Day 22: The mess under the refrigerator

There are jobs I never have time to get to.... until somehow it is forced.  Cleaning under the refrigerator is one of them. 

Today it was forced. 

As expected,  a giant collection of toys,  garbage and dirt pilled up under my broom.  I pillaged through the pile gathering up pencils, marbles and matchbox cars. Delighted,  I found missing pieces of games and puzzles.  Treasures.

I spent the rest of the day trying to put the pieces together of what to write tonight.  

Cleaning out dark and forgotten places.

Finding lost treasure.   

Lent is full of these things. 

I think tonight I'll leave it as a meditation. 

Where else do I need to do some cleaning before Lent is over?

Day 21: How Frozen pointed me to God

Washing dishes, it dawned on me.  One of my most commonly prayed written prayers in this current season comes from Frozen II.

I've been thinking about prayer a lot this season. It's funny how I've been really pondering the basics - prayer,  sin, grace - how long and how often I've used these terms without thinking deeply about what they mean.  

Prayer was a very specific thing in my mind.  Words spoken to God specifically in a set apart time for praying. But them I thought about written prayer,  silent prayer,  prayers you read like the lords prayer and prayer services and I began to expand my heart to consider what is the essence of prayer. 

Prayer is that which orients us towards God.  

When we find a deep joy in our work that brings an awareness of God,  our work becomes a prayer of worship.   

A walk in nature that connects us in awe of the creation becomes a silent prayer of gratitude.

Music that bends our heart in contrition or longing, gratitude or praise becomes a psalm.

Washing dishes,  Into the Unknown, came on my Playlist. The words,  I realize,  come directly from my heart giving expression to my current season of faith...

I can hear you, but I won't

Some look for trouble

While others don't

There's a thousand reasons

I should go about my day

And ignore your whispers

Which I wish would go away, oh, oh-oh

You're not a voice

You're just ringing in my ear

And if I heard you, which I don't

I'm spoken for, I fear

Everyone I've ever loved is here within these walls

I'm sorry, secret siren, but I'm blocking out your calls

I've had my adventure, I don't need something new

I'm afraid of what I'm risking if I follow you

Into the unknown. 

Truth is,  in mid-life picking up and trusting God when you have a job and a home and a bunch of kids feels incredibly daunting.  It's easier to think about God calling me to incremental changes.  

Ironing out faults I've been working on for years, 

Volunteering more at church or in the soup kitchen

Not .... the unknown.  Where even is the unknown? What would I be expected to do in the unknown? 

I don't sense God calling me to sell my house or move across the country,  but still,  there has been a shadowy distant call into something unknown that I can't quite make out.  

And as I listen for God's voice,  this song becomes my prayer.  Bringing God close,  turning my orientation to an unknown call. 

I was talking to a prayer partner about this today and was surprised to find myself choking back tears. But I think I realized how much harder it is to consider following God into the unknown with all the little people in tow. 

Where are you going?

Don't leave me alone

How do I follow you

Into the unknown?

Day 20: The wild wild wind

 Overnight rain slowed in the morning and it seemed that the predicted storm came through quicker than expected. The morning air smelled of rain and it was warmer than it has been in a while. Miles and I crept out to the backyard to check out greenhouse and see what grew overnight. We milled around the backyard half-, heartedly cleaning up and poking around various spots in the garden checking on new plants, bugs and the chickens.  The breeze was noticeable.  Strong but warm.  Pleasant.  It smelled of spring and earth. Reluctantly,  we headed back in to continue on homeschool lessons.   

As the day wore on the wind grew noticeable. It went from a strong breeze to wind to a wind storm. Gusts rattled the house and trees.  It was otherwise oddly pleasant,  but the wind was going crazy.  And suddenly, a knock at the door.  

I saw a fully suited police officer waiting,  hands on hips.  My mind raced. I thought about my friend who isn't doing so well. Or maybe trouble with kids... or did someone call the cops on my chickens. I mean,  this is suburbia, it could literally be anything.

I took a deep breath and opened the door.  I look out and my neighbor and another officer are holding up my fence. 

"It's about to crash on your vehicle. "

I grabbed my keys and ran out in my socks to move the van.  I then darted back through the house in search of something strong that could help hold up the fence.  I returned with a couple of ladders that I pulled out from behind the shed. 

With the fence secured,  the officers hurried off to help with some downed power lines down the road.  My neighbor called her husband who happened to be a fence contractor to come shore up the fence.

The wind howled wildly.  I stood there.  Perplexed.  It was pretty nice out otherwise.  The sun was shining from time to time.  The wind was pleasant,  just strong.  It was like standing in a polite hurricane. 

