Playdates: The Raised Bed

We shovel dirt all day until our arms are rubber and our backs ache. Our next-door neighbor has a pile of fill dirt that he wants to get rid of.

Use as much of it as you want, he said.

So we load the old wheelbarrow up time and time again, digging into that clay, wet and heavy from the spring rains. It is hard work.

But I can’t stop grinning.

I’m getting my hands dirty and I feel my muscles strain against their skin confines. March is still roaring like a lion--it’s cool outside but the sun shines with promise. My husband and I are filling the raised bed my friend Mike made for me (thanks, Mike!) and it’s the best birthday present ever.

It feels like coming home.

When I was a little girl, my family kept a large garden. My grandfather was a farmer, so my dad knew about these things. But his long days at the plant left the maintenance and harvest up to his wife and four children. Mom put us to work, hauling milk jugs of water up the hill by the chicken coop where neat rows of crops waited. We suffered in the sun on long summer days to do the weeding and hoeing. We four would argue about who would work in the corn—the tall stalks offered much appreciated shade.

I know the taste of a tomato fresh picked off the vine and smell of earth on newly dug potatoes. I’m familiar with the quiet plssssh of the stringing of green beans and the firm snap of them broken in two. Home-brined pickles and stewed tomatoes lined the shelves of our cellar. We were rich, rich in produce. Only I didn’t know it then.

I’m familiar with these things. Only they are easy to forget when the jars that line my pantry are all labeled with name brands and store logos. It’s easy to forget the joy of digging fingers in dirt with the convenience of opening a can.

And now I have this small plot. I’ve thought about it all winter. Ever since this conversation with Jeffrey, ever since our last book club at the High Calling. The reading of this book made me long to do better, to feed my family good things.

So we move dirt all morning and take a break in the afternoon. We wait for my father-in-law, the Master Gardener, and he comes—pulling his little trailer loaded with bags of rich soil from the garden center. We pour them on, mix them in. I break up clods of rich, fragrant soil with my hands.

I am giddy.

My father-in-law takes stock. He goes back to the greenhouse and returns again with peat moss, a special nutrient rich soil, and a small brown bag. We mix the peat moss and the soil. I stir and churn and I feel myself grow in the dark layers. When we are done, we stand and look.

I’m grinning ear to ear.

It sure is pretty, he says.

It’s beautiful, I whisper.

He pulls out the brown bag and opens the top. I peer inside and see these beautiful pearls nestled inside. 

These are green onions, he says. He makes a small furrow in the soil and pokes the bulb root down inside. He makes a small row and then hands the rest to me. I breath in their musty scent. He pulls a baggy from his pocket. Lettuce seeds. I’m nearly jumping for joy. And there is a packet of carrot seeds too.

He shows me how to sow, moves soil with his hands.

The more careful you plant, he says, the less pruning you will have to do later.

He has a tiny seed on the tip of his finger. He pokes it into a small hole in the soil.

The sun is going down and it’s getting close to dinner time. He leaves us and Jeff fires up the grill. But I am not done. I plant a row and half of the onion pearls, make a bed for the lettuce seeds, and poke carrot seeds one at time into tiny holes on the surface of the soil.

The more careful you plant, the less pruning you will have to do later.

His words echo in my head and I am so very careful. It seems impossible to think that anything can grow from a seed so small. It is so tempting to dump the whole of the crisp envelop into the ready soil. But I know better. I know each tiny shell holds something wonderful inside. I sing as I work, talk to God about these little bits of wonder. He tells me the magic formula of water and soil and sunshine and love.

Happy birthday, God says. And he knows the tender bruising I’ve felt because of it all. I’m so glad you were born.

How about you? How do you embrace the God-joy? Every Monday I’ll be sharing one of my Playdates with God. I would love to hear about yours. It can be anything: outside, quiet time. Maybe it’s solitary. Maybe it’s loud and crowded. Just find Him. Be with Him. And come tell us about it.

Grab the Playdates button from the sidebar!

 

Sharing with L.L. Barkat today also:

Thinking About...

Our God, who is both Father and Mother to us, does not compare. Never. Even though I know in my head that this is true, it is still very hard to fully accept it with my whole being. When I hear someone called a favorite son or daughter, my immediate response is that the other children must be less appreciated, or less loved. I cannot fathom how all of God’s children can be favorites. And still, they are. When I look from my place in the world into God’s Kingdom, I quickly come to think of God as the keeper of some great celestial scoreboard, and I will always be afraid of not making the grade. But as soon as I look from God’s welcoming home into the world, I discover that God loves with a divine love, a love that cedes to all women and men their uniqueness without ever comparing. --Henri Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming. 

