Shelter and the Things We Carry

I'm listening to this great song by Ray LaMontagne called "Shelter."  The message is similar to that of a Bob Dylan tune that says this: "But if I can save you any time, come on, give it to me.  I'll keep it with mine."

Ray's song says this:  "All of this around us will fall over.  I tell you what we're going to do.  You will shelter me, my love, and I will shelter you."

I like both of these plans.  I suppose that's what they have in common--my fondness of them.  I'm working on the schematics right now, and they include both concepts.  This is going to be a pretty great machine if I can just get the building inspector to approve the unique wiring.

A Word to those Graduating from College (or moving on from anything really)

One of the more difficult experiences I have had as a human is that of change.  When something is working, I tend to cling to it, repeat it, knowing that the previous success of that activity must surely be mirrored in each subsequent repetition.  When I was a student, I understood the rules for success.  If I showed up, did my work, and used my head, I could usually pull through.  And that's what I did for four years.  In fact, it's what YOU have done these last four (or more) years.  You've been present, you've applied yourself, and for the most part, you knew what to do because you were a student.

But all that is about to change.  God has a way of forcing us out of our comfort zones.  Have you noticed this?  One need only look at the changing seasons and how we must adapt to them to know that change, transition, transformation are all part of God's plan to challenge us, to keep us reaching and working toward a closeness to Him that only the sloughing off of the old life can bring.  For a long time, I was under the illusion that it was up to me to learn how to adapt, that part of the test was to see how well I could make do, on my own, a victim of good old-fashioned self-reliance.  But I know that I do nothing on my own.  Not one thing.  And this is such a relief.  I hope it is to you, as well.

I think there is a bit of this notion of self-reliance attached to the concept of graduation, isn't there?  "Well, here you go:  a bucket of knowledge.  Now, go out there and use it.  You have everything you need."  Many of you may have felt this voice in your ear as you've approached this final week of your college career, felt it settle around you like the weight of a brick necklace.  But this has never been the goal at Concordia.  And you knew this in your decision to spend the last few years in the middle of Nebraska.  You have known from the beginning--that what you were given here you would be asked to return to others as you left Seward and found your place in other towns. 

Even so, that fear of the unknown appears when we feel the most vulnerable, the most new:

We think:  I'm on my own?  I have to DO something with my life?  This is the end?

I know how terrifying and exciting the answers to these questions can be.  One moment, you can't wait to move on and the next, you're curled up in your bed hugging a pillow and wishing you would have failed at least one semester's worth of Gen. Ed. classes just so you could put off graduation another four months.

But let me tell you this, and I will try to tell it to you as plainly as possible:

You were never, nor will you ever be alone.  You are not expected to be self-reliant.  In fact, now, when that blank page sits before you on the desk of life, now more than ever is the time to bend the ear of your heart to God's word and to the space created in prayer.  In faith--knowing He has brought you here to this terrifying, this thrilling new beginning so that you might know again and again that in life you will be continually asked to accept the breaking of your old life, your old self so that you can be His new creation again and again forever.

Many of you may not know what the future holds, but truly, not one of us does.  You are simply in that blessed and awkward position where the present moment and your future meet in full force.  God would not have brought you here to this point had He not known that you were ready.  Trust this place in your life as being exactly what you needed. 

And I can tell you this:

There is no end.  What you have been given, what you HAVE given here at Concordia is yours forever.  And the lives you reach, the light you shine into the hearts of those you will help in the future (and you WILL help others--knowing you, I can say this with all certainty)--this too is part of His plan.  All things connect in His love. 

So let this seed of your life break open.  Bear the weight of the change.  Bravely (because you were made with courage) take up these moments before you and become other than what you were.  Onward.  Upward.  Toward your becoming.  Toward Him.

God bless you as you continue to grow in His perfect care.

Woman leaves dirty dishes in sink, goes dancing.

I am leaving the dirty dishes in the sink tonight.  I never leave the dirty dishes in the sink.  I know.  Many of you reading this right now probably have dirty dishes in your sink and you might be wondering what I think of you.  And I'll tell you:  You are terrible people.  Just terrible.

Ah....but seriously.  I don't leave the beds unmade.  I don't leave the dishes dirty.  I make the coffee the night before.  Every night.  And this might be why I feel like dancing right now.

I'm not talking about the nice kind of step-to-the-side, step-to-the-other-side kind of dancing here.  I'm talking about the kind of dancing that makes you look like you are either on fire or like you just volunteered to test whether or not the barbeque was ready with your bare feet.

A few dirty dishes in the sink and I suddenly want to live on the edge, live dangerously--dance like I used to dance in grad school when too much poetry and language theory made me yearn for a voice louder than the one in my head and the one in my books.

I know you've been there, too.  There comes a point where you either get up and dance like your life depends on it (see audition scene from Flashdance) or you just do the dishes over and over again and hope nothing in your life changes or gets too out of hand or makes you stretch beyond your normal activities because there you KNOW what will happen.  But this control is an illusion, baby.  (Visions of discotheques dancing in my head are making me break out the lingo.)  I dare you, Lisa.  I dare you to leave the beds unmade tomorrow.  I dare you to just let it be.

Double dog dare you.

Company

Now:  Wind and cold and finally wrapped under this comforter after a day of gifts.
                  Safe, warm.  Nora sleeping.

Earlier:  Morning coffee with Nora.
Breaking out the recording equipment with Emmi.  A joyous song lifted up (3, in fact.)
A plate of cookies and a poem (a heartsong) left in secret beside Lucky's goldfish bowl.
A message from Robin, her warmth, her hug.
The Gift of the Magi with friends who laugh and laugh hard (possibly during inappropriate moments during the play.)

