A May Day Prayer of Gratitude

God of light and love, thank you for the gifts of May.

Thank you for the beauty of creation.

May we never cease to be amazed at the songs of the birds and the colorful designs of the flowers.

And as you care for the sparrows and the lilies, thank you, too, for the promise of your care for us, your children.

Thank you for your provision: for fertile ground and bountiful harvests; for work and for rest; for loving friends, families and communities.

Thank you for the fruits of the Spirit, and the ways we’ve seen them anew even in this difficult season: for the joy of babies and children; for the kindness of neighbors; the faithfulness of healthcare workers, first responders, essential workers, and pastors; and for the gentleness of caregivers.

Thank you for all that we have to celebrate this May.

Thank you for the mothers in our community: those who mother young children, and those who mother all of us with a gracious and nurturing love, just as you, our Mother God, draw us to you as chicks under the wings of a mother hen.

Thank you for nurses. May they be honored, supported and protected as we approach Nurses Week. As we think of friends who are hospitalized, we are especially thankful for the doctors and nurses who will care for them today.

Thank you for the graduates among us: for the gift of learning; for teachers and parents and partners who have invested and sacrificed to support their beloved students and who share in their accomplishments. May we celebrate our graduates well even as their graduation ceremonies are moved from live to virtual, and may you guide them as they close one chapter of their lives and begin another.

Thank you for the glory of sunrise, and for the sustenance and strength we need for today. Thank you for your presence with us, and for your unsurpassing peace.

Remind us in all circumstances, God, to rejoice and to be thankful.

Amen

The words of Jesus, as recorded in Matthew 6:26-30:
Look at the birds in the sky. They don’t sow seed or harvest grain or gather crops into barns. Yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you worth much more than they are? Who among you by worrying can add a single moment to your life? And why do you worry about clothes? Notice how the lilies in the field grow. They don’t wear themselves out with work, and they don’t spin cloth. But I say to you that even Solomon in all of his splendor wasn’t dressed like one of these. If God dresses grass in the field so beautifully, even though it’s alive today and tomorrow it’s thrown into the furnace, won’t God do much more for you….?

A prayer: March 28, 2020

One of the new practices that our church has instituted in this strange time is a daily ten-minute prayer conference call at 7:30 each morning.

Today, it was my turn to lead the prayer. And so, friends, a prayer for March 28, 2020:

God, our perfect and loving parent,
We come running to you this morning as children
We come confessing, pleading and yes, whining.
We are scared
Bored
Mad
Tired
Sick.

We bring to you those whose bodies are ill, weak, infected, in pain. We ask for your healing power.  God, may your spirit move in hospital rooms and nursing facilities and in homes, wherever there is sickness, that you would bring comfort and relief.

For those who are grieving the loss of loved ones, and find themselves in this strange time, unable even to hold the hands of their most beloved people in their time of sickness and death, unable to gather with friends and family to celebrate the life of their beloved and to mourn together: we ask that you would be so near, that you would envelop them in love.

We lift up those of us who are struggling with depression, anxiety, addiction, or mental health challenges of any kind, asking that you would calm our minds and spirits and give us rest.

For those of us who are distressed and exhausted, feeling overwhelmed as we work demanding jobs from home, and try to educate and entertain and care for young children, and keep our families fed and our homes clean in challenging circumstances: we ask for renewal and strength.

For those of us who are distressed because we have no work and no income now, for those who are lonely and isolated, alone in their homes, for those who have no safe, stable home: we ask for provision, we ask that you would use us to be each other’s keepers.

For those of us who are leaving the safety of homes and going to work, caring for the sick and the elderly, driving trucks, delivering packages, stocking shelves, working as cashiers, preparing food, washing dishes, cleaning stores and kitchens and hospitals, responding to emergencies: we ask for protection, for grace and strength and health.

For those of us who are angry, with our country’s leaders, or with our family, or our neighbors, or who don’t even know who we’re angry at or why: God, meet us there, forgive our angry tantrums, hold us tightly in your embrace.

As we grow weary of isolation and social distance, as the days wear on, we ask that you give us patience and wisdom and that least popular of all fruits of the spirit, self-control. Inspire us to creativity; help us to find moments of joy and laughter, even as we grieve.

God, our father and our mother, hear the cries of your children, and remind us of your unfailing love and care today.

Amen.

A now, a benediction from Ephesians for this beautiful spring Saturday:

“I ask that Christ will live in your hearts through faith. As a result of having strong roots in love, I ask that you’ll have the power to grasp love’s width and length, height and depth, together with all believers. I ask that you’ll know the love of Christ that is beyond knowledge so that you will be filled entirely with the fullness of God.

Glory to God, who is able to do far beyond all that we could ask or imagine by his power at work within us; glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus for all generations, forever and always. Amen.” Ephesians 3:17-22

Go in peace, friends.

Home

Home is a bright green bungalow on a complicated city street
With chickens in a pen and pots of fresh herbs and white string lights in the backyard
While on the street in the front the MARTA bus whooshes past pedestrians on the broken sidewalk who are pushing strollers, walking dogs, and arguing loudly with disembodied voices on bluetooth earbuds.

