no surprise...

our retreat was wonderful! many thanks to these cool and amazing women - plus jennifer, who had to leave early - without whom there would have been no retreat! you girls rock!

ack!

here i am, one week into my blog, and already i am going to be an unfaithful poster! this weekend i am leading and speaking at a retreat for women, and in the flurry to "be prepared" (like a boy scout) i don't know how much mental energy i will have to post things. but don't give up on me - i am not abandoning ship, as it were. and if you think of it, think happy thoughts for me this weekend!

be nice!

happy friday! don't forget to be nice to the woman who bore you, or the woman who loved you, or the grandma who raised you! remember - we are all just trying to do the best that we can without screwing you up too badly! viva moms!

shout out

my poor, beloved brother jordan was in a car accident last night...and while he is thankfully ok, his car is pretty much a write off. for a college student, losing your wheels is like losing a limb - and so, as an encouragement to jordan, here is a list of some of the reasons he is a most excellent brother.

1. he never pushed my girls down the stairs, even when they woke him up waaay too early.
2. he is an informative guide at any sort of natural or artistic exhibit - zoos, aquariums, museums, et al.
3. he encourages me by reminding me of all the good things about me, and lets the bad things slide.
4. he is hilarious and smart - a wicked combination.
5. he is wildly talented. (if he lets me, i will post one of my favorites of his poems later today or tomorrow - what do you say, jordan?)
6. he walks with me.
7. he drove me to the airport even though he hadn't planned on it and didn't really want to. and he didn't complain at all.
8. he lends me sweaters when i am cold.
9. he lets me live vicariously through his love life.
10. he has a lovely, lovely heart.

put on your dancin' shoes

in my 20's, i lived out my faith based on 2 Chron 20:15 - 17, which basically says, 'don't be afraid...this is God's battle. prepare yourself...stand firm and see God's victory. go out to face them tomorrow and God will be with you.' life felt like a battle to me, i guess. i'm not sure why it felt like that, but it did, and that verse gave me courage. i have recently tucked it into my back pocket for another day, when there is a genuine war to wage, and am replacing with a new verse - a new prescription for walking out my relationship with God in this world. it is psalms 119:74 "may all who love You find in me a cause for joy, for i have put my hope in Your word" i rather like that. i want to be a cause for joy - and to be candid, i've got a ways to go! but what a great way to live your life! the key for me will be living as joy-giver because i have put my hope in God. i am reading 'journey of desire', where john eldridge makes the point that the apostle paul calls us to be ready to give an answer for the hope that is within us, but nobody seems to be asking us why we are so hopeful. we can only hope for what we desire, he says, and we have stopped desiring God and his heaven restored on earth, so our hopes are pretty much what everyone else hopes for...so what's the point in them asking? they know what we are hoping for. i want to dance through life, not battle it out. so, in my 30's i am going to throw my lot in with king david, and live to desire God more, hope more in his word, and give more joy to the people around me.

comment correction

it was brought to my attention last night by my GIFTED, TALENTED AND HANDSOME BROTHER that many of you couldn't leave comments here! that is not good! apparentlly, there is more to setting up a blog than i thought... so many choices! so, with help from sabrina, i changed the setting and rectified the problem...so go ahead! leave comments willy nilly! thanks for taking the time to visit me here... have a good day!

sweet nothings

"dolce fa niente" - translation - "it's sweet to do nothing"

my parents, my children and my husband and i, and my brother are going to the beach this summer (in 29 sleeps!) hooray!


it will be a long week of sleeping on porch, making sand castles, eating ice cream, playing scrabble, laying out, and maybe even going to see some of the famous NC lighthouses..although that comes perilously close to 'doing something', so i'm not holding my breath. every time my mom calls, she says, 'i'm dying to go to the beach!', and i agree with her. it is the sweet nothing that spurs us on through all of our 'somethings'...the light at the end of our tunnel. coming from western canada, the beach is the closest thing to God on this earth for us...what a good God, to put such luxury here for us! what a wildly creative God to fill the ocean with whatever living thing a sand dollar is, the millions of things that fill shells before we collect them, to give flight to rainbow painted buntings and gigantic, graceful pelicans. last time i was there we saw porpoises everyday, and it was like watching the fingers of God trail through the water...the ocean is the music that soothes the savage beast...the busy-i-must-do-it-now-get-it-done pulse of life. there is no way to hurry at the shore. dolce fa niente, indeed!

not what you expected

motherhood is tough gig. i try not to live my life defined by the fact that i'm a mom, but there is no denying that it shapes me and influences my choices. the hardest thing, for me, about being a mom is the relentlessness of it - day after day, lunch after lunch, load after load of laundry... i love love love my daughters, but there are days when the grind wears me thin. coming up to mother's day, i've been thinking about that, and i think that what makes it hard for me is that i can be such a selfish person. when life is trucking along and what the girls need and i feel like doing are compatible, life is sweet. but when their needs conflict with my wants... the self-serving ego in me raises it's ugly head. sigh. i'll never forget the moment i became a mom - the revelation of how much my life revolved around me was startling!

jean pierre de cassaude, a french priest from the 16th century, wrote a series of letters that were collected after his death and published into a little book called 'abandonment to divine providence'. the theme of his letters was that what we are given at any moment - be it pleasure or pain, work or rest, joy or sorrow - is exactly what we need to become holy. he said, 'you seek for secret ways of belonging to God, but there is only this: to do what he has given you to do, and to do it with joyful abandon to his will'.

and so i am reminded coming up to mother's day, that if i let motherhood pare my self-consideration, i will become more and more into the woman God intended me to be. and in turn, find motherhood an easier road. not a smooth and gentle road, but one that i have the grace to travel.

so call your mom on sunday - or write a note to a woman who has influenced you with a mother's love and wisdom. because we are just people trying really hard to do our best and not screw you up too badly!

the vine

pull the wild honeysuckle from the vine
and put it in my hair

with your too large fingers
tuck the stem
behind my ear and
lean into me
and breathe

i will be the vine
and you can be the branch
the two shall be one
and we will be
wild honeysuckle

pulled from the vine
tucked behind the ear of a pretty girl
by the boy who loves her

augustine

i have given into the peer pressure, and the lure of having a voice that someone, somewhere may hear. i will not be as funny as jordan, as faithful as sabrina, or as deep as dan (who could be!?), but i am going to give this thing a shot. it's wierd, actually, to be writing for an 'audience' as it were, who will be reading and judging and peeking into my life...a little bit like being one of the women in the window, along the streets of amsterdam...showing a little here, and a little there, but never the whole thing. that's what i imagine this will become - a little of my musing, a little of my heart, a little of my humor...poetry, scripture, ranting and days and days without anything new under the sun.

so we begin with this:

'solviture abulando' - augustine.