Category Archives: children

Adventure of Grace and Joy

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Grace

Days which lead up to Mother’s Day are a time of reflection and remembering..  I savor the model of mothering provided to me by my mother and grandmothers, express gratitude for their lives, and remember the simple tradition which marked Mother’s Day for me as a child:  picking a red rose to wear to church in honor of Mother.  Those whose mothers were no longer with them wore a white rose. It was a sweet gesture, and I miss it.

I cherish the images and thoughts of my sons as babies and little boys, and bask in the light of their lives as strong men of faith and integrity who have become faithful husbands and loving fathers. They love me and tell me so in word and actions. From the beginning, being a mother has been an adventure of faith and grace and joy.  I have often spoken of the fact that parenting has shown me more about God’s love and care for me than any other element of my life.  On Mother’s Day, our church’s order of service included a statement that affirmed this.

“It has been the amazing, often painful, often ecstatic adventure of being a parent that has most formed me. It is parenting that has made, unmade, and remade me into someone who comes up hard against the great religious questions that have always been part of the human quest:

Who in fact am I?.

What is a life well led?

What is most essential, permanent, and foundational?

What responsibility do I have to others?

How do I deal with evil and fear?

What is “the good?”

How do I love well?

How do I move in this wild and worrisome world with some grace and joy?

Wendy Wright,   Seasons of a Family’s Life: Cultivating the Contemplative Spirit at Home 

 

                            

Today

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maddieinthepink

Photograph by Jeremy Parker, Maddie’s Daddy.

Like the flush blushing of azaleas and sun, Maddie surprised us today..  After days of chilly rain and pewter skies that made it hard to see the new green on tree branches, there is a sudden lifting of spirit and laughter rising.  There is the song of birds and little girls.  There is dancing, twirling, skipping. There is  joy. Tomorrow Maddie will go back home.  Pink petals will begin to drop on the flagstone path.  But having been surprised by this joy (thank you, C. S. Lewis) I will gather this light now, and it will be mine tomorrow.

“Light tomorrow with today.” ~Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

Light One Candle

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Last night we attended a Christmas concert at our 11 year old granddaughter’s school.  As one of the older children, she walked tall and proud to her seat to play her flute in a medley of Christmas music and we loved it.  Soon the stage was filled many smaller children who sang and jingled their bells.  One of their songs stuck in my head, and I have hummed it all day. A  a simple song, “Light One Candle” by Natalie Sleeth.
Light one candle for hope,
One bright candle for hope.
He brings hope to everyone.
He comes. He comes.
Verses 2, 3 and-4 replace hope with peace, joy, and love.
As we light the candles in our Advent wreaths and welcome His coming, may our song be the same. He comes. He comes.
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Is It True?

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When I read the poem below, I thought of all the sweet, familiar traditions we share as a family that help us focus on Christmas truth – the hanging of the green, happy Christmas colors, twinkling lights reflected in the children’s eyes, candlelight and firelight, stars and tiny manger scenes – all celebrating “This most tremendous tale of all, Seen in a stained-glass window’s hue, A Baby in an ox’s stall, ,The Maker of the stars and sea, Become a Child on earth for me..”

The bells of waiting Advent ring,
The Tortoise stove is lit again
And lamp-oil light across the night
Has caught the streaks of winter rain
In many a stained-glass window sheen
From Crimson Lake to Hookers Green.

The holly in the windy hedge
And round the Manor House the yew
Will soon be stripped to deck the ledge,
The altar, font and arch and pew,
So that the villagers can say
‘The church looks nice’ on Christmas Day.

Provincial Public Houses blaze,
Corporation tramcars clang,
On lighted tenements I gaze,
Where paper decorations hang,
And bunting in the red Town Hall
Says ‘Merry Christmas to you all’.

And London shops on Christmas Eve
Are strung with silver bells and flowers
As hurrying clerks the City leave
To pigeon-haunted classic towers,
And marbled clouds go scudding by
The many-steepled London sky.

And girls in slacks remember Dad,
And oafish louts remember Mum,
And sleepless children’s hearts are glad.
And Christmas-morning bells say ‘Come!’
Even to shining ones who dwell
Safe in the Dorchester Hotel.

And is it true,
This most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window’s hue,
A Baby in an ox’s stall ?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me ?

And is it true ? For if it is,
No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things,
Bath salts and inexpensive scent
And hideous tie so kindly meant,

No love that in a family dwells,
No caroling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare —
That God was man in Palestine
And lives today in Bread and Wine.

Christmas,   John Betjeman, Poet Laureate of U.K. 1972 until his death in 1984

Expecting

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006Advent is a season of anticipation, of expecting, of waiting for birth.  My first response to the noun expectancy points to waiting in anticipation of important creation and change. I am reminded of my pregnancies – the anxious wondering of confirmation followed by wonder, amazement, and yearning for birth, then holding my sons to my heart.

