Expecting Emmanuel

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This Advent I’m expectant. Expectant for the birth of Christ; and expectant for the birth of a friend’s baby (a boy, due on Christmas Day). I’ve had the joy and honor of walking with this friend, a single-mom who goes to my church, through this: her first pregnancy.

As I’ve watched her middle become as round and beautiful as the earth, we’ve been talking a lot about Mary’s journey as a single-mom. We’ve debriefed what it must’ve been like for Mary to feel pregnant and alone. We’ve read her story in the gospels, imagined what it was like when her baby, Jesus, met leaping John the Baptist – through layers sin and flesh and uterus – for the first time.

We’ve talked about the surprising way Mary – an improbable teenage girl – wound up carrying God’s child . . . carrying God within herself . . . And how all of us carry divinity within us. CHRIST IN US THE HOPE OF GLORY.

The magic and mystery of God coming near in such an unlikely way has struck us organically as my friend (full and beautiful with child), nears her Christmas due date, prepares her nursery, and tries to survive these last few days where sharing a body with a big baby boy are becoming arduous and exhausting. As we wait and expect her looming day of deliverance, we’re awed at the ways Jesus Christ, Emmanuel, God-with-us has come to be close to us.

A poem by Rowan Williams, titled Advent Calendar, helps us as we wait:

Advent Calendar

He will come like last leaf’s fall.
One night when the November wind
has flayed the trees to bone, and earth
wakes choking on the mould,
the soft shroud’s folding.

He will come like frost.
One morning when the shrinking earth
opens on mist, to find itself
arrested in the net
of alien, sword-set beauty.

He will come like dark.
One evening when the bursting red
December sun draws up the sheet
and penny-masks its eye to yield
the star-sowed fields of sky.

He will come, will come,
will come like crying in the night,
like blood, like breaking,
as the earth writhes to toss him free.
He will come like child.

Grateful Heart

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My family has just returned from a couple days away at a little cabin in the woods. We followed trail blazes on oak leaf covered paths, saw cedar waxwings, stepped on mushrooms and watched their spores ascend into the air like smoke. The kids collected sticks, rocks and feathers. I collected memories.

We performed balance beam routines on fallen pine trunks, warmed our hands and faces by Bry's fire, feasted on roasted turkey and buttered potatoes, slept under quilts; awoke to hot coffee and sunshine sneaking surreptitiously into our dwelling. Surrounded by fresh air and the love of family, I couldn't help but feel unquenchably grateful. In an endless circle, a voice deep within my spirit whispered, Thank you, God . . . Thank you, God . . . Thank you, God!

Were there no God we would be in this glorious world with grateful hearts and no one to thank. - Christina Rossetti, 1830-1894

Sisters

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Shortly after my dear friend Margie's husband died from Cancer; I heard of a young mom at my church who had lost her sister to Cancer. Cathartically, I spent hours on her brother-in-law's gorgeously written website: http://forleslie.blogspot.com/ weeping and praying with my tears as I read stories of love and loss and unexpected leaving. So much of it reminded me of my arduous, beautiful, mercy-laden journey with Margie. So much of it made me feel connected to this young woman though I did not know her personally.

Every Sunday at church I prayed for her, wondered how she was doing - - knowing that she was in the thick grieving the loss of her sister and, at the same time, helping her brother-in-law care for his young motherless son. Every Sunday, I wondered how the woman's heart was doing, if it was empty with the aching gnaw of loss like mine. If she was exhausted or at peace or both . . . or neither. I wondered how losing a sister was different from what I experienced with Margie; and if there was anything I could do or say to lighten (or fill?) the loss. Last Sunday, in the middle of the service, a poem came. I'm not sure if I'll share it with the woman, or not. But, it follows.

Sisters

I don't have a sister.
You did.

In a picture the two of you
sit on a bench together.
You're both smiling,
looking so pretty,
mirrors of one another,
happy, sisterly: companioned.

What's it like to have a
sibling like yourself
yet different
knowing you intuitively
by shared propinquity
and life

to laugh at insider jokes,
remember the color of wallpaper
in childhood rooms and
the exact slope of backyard

the swing set there and sandbox
where you shared secrets and
fought over who'd be
Queen of the Sandcastle

to disagree and know that
blood and chromosomes link
you together inextricably like
stitches in a hand knit blanket?

Now she has left unexpectedly
and I wonder where she is.
In the ground? In the sky?
Both? Still companioning you?
Your countenance in church
says you miss her ineffably
but know exactly where she is.

I imagine her whispering the
location to you in a sunset or
falling leaf, in the simple symbol
of a dream, or shiver on the
back of your neck.

I don't have a sister.
You always will.

