Priortizing Writing Projects for the New Year

As the new year has gotten underway, I've been struggling a lot with fatigue again, due to the new chemo trial I'm on. It's been hard to feel this way as it's reminiscent (though thankfully not nearly as severe) as the last time I went through chemo. I am thankful that this time it's not medicine by infusion, but oral medication, but I am still feeling frustrated with the amount of sleep I need, the various aches and pains including some connected to my worsening neuropathy, the struggles I have to sleep well at night, and the many appointments I'm having to do at the cancer center. At the same time, I'm finding plenty to be grateful for including the fact that the fatigue is still nowhere near the worst I've felt, the hope that this trial drug will work to bring about more needed healing, my excellent doctors, and the love and prayers of family and friends.

Turning into the new year felt very different for me this year. I've now gone through an entire calendar year without my dear mother. I'm approaching the one year mark since my diagnosis. I face a year filled with much to think about and do (including continued schooling of our sweet girl) but with no work deadlines. I officially went on disability in December. We also finally finished our move into our new rental home in December, which means lots of boxes to unpack and things to organize when I am not feeling well. And yes, feeling homesick.

Faced with limited energy and time, I find myself trying to prioritize my writing goals. It's been harder than expected because it turns out that I have done a lot more writing in the past twenty years than I realized. It's all been in cracks and crevices, but it's yielded a lot of creativity -- it's just that none of it is done. I have so many interrupted and unfinished projects! With some I have gotten a pretty far distance in, while others are barely out of idea stage. Some have yielded mostly outlines while others have yielded pages and pages of work. In addition to those twenty years, our move meant I was digging through boxes and files I had completely forgotten about, and those included work that goes back more like twenty-five and thirty years. A whole younger writer-me peeked out of those pages, but some of them were better than I recalled once I remembered they existed!

So what to do with all of this? I'm still not sure. I have ten to twelve projects I could be working on in turn, but I have a feeling the best use of my limited resources would be to choose one or two and work as steadily on them as I can. Doing anything steadily is difficult right now, but I am feeling sure I need to be writing as much as possible.

At the moment, one project seems to have chosen me. It's my most recent one: an attempt at a memoir that focuses on my healing journey and my experiences with cancer, all written through the lens of reflections on hair. Yes, hair. It sounds strange, I know, but it's coming along well. I started it last year and got through a prologue and a long first chapter. I also had jotted ideas for several more chapters. This week I suddenly got the yen to go back to it, and I'm now well into the next chapter, which is moving in some unexpected directions that have me excited. I just wish I was feeling better.

So we'll see where all of these go this year. I will keep moving forward and hope that I can get at least one project, if not more than one, completed. And oh yes, organize these writing files so they make some sort of sense. Prayers appreciated!

Mary And Eve/Mary and Elizabeth (A Pair of Poems)

Happy New Year!

As we start 2017, I thought I would post a couple more poems that I wrote during Advent this year. This is a pair of poems meant to be read together. Mary, mother of Jesus, is the person the poems hold in common. In the first poem, she is with Eve, the first woman God created and the "mother of all living." And in the second, she is with Elizabeth, her cousin and the mother of John the Baptist.

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Mary and Eve

Two women meet in a transfigured land,

Both mothers, one ancient and one young.

One kneels and weeps while one shines and stands,

Both sing the gospel song which must be sung.

Mary is a graceful, budding tree

Who hears the Word and lifts her arms in praise.

Her fervent yes will one day be the key

To God’s descent, his broken ones to raise.

Eve is broken, tired, bent and sad,

An unrooted willow who craves to know

How God will come to reverse the bad,

And o’er the shadowed world let true light flow.

Two women meet: one cries for what’s undone,

The other points to Him through whom the world will be re-won.

EMP, Advent 2016

 Mary and Elizabeth

Two women meet in an ordinary town.

Both expectant, one middle-aged and one a girl.

They embrace with work worn hands, in homespun gowns,

Each one a jewel, bright sapphire and pearl.

Elizabeth’s face shines with radiant light

For when they touch, her baby jumps for joy.

Filled with prophetic energy and might,

She honors her cousin and her cousin’s unborn boy.

Mary is amazed to once more hear and feel

That the One she carries is indeed called Lord.

She sings how he has come to rule and heal,

To love the poor and save the broken world.

Two women: both filled with God’s own might,

Their hug a loving step in His banishment of night.

EMP, Advent 2016

Reading Challenge for the Year

Although I love reading, I am not overly fond of reading challenges. I usually find the parameters too big or too restrictive. I tend to be a very organic reader, letting my interests chase me down learning trails where I find books I wasn't expecting, which in turn lead me to other books.

With that said, I like the look of this reading challenge, which is making the social media rounds here at the beginning of 2016. The parameters of this feel flexible and helpful. I might use this as a springboard to think about some of my reading directions this year!

What Will You Create in 2016?

Happy 2016!

We all slept in (my dear husband too) and it felt so good to start the year with rest.