Playdates: Super Moon

Life is full and this is good, and didn’t I just tell a friend today that I never could have dreamed it all to happen this way? When I was a girl I dreamed having a career. I dreamed of being a wife. I dreamed of being a mother. I dreamed of life and thought I knew what it should look like.

But it never looked like this. 

I read those paperback romances and pictures on the covers were like starry nights—oh, so big and…out there. Oh, yes, life and love is that. But it is also a load of white socks—which takes all afternoon to match up. And even then there are some left over.

I get so tired. 

There is so much I want, so much I want to do, so much I want to understand, so much I’m looking for. Some days I get up at 5 am and search for it until midnight. And then I toss and turn in bed because I can’t stop thinking about it. I lull myself to sleep with the Words and the next thing I know it’s 5 am again.

I get so tired. 

I had just gotten done telling God all the stuff I was going to do during Lent. The stuff I’m giving up and the stuff I’m taking on. Mostly I promised not to sleep. If I look at it objectively, that’s the long and the short of it.

In college I had a history professor who used to always kid the students, When are you going to wean yourself from this silly weakness called sleep? Don’t you know there are things that need doing?

I thought I might take on his advice at this time in life. Yet, in the midst of this, I am reminded…man will make his plans…

I went to a CE course on Depression and Bipolar Disorder last week and the instructor spent a large part of the lecture talking about sleep.

Go figure. 

He said that we get most of our slow wave sleep—that’s the deep restorative sleep, stage 3 and stage 4—during the first half of the night. More than half of our REM sleep—that’s the Rapid Eye Movement sleep in which most dreams occur—takes place in the second half of the night. For those suffering from Depression, this gets all out of whack.  They enter REM sleep much earlier and spend a longer time there than non-depressed people. The thing is, during REM sleep, the body stops making some valuable neurotransmitters—serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine.  Most antidepressant medications suppress REM sleep, thus enabling the body to catch up on these valuable mood-sustaining substances.

One of the treatment recommendations the instructor spoke about was a partial sleep deprivation technique. Basically, the person is awakened after four hours—after the bulk of the slow-wave sleep and before the majority of REM—and goes about his or her business.  The trick is to time the awakening during REM sleep, because this is when the brain is most prepared for wakefulness. The significant anti-depressant benefits of this technique last about six days. 

There are other things we can do. Exercise and whatnot. I prefer this to sleep deprivation.

Anyway. To make a long story short, I felt God whispering to me about the quality of my sleep. Rest, he said to me. 

Who am I to argue with God? 

So all my Lenten plans went out the window.  I love how God does that. It keeps me on my toes.

Every night, before I go to bed, I tell the Lord: Lord, you know what I need. I need you. I need rest. If it is good, wake me early tomorrow, so that I might meet with you. But if it is better, let me sleep just a wee bit longer. 

And God has been so good. Some days I sleep in a little. Some days he wakes me. It’s not a perfect system.

But it seems to be working for me. 

The other night I was dreaming. I dreamt that I went into the preschool restroom at church—I knew it was the preschool restroom because when I entered the stall I could see over the top. The stalls for the kids are kid-sized after all. Anyway, after I entered the diminutive stall, someone else came in the restroom. I looked over the stall wall and saw that it was one of our church grandmothers—a lady that I have tremendous respect for. She approached the stall and spoke to me. We had a conversation over the stall partition the way neighbors do over the backyard fence.

Laura, she said, what’s happening between you and Jesus?

Even in my dream-state the question struck me as rather bold. But these elder gentleladies can get away with such things, so I answered over the stall-fence.

What’s happened between me and Jesus? I echoed stall-ing (pun intended) for time. Why, a lot of things are happening, Elizabeth.

And right then I opened my eyes. It was 5am.

My first thought was, How kind of you, Lord, to wake me during REM sleep.

I got up and padded down the stairs, heading to the place we normally meet. But, as God often does, he changed my plans. On the way down the stairs, I caught a glimpse of the moon through the French doors.

And I knew that was what He woke me up to see. 

Isn’t God romantic? 

I spent an hour in the cool mist on our deck trying to capture beauty with my hands. 

I wasn’t very successful, but I tried. They called it a super moon because the full moon was at its closest point to earth during its orbit around this marbled orb. Scientists say that when the moon is closer in this way, its pull can affect the tides somewhat. But the pull I felt was more than a gravitational thing. 