Home is where we take refuge at the end of our stressful days, with our music and wine and books and Netflix shows,
Where we make dinner out of whatever’s in the fridge and snuggle under our blankets, happily ignoring the layer of dust and dog hair in the bedroom and the overflowing laundry basket in the closet.

Home is a farm in the rolling hills of Missouri, with ruminating cows and bleating goats, with giant old maple and pecan trees and a garden that produces an outrageous abundance of zucchini and okra, where the people who have known and loved me all my life gather around a long table and say the blessing before we eat.

Where my grandparents and their grandparents are buried in the land they farmed, in dirt that is dark brown, the way God intended dirt to be.

Home is a church that doesn’t exactly look like a church; a blue and white metal building where everyone, everyone, everyone is welcome.

Where the peace is passed with warm smiles and tight hugs, where children read the scriptures and hold the communion cup, where differences in demographics are not barriers to love and unity as siblings, all of us members of the forever family of God.

Home is wherever you are. And I know now what Ruth meant when she said to Naomi, “Wherever you go, I will go; and wherever you stay, I will stay. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God.”

Because now your people and mine are all part of the same matrixed web of our people
And it doesn’t matter where we are
In our cute little city bungalow
Or celebrating a special occasion in a fancy hotel suite
Or sleeping on the ground in a tent in a hot dusty field
As long as you are there with me
Holding my hand
Or making bad jokes
Or communing in silent parallel play as we stare at our phones
I am at home
Because you are my home.

What it’s all about

#blog52 #week52

”I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.” – Charles Dickens

We put a lot onto one holiday, some of us. Christmas! Time to connect with family and friends — all of them, as many as possible! Be charitable; give to those in need. Bake cookies; share them with your neighbors. Decorate the house! Go look at the lights, have some hot chocolate, go to a holiday concert or play. And be sure to go to church and read the Christmas story from the Bible, and be awed by the miracle of God coming to earth and being born as a human baby, to a virgin, in a dirty stable.

Angels and cookies and the whole shebang

We spread Christmas out over the past week.

Monday, a day trip to Chattanooga for lunch and gifts with Allen’s sweet mother.

Tuesday, Christmas Eve — and the traditional candlelight church service.

And then Allen and I exchanged gifts. This was his favorite.

Wednesday — Christmas Day itself! We have our own tradition for holidays when we’re home and without guests. The formula is 1) an act of service; 2) authentic Asian food somewhere on Buford Highway; 3) a movie.

Making sack lunches to deliver to a homeless tent encampment

Chinese hand-pulled noodles

Concession stand stop before Little Women

An essentially perfect day.

But we still had another Christmas coming. This year’s version of our family Christmas was yesterday, Saturday, and included my two sons, their significant others, and our former foster daughter. It also included hot spiced cider spiked with bourbon, a feast of cheese and carbs, an incredibly inappropriate card game, ridiculous stocking stuffers, and more laughter than I’ve heard all year.

 All of those things — spending time with the people I love, enjoying good food, helping others — those are the things I want to do all the time, all year. But those things get shoved into the cracks between work and appointments and home maintenance and all of the day-to-day responsibilities that suck away my time.

And you can’t do it all in one week a year. There are so many people we didn’t get to see at Christmas this year — my stepdaughters and their families, and my parents and siblings. I actually didn’t bake cookies for my neighbors.

And then there’s the whole “true meaning of Christmas.” Did I get it? I don’t know. I love the Christmas Eve service, and I really mostly believe the whole story — the divine made human, the angel announcing “Peace on earth” to shepherds, the star leading the Magi to the baby. The “light in the darkness” metaphor is beautiful, and relevant, and I can talk and write about it. But the truth is that I’m still in a weird place with my faith, and I don’t feel the mystical magic in the Christmas narrative this year. I want to, but I don’t.

There was another thing we did this week, on Friday. There’s an amazing local organization called Lost-N-Found Youth that serves homeless LGBTQ+ teens and young adults. They recently moved to a new location where they have more space to help more kids, and they received a donation of more than 50 beds. A friend challenged our little church to donate the bedding — sheets, pillows, comforters — to make all the beds. And we did it. In the middle of the crazy Christmas season, we threw pillows in our Target carts and added “Bed in a Bag” sets to our Amazon orders and we filled the bedding donation box in the church lobby several times over.

And on Friday, two days after Christmas, 13 of us showed up and made beds. Have you ever tried to put a fitted sheet on the top bunk of a bunk bed? I can attest that it’s easier and a lot more fun to do this with a group of friends.

There were no lights or decorations or cookies. Nobody read the Christmas story or sang a carol. But it was just about the most Christmas-y thing ever.

We made room for people — kids; God’s children — who have in all too many cases literally been told that there is no room for them. No room in their homes, families, or churches. We joined with our neighbors and together we said, it’s not much, but you are welcome to sleep here. We’ll make it comfortable and warm and safe for you.