After having my morning quiet time, chatting with my dear D, and checking in on Facebook, I went over to my emails and discovered a new year greeting from a local craft store. "What will you create in 2016?" was the catchy subject line, and I've found myself pondering the question from a much wider point of view than the craft store folks might have intended!

What will I create in 2016? For starters, I'd like to create a more peaceful, more loving, more creative home. Our family struggled with lots of stresses this past year, some of them small but nonetheless trying and some of them quite large, and while we handled some of them with real grace, there were so many days I know I felt like I just gave in to frustration, worry, weariness. This year I want to stay more centered on Jesus. I want to worry less and laugh more. I want to keep my voice gentler and my touch kinder.

I want to create space inside myself to be more attentive, more loving, more focused on what matters. I want to let the little stuff stay little and the big stuff help me grow. I want to be more grateful.

I want to remember the shortness and sweetness of life. I want to honor my mom's legacy by trying to engage more people in real conversation (where I listen to their stories). The listening part comes naturally to me, but the engaging part doesn't. (Deep down, I am still the shy girl that my mother worried about when I was in elementary school and all the other kids rushed forward to get candy and I hung back and waited and hoped someone would bring candy to me.) I will always be introverted...that's just who I am...but I want to make more of an effort to be fully present to whomever God brings across my path.

I want to read and read and think and think and write and write and write and write and write some more. I want to keep pushing to know more, understand more, love more as I create stories and poems as well as write the things I need to write in my writing projects and jobs.

I want to create a learning environment where S can thrive again and re-find some of her learning joy. We've been limping along for too long in this past hard year. 

I want to draw and paint and color and collage. I know I am not the best visual artist, but I find all those things so relaxing and life-giving. I never seem to have time to do those kinds of things while we're busy trying to stay afloat, but I want to try to make more room.

Speaking of making more room, I want to keep de-cluttering.

And I plan to keep blogging. I am pretty sure that hardly anyone is reading this blog anymore (it never had a huge following, and I've written so sporadically in recent years that the few folks who read it regularly probably seldom remember to check it) but in some ways, that's freeing. I want to journal more of my thoughts about what I'm reading, writing, listening to, and learning from.

2015 held much in it that I didn't expect, including some things I wasn't sure I would weather. But here I stand with a grateful heart. So thankful for the turning of a page and the start of a new year!

Books Read in 2015

Every year I attempt to track the books I read, and in recent years, I've tried all sorts of different ways to keep the list. Most recently I've been using Goodreads, which I find fun and useful. A tool is only as good as the time you put into it, however, and I confess I sometimes slipped up and still forgot to note what I read. I also don't use Goodreads to track our family read-alouds, which I continue to keep in a side bar here on the blog.

One thing I like about Goodreads is that they send you a little year-end "your year in books" note, in which they provide some enjoyable stats. This year they told me that the shortest book I read all year was Mary Oliver's Why I Wake Early. They also let me know that among all my books, it was the highest rated one on their site, which just goes to show you that you don't need a lot of words to make a big impact -- especially when you're an amazing poet like Mary Oliver.

The longest book I read this year was (no surprise): David McCullough's Truman. I finished that early in 2015, but the satisfaction of reading such a well-researched and beautiful biographical tome has stayed with me. I am grateful for the way in which McCullough captured Truman's time and presidency, giving me a sense of almost having "been there." And Truman will forever after be on my list of most respected presidents.

Other fun stats from Goodreads are the "most popular" and "least popular" stats. I find these interesting to ponder. What these stats reflect is how many other readers who use Goodreads happened to have read a book I also read, so it's not precisely an accurate reflection of a book's popularity (or worth). Still, it came as little surprise again that over half a million (!) readers joined me in reading Andy Weir's novel The Martian, while only 55 other Goodreaders joined me in reading the profound essays in James K.A. Smith's Discipleship in the Present Tense. I enjoyed both in very different ways, but it probably doesn't take much of a leap to tell you which book influenced me the most and will stay with me longest. Thank you, Jamie Smith.

2015 was also the year I finished P.D. James' Adam Dalgliesh series, just a few months after James passed away. It was the year I finally read and loved Richard Adams' classic Watership Down (a book we read as a family) and made the delightfully funny acquaintance of P.D. Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster. I also continued my foray into Arthur Conan Doyle by reading his Sherlock Holmes novel The Sign of Four. 


Later summer found me immersed in the world of Harper Lee, first as I tiptoed somewhat gingerly through the novel draft Go Set a Watchman and then as I enjoyed Charles J. Shields' loving biography of Lee, Mockingbird.


Besides P.D. James, I enjoyed some of the cozy mysteries of Patricia Wentworth and also returned to J.K. Rowling/Robert Galbraith's mystery world with The Silkworm. I also started Alan Bradley's novels starring the young girl detective Flavia de Luce

Some of my favorite spiritual formation type reading this year, beyond Smith's book already mentioned, came in Timothy Keller's book The Prodigal God, and a re-read of Henri Nouwen's beautiful book The Return of the Prodigal Son.