I thought of Pentecost. The wind whipping through the upper room,  tongues of fire resting on everyone's head. 

CS Lewis writes - "Aslan isn't a tame lion. "

Sometimes the Spirit of God comes like a hurricane and tears our world apart.  Blowing down our fences and uprooting our lives. 

A pastor friend once told me that you know when you are doing God's work because eventually the police show up.   

Praying that this Lent sends you some wild wind that breaks down walls,  opens doors and uproots your life. And if it does,  apparently my neighbor is a fence contractor and can help you rebuild. 

Amen

Day 19: A broken refrigerator

 I woke up exhausted.  The jetlag of daylight savings hit me hard. I opened the freezer to grab some ice to make myself some ice tea.  The ice tray had water in it.  I touched the frozen veggies next to the tray.... soft... face palm. It's only 6:45. 

I packed lunches,  got kids out the door,  called the service line for the fridge.  It's only a year and a half old.  They walk me through troubleshooting.  I realize the fridge is also warming up.  

So grateful we have a back up fridge,  I clean out drinks and start carting food from the main fridge to our back unit.  Mentally planning our new long list of items to cook this week.  At least I don't have to try to figure out what to make for dinner. 

While I was cleaning out the fridge, I went to dump so stuff down the garbage disposal.  Pressed the button.  Nothing.... seriously?!

I continue cleaning,  my energy lagging. Every ounce of me wants to sleep but there's a storm rolling in tonight and I'd rather deal with all this cleaning and rearranging without buckets of water pouring down.  So I press on until it's time to pick up kids.  More iced tea and Harry Potter audiobook while I do school pickups. Luckily,  two kids have robotics after school so I just have the 3 Littles. 

We come home and I set about getting dinner in the oven and continuing to clean out food areas as I shift and move things around.   

Crash

"I'm an idiot"

"What happened Philip?"

"I broke the fish tank!"

What is with this day??

Luckily,  he broke the fish tank we've been using to house Miles bugs,  not the one full of water.  Silver lining. 

At this point,  I'm realizing that today's blog post is going to be about brokenness. Broken appliances,  broken glass,  a broken body that is barely making it through the day.  

I thought about the song I posted a few days ago.  Thank you for sunshine.  Thank you for rain.  

I thought about how sad I was that this beautiful day was wasted on dealing with all the broken things and tomorrow it's going to rain. 

Thank you for sunshine. Thank you for rain. 

I turn on music and have a dance party with the littles.  Zander dancing in a diaper.  The smell of ribs and chicken legs wafting through the house.  Miles running through with bugs to feed the chickens. Somehow the day managed not to be sour. 

Dancing with gratitude was a wonderful prayer in the midst of nothing going right.  The movement kept my heart moving the right way. 

When I think about brokenness and faith,  I tend not to think about "non-functioning" type of brokenness like my broken refrigerator.  Somehow spiritual brokenness feels more poetic. But sometimes brokenness is life rearranging.  A broken car,  a broken washer,  a broken body. Suddenly life shifts in a new direction and we're not following the originally scheduled program.  We're dealing with unexpected life. Fixing a problem. 

God is present in our brokenness.  Not just the poetic brokenness,  but the days that we flat out stop functioning. The days when life is rearranged because we don't work quite right.  God is present even when our faith is broken,  when we can't even figure out which direction we might start to look for God or when ẁe don't even want to.  

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Day 18: Humanity is a terminal condition

This weekend has been the type to make me wrestle with the condition of humanity. I debated with a friend the purpose of modern miracles, got word of someone who passed away with unresolved arguments,  and had to talk to the police about a friend who is,  by all definitions,  a hot mess. 

It all got me thinking about our hopefulness that people will change and how often it actually happens.  But even more,  when it is clear someone will never change how much effort do we put in to help them.  As if the only reason to help is to inact change. I think of our judgement of people asking for money.  Our isn't worth doing if they are going to turn around and spend it on booze.  On one hand it is wreckless to waste our resources... time, money,  energy on hopeless situations.  Or is it?

I pondered this as I set about endless housework.  Cleaning the dining room table for the fourth time today. Making beds for them to be torn apart in a few hours.  The kids whining.... why do we have to clean up when the house just gets messy again.  

Indeed.  Life is terminal.  We just keep struggling with the same stuff. Over and over. 

I thought of my friend.  Her destructive patterns of behavior.  How she can't see a better life even if it knocks her against the head. But then,  so we all stay stuck in our own behavior patterns that trap us even when a new life is right there for the taking. 

