Right now are the waning days of pregnancy. Contractions come and go. Intense, then subsiding. I can't walk without waddling. Sleep is fitful, restless. Comfort is elusive. I wake a hundred times. Every morning the kids ask if the baby will be born today. No one knows. These are my last days to carry. To be a vessel. Soon I will become the passage. . . . Each time the priest lifts high the cup and plate, intoning the thundering prayer I've heard for decades, I try to understand. What does it mean for God to be held in human hands? To offer us a way to become holy? Eucharist is vessel and passage. Jesus said I am the Cup of Life and I am the Way, and people were so startled by his strange words that they remembered them, recited them under breath a thousand times, wrote them down and passed them on, pressed them into the hands of others saying, see? It is all here. If you can try to understand. If you can believe. What I believe is this. We gather … [Read more...] about to be vessel and passage
vocation
and yes i said yes i will yes
Ten years ago we started being married. It is the vow that started our vocation. But what does it mean when a vow becomes an everyday verb? When a calling is shared as a single story? When we think about a wedding, we often think about a beginning. A clean slate for a new couple. An untraveled road stretching out before them. But there were endings that day, too. The end of family units as they once were, now learning to embrace another member. The end of two single lives, now braided together to become a new creation. We have chosen this person, and not another. We are making this decision, and not another. All of these beginnings and endings will change us. Forever. This is what callings do. . . . Last week I read When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi. To be honest, I read it in two days. I could not put it down. It is the story of a neurosurgeon diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer when he was 36 years old. It is the memoir of a masterful writer. It is a poetic … [Read more...] about and yes i said yes i will yes
for better and for worse
I wanted every day to be that perfect. I did. Who wouldn't? The sky was impossibly blue, the cottony clouds perfectly plump. The sun was warm and sweet. The lilies in my mother's garden were in full bloom. The church pews were lined with beaming friends and family, just as the laughing dance floor would be packed later that night. The music was beautiful, the readings were perfect, the sacrament was shimmering. Most of all it was him. He was the best person I knew. He was beyond what I had hoped to find in a husband. He was my partner in everything that mattered most. He was the reason that day was perfect. When I looked around the reception later that evening, I remember thinking this looked like heaven. Everyone we loved, gathered in the same room, together for an instant. And the two of us, on the edge of everything that awaited us. It could not get better. . . . If you suspect this is going to take a sharp turn south, you're right. If you assume this is going to trudge out … [Read more...] about for better and for worse
the grit and the glamour
Before I had children, I had a hazy image of life with kids. I don't think I idealized it as pure ease and smooth delight, but the montage of pictures that would flash through my mind looked much more like parenting's "best of" reel. Taking them to the playground on sunlit afternoons. Chasing them laughing before bath time. Cuddling up on the couch with favorite books. Watching them learn to ride a bike. Spinning them around the dance floor at family weddings. My movie montage still sneaks into my head in nostalgic moments. I know exactly why our memories choose to cement the best-of as hard truth. Because the grit which grinds through most of our days is not what keeps us going. It's the glamour. I saw this desire in spades on social media in the days leading up to Christmas and New Year's. Pictures of grinning cherubs in matching Sunday best. Families gathered beneath twinkling trees. Perfect holiday dinner spreads and champagne toasts. No one shows the screaming toddler … [Read more...] about the grit and the glamour