I didn't read enough children's fiction this year, but several of the books I read in that genre were memorable: Jeanne Birdsall's The Penderwicks in Spring, Linda Mullaly Hunt's One for the Murphys and her Fish in a Tree, and Kwame Alexander's Newbery award winning novel in verse, The Crossover.  Many of the books I read in this genre were recommendations from my sweet Jedi Teen (or else I happened to pick them up while she was reading them). I read several other good mid-grade books that somehow didn't make the official reading list.

A book that colored our family's dinner-time (and other time) conversations for quite a while was Tom Standage's The Neptune File. It made me realize that we need to read more science books written at an engaging, popular level. Similar to that are history books written in an engaging, lively fashion, such as Nathan Philbrick's The Mayflower and the Pilgrims' New World, which I also enjoyed this year.

While this isn't quite a full list of my reading -- it leaves out many family read-alouds, Bible reading, more devotional reading, favorite re-reads, a couple of pop culture reads, cookbooks, and plenty of books I read "at" but didn't read in their entirety -- it does a pretty good job of capturing at least a snapshot of my reading year.

I look forward to the new (and old) books I will meet in 2016!

Happy 2015!

A very happy new year! 2015 -- can you believe it?

I've been starting the new year on this blog for so many years now, I've just about lost count, but I'm pretty sure it's been almost nine years since I first started writing here. Despite the fact that last year was my most lean year ever on the blog, I still appreciate having this space to come to, a place where I can share my thoughts and the thoughts of so many writers who inspire me.

I don't want to go out on a limb and promise that I will be writing here more often this year, but I certainly would love to make posting here a more regular habit again. I especially would love to get back to my roots in starting this blog, specifically as a place to reflect on reading. 

This morning's quiet time found me meditating on the words of Emil Brunner, who reminded me that God is creating new life in me, a word I very much needed to hear as we turn the corner into this new season. And from Irenaeus, the reminder that "Likeness to God comes only from the Spirit."

I seem to be moving into this new year more aware of my shortcomings, failures, and limitations than ever before. I am trying to be just as aware -- if not moreso -- of the God's tremendous grace, strength, faithfulness, and mercy.

"Beloved, we are God's children now; it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is."~ 1 John 3:2

Blessings in the new year!

Forests and Trees

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the expression “she can’t see the forest for the trees.” It’s an old expression (wonder where it came from?) and so familiar that it’s become trite, but trite expressions usually become that way because there’s truth in them.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the fact that when we get stuck in our problems, enmeshed in the exhausting business of just making it through the next round of whatever it is we need to make it through, we really do lose perspective. Fast.

Losing perspective is hard. When you’re busy just looking at the trees that loom all around you, or even the one giant tree (maybe fallen over, blocking your path) you sometimes can’t think of anything else. In true times of emergency or crisis, maybe it’s a blessing that our vision gets so narrowed, but I’m talking about other times, times when a given challenge in our lives (or a combination of challenges) just leaves us so bone weary that all we can think about is that one tree right in front of us.

It becomes huge. Why are its limbs so scratchy? Why is it so big? How are we ever going to get over it or past it or around it? Is there even a way? Why does forward feel so impossible?

We look at it and we lose ourselves in the details of that one thing to the point that we can’t even begin to look all around us. We lose the sense that there are other paths possible around the tree. We lose gratitude for anything good about the tree. We forget we’re in a forest that has other things in it too – not just other trees but grass and plants and bushes and birds and rabbits and sun filtering through branches and dancing shadows. We forget that the forest is in a larger world and that there’s sky above it and that all of it, all of it, is owned by the maker of everything. And that the maker of everything can help us.

Sometimes I think we need to learn to walk away from the tree. Not permanently, but just for a while. Whatever the tree is, we can trust it with God. We can walk into another part of the forest and breathe deep for a while, breathe slow, breathe peace and prayers. Maybe when we walk back to the tree, it won’t loom quite so huge or take up all our mental space and emotional energy. Maybe we can even begin to remember the beauty of the forest all around us.

Thoughts to Ponder: Writers for Life

One of the habits I’ve cultivated over the years is collecting quotes. I used to jot them 

down in my journal, and while I still do that sometimes, these days I am more likely to past them (or type them, depending on where I find them) into a document on my computer. I add scripture verses, snippets of poetry, prayers, and inspiring quotes from all sorts of sources, and the ultimate collection can get pretty long (last year’s ran 13 pages). So each year I start a fresh document, labeled with the new year, and begin again.

I thought that from time to time, I’d post one of my daybook quotes here. I kicked off 2014 with these words I so resonated with from C.S. Lewis scholar Don W. King:

“Each of us should find a writer

we can read for the rest of our lives.”

sweetclipart.com

Lewis may be the writer that is truest of for me. But also L’Engle, Tolkien, Austen. Sayers is moving toward that list as well. And Eugene Peterson. I go through seasons where I read them more or less, but I go back to all of these particular writers a lot, never feeling like I’ve exhausted what they have to say. They are also writers I love to read about – biography, literary analysis, appreciation.

