Memorial Day

The family came up to the ranch for Memorial Day weekend and it was such a fun time. First, the weather was just beautiful. Not too hot, not too humid, cool breeze, blue skies with quintessential Texas clouds, everything a vibrant green.

Second, I love seeing Grant play with his cousins. I grew up without having any first cousins, so I am thankful he already has 3 and that he has a ball playing with them.

Third, it is fun to share some of the best times of my own childhood with Grant. I remember playing in the creek at the ranch, hours racing around the yard, rides out in the pasture to see animals, going on river adventures, etc. I'm glad he gets to grow up doing some of the same things I did.

Some of the better pictures:

Splashing with Sophia in the creek

Making Sophia laugh in the dune buggy

Getting Jake with the water gun

Hanging out in the hammock; poor Joshua is still too small to join the fun!

Amy and I are busy planning our first-ever "Cousin Camp" for early July. She is going to bring up the kids for 3 days of fun. We are making t-shirts and a full schedule. If all goes well, it will be a new family tradition!

Girl Meets God

I recently finished Girl Meets God by Lauren Winner and it was a fabulous read - I give it 4 stars for sure. It's a spiritual autobiography, the story of how she chose to become an Orthodox Jew and then was drawn to Christianity. It's a very honest, witty story and contains a lot of details about the ins and outs of both Judaism and Christianity. I found it interesting, inspiring, and just plain fun to read.

Some of my favorite parts...

Winner attends an Episcopal church and thus begins to learn the liturgy. She writes, "What I am learning the more I sit with liturgy is that what I feel happening bears little relation to what is actually happening. Work is being done whether I feel like it or not. Sediment is being laid. Words of praise to God are becoming the most basic words in my head. They are becoming the fallback words, drowning out advertising jingles and sometimes even my own interior monologue." The reason I appreciated this is because Brad and I are becoming more avid readers of Philip Newell and are trying to start a more regular routine of evening prayer. There is something so sacred about the time when we light a candle at the end of our day and begin to say together the now familiar words of our evening prayers. While I am more accustomed to extemporaneous prayer (having been in a Baptist church for so long), I am beginning to explore fixed prayers and have found that they are adding a richness to my experience since they so often give precisely the right voice to my feelings. Winner's words about liturgy also reminded me of Brian McLaren, who wrote in his book "Finding Our Way Again" that "learning something by heart can save you when your heart is broken so nothing can come from it except tears and spontaniety is simply another burden on an already overburdened soul."

If you are unfamiliar with Jewish traditions and holidays, then this book is a great primer, because it explains many Jewish customs and observances - many I knew nothing about. One chapter that I really liked talked about how we read the Bible. As a Sunday School teacher, whenever I teach the Old Testament, I rarely read it by itself. Meaning, in the back of my mind, I hear the New Testament themes that support whatever is going on in the OT and I often try to think of words that Jesus taught that would give any sort of meaning to the text as well. Winner writes about the book of Ruth and says, "To read Mary's inversion of Naomi's words as a statement that what's empty and incomplete in the Hebrew scriptures is fulfilled only in the coming of Christ is to miss the meaning of the book of Ruth. When Mary utters her famous line, when she reverses Naomi's speech, she is repeating a reversal that is already there in the text. The Hebrew scriptures open up the possibility of a Christian reading, but they can also be read, complete, by themselves." I liked this chapter because it reminded me that Christianity and Judaism were forever linked together long ago and it challenged me to remember that in my reading of scripture, to come to the text alone.

