Sweeter

The kids come wanting candy and I remember what the pastor told the children on Sunday morning.

Do you know how Halloween is like God? He asked.

Blank stares.

This oughtta be good, I thought.

Because, he said, God tells us that all we need to do is come to him and he will give us good gifts. Just like getting candy!

I think about all the children who come by our doors, think about grace wrapped in chocolate. How really it’s so much sweeter.

Teddy has volunteered to hand out the candy this year and his little brother is at a friend’s house and I feel at a loss. We light the jack-o-lanterns and I put Lucy Mae’s costume on her but she soon runs it off. Jeff chops peppers and starts a jambalaya. The kitchen smells good but I can hear laughter outside. There’s nothing for it: as the jambalaya simmers we join Teddy on the porch. We three sit on the steps and watch as princesses and superheroes work their way up and down our street.

I still can’t get over the plain fun of this tradition. All those years of Halloween I never celebrated growing up have helped me let go of all the junk and I just hold on to this: little Sarah from down the street in her long pink ball gown and tiara. She has a matching velvet cape. There’s Connor from one street over pulling a laundry basket with wheels on it—giant stuffed dog inside. Cameron next door is running up ahead and here come those giggling teenagers who are only in it for the candy. There are pink cheeks and bright eyes and glow sticks hanging around necks. The parents troll behind calling absently for meandering children to slow up.

I give each child a word, and some of the grown-ups too. It’s getting cold so I slip inside for a flannel and Lucy, tuck her under my tails and head back out. We watch the dark fold over our little valley and the candy disappears from our bowl. I think about the Halloweens when the boys were little and their grandparents would come over so they could hand out the candy while we walked little legs around these same streets. We always had a sandwich platter and a big pot of chicken noodle soup.

Jambalaya will do fine.

Teddy was a lion that first year he could walk. He was determined to make it on his own. He didn’t even eat the candy. Our neighbors exclaimed over his cuteness and brilliant manners and now he stoops beside me to drop a candy bar into an offered bag. He’s taller than I now and I wear his old jeans around the house and buy him cologne for his birthday. Don’t tell him about the jeans…that would probably creep him out.

We sit together until it gets too cold and the streets are almost empty.

And I know it’s not perfect but there is a lot of grace here.

And it’s sweeter than chocolate.

With Jen today:


And Michelle:

Playdates with God: Lonely

These shortened days are full and we have been at church or with our church friends a lot lately. God is always there and He loves us through their hands, with their words. We eat together and it is holy, we sing together and His joy takes wing, we sit and He sits with us. God is always there when we gather in His name.

But it has been in these dark and densely quiet mornings that I have felt the Holy Hand the most this week.

When I look out the window into darkness, despair fills my heart and I am emptied out. The white sky dawns, masking out the winking stars and I am hollow inside. This kenosis leaves me lonely. C.S. Lewis said our best havings are wantings and I feel this truth as I stand on the edge of darkness.

I miss my sister on these dark mornings. I long for the days when we would whisper in the night, sharing heart-secrets and dreaming. I want to call her but too many long years have passed since the hush of our voices gave comfort. I think of my friend—the one who moved away. The one who loved me in all my weird, who understood my crazy. She knew the ways of a heart empty and filled.

I stare at the phone and turn away.

I know these things won’t soothe. I know this ache cannot be sated. I accept this empty for what it is. And even in this loneliness I feel the truth.

I am not alone. 

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 my button at the bottom of the page and join us:





Sharing with L.L. Barkat today also: 

It's All Grace: Poem

Practicing my "contre-jour", still. This is one of my favorite boys.

the Weaver has been at work

with loom in the night,

binding warp of hillside in

carmine and aurous strands of

weft; fringe of gossamer on

the edge of tapestry; the sky

flocked with daedal braid

of brume and beam flecked

with wing and birdsong. and

it’s all grace—this handiwork;

the lacy pattern of love.

Listen to it!:

It's All Grace by Laura Boggess


Linked up with Bonnie today:

And Emily:





And nancy too.

Name-Caller

The morning clutches its mantle of dark and the moon still peeks—just a sliver of a smile. The grass is frosted over and I can see my breath in front of me—long lacy tendrils that stand out against the dark. I am grateful for this fleece robe—the one my sister-in-law bought me for Christmas when I was eight months pregnant with my first. He’s almost fifteen now and the robe wraps around me twice but ­­it is warm and it is comfortable and I am much too frugal to throw away something that has worked perfectly fine for all these years.

I wait for Lucy Mae at the edge of the yard under the smiling moon. She doesn’t like the crispy grass either and she picks her way slowly before finding the perfect spot. Fog settles into the low places and a mist begins to rise as the round earth's imagined corners begin to glisten red.

She said I was a name-caller. And I’ve been able to think of little else.

Where does that come from? She wanted to know.

Her words jarred me—the mirror was broken and suddenly, I see truth. I would never dream of calling another, see, but I call myself bad names.

The way the sky fills with light in the morning is a mystery to me. I know the scientists can tell me how it happens. How the sun is rising on one side of the horizon, but the other begins to glow long before she shows her morning face. There must be a way the light is diffused…maybe a series of astronomical mirrors reflect and refract the rays until they push out darkness…everywhere. Maybe these giant mirrors show truth. I don’t know, but the moon’s warm smile is growing dim and Lucy Mae has decided she doesn’t mind the grass stiff with cold after all.

I walk the driveway to the paper box and back to the porch; give her a whistle and a call.

Come on, girl, it’s cold out here!

The light is spreading.

She had me read Ephesians 1:3-14. She told me to personalize it.

