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What is there – and what isn’t. What we see and what we don’t.
It’s a funny thing. Perception. What is real vs. what seems to be real. What is true vs. what feels true. What other people see and what is actually going on. What we think we said and what someone else thinks they heard. I’d wager a bet that perception is to blame for most all of our misunderstandings with these pesky things we call relationships from one human to another human. It’s part of the reason why two people can watch an accident and have two different stories to tell after it has happened. It’s part of the reason why two siblings can grow up in the…
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on birthdays and cleaning up messes and this good life we’re living
There’s been so much celebration this past week, so much MAY, so many events and parties and this and that that it is a miracle we’ve coasted from day to day through it all. This weekend we celebrated Grandson The First turning TWO. (I feel extra shout-y tonight. I’ll try to reign in my use of the capital letters, but I’m not making any promises ya’ll.) Maddox enjoyed his little friends (mostly) and his cake and the sunshine and playing outdoors. And we all enjoyed watching him. Otto played his first flag football game (which I believe I mentioned yesterday). He scored three touchdowns (I think) and…
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a state of being
I am altogether too often guilty of choosing Busy in my Soul (and Busy in my Life) so I can comfort myself with a bit of Numb. The distractions keep me from feeling all the stuff that threatens to drown me. (And. Some days, some moments, there is just So Much Stuff.) What is it all anyway? Why is it so easy to forget what I believe? To push aside what I know to be true? To look at the hill in front of me and to see a mountain I think I’ll never cross? To forget where I’ve been and what I’ve become? To forget that my legs…
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a heart that holds on
“Good News and Great Joy”. That’s been the title for December’s sermon series at our church. Through a series of unfortunate events our family missed last week’s church service. The focus, I was told, was tilted toward the joy aspect. This week we did not miss church and when the pastor said something about this week’s message honing in on when joy and suffering meet, he mentioned how last week’s sermon was heavier on the joy and this week’s sermon was heavier on the suffering. A statement that caused me to lean over to Hilary, seated to my left, and whisper in her ear, “Well good. I’m much more…
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direction.
You mustn’t wish for another life. You mustn’t want to be somebody else. What you must do is this: “Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks.” I am not all the way capable of so much, but those are the right instructions. — Wendell Berry
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you know, he’s right.
We were driving through a neighborhood. Intrigued by what we saw ahead, we slowed down and all of us gazed out the window. “Free” a sign read. It was propped against a table filled with a random assortment of this and that. Everything looked like what it was – junk. The kids were bursting at their seat belts. “Dad, can we stop?” they begged the man behind the wheel. “Guys – let me tell you about restraint.” Kevin began, an experienced father of many. “Just because you can, doesn’t mean that you should.” “Hmmmm,” came a little nine-year-old voice from the back seat. “Restraint,” Bergen commented. “That’s something I don’t…
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to wear compassion as a cloak.
My lovely friend sent this scripture passage to me recently. I have needed these words so frequently. 12 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. – Colossians 3:12-14 Another friend pointed out how kind it is of God to allow us to put on traits like compassion and kindness and meekness and patience. Because He knows those characteristics are not natural to people like me. I need help to put on a…
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words fitly spoken . . .
I know I’ve written about my kids being that still, small voice of God to me sometimes. So many times I’ve been convicted by their words and their actions and have been forced to reconsider my words and my actions. And while later, after the fact, I’m prone to lean toward being pleased with my children for their clarity of thought and their purity of purpose, during the moment of the revealing of truth I am blindsided by something else less flattering although equally familiar. Pride. Humility. A quick flash of frustration that a nine-year-old has a higher degree of sensitivity than myself. You know, feelings like that. And so,…
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uh-oh
Is that the problem entirely? Every dream we have for our children, every hope we place on their tiny backs, is actually all about us? Our idea for their future? Our idea for their life? Our hopes. Our dreams. What their life says about us? What their decisions reflect upon us? No wonder we raise such self-serving rebels. They are just like us. They are us.
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question. answer.
“Momma, why don’t we ever eat at Burger King?” some back seat voice politely inquired over the gentle strains of Bach playing on our car’s stellar sound system as our family traveled the highway to yet another culturally enlightening event. Wait. Most of that first sentence was a lie. Can I just start over? “Momma, why don’t we ever eat at Burger King?” some back seat voice screeched over the sounds of the Avett Brothers and the other four mostly shouting children as our family traveled the highway in our shamefully dirty Suburban to the grocery store or to the dumpster or on some other errand our life requires. Before…
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Mosely: Defender of Truth, Lover of Justice
I attended a writer’s conference this weekend. I’m still mulling over my take-away thoughts scrawled in blue ink in my brown moleskin. One of the topics was about discovering your passion as a writer. The key speaker, Marybeth Whalen, advised us to think about what brought us joy as children. “What were you passionate about at six?” she challenged us to consider. And she shared a simple story about a friend of hers who is about to begin a business/ministry targeted to women, using fashion as the hook. And how this woman has a photo of her first grade class where she is a mini fashionista amid the casually dressed…
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I’ll go first . . .
There’s another way I’d like to be free. Free from fear of others’ opinions. Free from the temptation of trying to appear to be something I am not. I think we blog and facebook and tweet in a world that is far too easy to be fake. To be pretend. We write about the funniest moments. Or the sweetest moments. Our facebook albums are filled with the birthdays and the celebrations and the good times. We can morph ourselves into whatever shape we want in this digital pseudo-reality. And while it’s true that sometimes we are those people in the happy photographs, it seems to me that most often we…
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truth
Truth. Something I am learning about truth is this. Truth is still truth even if the spokesperson of that truth has sometimes neither lived nor believed that truth. Because truth doesn’t require my consent. Truth doesn’t wait for me to act upon it to become truth. You know how I am learning this? By my husband and I being in the position of having to speak the truth we have not always lived to our eldest daughter. This raising a teenager business . . . this dance of guiding and supporting, letting go and holding back . . . it’s the hardest. Give me the dirtiest diaper you can throw…