Perhaps one of her last chapters was the one that most struck home. It was a mere 3 pages long, but contained the most that really moved me. The subject is the Apostle's Creed, something I learned by heart growing up in the Methodist church. She writes that, "believe comes from the Old English, belove, making clear that this too is meant to be heart language. To say 'I believe in Jesus Christ' is not to subscribe to an uncertain proposition. It is a confession of commitment, of love. Saying the creed is like vowing to love your bride forever and ever. That vow is not a promise to feel goopy and smitten every morning for the rest of your life, It is a promise to live love, even, especially, when you don't feel anything other than annoyance and disdain." Later in the chapter she notes the passionate faith of teenagers and others who are new to the faith and she confesses that many of her friends wonder when she'll tire of Christianity and move on to a different faith. Then she writes, "I am not sure I have the passion to fall in love with a religion again. How to fall in love is not, now, what I need to learn. What I need to learn, maybe what God wants me to learn, is the long grind after you've landed". A couple of weeks ago, I was cleaning in our spare bedroom and noticed all of my journals from college. I could hardly recognize the girl that was writing in them. She seemed so full of faith and optimism and passion. I sat down and wondered where the intensity of that passion had gone. Then, when I read Winner's words, it struck me that I am in a different place now. I fell in love during college, but now, I am learning the commitment part of my faith - how to live love, and that's okay - it's just part of growing up.

Sabbath

My book club at church has gone through almost 30 books over the past 4 years. We've read some great ones, but Sabbath, by Wayne Muller is one of my favorites. We are meeting next week to discuss it and I can't wait. We have our meetings at a home out in the country with a huge screened in porch. When you drive up, there is a sign outside that says in a script font "Linger Longer" and that is always what I want to do at that house.

In his book, Muller examines traditions from a variety of faiths and provides practical ways to begin new rituals that promote rest and renewal. This is one of those books that if you start underlining significant passages, you'll end up underlining the whole thing.

This past year has been an interesting one for me in regards to rest and renewal. Before I quit working full time, I was juggling all these responsibilities: work, motherhood, being a wife, and being the wife of a pastor at that. I remember feeling like the whole world was closing down on me because of the pressure and the ever mounting list of demands on my time. In those moments, I would often just bear down and keep going, keep doing; anything to keep from my confronting my own unhappiness. Muller writes, "This is one of our fears of quiet; if we stop and listen, we will hear the emptiness. If we we are terrified of what we will find in rest, we will refuse to look up from our work, refuse to stop moving. But this emptiness has nothing at all to do with our value or our worth. All life has emptiness at its core; it is the quiet hollow reed through which the wind of God blows and make music that is our life. Without that emptiness, we are clogged and unable to give birth to music, love and kindness." In the space that has been created over the past year, I have learned this is true. I wish I had rested more in that busy season of my life, but I was afraid to. And when everyone around you is running faster and faster, it is hard to be the only one slowing down for rest. I know that my life will at some point have another time of intense responsibilities. I think I will be better prepared next time around, for I know resting is not optional - it is essential.

One of my favorite chapters was on the 'theology of progress'. Muller writes, "this then, is the theology of progress. Only when we get to the end can we lie down in green pastures, be led beside quiet waters, and allow our soul to be restored. This is the psalm we save for death, because in the world of progress, you do not rest in green pastures, you do not lie beside still waters, there is no time." If I am more aware, then I can see this flawed theology at work in the lives of those around me and in my own life all of the time. Even in what I sometimes deem my 'simple stay at home mom' life, I can easily think up a 'to-do' list that is 100 pages long that would keep me from ever sitting still to rest and reflect. Our mantra these days is "I am so busy". As Muller would say, it is our badge of honor. And true enough, we are often are very busy, but this book has reminded me that just because I am sometimes busy, I don't have to have a hurried heart or spirit. I can devote the same attention and priority to times of rest and renewal that I do to my other obligations. Muller says, "Sabbath dissolves the artificial urgency of our days, because it liberates us from the need to be finished."

The book speaks a lot about our consumer culture and its devastating effects on us. He recounts how the concept of a calculating a countries wealth, it's GDP, was started and how it gives such a distorted view of true wealth. He writes, "How do we count friendship or laughter? How do we count the value of honesty, or bread from the oven? How can we count the sunrise, the trusting clasp of a child's hand, a melody, a tear? So many truly precious things grow only in time and we can only begin to know their value when we stop counting. If we do not rest, if we do not taste and eat and serve and teach and pray and give thanks and do all those things that grow only in time, we will become more impoverished than we will ever know". We have had to penny pinch a lot this year, but I feel wealthier than I ever did before because I am learning to rest and really taste life. In surrendering to Sabbath, it is enlivening my senses so that I can see, and hear, and taste more fully.