How’s that for a play date?

How about you? How do you embrace the God-joy? Every Monday I’ll be sharing one of my Playdates with God. I would love to hear about yours. It can be anything: outside, quiet time. Maybe it’s solitary. Maybe it’s loud and crowded. Just find Him. Be with Him. And come tell us about it.

Grab the Playdates button from the sidebar!




Sharing with L.L. Barkat today also:

Sunday Contemplation

"A man who struggles long to pray and study Torah will be able to discover the sparks of divine light in all of creation, in each solitary bush and grain and woman and man. And when he cleaves strenuously to God for many years, he will be able to release the sparks, to unwrap and lift these particular shreds of holiness, and return them to God. This is the human task: to direct and channel the sparks' return. This task is tikkun, restoration.

Yours is a holy work on earth right now, they say, whatever that work is, if you tie your love and desire to God. You do not deny or flee the world, but redeem it, all of it--just as it is." ---Annie Dillard, For the Time Being

Tears for Japan

We are driving to school when this story comes on the radio. I turn up the volume. The boys grow quiet. We listen. I feel the tears welling and I don’t hold back.

Let’s pray, says Jeffrey, when the story is done.

So we do and soon they are hopping out the door, off.

And I am left with these tears.

10,000 people.

I cry more. 

******************

Dr. William Frey is a biochemist who is director of the Alzheimer’s Research Center at Regions Hospital in St. Paul, Minn. He has also spent much of his life’s work studying tears.

In his early research, Frey engaged volunteers to collect their tears in small glass vials as they viewed tear-jerking movies. For others, he concocted onion shakes and wafted the aromatic substance around in eye vicinity. He then conducted a detailed chemical analysis of what he calls “psychogenic lacrimation” (emotionally induced tears) and the lacrimation (tears) produced by irritants (in this case, onions).

Frey discovered that the emotion-induced tears have a higher level of the stress hormone adrenocorticotrophic hormone (ACTH) than the crocodile tears. One of the functions of ACTH is to cause the body to release cortisol. Cortisol is widely known as THE stress hormone because it is released in the body during the fight or flight syndrome.

In normal quantities, cortisol serves to benefit the body. However, chronic stress can lead to sustained high levels of cortisol that can cause enormous damage to the body. High levels of cortisol are associated with a suppressed immune system, a reduction in restorative slow-wave sleep, higher blood pressure, decreased bone density…even more abdominal fat!

 

Crying is an exocrine process, says Dr. Frey, that is, a process in which a substance comes out of the body. Other exocrine processes, like exhaling, urinating, defecating and sweating, release toxic substances from the body. There's every reason to think crying does the same, releasing chemicals that the body produces in response to stress.

I am leaking stress hormones all over myself this morning.

According to Frey’s research, 85 percent of women and 73 percent of men say they feel better after crying.

 ******************

I don't feel better after crying.

Releasing these stress hormones doesn't change the devastation in Japan. When I first spoke with my children about the heartbreaking realities of the human suffering in Japan, I didn't know where to start. I knew they had seen the images peppered all over our world. We talked about what they had seen. About the loss of human life.

We read 1 Corinthians 12: 12-30, which says these wondrous words: ...God has combined the members of the body...there should be no division in the body, but that it's parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it... 

I asked the boys, how do you feel about this?

I feel guilty, Jeffrey said. I feel terrible. There's nothing I can do to help.  


This is not true, I told him. For if we are one with our brothers and sisters in Japan, we cannot forget this part of our body. If we believe that God is all-powerful, all-knowing...that God is love...then the most important thing we can do is pray. We are not helpless while God lives inside of us.

We talked about lament and what it means to join our hearts with the hearts of others. And we prayed. We prayed for comfort, we prayed for peace, we prayed for the loss, the devastation. We prayed to know what to do.

Crying may make me feel better momentarily, but devastation on this large scale calls for more. Annie Dillard says, We are earth's organs and limbs; we are syllables God utters from his mouth.

What is God saying through me in the midst of this tragedy?

Would you like to share your heart on this matter here in this space? I welcome your thoughts, your prayers, your ideas. Let's lament together. Let's lean on each other in this reality of a broken world.

Are you struggling with how to talk to your children about the devastation in Japan? My friend L.L. Barkat did too. She came up with a beautiful way to start a conversation. Her words comforted this mamma and gave me courage to talk about the hard stuff. You can read about  it over here.

My sincere gratitude to John Preston, Psy.D. for introducing me to the work of William Frey.