HOME

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"Gottcha!" That's what we we said to a twelve-month-fifteen-day-old beautiful, apple cheeked Chinese baby girl on the day we held her in our arms for the first time. The moment unfolded at a Chinese Welfare Institution in Nanchung. The room was small, unadorned, dimly lit and filled with anxious parents-to-be along with the hearty cries of our baby girl and eleven others who were united with their adoptive American mamas and daddies that day, November 20th, 2005.

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I remember holding my pearl of a baby girl on my lap as we took a bumpy bus ride back to our hotel. As the bus maneuvered scarily through frenetic Chinese traffic, I felt an overwhelming, marrow-deep homesickness. A longing to smell the hair of our boys, to hug them hard and long, to play the piano in my front room, to look at the pond from our dining room table; and, simultaneously, a homesickness for a place I've never been, a Place where my Heart will truly find Rest and Peace and Completion . . . a place where True Forever Family lives. Along with all these existential emotional gymnastics, I also felt a sadness that Bryan and I were about to take this baby girl away from the first home she'd ever known.

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Hoping to bring a part of China back to the states with us, I leaned over my seat to ask our guide, "How do you say home in Chinese?"

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"Jia," she said and smiled as if she knew exactly what I was thinking.
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Jia, jia, jia, I repeated in my heart. Jia. Jia. I wanted to remember this word. I planned to say it to our child after we flew across the Big Pond, landed in the airplane, and drove via car down our driveway for the first time. Jia, I would whisper in my little girl's ear. Jia. This is your home, Sweetheart.

Today is the third anniversary of our GOTTCHA DAY (a term well-known and beloved by adoptive parents of internationally adopted children).

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Today, Emily and I will dress up for tea with hats, strings of pearls (from China), boas and sparkly plastic rings. We'll set a toddler sized table for four. Two of my grandmother's tea cups - most likely filled with apple cider - will be for us. Two others will be set out for Emily's birth parents who we call Ma Ma and Ba Ba (the Chinese names for Mom and Dad).

We will sing and talk, eat Goldfish crackers and bakery cookies. And we will sip our tea. When there is a pregnant pause in the festivities; we'll raise our cups, with extended pinkies of course, and toast to Ma Ma and Ba Ba in China. We will thank them for giving Emily life, for giving her her first home in China, for

letting her come to a new home in America.

Thoughts of China and pain bearing beauty, of Emily's birth family, of jia have been flooding my mind. I wonder if Emily is remembering, too. I wonder if this season brings up for her the memories: smells, sights, sounds, feelings of the day when her life changed and she found a new kind of home in my arms.

I wonder if she remembers that we were both wearing the exact shade of jade green when we first met. I wonder if she remembers the way the Aunties told us - using pantomimed body-language - that she could walk, that she was doing so well, that she had been deeply loved in China. I wonder if she notices the big and small synchronicities that come during this time of remembering. Synchronicities like the one last night as I read the last few pages of Madeleine L'Engle's Meet the Austins to all of my kids before bed.

On the last few pages, L'Engle artfully, specifically describes the Austin family activities upon returning home from a long vacation:

We piled out of the car and in through the garage and into the house, into the kitchen. It was home and I remembered it with every bit of me . . . We were all dashing all over the house to our special places. I ran up to Rob's and my room, and there was his little bed at the foot of my big one . . . and the catalpa tree outside the east window was still naked but I thought I could see the beginning of buds. I kept going from room to room, bumping into the others, and that's what we were all doing, feeling the feel of home again.

We all ran outdoors to the swing, to John's and Dave's tree house, John, of course, to the barn . . . We ran all the way around the house, looking at it from all four points of the compass, and then back into the house again, and Mother had a record on the phonograph, and the phone kept ringing, all the kids to ask us about our vacation, and the office phone, because Daddy's patients knew he was home again.

Rob grabbed my hand and pulled me back upstairs to our room and he said, "Oh, my bed, my own bed," and I knew his God Bless that night would go on for hours if someone didn't stop him from blessing every piece of furniture in the house and every tree outdoors.

Mother called us to help, and she was getting dinner and we realized that it was dinnertime and we were all starved, so we set the table and I mashed the potatoes and Suzy cut up the tomatoes for salad and Rob went around the table giving everyone three napkins. Then we were all around the table holding hands to say grace, and we said the kind of grace we always do on special occasions, each of us in turn saying his own . . .

Then everyone started to jabber all at once and to eat like pigs and it all seemed right and comfortable and home.

On the way to the bus stop this morning, I replayed this passage from Madeleine's book in my mind. I thought about the day we came home from China with Emily. I thought about the homes we go to each Thanksgiving and Christmas. And, I thought about a Home where I hope to live after these homes all pass away. As I thought, an acrostic for HOME popped into my head:

H - Happily ever after?
O - Ostensibly a
M - metaphor for the

E - eternal.

