As dear as your own

Okra blossom.  senk 2013

I love okra!  It's fun to pick off thin, towering stalks.  Sliced, oiled, salted, and roasted, buttery and browned okra rounds vanish more quickly in my home than Venetian honey cookies - which is saying something! And the blossoms lull your second glance when you pass through the garden.

Now, okra stalks are browned and withered. Joey and Ezra helped me gather dried pods we save for seeds in hopes of okra next year. And the only vibrant green veggie still soaking up sun and rain vines on fence trellises: sugar snap peas. I love sugar snap peas!

Isn't the variety of life wonderful, friend? Each season brings savory delights for all the senses (of course, I'm favoring taste buds in this post). Here, in the Shenandoah Valley, strawberries and black raspberries just seem to taste better when I pluck them off plants in Spring; apples and pumpkins spice up Autumn for me. As a child, I wasn't as adventurous to try unknown foods. Now, I delight to sample the great wealth God has stored in a vast array of foods.  

Are you adventurous in the realm of the culinary, too? Do you delight in the variety God puts in the other senses, too? Or do stereotypes and biases bound your way and keep you on one side? Take a moment, friend, to consider a vegetable or fruit you've never tried before and learn to appreciate it for what it is. Maybe you'll find that applicable to the people you meet today, too, as well as the valued opinions others hold as dear as your own.

Driving along

Driving along Valley Pike - a thoroughfare over the years for Iroquois, German immigrants, and now a menagerie of Americans wanting to avoid Interstate 81 while still getting to their destination as quickly as possible - I met two fascinating creatures. One is rare to see in comparison with the other, which plagues roads daily...

Evening light angled into the Shenandoah Valley, spilled into the meandering North Fork, and hiked up Massanutten Mountain. Even in that waning light, I could savor autumn's craft as it lured the true color from tree leaves on either side of the road. As the speed limit dropped, I began slowing - to the chagrin of the car behind me. The rearview mirror revealed the tailgater, her quick smear of lipstick as she, too, glanced away from the wheel. Slowing down, I could still feel an imagined push from her direction, as if she were trying to use The Force to change the speed of my car. Or was I trying to use The Force to push her away from my car?

The passing lane was ending. With caterwauling wheel, her car catapulted past mine just moments before a large black bear perambulated across the route right in front of me. The timing was impeccable! If I had not slowed down, I would not have been able to stop with a tailgater behind me.

Have you ever been in that situation, friend? People are in such a hurry today - myself included. Instead of slowing down and enjoying the journey, we're focused on the destinations in our lives: checking off our to-do list, filling our calendars with too many activities, taking on one more responsibility. It is nearly impossible to rest and when we do, it's not the rest our bodies need. Instead of heeding limits, we push ourselves up to them and beyond. 

In an Anthropocene society, limits are meant to be breeched. A speed limit, for us, is not the maximum, but the minimum we should go. But, is this sort of thinking really helpful to ourselves and to others? What if we stopped skewing our perspectives of the speed limit and saw it not as a frustrating limit on what we can do, but rather as a reminder to travel carefully and take time to savor the journey as much as the destination? May God encourage you to slow down and savor the blessings in your life today, too.

To Sleep or Not to Sleep?

The stars are twinkling - reminding me of the cavernous room in which I once bathed in a Turkish bath.  Myriad stars were cut in the domed ceiling and I felt catapulted - by the steam, by the apply-scent, by the days of a foreign illness - into an empyreal realm. Some of the fellow travelers in the room began singing, which - instead of bouncing awkwardly off the bare walls - somehow projected into an almost holy chant. I imagined the centuries of bathers that came to this room and felt as if I was soaking up a bit of that history. It was surprisingly soothing.