Playdates: Invitation

The wine glasses were filled and Patrick wanted salt and our professor ordered scotch and I spilled a glass of ice water on Susan’s lap. It had been a long day—with travel and much sitting and taking of notes and such. But the conversation fed us like bread straight from the oven and the warmth was like a fire that we all held our hands out to.

No one wanted the evening to end.

That’s when Betsy’s eyes found mine across the table and she said softly, “For me, times like these are playdates with God.”

I smiled, nodded silently, and our eyes held right there for an instant.

Can’t every moment be? Isn’t this awakening in my soul an attention process? I am listening for the God-voice. And when my spirit stirs with the whisper, I must remember to ask, “Shall we?”

We.

He and I.

And this simple asking for accompaniment…this makes life a series of love stories—one great adventure after another.

Because the Divine always comes along when invited. And this Presence makes me brave. How else could I do the crazy things I do? This is what it means to fall in love—leaving all other thought behind except the Beloved. I hold this Image in my mind, I look forward to time we can spend together—alone. But the joy of the Divine love is that it is always present. All I need do is attend to awaken to this mystery.  

Andre Dubus says that it would be madness to try to live so intensely as lovers that every word and every gesture between us is sacrament. But even he acknowledges there is a way.

…We can do what the priest does, with his morning consecration before entering the routine of his day; what the communicant does in that instant of touch, that quick song of the flesh, before he goes to work. We can bring our human, distracted love into focus with an act that doesn’t need words, and act which dramatizes for us what we are together…(On Charon’s Wharf)

Dubus refers to the sharing of a simple meal as an act that becomes the tangible representation of the indescribable: love.

Abide in me, Jesus says.

The action that leads to this place need not be a complicated one. So long as God is invited into the moment. In this way it becomes holy.

How about you? How do you embrace the God-joy? Every Monday I’ll be sharing one of my Playdates with God. I would love to hear about yours. It can be anything: outside, quiet time. Maybe it’s solitary. Maybe it’s loud and crowded. Just find Him. Be with Him. And come tell us about it.

Grab the Playdates button from the sidebar!

 

Sharing with L.L. Barkat today also:

Budding

From the second floor window I look down over the back yard. I can see the nubby beginnings of my garden, straining for a new start. I was able to cut two-thirds of the flowers back before the snow came this winter. I wasn’t ready for the early of the snow or the freezing of the ground. Soon I will have to make it right. Soon. But not yet. I see the dead stalks of that neglected portion—graying bits of stubble, snaky weeds trembling up against the cold wind.

Looking down I can see, too,  that the top of the Pussy Willow is beginning to bud. The ends of a few straggly branches look like Q-tips—those tightly wound cotton swabs sway back and forth on their leggy branches. If I stood on the ground below this tree and peered up through the branches, I would not see these furry caterpillars preparing to fluff out. Only the very tip-top—where the sun falls warmest--sports these showy nibs. I peer down from the window and know that in just a few days that tree will be engulfed in a halo of softness.

I have been doing yoga—this renewed Lenten discipline whispering the growing softness of this aging body to the walls. These limbs don’t bend like the willow’s anymore. Each year at this time I am pulled back into this fluid meditation—a moving prayer. I speak the words of the scripture and somehow these ancient words help these rusty bones glide into the poses. And the gliding of the body helps the words come smooth—oil this dusty memory.

Last night I received the ashes on my hand. Pastor said this way is better.

The ashes are for me to see, she said. To remind me of my sin. Not for everyone else.

I missed the words, the pressure on my head, the ashes falling on my clothes. But as I cradled that sullied hand in my lap, as I dipped the bread in the cup with ashen fingers--it all made sense.

But today, I stand in the light of the window wanting to hide. As I move my body it feels the desire to be something else. Down to the marrow it wants to be something better, something stronger, something…more…

I wish I could stand under the umbrella limbs of the willow tree and forget about the budding soft on the uppermost parts. It doesn’t feel like spring. I sit on my mat at heart center and recite the words…

…and in him all things hold together. (Col. 1:17b)

Do they? And will he? Hold me together?

 I lower my hands to my knees and breathe in…glance down. It’s still there—just a faint outline. The shadow of a circle in the middle of the palm of my hand: what’s left of my ashes. I put finger to palm and imagine another’s—pierced.

And I feel the deep rest of the knowing. Yes, he will. Yes, he does. He holds me together. He holds me.