With Lewis, I always feel especially glad that I have so much more of his work to read…I don’t think I could ever exhaust it. Even if I eventually read it all, it always bears repeat readings. That’s also true of Tolkien.

I’ve probably come closest to reading everything of L’Engle’s. In my late teens and early-mid twenties, I went out of my way to collect as much of her work as I could, even the harder to find things (and for at least a handful of Christmases, my family did an amazing job of giving me hard-to-find L’Engle books). She was hugely formative in my developing spiritual life, and while there are a few books of hers that I feel I’ve somewhat outgrown (not, by the way, her children’s books) many of them I still revisit often, and a few of them have deep places of honor in my mind and heart.

I’ve purposely not ever read all of Austen’s letters, her juvenalia, or her incomplete novel, mostly because I don’t want to say I’ve read everything she’s written! I’ve read most if not all of Sayers’ novels, and also Mind of the Maker, but only some of her drama and essays, and not many of her letters. Peterson is so prolific that I don’t think I could possibly exhaust all of his work, but I like knowing so much of it is there, and that I can always drink deep when I turn to him.

One reason why Lewis has moved to the top of my list over the years, besides the obvious richness to be found in his work, is that he is the kind of writer one really can visit in different seasons and moods. Narnia was my foray into Lewis’ world, and I entered it around the age of ten. But I still revisit Narnia, and I still find more there to learn and ponder and enjoy and love thirty-five years after I first read the books. They are perhaps richer for my having visited them so often, and richer still because I’ve now read so many others books by (and about) Lewis, including books it took me a while to be ready for. Essentially, he is not a writer I ever outgrow – he’s always somewhere I feel I need and want to be, saying something I need and want to hear, challenging me, delighting me, at different seasons and times in my life.

Is there a writer, or writers, that you feel you could read for the rest of your life?

A Little Year in Review

Reflecting a bit on the year just past. Would love to hear your reflections too.

More reflections on favorite books from 2013 to come. For now...Happy 2014!

Someone/something you’re especially grateful for:  God’s love, and the sustaining prayers and caring of friends.

A special moment that stands out in your mind: Relaxing at the beach in Lake Erie with my husband and daughter.

A challenge or difficulty you faced: Helping someone I love go through something challenging and hard. Financial stress.

Something you learned as you navigated the above: To lean deeper and trust God for the strength I need.

A news moment that you recall with clarity: The death of Nelson Mandela.

Something or someone you missed: I miss my extended family (far-flung over geographic distance).

Something you feel nostalgic for: Respect for leaders and more civil conversations about issues of public concern.

A book you read and enjoyed: Listening for Madeleine by Leonard S. Marcus. The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle.

A movie you enjoyed watching: Les Mis. Also Star Trek: Into Darkness.

A song you enjoyed listening to:  Speak, O Lord by Keith and Kristyn Getty.

Also Wild Child by Enya. (My eleven year old went crazy for Enya this year, and this song felt like the soundtrack to a lot of our days!)

An encouraging or inspiring quote you thought about:  "After each failure, ask forgiveness, pick yourself up, and try again. Very often what God first helps us towards is not the virtue itself but just this power of always trying again." (~ C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity)

And from Galatians 5:22-23 (the Message):

"But what happens when we live God’s way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely."

Something you did that was new or surprising: Got past chapter 3 in the novel I’m writing. Earned more income from writing than teaching.

Something you wish you had more of in your life: Patience. And writing time.

Something you wish you had less of in your life: Worry.

A word or phrase that captures something about your year:  “My work…is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished” (Mary Oliver)

Responding to God in the New Year

I pray that anyone reading this is having a blessed new year's day, a refreshing time to look back with gratitude on the past year (even if it was a difficult one) and to reflect on hopes and goals for the new year. Here we are at 2013!

 When I began this blog in 2006, almost exactly seven years ago, I had no idea that I would still be posting my thoughts here this far down the road. Although I do not always post as often as I used to, it's still a place where I enjoy coming to share creativity, struggles, prayers, inspiration, and of course lots and lots of good book recommendations.

One thing I hope to do this year is both a writing/creativity goal and a spiritual one (so often those two come bundled together). I have been thinking about the many things that often "come my way" in the course of each day, be it a lovely photograph on Facebook, something I've read online, in a book, or in the Scriptures, or just the ordinary thoughtful moments of family life and friendship. I'm hoping to maintain the discipline of writing something small each day, usually a poem or prayer, in response to whatever God opens my eyes to that particular day...whatever it may be. I hope to share bits of that "day book" here in the coming year.

I also plan to compile my list of favorite books from 2012 sometime this month, once I get past the sinus infection I'm recovering from -- and get back into some semblance of school and work routine following the holidays.