Then, my grandchildren have been welcomed with joy in planning, preparing, making room!  For each of our granddaughters, I have begun writing a letter as soon as I heard the announcement of their conception.  I write that letter during our time waiting for them and give it to their parents when they are born to be kept until they are ready to keep it themselves.  I am journaling right now to the girl child who will come into our arms in the Spring. She is already in my heart.

Advent is like that journal for me – an expression of unconditional love and longing, a looking forward to the promise of a coming that will forever change our lives.

Looking for the Star

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 The house is very quiet and still this afternoon, on this first Sunday of Advent. I have loved having all 12 (and another on the way) of us together.  After our family’s Sunday morning at church and lunch together, our adult children and our grandchildren have dispersed to their own homes.  Those who live in Fort Worth have been here the last 4 days during which we gathered all for a Thanksgiving feast, and as has become our tradition, then the Christmas tree was brought in and festive decorations begun. Lights in the yard and on the tree were reflected in the happy eyes of little girls, music filled spaces between laughter and excited conversation.   

As I sit among all the not yet placed wreaths, manger scenes, garlands and dear old things we hang on the tree, I think how the anticipation and joy did not leave with the children.  I sit in the quiet for a time.  Then I light the first Advent candle and begin listening to James Galway’s On the Way to Bethlehem.   Advent begins. How will you mark your Advent journey?  I would love to hear.

Adult Advent Announcement

O Lord,
Let Advent begin again
In us,
Not merely in commercials;
For that first Christmas was not
Simply for children,
But for the
Wise and the strong.
It was
Crowded around that cradle,
With kings kneeling.
Speak to us
Who seek an adult seat this year.
Help us to realize,
As we fill stockings,
Christmas is mainly
For the old folks —
Bent backs
And tired eyes
Need relief and light
A little more.
No wonder
It was grown-ups
Who were the first
To notice
Such a star.

~  David A. Redding,, from If I Could Pray Again

   

Unbroken Peace

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Two of our granddaughters have been with us this week.   Maddie and Jordann fill the house and our hearts with energy and laughter.  They love playing with their cousin Skye,  being in our garden, feeding the fish, gathering herbs, picking flowers, and tending plants.  Maddie helped me make pumpkin waffles. Jordann drew everyone’s picture.  We sang songs from The Sound of Music and then watched the movie.  They love to play board games with Joe and me.  They like to take out the Story Cube box and make up stories from the picture cubes.  But they didn’t even know what a powerful story they were telling when I took these photographs.  They asked to visit our church’s prayer garden, so we did.  In one corner of that garden is a bench and a sandy area that contains 12 smooth stones and a clay marker engraved with the word “Peace.”  When we arrived on this afternoon, one of the first things they saw and exclaimed about was that the marker was broken.

As I watched, Maddie put the pieces back together and smiled as she read “peace.” Then they began picking up the river stones and trying to dust the sand and gravel off, but decided to take them over to the small stream nearby and dip them in the flowing water. One at a time, the stones were washed and brought to put in a circle around the Peace marker.

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When all 12 stones were clean and in place, I asked them if they would like to use the stones to help them say what they are thankful for.  Without a moment’s hesitation, each girl walked the circle, saying, “I am thankful for…”  They named each other,  their Daddy and Mommy, grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins, their cat and dog and home, the trees and flowers.

Their story is fresh and new, because they are. But it is also an ancient story, one that speaks of acknowledging brokenness, restoration, transformation, and redemption.  And that this prompts deep gratitude.

I am thankful for unbroken peace.   And Maddie and Jordann.

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A Close Look

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One of my gifts for Mothers Day was a bunch of tulips.  They were a delightful surprise when I found them on my front porch. I took them out of their box, trimmed their stems and put them into water, fragile, tight buds, petals held together like small pastel hugs, no clue of their real color. By the next morning, buds began to turn to blooms and the next few days were a wonder of  unfolding deep magenta, peach, orange and apricot plus buttery yellows punctuated with a few creamy white blossoms.  My tulips were lovely and I enjoyed them every day.  But it was only as they truly opened and I came close to marvel at the art inside their cups that I saw all the colors, all the intricate markings of their center.  I admired them from a distance, but they took my breath away when I looked more carefully.

I learn to “look again” and practice wonder.

“The patterns of our lives reveal us.  Our habits measure us.”

011Thank you, Jeremy.

Wonder

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Light has come.
Let us pay attention
Let us be astonished
So that we do not starve for want for wonder
‎”THE world will never starve for want of wonders; but only for want of wonder.” ~G.K. Chesterton

Not Always What it Seems

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From Where You’re Standing
“What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing.  It also depends on what sort of person you are.”   C.S. Lewis, The Magician’s Nephew
Most call it a weed
But it declares itself
Survivor
Victorious
Determined to reclaim territory
in grassy lawns, between flagstones, under a rose bush
Wildflower?
Native Texas Plant?
Field green when found in a bag at the store?
Its highest purpose blooms
in feathery puffs –
bane of gardener
delight of every child
who holds it up to make a wish
blowing away a cloud of laughter