Two years ago, I had two hearts beating beneath my own. Twins. I was overwhelmed most of the pregnancy, to be honest. Worry multiplies with multiples. How would we care for two babies at once? What would life look like with five kids? Deeper, darker questions slid underneath, slimy and squirming. How could I love them all well? Would I lose myself? I worried about the wrong things. Most of us do, most of the time. Two weeks later, their tiny hearts were beating outside my body. Each fighting to keep pumping: one with too much blood, one with too little. Trapped inside giant isolettes, wrapped in plastic and tubes, poked and prodded, too much and too little. Neither heart strong enough to survive. A week later we held two tiny urns. Hearts to ashes. . . . Everyone we love will die. Of course you don't want to read that; I don't want to write it; no one wants to believe it. But it is truth. Can we hold it between steady hands? Look it straight in the face? Even … [Read more...] about when hearts become ashes
Seasons of Church & Home
come, the still-joys
He laughs now, this rolling plump of a babe. Chortles like a chuckling gentleman when I tickle under his chin. The laughter is intoxicating; we are all addicted. His doting brothers swarm the changing table for a chance to coax out another. In the instant when his round eyes brighten and his soft mouth opens to laugh, I am swept inside. Everything becomes this moment: joy that totalizes. As soon as the moment evaporates, I come back to present and realize: Once upon a time I did not believe I would feel the pure shine of happiness again. What grace of a second chance. What gift from grief. The still-joys. . . . The world is a wasteland, again and always. If you only trust the headlines and the handwringers. Meanwhile most of us go on, quietly doing the unnoticed work that underpins everything. Emails and deadlines. Laundry and dishes. Building and mending. Helping and forgiving. My mother used to tell me that every generation was convinced it was the … [Read more...] about come, the still-joys
a turning of seasons
It's steadily fall now. Even I can admit it, a summer-loving girl who hates to kick the flipflops to the dusty back of the closet. The light is lower each afternoon, the mornings darker. The seasons have turned again. I'm trying to soak up what's good about this one. The splash of colors on trees, the clarity of sunlight through bare branches. Autumn is a beauty to behold. We only need to appreciate its brilliant golds and reds. The startling turn of trees from one day to the next. In spring you have to search for the spectacular. Be willing to get your boots mucked in the boggy earth, your fingers muddy in the cold dirt and meltwater to uncover its raw becoming. But autumn is unearned. All nature's work, our gift. You can take it all in from the passenger seat. . . . For months now I've been living off-season. I wrote the Blessed Is She Advent journal this summer before Benjamin was born. I'd wake early, the house already flooded with outrageous June sun. I … [Read more...] about a turning of seasons
what an upside down Holy Week taught me about Jesus
Triduum is my favorite time of year. Except when it's turned upside down. In a house of one spouse with walking pneumonia, one child with pinkeye, two children with stomach bugs, and everyone home sick for Holy Week bringing an apocalyptic return of morning sickness which lands the other (pregnant) spouse in the hospital for dehydration on Holy Thursday. A litany like that sounds like a laundry list of lament (which it is, to be honest). But in the midst of throwing all Easter plans out the window, something surprising happened. THE SAME THING THAT ALWAYS HAPPENS WHEN I THINK I AM IN CHARGE OF MY OWN LIFE OR OTHER PEOPLE'S. Also known as: a startling encounter with the reality of God. By Friday afternoon, slumping in the pew with two kids who begged to go to church, exhausted from an evening of IVs in the labor & delivery ward, cranky from caring (poorly, selfishly, mistake me not for Florence Nightingale) for everyone else instead of me, I was Officially … [Read more...] about what an upside down Holy Week taught me about Jesus