Whatever your goals and hopes are for the coming year, I pray that your eyes will be opened more and more to the riches of God's grace, goodness and mercy. The year is still like a day of new fallen snow...hardly any tracks yet, and so many beautiful miles to go.

Little Bits of the Writing Life

It's feeling like a writing life again.

My life has always been a writing life, but there have been days -- seasons, weeks, months, years -- when I've had to fight so hard to get the writing in there, somehow shoe-horned into the cracks and crevices of everything else that's more urgent, more practical, more necessary, that I tend to forget just how deep the writing heart goes.

All those other practical things still exist, but in the last few weeks I inexplicably feel I've made peace with two facts:

1) I may never have a season where I don't write in the cracks and crevices, so it's time to embrace that rather than complain about it and

2) I will always write.

And with the hugging to my chest of those two little truths: Bam! Suddenly I am writing and loving it, loving every drop of it, even on days when there are only drops.

Here are some things I've loved about the writing life lately:

* New notebooks.

I got four of them for Christmas. The three composition books from my friend Erin have turned into what I call my "everyday" books. Not journals exactly, but the notebooks I go to for first-moments-in-the-morning writing. I'm writing something every morning. Snippets, lists, lines. Bits of scenes. Poetry. Lots of poetry right now.

* Yes, poetry! Lots of it coming in ways big and small. Some of the best poems are the small ones. Suddenly everything seems to be food for poetry. The Duke Ellington music we're dancing to in the kitchen. The onions I'm cutting up for dinner. (Okay, lots of kitchen inspiration right now.)

* A writing friend who not only gives me composition books, but cheers me on in my writing endeavors...even in the wee small hours when I should be sleeping. So thankful for Erin, who is also committing to writing more this year (and also getting off to a wonderfully creative start). I love the ways we encourage each other in the endeavor.

* Finding a note my emerging writer-daughter had left herself on the dining room table. A scrap of paper which read something like "A good title for a Christmas story -- The Baby is the Star of the Show."

* Teaching poetry and loving how it gives me new eyes on old poems. The sweet girl is memorizing "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" by William Butler Yeats. She seems surprised by how easily she's learning it, but considering it's been on our living room wall her whole life and I used to sing it to her when she was a baby, somehow I'm not. What is surprising me...the little things that have jumped out at me as I thoughtfully peruse the lines on the lookout for things to point out to a nine year old. I've always loved the music of this poem (the reason I set it to a tune) but though I've loved it for more than twenty years, it had never dawned on me until this past week how wonderful its assonance is and just how many double-lettered words are contained in the poem, which also makes it a visual delight. Take a look: "Innisfree" itself has two n's and two e's, but there's also small, wattles, will, bee, dropping, glimmer, noon, linnet's, lapping, deep. There may be more ~ that's just off the top of my head. It's really an amazing feat, how he chooses those words and how they make music.

* Writing prompt sites. I am especially enjoying oneword and the One-Minute Writer, both perfect places to land when you're just looking for a quick burst of playful inspiration.

But best of all, I'm writing again, every day. Not just work-related things or reviews, though still doing those too. I'm working on fiction again (dare I call it a novel)? I'm writing poetry. And last week I started fleshing out what I think and hope could be a very promising non-fiction project.

Do I have any more time to write than before? Nope. But I've decided the burning in my bones and the stories calling out to me both deserve a response. Nothing in my life has really changed but me. Time, work, circumstances, stresses, joys, schedules, ministry, family life, ups and downs, laughter, tears, not enough sleep...yep, they're all still there. The only thing that's changed is that I've decided this is my year to stop wistfully wishing I could spend more time writing and instead actually do it. Even in the cracks and crevices.

And so far, I'm loving this decision.

The Unique Walk of Grief

For the past few years, I've contemplated writing a January post about grief. I don't know what's made me feel more unsure -- knowing I'd need to find the courage to be vulnerable in what I say, or not wanting to unintentionally intrude on someone else's experience of grief. But...deep breath...this is the year I've decided to write the post.

Today is the 10th of January. It's an ordinary day and date and it may not have special significance to everyone, but to me, it marks a day that always has a special place in my heart. It was the due date of our first baby, a baby we lost a number of years ago when I miscarried at around week eleven of my first pregnancy.

Miscarriages are strange things. They are incredibly difficult to talk about in our culture. When they first happen, people don't know what to say to comfort you in your loss. Perhaps because the life that has been lost was so small and hidden still. After a miscarriage has happened, especially if any significant amount of time has passed, people expect you not to talk about the experience, as though it's been over so long ago that it should be well shelved in your memory and not need airing. I still sometimes feel embarrassment -- though I know I shouldn't -- when I feel a deep need to bring it up, and when tears form in my eyes when I talk about it.

