Sugar and Spice

Today is quarantine day something. We are past the one-month mark. I need not mention life is strange; though, we are fortunate for good health and good weather. We are fortunate for the ability to work from home and school from home. We made a fun-ish Spring Break with backyard camping and indoor baking and bird-watching at the beach. We have all learned that we really yearn for fresh air and to touch nature every day and to sweat and work to physical exhaustion when possible. It is almost beginning to sound trite to discuss the “good” to be found in all of this. First, I fear it sounds like I am discounting the gravity of the pandemic. Second, I think many are mentioning it for the “likes” and will quickly return to the breakneck life waiting just beyond our masks. I may be one of those people. I do not have anything new to add to the discussion. For the most part, I don’t even want to have discussions anymore. But I did want to write, for myself now and to look back on late...

Posting an old one I found in Drafts... School’s winding down and I think I may be more excited than the girls. It’s not that I do not love the monotonous routine of packing snacks and hard-lined bed times, but I need a break. I need to sleep into the 6-o’clock hour. I need to go for a run in the morning before it’s 100 degrees. I need to not have to ask 100 questions about whether homework’s done, clothes laid out, lunches chosen, etc. etc. I need a break. But I have to limit my complaints today because today, in itself, was a sort of break. I took the day off to chaperone field day and hang out with the girls after noon dismissal. I did all their chauffeuring myself today, which usually takes place while I’m at work. After allergy shots, orthodontist, gymnastics, and dance, I’m thoroughly beat (not to mention grateful for those in my life who help me raise these girls - it truly does take a village). However, in the midst of our running today we found ourselves with a few minut...

I started this blog on Tuesday but ran out of time to finish it (or so I thought). Seems like the ending was not written yet and so I had to wait. Over the weekend, the girls found a butterfly (moth?) with a wounded wing. They came peeling into the kitchen looking for plastic ware they could poke holes in for a habitat. They gently placed the broken butterfly in the dish, gave it a flower (to eat?) and a paper towel soaked in water (to drink). I’m not sure about the flag, but knowing them I’m sure it was for add some pizazz. Little sister checked on her patient faithfully each day and even wrote notes to the neighbor-girl and put them in her mailbox with updates (“are [sic] butterfly is doing good;” “gave her some water to drink”).  On Tuesday morning, as I was leaving for work I did a check for myself and came to realization that our patient had died. I took the photo you see and immediately started having a deep, internal philosophical debate about whether to tos...

I am 17-days away from doing one of the craziest, grab-life-by-the-horns, may-be-having-a-midlife-crisis, I'll be 40 in two and a half months things I've ever done. I'm traveling all the way to the Southern California desert by myself to meet 7 other women whom I have never met and with whom I will be sharing a tent for two-nights while we take turns running through the day and night through the trails in the Los Coyotes Reservation. What was I thinking? (Reference back to the upcoming anniversary of my birth 4-decades ago). I'm terrified. My training has not been what I wanted. I've seriously considered dropping out. There is a very nice alternate who I am sure would be happy to take my place. I've got a list of reasons a mile long why I should NOT go and do this thing. The list does not even include the half-joking reasons some of my friends have offered (this second list includes, among other things, coyotes, mountain lions, and human trafficking rings ...

Mother's Day 2019 was perfectly boring. It was an overcast, eat too much after church, take a nap, and go to the library kind of afternoon and I could not have asked for anything more. Mother's Day always brings with it bittersweet memories of the two little loves that allow me to celebrate this occasion. As kids do, they are getting big. I did not get one Mother's Day gift that had a hand print on it. It was a tinge sad. Like Mother's Day, the nearing end of school also makes me wax nostalgic. How could they be so old? Am I doing all the things to make them healthy, successful and most of all happy? I have been reading and thinking a lot about Grace lately. In the context of mothering, I need a lot of it; yet, until lately I'm not sure I had a real understanding of it (or as much of an understanding as one can have of something like Grace). Anyone who really knows me knows that I am a doer, a pleaser, an achiever, and a ball of anxious worry hidden behind...

The last parade had rolled. Bleary eyed we sat in the pew waiting for ashes and forgiveness. She sat next to me coloring in her own little world; a world where sin is sneaking a cookie before dinner. We listen to the Word: “Be not like the hypocrites…” thoughts of dinner and laundry interrupting the well worn verses. She whispers loudly in the way that only a child can “who are the hypocrites?” I shush her; in the way that only a mother can. She whispers even louder urgently even, “BUT WHO ARE THE HYPOCRITES” She is not just listening like the rest of us. She is hearing The Word of God. She needs to know who they are, so she can be sure she is not like them, Tears flood my eyes. My throat closes,  chest tight. I kiss the top of her head, but I cannot answer. I cannot even whisper it softly, because the answer is I am them, baby. All of us are. But not you, Not yet. Be not like them, my love. Keep listen...

"Repentance breaks our hearts a little." I'm not sure whether it is an exact quote or just a very close paraphrase from the sermon I heard Sunday. That sermon - that church - that moment was one of those times I knew I was right where I was supposed to be and that hearing someone saying something God needed me to hear. Repentance is not for those who fancy themselves a mighty fortress. Repentance is also not for the weak - which is what I have been despite my best efforts otherwise. Repentance is for the brave and faithful. Because repentance will break us - it has to break us - because only when we break does Christ have a way to enter. And that is what Advent is about - Christ entering our lives. He has already entered once, thousands of years ago, on Christmas morning. He IS risen - meaning He wants to enter our lives each and every day and just awaits the opening we prepare. And He is going to come again to call all of his creation back to Him. This is the thril...