A few weeks ago I was listening to Brene Brown interviewing Richard Rohr about his book Breathing under Water: Spirituality and the 12 steps.  They talked about themselves as achievers,  the need to keep doing,  keep achieving... here's a bit of the transcript 

Brene mentions this quote:

I am trapped by certain grace and enclosed in the constant need for mercy.

Then proceeds to say

" I just turned it into a prayer, because I think to myself, “I don’t want to surrender to win. I want to fight to win. I don’t want to die to live. I want to fight. I want to fight on all these, and I don’t want to give anything away to keep it. I want to fight for it and keep it. I want to fight. I want to fight all the time.”

I have a deeply engrained Midwestern ethic that says - Do better.  Be better. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps and fix your life.  There is a place for that,  but being trapped in God's grace is a recognition of the terminal nature of the human condition.  We can only take ourselves so far and we are all trapped in our own destructive cycles.  We might make "progress" and like the bed,  wake up the next morning to only find ourselves needing to be made all over again.  

But in Christ,  we are trapped in grace.  Simultaneously unable to "fix" ourselves and free to embrace the yoke of Christ which is light. And,  in the fullness of time,  become transformed into our resurrected selves,  born in the new earth,  fully accepting of God's amazing grace. 

For now,  we hold the human condition in a holy hospice. Loving each other in our brokenness even as we hold the heartbreak that comes with an inability to break the destructive cycles that bind us.  We pray for grace to break through and open our eyes to the life Christ calls us into. 

Until then we are left with these three things.

 

Faith.

Hope. 

Love. 

And these greatest of these is.....  

Day 17: Wrapped in water

California is getting drenched by another round of atmospheric rivers which,  after several years of drought,  the prolonged rainy time is welcome.  There is something a little scary thinking about running out of water.  Our modern life is so convenient. Everything we eat,  wear,  use, buy comes from far flung places that we take for granted that water is one thing that we need locally and if we run out,  we can't just truck in more.  

I look out the window and see my garden growing lush as the temperatures are slowly warming and my perennials have been pampered for months with regular water after so many lean years. I think about Gardener God and smile.  

Water is so deeply connected to my experience of faith.  The wide view of the ocean that connects me to the vastness of God. Water washes us clean again and again. Water held us in our mother's womb before birth. Water is also powerful and terrifying. 

My favorite place to pray is in the shower. It always has been. When I'm sick,  it is the place I must want to be. When I'm overwhelmed, cold,  tired, grieving... I want to wrap myself in water and close my eyes and feel God with me.  

Watching the rain outside and my hungry garden coming back to life I can't help but think that Gardener God is wrapping around creation renewing us all. 

Day 16: Gardener God

Miles gardens every single day. I'm almost certain his career will involve agriculture or at least biology.  He was born for it,  the way Mozart was born to make music.  It's actually beautiful to watch him in nature and in his garden.  His tiny,  gentle way with bugs,  eggs,  chickens,  plants,  seeds.  He sees things i don't see.  He's connected to the earth in a way I don't often see in humans. 

I'm homeschooling miles hduring the morning this year because,  well,  he also learns very differently from most people and needs lots of one on one instruction.   I've developed my homeschool lessons around gardening because... well fight em or join em. We compare sizes of seeds,  germination time,  what seedlings of different plants look like,  spelling vegetable names, etc.  I've actually surprised myself how many things you can work on while gardening. We've covered nearly every state standard for 1st grade with lots of room to grow. 

 I digress....

 In California,  we don't take water for granted and gardening for the last several years has included a small rainwater collection system in my backyard. Yesterday,  one of our chores was to move water from the collection barrel to other storage to make space for new water with upcoming storm.

As Miles was filling his jug,  he looked at my with a sly smile and a twinkling eye.  

"Who gave us this water?" He said slowly and softly. Grin never fading. 

"God. "

"And who is going to water our garden tomorrow?" 

"God."

****

A few months ago it was getting ready to rain and Miles asked me where the rain comes from.  I told him "God sends the rain. " 

He got wide eyed. 

"MOM, IS GOD A GARDENER?"

"Yes."

"AND DOES THAT GARDENER GOD WATER THE PLANTS?!?!"

"yes,  Miles,  that Gardener God sends us all the water we need. "

****

Now whatever the weather,  Miles will say "Gardener God is watering the garden or Gardener God is shining light for the plants."

Miles knows he doesn't garden alone.  I think he has found his prayer language too. He prays with his hands covered in soil. 

Gardener God.  

He sends us rain. 

Maybe he wears galloshes.