Even the name is strange: to "miscarry" always sounds to me as though you just accidentally slipped or somehow made a mistake. Nothing, of course, could be farther from the truth. When my miscarriage occurred, I remember feeling more powerless than I had ever felt in my life. Everything in me longed to change what was happening in my body, what was happening to the new little life that was developing inside me. I desperately wanted to find a way to stop it from happening, and after it was over, I went through a period of time when I kept wanting to turn back time.

I think there is also a sense, on the part of many people, that the pain of a miscarriage, once it's over and done, ceases to hurt very much. Especially if you've gone on to have another baby. There's an expectation that the gift of the new child somehow completely heals over the sore places in your heart and empty hands. And there is, of course, a deep element of truth to that. Time plus grace does help heal wounds (of all sorts, not just this particular grief) and holding a whole, healthy baby assuages the maternal ache. Assuages and comforts, but never erases it. Because the life you carried was a different life, a different person. And though you never held that little one in your arms, you did carry him or her in your body...for days, weeks, sometimes months.

And you felt that person's presence. It's different for different women, of course, depending on when the miscarriage occurs. For some, a heartbeat has already been heard, and the worst moment may come when that rhythm ceases to beat its steady pulse. For others (like me) we didn't even get to hear that wonderful music. But still, the changes that occurred in my body, as it made room for that little one to grow, were palpably real. I prayed prayers for that little one. And the physical and emotional journey of the miscarriage, essentially a small labor ending in huge loss, are etched in my memory forever. Truly one of the hardest days and nights of my life, with the prayer of Psalm 121 (sent by a friend) and the prayerful songs of St. Brendan my lifeline in the wee small hours.

The grief never goes away entirely. And that too is unique for each person. The grief tends to wash over me every year in January, right around this time. I feel it coming, sometimes like a tidal wave (in hard, darker years) other years a more manageable wave but still strong and sure. I've realized that there's nothing I can do to stop its coming...that it's a natural part of who I am now, like my hair and eye color. This grief is a piece of me and preparing for the wave is a part of what I have to do every year as the calendar turns. Some years I weather it with grace. Some years not so much. (This is, thankfully, a grace year...hence the strength to write this post.) Some years the grief is more palpable than others. I find myself thinking about the fact that I could be planning a birthday party right now, wondering how our little one would be enjoying the after-Christmas season leading up to the birthday. I find myself wondering if he (or she, but we've always had a strong feeling the baby was a he) would be like his sister.

We conceived the sweet girl just months after the loss. In the present, physical world, these two children could not have both existed -- they were too close in time. There is an absurd feeling to that for my heart sometimes, a strangeness, because I am the physical link that connects them both, and I hold them in my heart in unique ways. I cannot imagine our lives without the sweet girl, now a precious and amazingly creative 9 and 1/2. But I cannot imagine my life without the weeks I carried our other little one, who would now be turning 10. (One day, when she's ready -- she's not yet -- I'll share about all this with her. And I hope that will be a blessing to us both.)

My husband's grief still comes too. It hits him at a different time, around the time of the actual miscarriage itself, which came in June, right around Father's Day. Just a little more than a year or so after we lost our first little one on Father's Day, he held his daughter in his arms, and then three months later lost his own father. It all combines in a tangled web of love and loss, joy and sorrow.

There were people, even at the time of the miscarriage, who treated the loss as an ephemeral one -- as though the only real loss was the loss of our dreams about this tiny precious one (as if that wasn't crushing enough). That hurt, undeniably. I found myself not knowing how to answer their well-meaning statements. (Word to the wise: "these things happen" almost never comforts.) There were people who perhaps didn't understand my need to cry, journal, bawl my questions at God. But there were also people who awed me with their love and understanding, and who -- like the experience of the love and loss itself -- changed me forever, helped me grow in my own tenderness toward others walking this road or other kinds of grief roads. There was the dear friend who sent me the large, thick creamy white candle I still light in the baby's honor every year. There were the people who hugged me without saying anything at all. There was the friend who let me know, tentatively but truly, that he had dreamed I was expecting again (not long before I really was, a sign of hope). There was the woman at church I barely knew who almost brought me to my knees when she let me know, months down the road, that she had prayed for me every single day of the original pregnancy, even after we lost the baby.

The love of those people is one of the main reasons I've wanted to write this post for the past decade. They are the ones who showed me, through God's grace and through very simple acts of kindness, that we really can respect one another's unique roads of grief and walk each other through them. They were the ones who helped me to accept that my own grief is just a part of who I am, and will stay with me in some form for the rest of my life. But that the grief doesn't have to be an enemy, or something I need feel ashamed of. It's helped shape who I am. And it's not the only thing that shapes me. There were the very real eleven weeks of joy I experienced in carrying that tiny, hidden little one inside me, the privilege of carrying my baby for the very short season of that little one's earthly life.

Joy and grief both shape us. And they never fully leave us.

