But I'm Not Finished Yet

Unless a seed falls into the ground and dies, it cannot bear fruit or bless others' lives

I wonder at the lesson:  a cathedral will often take hundreds of years to build--longer to complete than a lifetime.  And I wonder at the workers lifting stone and paint and glass who dipped their hands momentarily into that work knowing they would not live long enough to see what their work had accomplished.  I put my finger on the lie that says unless we see a thing in its fullness, it is not worth making.  And I step away from that kind of dying that makes us quiet and depressed, stripped of our gifts and the blessing of our work, that which God placed before us and the tools He planted within us to lend a hand. 

I think our lives are a little like these cathedrals and we are like these cathedral builders, the ones who will not see all of our work completed.  But then, if we are doing God's work, would it not make sense that our work would extend beyond the finite, human years we count?

If we can't see a thing finished, how can it be perfect?

My great grandmother baked a cake she didn't know would be served at her own wake.  And I wonder at the family that came before me and tasted the sweetness of her work after she had gone.  And I have seen that same sweetness in my grandma and in my mom.  At times with Nora, I see it shining through me and into her heart.

There have been some endings lately:  a good friend and colleague who will be leaving her work at Concordia after 24 years of building and serving, the news of my ex-husband's engagement, my grandma's diagnosis of breast cancer.  And I find myself asking God if the work in each of these situations is complete, and I wonder at the tears and what seeds they could be watering right now as I type this. 

Sometimes change seems unbearable, so difficult to put into place within the plans we all draw, the designs of our cathedrals.  Was the thing being made in each of these circumstances complete?  When I look back at my marriage, hold it in my hands from start to finish, is that a finished thing?  Can I walk away without grieving for how I wasn't able to love strong enough or hold on, without grieving mostly for Nora who will live with my choices as much as I have had to live with my choices?  Can I look beyond that grief and see, perhaps, a seed planted in his life, one that will grow into something stronger, healthier because of what we have learned?

Can we, as teachers, walk away without knowing without a doubt that, as Oscar Romero writes, "We lay foundations that will need further development.  We provide yeast that affects far beyond our capabilities.  We cannot do everything and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that...We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the Master Builder and the worker.  We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.  We are prophets of a future that is not our own."

When I saw Grandma over break, we didn't say good bye, Aunt Dottie reminding us as we three stood holding hands, "Just remember, girls, this isn't good bye."  And there was a lightness in my Grandma's face, a joy, a sense of completion even as she had to leave before seeing all the fruits of her love and of her labor.

And I see it is not a matter of letting go at all, but of seeing the seed in each of these circumstances, the one that will bloom into something God's hand is upon as long as I am willing to water what has been planted with these tears willingly. 

For more lost teeth and a friend's ultrasound on the big screen projector in her classroom
and ladies playing small guitars this Saturday and health and movement and a new hairdo and a necklace
I'd never choose for myself but I did it anyway and orange and getting up to coffee already brewed by
the cyborg coffee machine and truck shopping and seedlings growing and papers to grade at 5AM and knowing where to put the baggage and letting go and God's hand in all of this.

A Fragment of a Poem for My Mom Who is a Potter

This is a segment of an Alice Walker poem called "These Days"

These days I think of the potter,
who makes the most exquisite goblets
--and plates and casseroles.
Her warm hands steady on the cool
and lively clay,
her body attentive and sure, bending over the wheel.
I could watch her work for hours--
but there is never time.  On one visit I see the bags
of clay.  The next visit, I see pale and dusty molds,
odd pieces of hardening handles and lids.  On another,
I see a stacked kiln.  On another, magical objects of use
splashed with blue, streaked with black and red.
She sits quietly beside her creations
at countless fairs
watching without nostalgia
their journeys into the world.
She makes me consider how long
people have been making things.  How wise
and thoughtful people are.

Magnify that Which is Good

Pulling out five bags of random, frozen things, putting them in a crock pot, adding some salt and putting it in the fridge for tomorrow's supper.

Planting all the herb seedlings.

A little bird trusting us enough to stand on a stick we're holding.

A little girl who asks me to tell her something else about God, something else about what I did when I was a girl, so I tell her:

-I made my sisters smear a peach on their faces to be in my club
-I roamed the "side hill" all summer long, finding broken glass and metal left behind by the first settlers and trails left by the horses
-I played the flute in band
-I would spend whole days reading in bed

Kneeling at the screen door at night while the warm breath God sends across this land lifts your hair and lifts your life into something deeply placed and real and speaking without words.