Once again, welcome home, Emily! This is your jia, your place of love and family and fights with siblings, mashed potatoes, loud conversations, piano music and growing trees. Welcome, welcome, welcome. We're so glad that you're here! Welcome home!

Thank You Durand Women

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During this season of thanksgiving, I'd like to express gratitude to the girls of Durand United Methodist Women's Organization. Thank you for sharing your weekend of retreat with me. Your laughter and tears and the helpful suggestions you offered about my ensuing mammogram are ineffably appreciated! Thanks for inspiring me with your Babyless Shower, your 'We're Not Church Ladies Attitude,' and your open conversational honesty.

Now that I know you all a bit better, I can honestly say that I'm proud you've taken the moniker Girl Talk . . . God Talk for your group. May all of your talkings continue!

As I was driving home from Rockford, I was thinking about a comment a woman in your group made that one of my books was normal. In the moment, I was a bit taken back. But, as I processed in my car on the way home, I wondered if that may have been the most profound compliment anyone has ever given me about my writing; and proof that my mission of bringing the divine to the daily, the holy to the human - - meeting God in the ordinary - - is being accomplished. So, thanks for those sweet words.

My prayer for all of you is that you'll continue to grow in faith and friendship. And, as you do, that that you'll continue to reach out to your community and to the world. (Also, that you'll hang in there with Lewis' Four Loves.) That books is one of my favorites. My husband, Bryan, and I used the following quote from that masterpiece in our wedding program:
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Need-love says of a woman "I cannot live without her"; Gift-love longs to give her happiness, comfort, protection - - if possible, wealth; Appreciative-love gazes and holds its breath and is silent, rejoices that such a wonder should exist even if not for him, will not be wholly dejected by by losing her, would rather have it so than never to have seen her at all. Need-love cries to God from our poverty; Gift-love longs to serve, or even to suffer for, God; Appreciative-love says: "We give thanks thee for thy great glory."
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So, here I am, blogging and sending a big dose of Appreciative-love your way. Thanks again! And Happy Thanksgiving to all of you and yours!

ColorGirl

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ColorGirl
a poem about Kristin

Canary yellow it cascades
from branch, brushing
coat sleeve, jeans
taking rest in a bed
of sunshine colored comrades

I begin to gather more:
a golden bouquet

walking through the park
add orange, crimson, rusty
garments disrobed by fall

At home the collection
perfectly piles into
cardboard box addressed
to brother in LA where
leaves hold eternally verdant

The face of his wife
falls into mind I see
her before him on
hills peaking in
vibrant autumnal bursts
they glide in joy
and wind and smeary hues

I lift the box letting my
collection spill on dining
room table – he does not need
the ritual package anymore

She is the color in his life

Looking for God

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They watch for Christ

who have a sensitive, eager, apprehensive mind,

who are awake, alive, quick-sighted,

zealous in seeking and honoring Him,

who look out for HIm in all that happens, and

who would not be surprised,

who would not be over-agitated or overwhelmed,

if they found that He was coming at once . . .

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This then is to watch;

to be detached from what is present, and

to live in what is unseen;

to live in the thought of Christ as He came once,

and as He will come again;

to desire His second coming, from our affectionate

and grateful remembrance of His first.

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John Henry Newman

Admonition to Eyes

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It is Sunday, and another poem has come. This one is written like a letter to my eyes, begging them to open, to see God's grandeur in nature, the struggle of a close friend, the newly born-handwriting of my elementary aged boys, the smile of my daughter . . .

The poem is my way of continuing the thoughts of one of my friends at the end of his sermon, ". . . let us ask that we be granted the eyes to see those things that are needful for us in our spiritual pilgrimage. Perhaps that idea can introduce the fear that we could go way overboard on seeing the unseen . . . and yet, at special times . . . of danger, of discouragement, God may open our eyes to see things that are not unreal, but simply not regularly visible. Simply knowing that that reality is there may serve to build our faith."


Admonition to Eyes

Open to see the sun whitening,
illuminating tufted tips
of tall grass that
wave in autumn wind

the downward slope of
eyebrows mid-sentence,
fall of countenance,
crinkle of brow begging
help with kids while
a loved one convalesces
close to Heaven

See sea glass vibrant and pastel,
Study microscopic and particulate
the vast and collective
blurry humming birds, stars, silvery
moons, smears of constellation,
rosebuds or full labyrinths of bloom

Notice each lighted moment
the wobble of new cursive, her
exact slant of smile, leaves of
particular crimson or ochre,
infinitely unique geometries of
snowflakes, each metaphor in life

Practice opening widely, precisely with
cunningly careful voraciousness
Look for the Image of the Invisible, the
Mystery of divinity, the fuzzy feathery
promise found in the fluttering tips
of seeable, unseen angel wings

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. Colossians 1:15-17