"Temper My Intemperance" (Madeleine L'Engle)

The new year finds me reading old poetry, especially poetry that's been part of my heart for a long while. I recently picked up a library copy of The Ordering of Love, the 2005 collection of Madeleine L'Engle's poetry that included some of her best poems from volumes ranging from the 1960s through the 1980s, with new poems from both the 1960s and the 1990s. While I have some of the original L'Engle poetry books on my shelves, it's been lovely to read at this compact, beautiful volume, to discover the new poems, and to realize anew what a deep part of my life most of the old ones already are.

Today I needed this one, an old favorite from her book The Weather of the Heart, originally published in 1978:

Temper my intemperance, O Lord,
O hallowed, O adored,
My heart's creator, mighty, wild,
Temper Thy bewildered child.
Blaze my eye and blast my ear,
Let me never fear to fear
Nor forget what I have heard,
Even your voice, my Lord,
Even your Word.

*************

New Year Blessings!

2011: The Year of the Lop-Eared Bunny

Happy New Year!

Chinese culture often celebrates with a "year of the..." (dragon, monkey, etc.) In our family, I've begun to realize, we celebrate with the "year of..." whatever animal graces our kitchen calendar. It's been tradition since the sweet girl was about three that she gets to pick the calendar for the kitchen, and creature of habit that she is, she always chooses a different animal. We've had the year of the owl, the year of the chocolate lab, the year of the dachshund, and the year of the butterfly (those are the ones I remember...I think we might have had cats in there somewhere too).

So yesterday after a beautiful lessons & carols service at church, we headed out to lunch and then went calendar shopping. And I'm here to announce, it's the year of the lop-eared bunny!

Not so surprising, given the sweet girl's continued fascination with rabbits -- and given the fact that she got to meet "a real, live rabbit!" at the annual new year's party given by our friends the Jernigans. Their son, just one week older than our daughter, now owns two rabbits. She was in raptures of joy because she got to pet one.

Whatever your new year's celebrations look like, I hope 2011 has gotten off to a healthy, joyous beginning.

2010: The Year of the Butterfly Calendar

A happy new year! 2010! I still feel like I'm catching my breath on that one, and it may take me a while to fully grasp that it's really here.

My husband and I have been discussing what we'll call this year. I've heard people say "two thousand ten" and I've also heard folks try out "twenty ten." What do you find yourself saying so far? I think most of us got into the "two thousand habit" in recent years, but "twenty ten" has a nice ring to it and harkens us oldsters back to the good ol' days when we said "nineteen" something...something my seven and a half year old can't fathom!

I loved that the second day of the new year fell on a Saturday, as we got to do all of our favorite family new year's shopping traditions: we bought next year's Christmas creche figure (on sale) and this year's kitchen calendar (on major sale). As those of you who have read this blog for a while know, our little girl always gets to pick the kitchen calendar. Last year was the year of the dachshund in our kitchen, which turned out to be bittersweet since my parents' eighteen year old beloved-by-all-of-us dachshund died in February last year.

This year the sweet girl went for butterflies, long a favorite passion of her's, though this is the first time she's chosen a butterfly calendar. It's really lovely.


The house is a mess after two weeks of travel, holiday festivities, time off from school (for the sweet girl) and frantic paper grading, syllabus tweaking and editing project (me) but the kitchen at least has some bright touches: a lovely red kalanchoe plant on the table, gift from a co-worker of D's; a small but beautiful piece of pottery my sister sent for Christmas; and now the butterfly calendar.

May blessings and beauty flutter through this season of new beginnings for all of us.

Peaceful Rest at the Beginning of 2009

We had a lovely start to the new year yesterday when we finally did our family Christmas present opening. Then we spent the rest of the day visiting with friends, shopping for the new kitchen calendar (it's tradition that the sweet girl picks that each year: this year we've got 12 months of baby dachshunds!) and coming home to work on a big family jigsaw puzzle. That last has been wonderful fun and just may turn out to be a new annual new year's tradition.

I guess 2008 wore the sweet girl out: a little while ago I went into her room to get her up from her usual afternoon rest. Typically that means sitting quietly with books or small dolls on the bed while she listens to music or a book on CD. She hardly ever actually sleeps any kind of nap. But I found her curled in a swirled up nest of fleece blankets, fast asleep, her pigtails peeking out from beneath the blankets, her breathing deep and even. And in the background, the soothing British voice of Jim Broadbent, cheerily announcing that he was a bear of little brain.

Off to see if I can truly get her awake this time. Ratatouille is simmering in the crockpot, filling the house with good smells. I'm working my way through my final set of fall papers (grades due Monday!) and prepping homeschool lesson plans for January.

Happy New Year!

Bless the LORD, O my soul...

and forget not all his benefits,
who forgives all your iniquity,
who heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the pit,
who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
who satisfies you with good so that your youth
is renewed like the eagle's.
The LORD works righteousness and justice
for all who are oppressed.
He made known his ways to Moses,
his acts to the people of Israel.
The LORD is merciful and gracious,
slow to anger and abounding steadfast love.
He will not always chide,
nor will he keep his anger forever.
He does not deal with us according to our sins,
nor repay us according to our iniquities.
For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his steadfast love
toward those who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west,
so far does he remove our transgressions from us.
As a father shows compassion to his children,
so the LORD shows compassion to those who fear him.
For he knows our frame;
he remembers that we are dust.

