: it came from literary inspiration.

Snippets of Sense, Bits of Beauty

Every once in a while, I need to write a "blessings round-up" as well as a "reading round-up." Here's a glimpse at just a few things I've been thankful for this week...

A walk in the rain with the sweet girl, where I got to watch her puddle-jump in her purple crocs.

Raindrops strung like a trembling fairy necklaces on slender green stems of Queen Anne's Lace.

An email from my mom, in which she detailed, in her wonderful way, the intricacies of the beautiful new web being woven each summer evening by a remarkable spider on their Virginia front porch. They've dubbed the spider Charlotte, of course!

Giggling with the sweet girl when it suddenly occurred to both of us that, like Charlotte, we read and write on the web. (Groan. Get it? I do love my seven year old's sense of wordplay and humor!)

Review copy of a book that arrived yesterday. 2 books in 1 actually, by an author I've barely heard of. Books I likely would never have picked up on my own, but the first chapters are funny and well-written.

Inter-library loan notices. Books I'm looking forward to getting off the hold shelf this Saturday!

A delicious new crockpot recipe tried (green peppers stuffed with rice, beans and salsa) and liked by the whole family.

A huge car repair bill...no, wait for it. I confess I am not really thankful for the car repair bill, which made me cry (on the phone with the lady who did the estimate, no less). It's caused a lot of stress and anxiety. After the initial tears, I spent some time fretting about the math books I still need to buy and can't afford, and the fact that this felt like the final door slam on any tentative tiny vacation plans (and oh we're tired and so in need of a vacation). What I DID love, however, was the response of a friend with whom I shared the anxiety. She promised to pray for us, and then added, "I'm excited to see how God will respond."

Expectancy! Don't you love it? I know this friend well enough to know this was not a feigned sentiment in any way. She meant it. And it made me realize how much more I long to live in that place, where crisis doesn't automatically send me crashing and wailing, but moves me at the deepest levels to wait and expect something new and good from God. Because life with him is always an exciting adventure!

Making thank you cards and birthday cards for friends and family (especially for beloved sis Martha, who turns 54 next week!).

Good conversations, in person and by phone, with the seminary's online course consultant (who also happens to be one of my former students). His encouragement and ideas have helped to re-motivate and excite me about teaching the Anglican Essentials course again in the fall.

An encouraging note and gift from friends of the heart we haven't seen in a long while. A visit with other beloved friends of the heart.

A gracious note from a favorite author. I continue to discover new boldness and freedom in writing to favorite authors to share with them what their work has meant to me or to my family. In these days when favorite authors and musicians tend to "friend" you on Facebook, it’s actually become a whole lot easier. But I’m still always touched when one of them takes the time to write back and say thank you.

Watching and listening as the sweet girl read the whole story "The Friend of Little Children" from the Jesus Storybook Bible this morning. Her determination and concentration as she lay on her stomach in front of the book (wearing her butterfly pj's) and read by the light of her little purple flashlight (we had a brief power outage this morning, right around breakfast time). Her reading fluency, and the fact that she wanted to read this particular story on her own. My thankfulness over Jesus' immense love for my daughter, and for all of us.

Worth Noting, Worth Quoting

"A bad day of parenting is better than a good day of not parenting."

Tip of the hat to Antique Mommy. Was I ever grateful for this reminder today!

Vocabulary Builders

I've been enjoying the Free Rice website a lot lately. Lots of fun brain-teasers, but I especially like the vocabulary quizzes. Check it out: you can learn new words, and for every answer you get right, they donate 20 grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Program! (Note: the vocabulary quiz is somewhat addictive. As you answer more questions correctly, your "level" increases and the words get harder. If you miss a word, pay attention to the correct answer they give you, as you'll get a second chance on down the line when that word recirculates back to your quiz!)

On the topic of vocabulary building: I just found this enjoyable vocabulary quiz created from C.S. Lewis' The Horse and His Boy. The author of the article hasn't provided answers yet, but I'm guessing you can check back to find them later. Or maybe he just wants us to look up the ones we're not sure about. I'm fairly certain I got most of these, but it made me wonder...how many of them did I actually learn from context, and from reading Lewis? A great vocabulary builder for a young Lewis fan.

Snippets of Sense, Bits of Beauty

I came across this quote by Teddy Roosevelt earlier today:

"But life is a great adventure, and the worst of all fears is the fear of living. There are many forms of success, many forms of triumph. But there is no other success that in any shape or way approaches that which is open to most of the many, many men and women who have the right ideals. These are the men and the women who see that it is the intimate and homely things that count most."

The beginning of the quote reminded me of the film Tuck Everlasting which we just watched a few nights ago, and which I reviewed on Epinions yesterday. But the part of the quote that especially grabbed me today was the last part: "it is the intimate and homely things that count most."

I'm not sure what Teddy had in mind when he wrote that, but I was realizing how much I appreciate "intimate and homely things" in my own life, and hearing about those kinds of simple, beautiful moments in the lives of others. I think it's one reason I enjoy reading blogs!

With that in mind, I thought I'd post a link to a marvelous looking little tea company, called Wellspring Tea. I discovered it the other day while blog-hopping. You have to check out their products here, which show a wonderful combination of tea-loving and literature-loving sensibilities. How I would love to try some of these teas, which sound delicious...and have such great names! My favorite tea-names in their catalog (hands-down) are "Anne Shirely's Almond Black," "Caramel for Hobbits," "Mr. Darcy's Ceylon," and "Chocolate for Jo."

I can't think of anything more intimate and homely than drinking a warm cup of tea while curled up with a good book!

To keep the storehouse brimming, from time to time I think I will post small resources here: ideas for simpler living, creative exercises, pieces of art, and yes, "intimate and homely" things like literary teas. I plan to tag them "snippets of sense, bits of beauty."