...For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross… (Col. 1:19-20)

Sharing with Emily today:





And Bonnie:

Stone Crossings: Love

I am watching a pair of mockingbirds light from limb to limb in the old apple tree. They seem to be doing a dance—each move carefully measured. Their wings flash white when they open and I hear them call to each other.

I am thinking about love.

I know that mockingbirds tend to be monogamous—that mates return for their chosen one from season to season. But Wikipedia tells me something about these vocal imposters that I did not know:

Northern Mockingbirds, in addition to being good mimics, are also some of the loudest and most constantly vocal of birds. They often sing through the night or when the moon is full. This is especially true of those bachelor males that are trying to attract a female. They sing year-round except sometimes for the late-summer molting season. Individual males have repertoires of 50 to 200 songs; females sing as well, but more quietly and less often than males. Mockingbirds usually sing the loudest in the twilight of the early morning when the sun is on the horizon.

The male mockingbird is a romantic. This little bit of information makes me smile—especially because I have been reading the Song of Songs this morning.

Stone Crossings took me there, and as I imagined my friend’s beloved singing a song of love to her, I had to read the words first hand.

Place me like a seal over your heart,

like a seal on your arm;

for love is as strong as death,

its jealousy unyielding as the grave.

It burns like blazing fire,

like a mighty flame.

Many waters cannot quench love;

rivers cannot wash it away.

If one were to give

 all the wealth of his house for love,

it would be utterly scorned. (Song of Songs 8:6-7)

…Whereas some people wait for the day when they can climb into the lap of God the Father, and others ache to lean on his strong shepherd-shoulders, I anticipate the day when God the lover will hold me forever in a passionate and safe embrace. (L.L. Barkat, Stone Crossings)

This past Sunday my pastor talked about grace.

God’s grace is old, she said. It came before all of creation. It is not a response to the human condition.

That he loves me this way—with the hot breath of a lover—this is a miracle of grace to me.

The mockingbirds are in flight now. They make wide, arching sweeps over the meadow—paths crossing in graceful curves. I watch their silhouettes against the white sky and marvel at the lover’s pursuit.

She gives good chase. But he does not falter. I watch as they fly over treetops and out of my sight: two shadows, blending into one.

Tonight, I will have my forehead smeared with ash as we enter the Lenten season. The ashes remind me that life on this earth passes away, that I came from dust. I will repent and remember God's grace and mercy. But I also remember that I am a new creation...He lives in me. The beauty of the ashes lies in the rest of the story.

Playdates: Small World

My world is small. This I know and I have learned to appreciate the charm of it. In small I am more able to see the bigger things.

But sometimes…in small I am invisible.

I don’t fly to exotic places, don’t make lists of itineraries, don’t keep a scrapbook of travels…I rarely leave my valley home. I do the same things over and over, until I don’t have to think to do them. They are automatic, written on my DNA—they are a permanent groove in my cerebrum.

This is one of those days. I get up before the sun. I light the candle and do my quiet time thing. At the right time I rise and I ready the day for the ones I love. The breakfast, the lunches, the checking of the planners. There is the herding and more checking before departure. I move slow in the dropoff line. Back home I pour the coffee. In goes the laundry and out go the dogs.

This day I get ready for Bible study. It’s a small affair—me and a few of the bestest girls. I facilitate, so I must be there early and I look over the leader’s guide. I comb my hair and tease my face into presentable. The books are stacked by the door and my homework is all done but I am running late and the dogs ask to go out again.

I stand on the front porch and wait. The chill of the morning nips at me and I fold into myself and close my eyes.

The air smells like spring and I can hear the earth drinking up winter. I breathe deep and listen. I hear the dogs stepping on the grass and it is crisp beneath their paws. I open my eyes and I see God.

The world is crystalline, each blade of grass painted delicate frost. I stand in amazement and wonder at my earlier eliding of such beauty.

I was thinking too small. And standing there on the porch in my bare feet cold on the concrete, I remember that there is One who always sees me. 

I remember Hagar and how the angel of the Lord found her near a spring in the desert when she fled Sarai.

I have now seen the One who sees me.

I close my eyes to see better and He whispers a wonder-moment in my ear.

Do I have time?

I know that I must make the time because who can keep El Roi waiting? I laugh out loud at the wonder of it and I climb the fence with my camera to take a closer look at beauty. The earth is marshy beneath me and I know she is melting from the inside out as we tilt closer to the sun. I sit in the cool wet and study the delicate pattern of an ice crystal and I am so very small. I am going to be late for Bible study, and will they notice the wet marks on my jeans? I breathe in spring’s arrival and my heart leaps. I am small enough to be embraced by this meadow of hoarfrost, small enough to be cupped by Beauty.

