Window Seat

I watch my daughter playing in our backyard after my morning walk/run. She runs through the grass, with her drunken toddler’s gait, and the grasshoppers are going haywire trying to get away from her citronella scented legs and stomping feet. They’re parting before her like the waves parted for Moses, and I’m sure they are trembling. She stops, squats, and immediately plunges both hands into a pile of dirt. And since she is still at the age where everything interestingly textured, or new and unfamiliar, goes straight into her mouth, she begins to shovel the dirt through her lips like it’s a new flavor of ice cream (which she doesn’t know about yet, but that’s beside the point). I can’t help thinking, “she’s just about got it right.”

And what do I mean by that? I think that we are so disconnected from where our food comes from, disconnected from the earth in general, that it might be a good idea to plunge our fingers into some dirt every once in awhile (although I’d understand if you didn’t want to taste it like a one-year-old would).

This morning, a friend of mind mentioned that she’d been walking through her mother-in-law’s garden, occasionally pulling back leaves to see what kind of fruit the plant had produced. “The peppers looked weird there. They’re supposed to be on the shelf at the grocery store,” she said wryly. I remember having the exact same feeling when I walked through a vegetable garden for the first time and really looked. It’s a beautiful and startling revelation to have–seeds go in the ground, they grow into a plant, the plant produces fruit, and I can eat that fruit for nourishment, for life. Our forefathers, heck our grandfathers, would’ve been incredulous at our lack of knowledge regarding the very thing that is first on our heirarchy of needs (at least, according to Maslow).  As silly as it sounds to see a bell pepper “out of place” in a garden, we would do well by our bodies and souls to have more of those moments, moments where we recognize our own silliness and can watch the mystical and tangible collide.

I didn’t even get to talking about what I really wanted to, but I will talk more about supporting your local farmers in posts to come. For now, sleep beckons as it so often does this time of night.

Okay, so I have no idea if I should even bother picking this back up again, but, I’m going to try.  No lengthy posts for now however, I’ve got to get my sea legs again.

So for starters:

Watched Bella last night, and it was one of the most beautiful films I’ve seen in a long time.

Been reading Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and I think it’s changing my life.  If you are even remotely interested in sustainable agriculture, you should read this!

Realizing that in losing the love for worship that I had in my youth (ha! I say that as if I’m an old lady!), I’ve been steadily repressing parts of my spirit.

I have a one year old!  Oh. My. Goodness.

You can only properly enjoy summer time when you are with a child.

Hurray for Obama for securing the nomination!

I have to check…did Tiger win the Open?

I guess so.

(Normally, I don’t keep up with golf!  But I have friends who are into it…and I got caught up in the drama.)

Sometimes I think that the church (the way we practice it–a pastor-less community under the headship of Christ) is ideologically much like communism.  On paper it looks good, but once you put it into practice, craziness is bound to ensue.

I don’t mean to sound negative about the way we’ve chosen to live–in the church, as the church–except that I do.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my brothers and sisters in Christ, and I love that we are trying to walk this road together.  I only wonder if we’ll work out, if we are “working it out,” with much the same detachment I might look on a some sociological experiment.

Well, I say that I am detached, but that’s not true.  I am very a-ttached.  Just doing some wondering is all…

I just ran across this verse today:

No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from my father I have made known to you (John 15:15).

And it made my heart skip a beat.  Jesus calls us friends.  And not only that, everything he’s heard from his father he’s made known to us.  Just think about that for a second.  That’s freaking amazing.  There are no secrets meant for just Jesus and his father.  He’s let us in on their relationship.  He’s revealed mysteries, depths, heights, shadows…Lord, give us eyes to see.

I just have to love a guy like that.  He’s so…so…freaking amazing!  I don’t have to be a servant.  I get to be a friend.  Which is ironic, because what do friends do?  Serve each other in love.  I guess the difference is we’re on equal standing, and he has no need to command me to do anything, since what I do, I will do out of love.