Praise be to the God and Father of my Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed me in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose me in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight…he lavishes on me…I was also chosen…

The sun lifts up and steeps in the hillsides to gather strength. Before my eyes the night is turning into day. We go back inside to warm. 

We've been talking about Stewardship at church and I know I need to take better care of what God loves. 

The way the light fills the morning is a mystery to me. The day becomes slowly, then all at once and  I am shedding this robe. It doesn’t work perfectly fine anymore.

With Jen today:



And Michelle:

Image by photofarmer. Used with permission. Sourced via Flickr.

Playdates: This Moment

Brother Pius is in town, though Sister Emily was unable to join him on the long trip from Africa this time. We all gather at Nick and Sharon’s to pray and listen and eat and hold each other in love. I want to ask him how his family is, how their ministry is…are things safer? Do they get discouraged? How can I best pray?

His smile is just as bright but it seems somehow softer and I hear a little wheeze in his breathing. We sit in a circle around him and as people enter, his smile widens more. I remember what Sister Emily told us last year: “My husband, he…goes everywhere. God called him to be an evangelist, God called him to be a missionary, God called him to go…wherever he goes he is at home.”

He is home here.

The guys are teasing him about how well he hands out compliments. They say he knows how to “play the game”. But he throws his head back and laughs. Then he turns those smiling eyes on us.

“When you meet someone,” he says, “you never know if you will see that person again. So I try my best to make an effect on that person. I try my best to make an effect for the Kingdom.”

His accent makes these words music and I know when he says them, he is in earnest. His dark skin glows and I realize this is the contagious joy that he carries with him: this moment may be the only chance.

And I wonder what it must feel like to live this way. What does it take to feel this urgency?

What if this moment is the only chance?

I want to hear more about his life in Africa. I want to ask about the Muslim population they reach out to every day. I want to hear his stories, feel that urgency, know there is reason to act in this moment…

And then we start to sing.

It’s easy to get lost in these voices and I close my eyes and feel the singing lift me up. It’s my favorite part, next to stories, and I would be happy to stay in this place all night. There is something about singing together that makes a love bond strong and my heart swells for these people.

“Tonight,” he says, “We are going to stand in the gap. We are going to pray for the church.”

Something is missing, he says. A spirit of giving. Of filling needs willingly. I wonder what kind of needs his church faces.

“When we pray, we believe something is happening. Somewhere, someone is being delivered; somewhere, someone is being saved. We may never know but this we believe…something is happening when we pray.”

We stand in the circle and hold hands and lift our voices in prayer.

And something does. Something happens when we pray. This moment? It may be the only chance. And I pray with all my heart.

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 my button at the bottom of the page and join us:





Sharing with L.L. Barkat today also: 

Fortress: Poem for Growing Boys (Plus the Rumors Winners!)

photo of "The Kelly Effect" taken for The High Calling's photoplay this month.

Fortress by Laura Boggess

You have left your mark on me

brushstrokes across the

evening sky 

remind. 

these faint white

tendrils about my midriff and

the secret places of my thighs.

how they burned their place

beneath my skin as you did braird

inside me—my body, your fortress.

the reflection of the light

posts waves on wet cement and

rain fills in the empty places at the

water’s edge. a fish jumps and the arc

reaches out—slow concentric waves

that lap over all they touch…meeting

at the edge of the ripple to close the yawn

before dying out.

I would rather be the algae that

paints the water clear blue-green

on that river bed—

that vegetation waving

soft in the current—gentle, yielding...

would rather be algae than

this awkward conversation spilling over into

our soil. you have left your mark on me,

the fortress agape, awaits the day its mark will show.

This poem was shared with nancy and her gang for voices and friends. 

And my lovely assistant drew the names of two winners of  L.L. Barkat's Rumors of Water tonight! The winner of the signed copy is Shaunie @ Up the Sunbeam! And the second winner is Stacy who blogs at Broken. You ladies are in for a treat! Please send me your snail and I'll get your books out to you ASAP. If you didn't win this giveaway, you might want to check Rumors of Water: Thoughts on Art and Creativity out anyway! You won't regret it.

Playdates with God: Parade

It is homecoming at the high school and their band has invited the middle school band to march with them in the parade.

“Are you excited?” I ask Jeffrey on the way to school.

“I guess so,” he says. “It’s the first time in thirty years the middle school band has done this.”

I let that sit with me for a while. Secretly, I’ve been thinking it too much. They will go to the high school at 1:00 in the afternoon to practice. The parade doesn’t start until 6:00pm. And then they are to sit through the game with the high school band, not getting home until around 10:00 pm. That’s a long day for a 12 year old.

But he’s excited.

****

His grandmother wants to watch him march in the parade so she meets up with us and we all go together. We park at the high school and walk up the street to find a good viewing spot. Folks are spread out up and down the valley road—some have lawn chairs. We find some friends and stand gawking. Little Hannah is doing ballet on the sidewalk.

The birds are surfing the wind overhead, they come in waves and the way they soar against the blue sky speaks autumn into my heart and I gaze up the street to catch a glimpse of another flock—those redbirds I love so. They don’t have uniforms like their older counterparts…just their band shirts and “jeans with no holes in the knees”. The percussion section won’t have their snares either, because, “Ms. Paxton doesn’t have enough money to buy marching equipment”. So he’s holding a maraca-type thingie and marching in time. 

It’s the look on his face that makes my throat catch and I’m so proud and I know there will be a lot more of these long days to come. 

It’s so exciting.

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 my button at the bottom of the page and join us: 



Sharing with L.L. Barkat today also:

Rumors of a Giveaway...