Lunch

Photo cred: Urban Rose Photo

"How'd you like sitting by Grammie in church?" I say.

Sunday lunch stair-stepped across the table, Joe's button-down shirt checkered orange and azure, rumpled jeans, he licks jelly off his thumb.

"I liked it," he says.

"Hmm," I say. "There's one thing you have to do if you sit by Grammie."

Photo cred: Urban Rose Photo

"What?"

"Try to sing the words on the songs." He blinks, something like instinct holding his gaze. "Some of the words you don't know, but when you figure them out, sing."

"Ooookay," he says. "What I think is boring is just standing there during worship." He flattens the corners of his mouth, nonchalance, a sideways glance, feigns expertise.

"Well, that means you're not worshipping," I say.

"Oh." A knit brown, he squints, wills logic to materialize.

Jane frowns. Her apron, a splay of flouncing flowers and 1950, a kitchen aid mixer whirling atop the counter, she screws up the corner of her mouth.

"Do you think it's boring going on a date with Mom?" she says. She peers around the whirl of bagel dough.

"No."

Photo cred: Urban Rose Photo

"Worship is like going on a date with God," she shrugs. Her braid, thick as a sunflower trunk, drapes over her shoulder.

"Yeah," I blurt. Sense permeates. Logic burgeons.

"Oh," Joe says. Another lick, he pops the whole thumb in his mouth, that last smudge of raspberry jelly punctuating a feather inkling that he should sing in church.

Photo cred: Urban Rose Photo

Gratitude:

6594. "I can't believe you were trying to read a book while playing your scales," I laugh at Jane. "Well, I had actually read almost an entire Nancy Drew book before you noticed," she says.

6595. "Thanks so much for telling Joe how worship is like a date with God," I say. "Truth be told, I was just trying so hard not to be annoyed that he was saying the most important time of the whole week was boring," Jane says.

6596. Life settles into a lull finally, now mid February. Snow drifts more than knee deep, temperatures gridlocked beneath freezing, the sky riotous blue, we drink it in.

Photo cred: Urban Rose Photo

Thin

"After eating a bowl of oats, three cookies, and some apples, it feels good to eat some actual REAL food," Myra says.

She wolfs a mounding spoon of rice to her mouth. I stir a bowl of creamy tomato soup, electric burner clicking with effort, the makeshift bathroom/kitchen a card house around us.

"Yeah?" I say.

"Yeah. It's just so. good," she says another bite bulging in her cheek.

Rice. So. Good. Nourishment. I scoop a sticky mound into my bowl and cover it with tomato soup. We lean over a rustic cutting board and spoon rice and soup as if it were life itself.



****

"It's like it was actual worship," Lucy says.

There, in the front seat of the suburban we wind up an afternoon date. It's the traveling cafe, suburban front seat. I buy chocolate. We climb in the front, crank the heat, and watch rain splatter the windshield, conversation and chocolate between us.

"Yeah?" I say.

"Yeah," she says, "actual worship. 'Cause sometimes in children's church they are like, Come on sing LOUDER," she claps her hands and raises eyebrows in time with sing LOUDER. An overly sweet smile alit on her face.

"Huh," I say.

"That DOESN'T mean it's worship," she says.

"Yep." We nod, the crinkling of foil, the dull crack of chocolate fractured and pulled out of the wrapper.

"It's like the other night when we were at that worship time; there, it actually was worship."

"Huh," I say.

I picture us there, the whole row of us, back of the sanctuary, music unfurling. I sang with my eyes closed. I'd peeked to count my chicks, gathered Betsy to our row and slipped back into worship, with images of Jack raising his hands, earnest, serious, Joe at half-mast and the other in various stages of mimicry, solemn, careful imitation.

"You're right," I say. "That was actually worship. I love that you can see that." Again, we nod, small agreements like tokens of affection.

I replay this discovery, the dumbing down of spirituality makes it small and tiny, thin in the eyes of this nine-year-old, pretend. Then there we are at the back of the church just standing there singing, just the naked effort to sing to God and suddenly, she sees it. Worship. Naked adoration, unmistakable.

Gratitude:

6381. Lucy begins to understand worship.

6382. Jack bakes cornbread. Lucy invents a cranberry bread recipe. And the two of them bake enough ginger snaps to make a tower.