I could write and write, but those are some of the reasons that I recommend this book so highly. It's going to take up permanent residence on my night-stand. I'm looking forward to hearing how it has influenced the lives of my friends next week...

On My Bookshelf

It all started back in January when Brad had to attend a seminar in Kerrville as part of his doctorate program (he is almost done with year 2!!!) entitled, 'Creative Reading for Imaginative Preaching'. Before the seminar, he was assigned a list of about 30 books to read in preparation (mind you, this was just about 3 weeks before the actual seminar). They covered all sorts of genres and in an effort to help him prepare, I read several of them too we could discuss them together. One of our favorites was a book we both missed somewhere along the way in junior high - The Giver by Lois Lowery. If you need a short fiction book, this is a great read! Anyways, Brad was really inspired during the week and all of the attendees shared their favorite books, so he came home with a huge new reading list.

I've been reading so much lately, and inspired by my good friend Christine, I am trying to change my reading style so I can soak up all the words. I have always read so fast. I can typically finish a novel in 2 days and its because I skim. I move my eyes over the page and quickly assess whether its important enough to actually read - if not, I just catch the overall meaning of the page and move on. Consequently, I can read a large volume of books, but I often can't really remember the storyline or the precise details of specific characters.

So, I think that I will use the next couple of posts to reflect on what I've learned from some of my recent books. Stay tuned and let me know what you're favorite books are!

Random Catch up

Maintaining a blog might be harder than I thought. I started it as a way to remember the funny things that happen, but life is so busy, that they slip by and now a week later, I can't remember them! I don't think this bodes well for my old age...

Anyways, here are some random recollections and thoughts about the past week or so about Grant and life in general.

1) Grant let his beloved HEB balloon go the other day and it floated up into the sky. A little later I see him drag his blue step stool out into the driveway. I asked him what he was doing and as he climbed on top and stretched up his hands, he looked at me matter of factly and said, "I get my balloon back." I love the optimism.

2) We have played hide and seek probably at least 200 hundred times in the past 7 days and I don't think I am exaggerating. We hide from Elmo, Abby, Tasha, and many other characters as well as Norman and Brad. The other day I peeked in on him at nap time and he was sitting up in his crib covered up with his blanket. And then, he found himself. He even hides from himself...

3) Grant started asking "why?" about 2 weeks ago. Literally it was like a switch was flipped and he changed from, "what's that?" to "why?". The thing I love is that now I will ask him why he did something and his answer is simply "because". It's like he's already part teenager, tormenting me by playing my own game.

4) This is going to sound really strange, but today, while I was biking with Grant in the bike trailer, I saw a snake going across the road. So I sped up and biked over it. Nothing happened though, it kept going. Two days ago, Grant found what I would deem a medium sized snake skin in our yard. From a decently fed snake, it was not skinny. Also, 2 weeks ago, they found 2 copperheads in the entrance to my building at Baylor. I am beginning to get nervous - this is way too many snake incidents in 2 weeks.

5) And this just made me laugh. This morning, I went to the post office to mail my Mother's Day gift. There was a family in front of me: mom, dad, and 2 children. I don't know why the children aren't in school - they are school aged. The older one is wearing dirty pajama bottoms and looks like he hasn't had a haircut in months. As I (admittedly rudely) stare at them, the boy looks over at me, grins with this crazy look, and then a green LIVE parakeet crawls up and peeks over his back at me. It was probably the weirdest trip to the post office ever. The bird stayed perched on his shoulder the whole time looking straight at me...

6. Lastly, we found a frog on the porch the other night. Grant loved playing with it and wasn't scared at all of touching it. Poor frog, after he was man-handled for a good 15 minutes of play, we convinced Grant to let him go "night-night and back to his own mommy and daddy."