~Psalm 103: 2-14 (ESV)

A blessed and happy new year!

New Year's Lists

I've got a plethora of new year's grading and writing deadlines, so these few days of supposed "down time" are actually some of the busiest I've had in a while! In the midst of all that, however, I'm contemplating some new year's lists.

I'm not a big new year's resolver. I don't make huge resolutions or very detailed ones. I do sometimes find this is a good time, however, to look again at my priorities and how I spend my time, and to try to set some goals and get a bit more organized. This year I seem to be in a bit of a list-making frenzy.

Here are some of the lists I'm currently making (mentally and/or soon-to-be on paper). Some of them, as you can see, lend themselves to larger organizational projects...in other words, the lists aren't just an end unto themselves!

Short-term lists:

*** My year-end list of books I've read or am in the process of reading. I usually compile that list based on my notes here and on the reviews I've written for epinions. Last year in early January I posted a list of my favorites (in various, self-appointed categories) for the year, and I hope to do that again this year. Usually that list helps me think about what kinds of reading I hope to accomplish in the new year.

*** Spring term kindergarten list. I need time to sit down and plan out (at least in broad sweeps) the next few months of school time for the sweet girl. I have a general idea of where I'm going and what books and other resources we'll be using, but I need some more time to pull all that together.

Short-to-medium-term lists:

*** First Grade book list. Lord willing, we'll be able to continue our homeschool journey in the fall (we are trusting God to continue to provide a way!). I'm already working on my book list for the coming year and thinking about ways I can find and utilize different resources (purchases, libraries, loans, downloads) in order to keep costs down. I love making this list because it excites me no end to think of the wonderful things the sweet girl and I will be studying and exploring together.

Please pray that I will not get bogged down in worries about how our continued commitment to homeschooling is actually going to happen. God continues to provide me work from home as we need it, often right when we need it, and it's no good fretting in advance even when I feel clueless about how he's going to do it the next time around. We're manna-gatherers for sure! Pray also that I can find ways to save toward some of the book and curriculum purchases we do need to make. I've been hanging onto my epi-earnings (helped immeasurably by their generous end-of-year bonus) in the hopes that I can use them for that this year, and not have to spend them on creditors, car or health insurance.

*** Money-saving ideas. With the preceding paragraph in mind, you're no doubt not surprised to see this here. Our debt burden and increasing out-of-pocket health care costs, combined with our less than lucrative (at least monetarily...we are so rich in every other way that counts!) vocational choices means that we have to get really creative this year about tightening our belts even further. I have been trying to come up with a list of ideas to save us money each week and month, in the hopes we can begin to chip more at debt and be freed up to give more as we're called. If you've got good, creative tips or web resources on saving money, generating needed income, or budgeting, pass em' on!

*** Address list. This sounds silly...after all, we live in the information age and I'm supposed to have this kind of data all handy somewhere, right? But we don't. My mad scramble to find email and/or postal addresses for a number of people this Christmas made me realize just how unorganized our personal address list is. A lot of that is due to the fact that the last time we did a full-scale organized list, it was on a computer that now sits almost unused in our bedroom (an old computer that has no way of "talking to" this computer). This is the year for me to get old stuff OFF that computer and to re-organize a contact list for what we like to call our "life community" -- people we've known and loved during so many different seasons and places.

Medium-long-term lists:

*** Genealogical information. This one is related to the above. About a decade ago, D. and I did a lot of research into our families' histories, some of which bore great fruit. We organized some of the info. in hard copies (charts, pictures, etc.) and those boxes are sitting in our closet, awaiting further organization. Some of the data made it onto a budget software program on our old computer, once again, "non-transferrable." Eventually we'd like to get a better program, but in the meantime, I'd be satisfied with just getting the information we have into accessible and easy to find formats in binders and plastic folders.

*** My writing files. Ah, the never ending project. I haven't organized my writing files in so long it's embarrassing. It's also embarrassing how often I can't find a story, poem or other piece I've written, or a project I started and would like to re-visit and work on again. This really needs to happen. One reason I realized that anew is because D. and I worked on a series of narrative monologue and poems several years ago, which were presented (in rough form) as an advent program at the seminary. Seven years later, this advent, we got to thinking about them again and began talking about ways we could revise them, add to them, and perhaps even think about submitting them somewhere for publication...only to discover we can't find the file anywhere. Still looking! I hope to really dive into some writing projects this year, both old and new, so this organizational goal feels important.

*** Birthday and Christmas scrapbooks for the sweet girl. I keep promising myself these will get done. I really want to work on them this year!

Well, I'm sure there are more lists I could think of...and have thought of...but these are the ones coming to mind for now.

How about you? Do you make lists and plan organizational projects for the new year?