6383. Jane begins to gain traction with another level of her math.

6384. Myra takes off with reading carrying a book like a cowboy with a pistol all the time now.

6385. Joe and Betsy try to copy her achievement by "reading" the pictures in books.

6386. I catch coffee with a dear friend, and we spill our souls, puddles of connection, meaning, and encouragement. Peace and courage ensue.

6387. Even amidst a week of out of town engagements, the pressure and chaos of regular life, and bone-weary tiredness, Mom and I eek out an afternoon of errands and a continuing river of conversation and connection.

6388. We begin a new journal/devotional as a family.

6389. We make the first hot chocolate of the season, a whole pot of it on the little electric burner. Milk, chocolate, and sugar, just simple.

6390. I find the joy of a new friendship, visiting over motherhood, life, and baby wraps.

6390. The kids begin to navigate the waters of what it means to "leave someone out'' when kids are playing. Everyone senses my complete intolerance of this.

6391. I continue to knit an ochre sweater for George.

6392. He begins to favor certain toys and scream displeasure if they are taken away. I smile at his resolve. Training the will is so much easier than teaching a passive child to have initiative. Oh joy, no lack of initiative.

6393. Betsy and I fall into the arms of our big wooden bed and sleep away Sunday afternoon.

6394. I begin to gestate the idea that the goodness of my soul must put down roots and thrive when things are hard. Isn't that the true measure of strength, the moment of adversity?

6395. I set my mind to see adversity as the moment when things become as they really are. The gift of unveiling.

6396. Every single day our moments are mingled with conversation after conversation, human lives intertwined. All these children and it's a symphony of becoming. Every move affects someone else. Joy and adversity hold hands.

Piano

"I just like this song so much," Lucy says. Blue jeans, worn baggy at the knees, a black T-shirt and ponytail, she's at the piano. She strokes the keys, soft, like a newborn's face.

"Yeah?" I say.

"I don't really know why," she says. The why elongates as she matches her hands to the song's position.

"Well," I say, "it's more powerful than regular words because it's TRUTH and worship."

"Huh," she says. "Yeah." She changes from the smooth caress to confident stride. Melody effuses from the sound board. A couple of days and she's unfurled the full right hand part.

"What's the name of that one again?" I say.

"Rejoice, the Lord is King," she says. "I didn't really think about what is actually happening when you play until a couple of days ago," she says.

"What do you mean?" I say.

"Like that you are actually worshipping," she says.

"Oh," I say. "Yeah."  Actually worshipping. A simple bowing down. I watch her there at the piano. She bows like a tree, a gentle swaying in submission to the breeze.

Gratitude:

6156. Jane and I spend the afternoon making three gallons of taco soup and watching Bible commentary.

6157. Betsy climbs in the chair behind me and leans on my back.

6158. Jack gets up early and cleans the whole house before I get up.

6159. Lucy learns a new hymn on the piano.

6160. I finish putting all the snaps on the newborn diapers.

6161. I find a sticky note with a flower crumpled in the garbage. "What's this?" I ask Joe. "That's the one that didn't turn out." Before bed I find a flowered sticky note next to the bathroom sink. The sky is filled with the word MOM.

6162. Myra falls asleep on the couch snuggled under Craig's arm.

6163. Jack unearths a stump stubbornly wedged at the new greenhouse site.

6164. I finish knitting an afghan started two years ago.

6165. "You can always tell that if you are having a hard time reading what you wrote," Lucy says, "you probably spelled it wrong."

6166. I meet with a friend and we talk all things birth. The next three weeks seem short. Short, short.

6167. I begin to unravel the strange mystery of trusting God. Trust. It's the raft we ride.

6168. Jack and Lucy haul another stump put front.

6169. Craig wraps our world in affection and confidence. We gladly lean on his shoulders.

Seaweed

"Can you play nine again?" Myra says. Nine, it's a hymn: Before The Throne Of God Above.

"Sure," I say.

En route to church Joe, Betsy, Myra, and I play hymns, a collection, modern but old. Before the throne of God above, I have a strong and perfect plea; a great High Priest whose name is Love, who ever lives and pleads for me... The words peal through the car like tiny bells, like pearls scattered across tile. We listen to them bound and ripple until the car is silent.