Everyday:  I needed this today.  Friends and the time to be with them.

Always:  Help me to actively seek more of this good company in my life.
                Let me be good company to others who may have prayed the same prayer tonight.

Now:  Good night, friends.  We're in this together.

I love Nora's birthday.

Small things and incomplete sentences:

1)  A morning spent with Nora and her 9 preschool friends practicing for the Christmas program, celebrating her birthday, and helping with a field trip to the Community Center.  "I love you" scratched into the star of a stranger, handed to a child, "You can have this."  Mr. Brown Can Moo and a chorus of hearts singing with abandon:  "Gloooooooooooooooria."  White cupcakes with chocolate chips pushed into the fluffy white frosting.  So good.  My first time baking something for Nora's class.  An honor.

2)  Mrs. B and Miss S driving all over Utica's back roads as I followed them to the school.  (It was only 3 blocks back.  Apparently they were trying to make fun of the fact that I still wanted to follow them just in case I got lost with 4 small children singing "Jingle Bells" at the top of their lungs while throwing Teddy Grahams at the back of my head.  It seemed legitimate to me.)  Nora's teachers were in hysterics when we pulled into the school parking lot, both of them bent over laughing in the front seats of the minivan.  "What is this?  The Dukes of Hazard preschool?" I asked them as we unbuckled everyone from their booster seats.  I love Nora's school and the people there.

3)  Walking back from the Chapel with Nora's small, warm hand in mine.  She reaches my hand up to her chest, palm down and tells me that she has put her heart there for me to have and "I love you, Mommy."  I think most moms can attest to the fact that kids often choose the strangest times to tell you they love you.  The first time Nora told me she loved me was in the cracker aisle in Walmart.  I stopped, pulled her out of her seat in the cart and just held her right there in tears.

4)  Reaching into the freezer for apples for the birthday dessert, I notice that I've written, "(How do you like) Them Apples?" on the baggie, obviously the same person who wrote, "Wouldn't you like to be a pepper, too?" on all the baggies of green peppers lives in me, and I am grateful for her small gifts of humor meant only for me, knowing I would need a little extra something in the future.

5)  Nora says to me, "Do you know, Mommy, I adore God."  I find her one morning bent in prayer.  She looks up:  I was praying because I don't really feel like going to school today.  And then I know why "I love you" happens at the most random moments.  Because He is everywhere.

Happy Birthday, Nora.  God be with you and protect you.  I love you.

The Waterline (Possibly Maybe)

Reflections of the final day of classes, the day before Nora's birthday, the day I felt so far away from being inside my life because it was happening so hard.

And I needed a quieter music, one that would unwind the knot that's been in my left shoulder.  Relax.  Relax.

(Try harder to.)  Relax.

And I am reminded that I tiptoe on the edge of wanting to be perfect, failing, suffering the lost footing miserably.  Get over yourself, Smith.

Christ lives in your heart.  This alone is perfect.

More growing pains.  How to be a haven, a house for the Son?  It seems so hard sometimes because of who I am and how much I rely on my head rather than the Spirit.  Lean not on your own understanding, stubborn child.

I need Spirit.  Less speaking.  A presence that holds me still when I think I should be running.  A hand that stills and breathes and summons.  A note sustained.

At the end of the semester, saying goodbye to these good people, all of whom I'll miss.  The time we spent working through all of it:  the writing, the giving, the sharing, the reading.  Leaving each classroom for the last time, I turn around and touch my lips with my fingers, a silent "thank you" for the space He created for us.  And then, it's time to move on.

He will continue to find new ways for my life to be made and lost, this rolling over, the drowning and the recovery.  That hand extended as the lips slip below the waterline.  Speaking silently, a kiss for the water.

I apologize.  I think I'm heavy tonight with change.  So be it.  Help me understand, Lord.

When I miss my sisters, I write about them.

I'm the oldest of three.  We were a wild bunch, wrestled a lot.  We'd push all the furniture to the outside wall of the living room and throw down WWF style, leaping off couches and inventing new ways to incorporate the carpet burn into our defensive strategy.  Eventually, we had to make it a rule that we stay on our knees the whole time and absolutely no one was allowed to get a running start from the top of the staircase, jumping directly into the ring, which was made up of all the couch cushions.  You can do quite a lot of damage from the standing position especially if you've had over 4 gallons of grape kool-aid to drink that day, which we usually had as evidenced from the perpetual purple mustaches in all our childhood photos.  There's nothing like three sugar-addled, furniture rearranging, maniacs shouting, "Go for the eye!  Go for the eye!" to make your parents question whether or not they would have actually preferred boys.

Truth is we watched a lot of The Incredible Hulk back then.  Julie spent a good 2 or 3 years telling people not to make her mad because "you wouldn't like me when I'm mad."  And it was true.  Everyone in the family including aunts and uncles felt Julie's wrath at one point or another.  Though she never turned green or ripped off her shirt or anything, she did go for the shins and hard.  After she'd given you her verbal warning and it was clearly not taken seriously (and woe to those who actually laughed!), she'd just pull that little Osh-Kosh B'Gosh shoe of hers back like she'd just slung a bow and arrow and--swack!  Shin splint.  What else can you do when you're only 3' 6"?  (Don't answer that.)

Sometimes when I look into Nora's face, I see my sisters there and I'm suddenly 6 or 7 years old again.  Having children does so many miraculous things to your heart and your memory.  Watching Nora practice her Viking sword fighting techniques with an empty paper towel tube, I'm suddenly back in the ring with Julie and Rasa.

I wonder if they'd be willing to go just one round when I see them this Christmas.  I'll bring some kool-aid just in case.