holy waiting

 the first sunday of advent. my most favorite of seasons perhaps. an opportunity for choosing pause and wonder in long dark cold days. the winter stretches out it's arms in the north to show how much of the year it takes up with it's bare trees and brown grass. in uganda advent felt important in a different way, it was a chance to interrupt the sameness of the year, the constancy, to disrupt the natural equatorial rhythm and invite a new routine for the month. to light the candles, to read specific scriptures, sing carols and sit in the wonder- the entering of the divine. God drawing near.

each year as i get older it means more to me. God drawing near. both that God did and how God did. and then given that, that that was our example, the Divine, entering humanity through a pregnant young single mother who birthed him in a barn with out support of a midwife in a night with some shepherds around- likely undesirables - and given who Jesus chose to spend his life hanging around with- that given all that, we the church, have so often gotten it wrong! we have made it about power and money and wearing your best and not letting people see our ugly bits and judging those who aren't doing it 'right'. when we just go back to the beginning, when we remember how God came, Jesus's birth, the humility, the simplicity, that example- i want that to be my starting place. 

because for me the contrast is startling. the emphasis in america on consumption especially during advent, is impressive. but here is this example, this entering of Love into our world, to show a new way for peace and joy, and it has nothing to do with money and buying things. Love enters the world into dirt, to grubby hands, with no running water, to poor people, but is sought after by the wealthy and wise. 

advent calls us to stillness this month because the world is so full of noise. advent calls us to wonder, what child is this ? advent calls us to a holy pause, a holy waiting to see what may unfold as humanity encounters divine.

oh come oh come Immanuel

 

 

linear

 the other day i went to do a physical exam for one of my long term care patients at a nursing home. she has dementia. she was sitting on the edge of her bed, wrapped only in her fleece blanket eating her breakfast and somehow she looked very appropriate, even regal - blanket tucked under her arms with her exposed shoulders. a 'couldn't-be-bothered' elegance. i complemented her haircut and said it made her look younger. she asked me how old she was, because she had forgotten. i said, you're 85 years old. she looked at me, her expression somewhere between amused and unnerved. no. that can't be she shook her head. i checked my dates she did look younger than 85, no you were born in 1937 right? that's right. well it's now 2022 so that makes you 85. but i haven't even born any children yet. she had this look like someone who had time traveled - or rip van winkle - awoken into a new reality and missed a large portion of life. behind her was her family portrait all 5 kids smiling beside her and their spouses and her grandkids. there was a big pause. a space. her memory betrays her.  time is already a complicated thing even before dementia.

i can appreciate the shock of time. today i took jude on our first college tour together. why it was just last week he learned to ride his bike down our dirt driveway in uganda, and the day before that we were in atlanta and he learned to swim and graduated from preschool, standing taller than the other kids in his stripped rugby shirt singing their italian song holding a yellow flower on stage. i promise, it was literally last week.  

and when i stop now and think of those milestones, the balance needed for the body on a bike, or to dare to float and move through water with just your skinny child arms and kicking legs- did i pay attention? or was i figuring out what to make for dinner? and what else did i miss?

life is so amazing. how it goes on linearly. no matter what. there are no options to change this. my boy who knew himself well enough to run right off the t ball field during warm up laps and into the car on the first day of practice, is the same guy who knows what he wants to study and what size school he wants. he is not one to look around for everyone's approval or reaction- he knows what works for him. and he checks only his internal moral compass - i'm so proud of him for that. 

one of the strange things about life with zoe is how time can feel more like a loop than linear. we circle back around. ground hog day. we can feel like we are on repeat. maybe this is why it's feels new and surprising with jude. he's actually going to launch in a way that zoe won't. it's more evident with the milestones. others milestones. the weekend her best childhood friend graduated from an ivy league university, i helped zoe in the shower and combed out her hair with 'no more tangles' while she watched 'Go Diego Go' wearing her 'Aristocats' t-shirt before we drove her back to her program.there is a timelessness to zoe that is painful and yet i cherish it. zoe has the gift of moments. she lives in them, fully. she doesn't wonder if she was present because she is all in.