But the One Who Sees me breathes love into my ear. He does not strain to see me. He comes to me soft as the morning frost, melts into my skin and calls me Beloved. 

Small was never so beautiful.

How about you? How do you embrace the God-joy? Every Monday I’ll be sharing one of my Playdates with God. I would love to hear about yours. It can be anything: outside, quiet time. Maybe it’s solitary. Maybe it’s loud and crowded. Just find Him. Be with Him. And come tell us about it.



Grab the Playdates button from the sidebar!



Sharing with L.L. Barkat today also:

Stone Crossings: Inclusion

I am five and when they say to stand, I do. Kindergarten doesn’t seem so hard—these ladies give me juice and sugar cookies—I think I’m getting this thing down. But Shelly Lucas hisses under her breath and reaches her hand out to wave me sit back down.

We’re not supposed to, she says.

She’s just trying to do the right thing (bless her heart), but I throw daggers with my eyes and then turn to face the flag. The others put their hands over their hearts and say the words. I just stand, my face turned away from Shelly Lucas sitting on her mat. Mom said I could stand to show respect. Just don’t say the words, she said; just don’t hold my heart in an offering to that flag. I am five and my cheeks flame and that’s the first time I know.

I am different than all these kids.

My different doesn’t show most days. I chase boys on the playground and roll my hair in sponge curlers and have blue eyes. It’s easy to forget my different when I am one of the best readers in the first grade, when I make straight As and place second in the school spelling bee.

I try hard to make them forget.

But every Christmas there is a play and my brothers and sister and I must stay home. And every year when the kids dress up for Halloween, we cast ourselves in our ordinary jeans and go to the library while they eat their treats. There are no valentines or shamrocks…no turkeys made with the outline of our hands. Every holiday offers the opportunity to be the outcast until the other children handle me with kid gloves—they don’t understand what it’s all about.

At the age of five I must choose over and over again and I am just different enough to make me strong. I stop caring what they think. In the midst of all that crazy—somehow--in kindergarten I find God’s heart.

The tabernacle of Yahweh was crimson, blue and purple…I like to think of it as God’s heart, pulsing crimson, blue and purple just beneath its covering of skin...He decided to put his heart in the center of the Israelite community, instructing Moses to build a worship tent according to his heavenly design...Upon the arrival of God’s heart among the Hebrews, no one could deny it was astonishingly beautiful, woven with exquisite thread, whispering love through the lips of pomegranates and golden bells and sprinkling mercy through wings of giant cherubim…(L.L. Barkat, Stone Crossings).

But in the second grade I learn what outcast really means.

That’s when Robert and Charles Posey come to our class. Robert is bigger—word has it that he was held back the year before and Charles is the younger of the two. There are a few homes up our way that do not have running water and theirs must be one of them. They come to school with the smell of unwashed flesh and dirty ill-fitting clothes.

And when the other boys grab their hair and pull them around the playground, punch them in the stomach until their faces turn red, they try not to cry.

I watch these brothers suffer everyday at the hands of their classmates. I might throw Brooks Ferrell a dirty look, but most days I just let anger boil unnoticed. Then one day, I hear Robert ask his little brother something after they both have been bullied around the playground. The bigger boy stands awkward over his little brother’s red face.

Are you ok, Charlie?

At that small string of words something breaks inside of me.

I don’t think it out, I just yell. I don’t know it with my head, but I know it with my heart. Sometimes, we are called to be places of refuge for each other. I stand up to Johnny Spino and tell him to let those boys go.

Johnny Spino wants to be my boyfriend after that—but that’s another story. It didn’t go far beyond Button, Button, Whose Got the Button anyway.

My Pastor spoke about compassion on Sunday. He told the story of the Good Samaritan. I had just read the chapter in L.L.'s Stone Crossings on Inclusion and I couldn’t stop thinking about God’s heart—pulsing crimson, blue and purple. That’s compassion. That’s where compassion comes from. His heart wrapped around mine.

Sometimes I wonder about the Posey boys. I wonder how they are doing, what kind of scars they have and if they even remember the day in second grade when a skinny-legged girl stood up for them on the playground. I remember other times like this when my heart roared like a lion and I am thankful for my time as an outsider. But I am also grateful to be called into his beautiful heart.

Roar like a lion for someone today—roar gentle as a lamb. Be a refuge. You can, you know. I know a second-grader who did it once.

Sharing with Michelle today:

Photo by Nanny Lee, via flickr.