Equality.  The word has been worth fighting for, for some in my greater family of African-American brothers and sisters, worth dying for.  I am honored and humbled that I have a Lord, nay, a friend who could be a master, but chooses otherwise.

I sometimes wonder how it’s possible he can be as wonderful as he is.

Yesterday was Mike and I’s 2nd anniversary.  While talking about this fact with him, I happened to say (quite innocently I might add!), “Goodness it feels like a lot longer than that!”  I only meant that it felt as if I’d been connected with him and sharing life for much longer than a mere 2 years.  Ha!  I laugh in the face of the “cotton” anniversary.  We’re already gold, baby.  Already gold.

On my wedding day, I didn’t know what it would mean to love him more now than I did then, but it’s true.  If loving more means having a greater appreciation for, a greater depth of cherish-ment (yes, I just made that word up), and a better understanding of, then it’s definitely true.  I love him more now than then.  I can’t say that arriving here, in this place of greater love, was an easy road.  In fact, it was probably mostly a hard road.  But isn’t it worth the sore and calloused feet?  How else would you be able to deeply appreciate something like…

An evening of relaxation, complete with a couple’s massage at this day spa, followed by a cozy candlelit dinner in our bathrobes and slippers, and dessert.  I can’t tell you how needed and wonderful it was to slow down and take a breath, together.  We’ve been so busy with different things–Jubilee, work, school, church life–we’ve had little time to really relax, and do it together.

So if anything, this is a call to slow down, a call for appreciation.  A call for cherish-ment.

And on that note, here are a few things I am grateful for and cherish about my husband:

He is a good Daddy.  Jubilee lights up when she sees him

He fills my water glass in the middle of the night when I’m up with our daughter

He makes me laugh and roll my eyes every day

He makes sure I take care of myself

He practices a generous orthodoxy (hahaha)

Love you dear!

In 2007…

I mourned the loss of innocence in the world and in myself.
But I rejoiced when it was born anew in so many ways.

I fell in love.

Community took on even more significance.
My sisters and brothers in Raleigh grew more precious.

I faced some fears.

Mortality reminded me of its grip on me and the lives of my loved ones.
The great cloud of witnesses surrounded, and witnessed (which freaked me out).

I gave birth.

I cried more than I wanted to.
But nothing made me happier than the laughter of my child.

I missed family.

I gained new friends in unexpected places.
And even met up with some old ones.

Sleep became elusive.

Read a few good books, saw some good movies.
But mostly, any down time was spent wanting to sleep.

I learned to appreciate my humanity even more.

And my spiritual life grew out of the mundane.
Out of the ordinary, every-day occurrences of life on this earth.

Changed many, many diapers.

I cooked, and it became a creative process and an outlet.
My body was made food for someone.

I thought a lot about hunger.

And Jesus kept me.
In the light, dark, and the murky in-between,
he kept me.

Goodbye old year, I am glad for the things you taught me.

So here’s Jubie meeting her first pastor. “Pastor the Conquistador” that is. She loved that dog! Thanks goes to Jenny for introducing them. I think it was love at first lick.

I have never loved anyone else the way I love her. It amazes me, what God gives–this good, challenging, growing thing of love. When Jesus said that we must become like little children to enter the kingdom of heaven, I don’t think he meant, “be more innocent or more pure…” Be more, be more, be more…this is what we are constantly telling ourselves and yet, I don’t know that he ever asks us to be more anything when he is more for us in us.

I think he was asking us to simply let him love us. Let him love unreservedly and extravagantly, even when we don’t deserve it, don’t feel as though we measure up. It’s a hard thing for adults to let themselves be loved and to admit to needing it, but children–they have no qualms about expressing their need for love whenever and wherever it suits them. Whether it’s being held, changed, fed, or played with, Jubilee tells me in her own baby way what she needs, and my response is always the same: I am here for you.

God is just like that, overwhelming more so! We just don’t always accept it. But–He Is. And just as Jubilee will get older and my expressions of love for her change in response to her growth and maturity, God takes me deeper into his love as I age in him. I suppose this is what relationship with him is all about.