jude's linear path has been very classic, if anything accelerated. he had to be the oldest of the siblings when he followed her by 5 years. i remember him answering her first grade math problems when he was 2  because he had learned counting and was hovering around the table while she was melting down. it has been him who had to watch out for her, not the other way around. yet this is who he is- for good and bad, it's shaped him.and who his is, is wonderful.

today i look at him, up at him, all 6 feet and 8 inches of him, and see him knowing himself in a world where that has become harder to do than i think it was for me. i see him caring for the world around him and wanting to make it better and to find his way to do that. he has a soft spot for people who aren't always linear in time,  who may get stuck in loops, but he's learned his boundaries probably better than i have mine. today i was in the background, observing his engagement with his next steps and i know he'll be just fine. 

begin again

 i'm here in wenham ma, where i swore i would never live again, sitting on my porch beneath the canopy of two red umbrellas looking out to a canopy of maple trees in the woods out back. trees that have stood still and held their place for over a 100 years, long before my days began. i am leaning on katenge covered pillows, missing african tea and the hot sun. the weather has turned cool, the sky is closed - bone white- but the leaves are still fully green and i hear many birds.

for the past month i've felt vulnerable and sandy, squinting and exposed, like a hermit crab who crawled out of her old shell but neglected to first find a new one.  i've been searching for a covering that fits. in retrospect it would have been better to have planned, started something and then said goodbye to my last writing space- but this honestly is much more typical of me, and a lot of life's lessons get learned when i'm sandy and exposed. 

after i wrote that last post, i immediately needed a space to write to process the leaving. transitions are hard but there is also goodness to be found in letting go. and that is what i was doing. letting go of my decade plus of raising zoe. letting go of those long years of my wrestling with what was, when it wasn't what i wanted. of moving to acceptance and the slow process of turning that acceptance into thanksgiving, into gratitude.which is where i have landed.

it's also a letting go of uganda, of our life being lived there. i left over a year ago that place i had thought we'd stay forever. there have been moments of deep longing and moments of tears, usually unexpected and at strange times. like at the fish counter of the supermarket when they wouldn't fillet the tilapia and didn't want to hear my story of the man who sold fish from the icebox on his bodaboda, or painting the hallway when that toto song "i bless the rains down in Africa.."came on.  or when i'm listening to someones lungs and i briefly close my eyes. i hear parts of the exam in luganda, "bikola okamwa" (open your mouth) and for a minute, i am there in the village in my mind. it's vivid, the colors, the light, chipped paint, a fly, the smell of sweat, a smile.  the struggle to let go becomes tangible, the longing a deep oceanic pull. 

the letting go these days feels different than the letting go that we are forced to do with time and physical leaving. these days, letting go is becoming a choice, a practice. 

because it seems my days are made of this. these days are very full, full of people becoming their own. my process with my kids is shifting into a space of letting them go. as they start to bike everywhere and drive cars, and navigate a world of constant change and choice - my job is to be in the business of learning to let them go. helping them hear their own voice, the indwelling Spirit of God within them, and trust it. my job changes from telling them what to do, to guiding them toward good choices. i remain the steady presence, the reliable background, the behind the scenes overseer but not the dictator.

as i searched what to call this 'new' space i couldn't part with 'be still and know' - it's ancient wisdom, a call to remembrance  - an invitational command- slow down, stop treading water and let yourself just be, be still, rest, and know that I am God- and that is enough. that is what lets me stop treading water, running in place, or up a mountain, God is bigger. the great Mystery of Love is holding down the fort. but instead of 'away we go', the sub text is 'letting go'.

i'm going to have to get used to this new shell, this new space. i still feel sandy and raw and that i haven't settled in yet. but i will get there. i will let go and begin again.