And so, too, the stars and the wrap of night. But, I still cannot sleep. With the verge of ten weeks until baby's arrival, I'm finding myself more and more awake when the crickets crone and an occasional dog barks, when the cold creeps in and blackness presses on the windows. Usually my insomnia is self-inflicted. In college, I would just fall into bed around 3 or 3:30 a.m, having spent hours in the ceramics workshop savoring the glistening spin of the wheel or the smooth slice of tools as I carved a clay creation. At a summer archaeological field school, I would dance wildly across the grassy expanse near the excavation - listening to music through a headset and imagining the life lived in a Woodland or Mississippian Native American settlement, where waddle and daub abounded - all in careful cover of night.

It was only 5 years ago, really, that the problem of sleeping became an issue. It was self-inflicted, but not really. My newborn's sustenance demanded it. Every mother that has pumped breastmilk knows the best time to gather milk is after a good sleep - so, 2 a.m. and 3 a.m, every night for 12 months, I dutifully dragged myself out of bed to harvest milk. It was hellacious. But, it plumped up my poor-nurser and made him thrive. I still remember waking up in 2009 from a full night's rest in a friend's New York apartment and crying because I had slept through the night. Tears of joy; tears of pain.

Ezra was a gourmand. I still had to awaken at night to feed him, but only for a while. He enjoyed night-time sleeping as much as he enjoyed the creamiest part of milk, so that discombobulating haze that often accompanies periods without sleep only lasted a few months - not a year. Now, my body prepares itself for next year's encroaching transition.

Do you ever experience that question, friend: "To sleep or not to sleep?" Perhaps pressing issues tap at your mental synapses or an anxiety or illness draws you from a fitful slumber? Perhaps someone for whom you are caring requires nightly checks or a beloved pet necessitates a nightly parade? Perhaps creativity bemuses and ensnares you?

You're not alone. Consider the Liturgy of the Hours. Consider the Earth's slow sip of sun each day. Somewhere in the world, the wave of prayer is covering us. So, take a moment and help that wave to sparkle, even if it's in starlight. You may find yourself wrapped in a soothing sleep sooner than you know - one cast by a loving God.

A Good Idea

My three-year-old jabbers constantly. He has so many questions, I can hardly keep up with them all. For a mommy who relishes in quiescence, this can often be a bit discombobulating. So, this past week, when the domino-effect hit our house in terms of a gastrointestinal bug, I felt something missing with a calm and quiet Ezra.

Poor Joey began the array of ickiness on Monday, late. Two days later, I was ready for the routine: holding a bowl while Ezra was vomiting into its silvery depths, even when mostly dry-heaves humped his back; delicately wiping the drips of diarrhea from his reddening, round bottom; smoothing golden hair from his face while he, utterly exhausted from exertion, slowly slipped into sleep. 

I was not surprised when merely a few hours later, I awoke in the middle of the night with the same illness. And it was horrid! I was thankful for a husband who could care for the boys while I tended to my own illness. As I knelt over the toilet, I remembered a mommy that once comforted me as I had comforted my boys just days and hours before. When I was a child, my mother's tender caresses, soothing songs, and confident care were the best and most reassuring part of the healing process.

As Ezra's health returns, his questions do, as well. During lunch recently, he asked - among the myriad influx of random questions - "Are you a good idea, Mommy?"

His comment made me pause. On the one hand, I thought, Am I a good idea? From my perspective there are more things I have done wrong in this life than right. My failures pile up around me and I feel incapable of pushing them back, of mending areas long-ago broken, of finding the path I am supposed to be taking. Do you feel the same, friend? Do you feel buried by the weight of doing things better?

In a capitalistic society, it's not always easy to do good while also trying to just survive. Our own family has so many challenges, it makes me shudder. So, am I a good idea? Am I doing what God would want me to do? I definitely don't have the answer. I try to use what God gave me to help others - but, I'm not always sure I do it well or enough.

These are questions we have to ask ourselves - as shocking as they might be to hear. Are you a good idea, friend? Are you balancing the areas of your life? Our time on Earth is short. How can you make more of a difference in a world that values your marketable worth over a more intrinsic value?