"Momma, can you play nine again?" The invisible seam between song and cerulean sky, drooped low through our car, snaps back.

"Sure," I say.

My name is graven on His hands, my name is written on His heart; I know that while with God He stands, no tongue can bid me thence depart. I weave perfect stitches through traffic. Myra in the back, me in the front, the music, as if alive, joins us.

"Nine, Momma," she says.

"Ok," I say.

Because the sinless Savior died, my soul is counted free; for God the Just is satisfied, to look on him and pardon me. The words encircle us with smallness and grandeur.

"You and me, Myra, we're the same," I say. "We like to listen to our favorite ones over and over and over again." I laugh. Those tiny glimmers of exactness, exact copies of me in tiny slivers, I laugh at the likeness.

"Yeah," she says. "It's sort of like the seaweed -- just one more, just one more, just one more."

We laugh and laugh. The seaweed. One afternoon I ate an entire package of seaweed that way. It was so salty and crisp, just one and another and another and the whole entire package disappeared. Delicious. It made me terribly ill, but such extravagance of repetition it's an engine. Myra sees the match. A whole roomful of possibilities and we see the exact same one.

Something tender and in perfect agreement springs up between us.

Gratitude:

5840. "Hey Mom, this needs new batteries," Joe holds up my watch. "Look, it burned out." Between Jane and I we used it until the battery died.

5841. Jack makes us a double batch of peanut butter cookies.

5842. A bag of groceries from Trader Joe's, bliss.

5843. Some new clothes. Spring treasures, a few new things, and we feel like kings.

5844. Craig opens a fb account for me.

5845. We end the week with 147 freshly transplanted tomatoes and change, 16 flats total.

5846. Craig's mom offers to babysit the plants for us. We have pizza and roasted brussel sprouts and homemade vanilla ice cream down on the farm.

5847. "Ya know," Jane says at breakfast, "Now that I know what the Cuban Missile Crisis is, The Cuban Muscle Crisis [a political cartoon in World Magazine] is a lot funnier."

5848. Each of the kids grows a little older, a little more different than each other. I see how they notice and recall events each with their own bent. The difference is striking.

5849. We start taking a family walk after dinner.

5850. We begin praying with the kids for "big" things, things only God can provide. We watch for His hand at work. Whether in the simple or the grand, His presence is everything.

5851. "This is so FUN," Joe says as he lays on a pile of pillows. Betsy squawks her agreement.

5852. "Betsy, where's your baby?!" She frantically searches under the pillows with Joe.

5853. The responsibilities of life lay heavy on us, but joy fills in all the cracks.

Hymns

"Though I wander, though I wander," Joe hum-sings as he slogs a knife in the peanut butter jar. "Bind my wandering heart to thee. Though I wander, though I wander..." Three-year-old falsetto warps loops in the kitchen.

"Joe, don't use that peanut butter," I bungle. "It's Daddy's mousetrap peanut butter."

"Oh," he holds up the knife. "See?"

"Yeah." A glob blops to the floor. "Clean it up," I say.

"Oh." He clackety-clacks cowboy boots around the drip, nabs a paper towel and circles back.


****

"Christ the Lord is risen today," the radio blares. The sun lemon-yellow and warm for February, we travel, the all us on errands with Craig. It took half the day to get gone, but here we are hymns blaring, children fresh and joyous.

Heading straight into the sun, we turn, glide to a stop at the frozen yogurt store.

"We just have four more verses," Lucy pants. "Can we just wait?" A-----lle--lu-u-ia flows out of the radio tidal and full.

Craig turns to me. "Just four more," he says. He shrugs, a grin ribboned across his face.

I laugh. His grin breaks into a chuckle.

"Ok," I say.

"Ok," he says.

Music settles like dew in afternoon sun. We leave the car, faces alighted with the unmistakable and invisible: goodwill. We sing together and something happens. Christ is there with us. Small moments of adoration make us who we are.

Gratitude:

5769. A neighbor couple invites us to dinner. We spend an evening fellowshipping. Warm bonds form between us. They send us home with two bags of homemade pumpkin cookies. Watermelon, Joe calls them.