Never the Same Today

1.  A morning spent singing with my Star Belle gals at the local coffee shop.  Kids running wild (and they hadn't even had any coffee) and that wild is inspiring, and I watch my bandmates negotiate between lyrics and warnings about hot chocolate being hot and see their tiny mouths moving along with the songs and know these mamas play in the kitchen while their children are playing, too, and this is a good life with so much singing and cooking and wild loving of these wild, wild creatures.

2.  And speaking of wild creatures, we drove to Grand Island again today and brought home a girl this time:  Tweety Sweety.  She sings.  Nora isn't ready to train her yet, her eyes brimming when she talks of too much love.  And, what do you know?  I just "happened" to check out a book from the library about a hamster who wants to tell her parents how much she loves them, but she's afraid of the power of those words, so she stuffs them down all day long until she becomes sulky and angry.  And finally she shouts, "I LOVE YOU!" and the world stops, so it can be filled back up again with the words that can't be caged.  Nora and I talk for almost two hours about love and God and why loving hurts sometimes, of how everything that passes into our lives was hand-picked for us by God, a gift, even the ones that can only stay a few days.

3.  And then the conversation turns to creation and evolution, and I begin to explain the different takes on the situation.  "Some people believe we were created 'as is' by God and others believe that God created life forms that can and have evolved over time."  She thinks for a minute.  "Well, a chicken starts out as an egg and then turns into a tiny chick and then grows into a chicken, so I think things evolve over time."  And I think we are always changing, too.  From what I can tell from the world God created, everything was made to grow and change, multiply and flower.   And I don't know the how of it at all.  I can only wonder and watch and give thanks for the things I love but don't understand.

4.  "Will you make me laugh some more, Mom?"  When her eyes had filled and she talked of her heart rising inside her, how it was too big, I told her about how I went to the hospital with a heart I could carry in a small purse, and when I left with her in my arms, they had to give me a wagon to carry my heart out because it had grown so much the first time I saw her.  "Do you still have the wagon?"  We giggle at the thought of it.  I tell her about hearts, about the kind that shrink down to something so small, you only need a thimble to carry it with you.  And others have hearts that have grown to such sizes, they need wagons.  "Our hearts are like steering wheels, Nora.  You need to be able to hear what God is telling you there.  Don't be afraid of big feelings.  That's how God made you, and He will whisper to you there."

A Lot of Life Happened Today

We woke to find our new friend Feathers lying on the bottom of his cage.  Nora cried and I held her while we sat on the edge of the bed.   Then we put light jackets on over our pajamas, our boots on our bare feet, and we grabbed shovels, mine from the garage and Nora's from the sandbox.  We buried Feathers in the pine trees and said a prayer thanking him for choosing to spend his last few days on earth with us.  When we came inside, Nora painted a picture of him and told me her favorite memories about him--that he was a good bird and landed straight on the perch.  

Nora is doing okay now, but it was a little rough, as you can imagine.  We're going to drive back to Earl May's tomorrow and adopt one of his siblings.   Spending a couple of days with this little fellow convinced both of us that there is a lot of room in our hearts for a bird.

Pretty Boy in the House

1.  Our wild little bird "flew" through the first three steps of training today and will sit on Nora's finger.  He poofs out his feathers as a sign of contentment.  We had to take a short bath time break mid afternoon, so Nora could take a breather.  She has been brought to tears, to laughter, to anger, to frustration, to elation in the course of the day's "work."  She fell asleep almost instantly with a few tears, saying she just loves him too much.  Welcome to parenthood, Nora.  Or should I say parrothood?  Forgive me. 

2.  My membership in the minivan mom club has almost expired.  Gone are the days of hauling hay bales in the backseat, of the driver's window not rolling down, of expecting 8 to 12 kids someday all with sippy cups and personal DVD players.  We need a truck.  Stay tuned.

3.  This week off has been so good, and the weather has accelerated my sense of wellness with the world, too.  The seedlings are sturdy.  The blackberry bush is pruned.  So are the roses, and the pussy willow is in bloom now.  The front and back doors stay open all day, and the house still smells of the breeze.

4.  It's time to eat everything in the deep freeze before the next growing season starts again.  I see lots of sweet corn in my future.  There's enough food left from canning and freezing to last another 3 months.  I should start some lettuce outside now, too.

5.  This peace I've been feeling since the light shifted and the wind turned warm and the seeds started sprouting fills my heart.  And having a bird in the house is such a great excuse to sing to him constantly.  So I fill up the slow cooker with everything God gave us from the earth last year and hum a song to our pretty boy.