Twining Tendrils

senk 2013

During transitional Autumn, I marvel at the tendrils that roving gourd plants shoot out into the garden. Among dry and yellowed corn stalks, the leafy profusion of yams, and caged tomatoes still trying to yield tasty fruits, those green spirals invade. In the case of a wigwam my sons and I wove into the dying corn, those tendrils conquer, as half the little house has collapsed from the pressure and pull of it all. In the case of our walking paths, those tendrils coerce, as we now find little swaths of ground to use as stepping stones throughout the garden. Even in our yard, where those vines ripen into butternuts or birdhouses or pumpkins, the lawnmower tracks a trail around the encumbrance.

I find people treat relationships the same way - do you, friend? We avoid, we overlook, we ignore what we don't understand, don't want to know, or cannot change. Often our words and body language are used to conquer another, coerce a variant opinion, or shun someone until we know what to say (which often never comes). We malign. We belittle. We deride.

What if we were more empathetic? In our culture, we're taught to suppress emotion and pain, to "suck it up" or "let it roll off your back." But, when we do this, we ignore an essential part of what it means to be human. We have emotion and pain for a reason, and when we use them to communicate in ways that heal, uplift, and encourage - we reveal the beauty of communication, of reaching out to the other sojourners we meet in life.

There are so many broken situations in our lives. We see them everyday and do nothing about them. We pass them on the street; we avoid them in our homes; and we even overlook them in our own hearts. Take a moment to really consider your motives, your actions, and especially your words. Among the jumble, God's there twining in a very different way: not to invade or overcome, but to guide and to love.

Imagining

Water lilies in a pond.  senk 2013

My children love creative play. They've used pillows in lieu of stepping stones and water lilies to traipse about the room-filled pond. A chain of books becomes the extra train track line they do not have; a simple tube becomes a bug catcher (complete with comfortable accommodations for whatever critter they plan to "capture"); a colander and shipping box become a robot costume. Joey and Ezra are so imaginative in daily life.

But am I? And are you, friend? When something breaks or you find yourself wanting a particular thing either for home decor or for work or for an enhanced educational opportunity or for whatever life experience you are planning, do you find a creative way to make it happen or just get what you want?

If you're like our family, we cannot afford to simply get what we want - even when we do just that. My children's mindset challenges me to think more creatively about a household or personal need. What resources do I already have that can be used just as well as a newly purchased item? When I am ready to buy something needed, do I try to save for what will be healthiest for my family and for the environment or do I just go for the cheapest thing available?

There are so many questions we often overlook in the moment. Consider the challenge of incorporating imagination into the day - and see what you may be missing, too.

Just as grand

Waves crash along the shore.  senk 2013

"I never really realized before how stress seems to slip away by the sea." A paraphrase of my husband's comment rings in my head at the end of a long day. Joey and Ezra are finally in bed, Russell is wrapping up at work, and I have a few minutes before truly resting. 

Often, I consider the daily routines of homeschooling mommyhood and custodian of the home to be like the constant push of waves. But, despite the beating, waves also massage and comfort.

While at Virginia Beach in early August, Russell worked hard reviewing SOL-questions while the boys and I visited various historical and botanical hotspots in the area. Russell's true time to rest was while playing with the boys on the beach: building sand castles with Joey, acting like a sea otter with Ezra, hunting shells or tracking sand crabs with flashlights, savoring the slow slip of sun in the horizon as color splashed into the sky, and feeling waves crash upon his legs along the beach. It was wonderful to see the stress slip from his shoulders after a long day indoors, thinking.

Friend, do you often feel so battered by the day's events that it's hard to really relax? What helps you peel the burden back and feel at ease in your surroundings?

We often feel there is so much work to do, we don't have time for leisurely pursuits. But, if we don't enjoy the beautiful gifts God has placed in our paths, we'll soon be a source for bitterness and unkindness, rather than the hope He wants us to spread. So, be idle - even if for just a moment - and watch the sunset's glow, sip a warm sweet chai while crickets croon outdoors, or find that peacefulness that can restore the bit of you that's burdened.

Work is important, but so, too, is sharing in an inspiring moment that's just as grand with God.