5770. The three older kids take turns joining my morning run. Three and a half miles, they keep up just fine.

5771. I injure my hip from turning to jabber with the kids so much during our runs. An easy weekend and I make a full recovery.

5772. The kids make Saturday pancakes.

5773. Cousins and Cerissa come for an afternoon of play. Coffee, tea, and play, I wonder why we don't do this more often.

5774. Joe finds a pencil grippie that works for him.

5775. My new tea pot comes. It works perfectly. Not even a tiny bit of loose tea escapes the mesh barrier.

5776. A warm bathrobe.

5777. I turn around to find Betsy standing in the highchair. Though previously buckled and secure, she has found a way around.

5778. We begin to teach the kids the value of money. We charge $0.05 rent on anything they leave laying out. Craig promises to take me out for dessert with any earnings.

5779. Jack starts planting his spring garden: multitudinous, rows of lettuce.

5780. After tracking mud in the house equally multitudinous times we arrange for all dirt transgressors to clean all floors on the main floor.

5781. We come to land in a new week with hope and goodwill growing up between us. Hard earned in both discipline and constant choice, we gradually reap the benefits. We like each other.

Minus

"Are you surprised I can do this while talking?" Lu says.

I look up from a slice of plum toast. Across the table, she writes the answers to addition facts. It's like watching my piano teacher carry on a conversation and play Jesus Loves Me at the same time.

"Yeah," I say. "I am." I swallow, pause to lick plum jam off my lips.

"I think I know why I'm better at minus than plus," she says pencil still scrawling.

"Uh-huh?" I say.

"'Cause I was working harder at minus than plus." Eight plus two, she writes ten.

"Huh," I say.

"I'm so delighted when there's minus," she says.

I watch the pencil trace out neat numbers beneath the equal sign of each problem. I shake my head, spoon more jam onto my toast.

All this after I dragged her unwilling self in from the monkey-bars, I think.

But as I watch each answer form itself in her head and then on the paper, I marvel. I'm so delighted when there's minus. She sees the path. Off road, barely visible, but true: hard work leads to delight.

I steel my mind for the work ahead.





Gratitude:

5591. "Well, that's the end of that fly's life," Jack says after a tha-whack of the flyswatter.

5592. Amish butter, the kind you can taste on toast, even through plum jam.

5593. Turkey wraps. Sausage wraps. Ham wraps. Craig tells me I have to start actually cooking again. Everyone practically cheers when I make wraps -- all week long.

5594. Coconut sour cream fruit salad, the coconut toasted golden brown.

5595. Asian chop salad, the kind that goes perfect in a wrap.

5596. Chocolate sauce -- homemade.

5597. The kids plop Joe in the backyard swing and push, push, push him up to the sky. Under-dogs they call it, and circle like a carnival pushing him, pushing him up to the sky.

5598. "Joe fell out of the swing," Jane calls. "Oh no, what did he hit," I say. "Just the ground," she pipes back. A kiss and he's all better.

5599. "I'm making some sort of whip," Myra says, "but I'm not gonna whip anyone."

5600. Someone gives us a gift: a bunk bed for the girls. Jane beams. She's a top bunk girl.

5601. Mom and I make our weekly coffee date, frame in the world afresh.

5602. I sew together the first steps of a new quilt. Thirty fabrics, three-hundred-twenty squares, the hum of the sewing machine frames the whole of Friday night.

5603. Fresh popcorn, the basement swept clean, Craig plays poker with his buddies.

5604. We make our annual visit to the fair. We leave just as dehydration and exhaustion take over then nap the afternoon away.

5604. I come across Susanna Wesley's definition of sin: Take this rule: whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes off your relish of spiritual things: in short, whatever increases the strength and authority of your body over your mind, that thing is sin to you, however innocent it may be in itself."

5605. I take note of our pastor's first sermon after his sabbatical. He quotes Dallas Willard: Hurry is the archenemy of the spiritual life.

5606. "Who I am becoming as a person," Pastor Joe says, "in the end, is much more important than what I accomplish."

5607. I let these quotes orbit in my mind and once again set my mind to worship our Lord in all I do.

Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my strength and my redeemer. ~Psalm 19:14