I was feeling a bit down in the dumps before I started this post.
It’s been one of those “I could tear my hair out weep a thousand tears eat a pint of ben-and-jerry’s” days, if you know what I mean. And I won’t say that magically everything is better now, but I definitely feel my spirit lifted a bit when I think about the riches of his graceful love. It’s like digging your fingers into dark, loamy, soil to plant a seed. That seed may have fallen into its tomb of dirt, but it is there, surrounded by darkness, that it is given the nutrients it needs to break forth, sprout, and grow.

And because I love this song…because this is a feel good post…
All You Need is Love! Sing it with me now…

Not much time to write a decent post, but here are some pictures taken with me and Jubilee at our “play” group…

I love this last one with the three girls together–it’s hilarious to try and get them to all look at the same thing. Not happening.

And here’s one of just Jubes.

Okay, so I seriously think I have bragging rights. I mean, she’s just the cutest baby ever, right?

I’ve just come from the kitchen where I was slicing potatoes (that will eventually be mashed) for dinner. I’ve been mulling over recipe ideas and food all day, from everything to wondering if I can master bernaise and hollandaise sauce, to an autumn butternut squash dish, to giant caramel and chocolate chip cookies I want to bake and send my little sister who’s now in college. The thought finally hit me today–I really enjoy cooking. I like to get my fingers gooey from mashing ripe bananas for banana bread, I like it when I find a streak of flour across my cheek, and I almost immediately begin drooling from the aroma of garlic and onion being sauteed in olive oil. I’m no gourmet chef, but there is such pleasure and beauty to be found in the simple act of creating sustenance that can be delighted in from raw materials, which in some form or fashion have come from the earth. There is something truly spiritual about it.

Being home most of the day with the kiddo and husband (who works from home) means that I spend a lot of time in the kitchen. So I’m very grateful for the opportunity to participate in something like prayer as I “slave all day” over the stove! I doubt Jesus spent much time in the kitchen during his time on earth. But perhaps he felt the same way when he bent over wood, to cut and sand and shape it into a thing of beauty.

Now, he’s declared himself to be food and drink–taste and see that he is good. What a wonderful image. What a frightening image. Take me in, he says. Ingest me. Digest me. Let me become a part of you, fuel you, keep you alive.

Hunger for me, and I will satisfy. I am the hunger. I am the food. I am all. I am.

I can’t pretend to fully understand this, but I know that it is truth. So I suppose I am grateful for hunger as well since it leads us to him. Gives us a picture of the state of our spirits.

But then I think about hunger in the natural realm, and should I be grateful for that? Sure, I can say that I am grateful for hunger when I know that I have a way to satisfy that hunger right behind my refrigerator door, or across the street at the grocery store, or down the way at Chick-fil-A. But what about those who are truly hungry, with no foreseeable way to fulfill their need?

Feed my sheep, he says. It’s easy to feed my family. It’s also easy to feed my friends. It’s a joy to sit around the dinner table with a good glass of wine, maybe some herb-roasted chicken and asparagus, and fresh bread, and be surrounded in the comfort of those I know and love. There is great good in that. But there is also good to be found in having the stranger, the “other” (i.e. a truly hungry person) sitting across from me at the table. I’d like to take steps to being able to do that. Whether that means eventually opening a food pantry alongside Mike like Sara Miles does (which she talks about in her book Take This Bread) or just getting up the guts to invite someone I’m less than comfortable with in for a meal, I know that I want to share this joy I have for cooking with whomever I can.

Ha. I almost wrote “the joy of cooking.” (No, I do not own that cookbook.)

And on that note, I think I should get to bed. I have a little one who will probably be expressing her hunger at a less than optimal hour of night. Now I’ll have that Checkers commercial ringing through me head…

You gotta eat!

a recent scribblin’ of mine:

Relief

Solitude is my lover
is my lord climbing
curves of a mountain
escape when the need
was too great
is my god who six
days into creation
finished his act of love’s
making and heaving
a satisfied sigh sunk
into the best kind
of drowning.