For me, for this year, that’s the answer to Charlie Brown’s perennial question. That’s what Christmas is all about.

All is calm

#blog52 #week51

“All is calm, all is bright” – from Silent Night

I learned something this morning before I even got out of bed, while watching Good Morning America. Did you know that today is “Panic Saturday”? Also known as “Super Saturday,” the last Saturday before Christmas is apparently a major day of revenue for American retailers, marking the end of the shopping season that begins on Black Friday. Panic Saturday targets last-minute gift shoppers panicked that they’ve procrastinated too long, and is observed with one-day sales in an effort to accrue more revenue than any other day in the Christmas and holiday season. This year, it also falls conveniently on the day before Hannakuh, to maximize the profit potential of the intermingled interfaith values of generosity, guilt, and consumerism.

I can think of plenty of reasons for panic (climate crisis; current events in both India and China; every tweet that proceeds from the account of the President), but gift shopping is not currently one of them.

I do, however, have quite a bit of gift wrapping still to do….

After filling me in about Panic Saturday, the GMA anchors went on to let me know that the TSA expects 42 million people to go through checkpoints at US airports over the next few days, and that AAA anticipates more than 100 million travelers on the highways.

Places I’m grateful not to be today:

• Walmart, Target, Best Buy, etc. Does anyone go to malls anymore? If so, I’m also grateful not to be there.
• The airport
• The highway

I hit the grocery store and liquor store yesterday, so I decided to celebrate Panic Saturday in a revolutionary way: by not leaving the house all day. (Or more accurately, the yard. I made it to the mailbox and the chicken pen this afternoon.)

Staying home all day is a rare accomplishment for me. Even though I’m a full-time home-based teleworker, I almost always have an event to attend in the evening, or an errand to run on a quick lunch break, or both. As much as I talk about my efforts to be still and my need for solitude, it seems like I’m always on the go, rushing somewhere.

Not today. Peri, like me, spent the morning lounging and contemplating her plans for the rest of the day.

Turns out you can get a lot done without leaving bed. I actually did make one purchase — a new game to potentially replace our wildly inappropriate Christmas tradition of playing “Cards Against Humanity” with the (grown) children after dinner. Two clicks, and it’ll be at my door in a couple of days.

I also did some menu planning; found a new recipe for kale salad. A little blog-prep photo editing; a little reading. Maybe later this evening I’ll do some eating, drinking, and Netflix-watching in bed. And snuggling. No panicking, though. I’m taking the day off from that.

Newspaper, coffee, blanket. I may never leave the house.

Today is also the winter solstice: the shortest day; the longest night. When the Northern hemisphere of the earth is tilted the furthest from the sun. It’s overcast and rainy here today. We’re making our own light, with the help of the television, the iPad and the Christmas tree.

I learned something else this morning while lingering in bed, from Twitter, which led me to Google and Wikipedia, where I learned a little more.

Do you know about Shab-e Yalda (also known as Shab-e Chelleh)? It’s an Iranian festival celebrated on the longest and darkest night of the year. It originated as a Zoroastrian tradition, dating back to the 10th century. It’s still observed in Iran and several other Middle Eastern countries, as a time when friends and family gather to eat, drink and read poetry until after midnight. They eat fruits and nuts — especially red fruits like watermelon and pomegranates, because their color symbolizes the crimson hues of dawn and the glow of life.

Randomly, I had pomegranate seeds in the fridge.

Given my choice of holidays to celebrate, I’d take Shab-e Yalda (eating, drinking, reading poetry, friends and family) over Panic Saturday (bargain-hunting shopping) for sure.

But for now I’m so happy to be observing my own No-Panic Stay-at-Home Saturday, here with Allen and the dog and the Christmas tree. This could become a tradition.

A kindred spirit

#blog52 #week50

My new friend Peri

“I let the dog out, or I let him in, and we talk some. I let him know I like him, and he lets me know he likes me.” – Kurt Vonnegut

I am well-established as “not an animal person.” More accurately, I am not an indoor pet person.

Because I grew up on a farm, with cats and dogs who lived outside, where the cows and pigs and goats and all the other animals lived. Where my beloved chickens live.

Fourteen years of living with a cantankerous cat did not change my predisposition. Truthfully, I could happily live the rest of my life without an animal in my house. My position is that pets are as high-maintenance as children, what with their constant need to be fed and attended to, and all of their disgusting bodily fluids to be managed — with little of the payoff of raising humans, who eventually become interesting conversationalists and who hopefully, potentially, can return the favor of caring for them in infancy by caring for you in old age.

However. My Christmas gift to my husband this year was both free and very costly. Free, because Peri was a Black Friday Special rescue mutt: no adoption fees. Costly because 1) dog food, flea treatment, dog treats, dog toys, vet bills, etc., and 2) lifetime commitment to sharing my home with a dog. Her lifetime or mine; whichever ends first. I’ve made it very clear that Peri is not my dog; she is Allen’s dog. Still, she sleeps in my bedroom, eats in my kitchen and pees in my yard. She’s family now.

And though I’ve only known her two weeks, I have to admit she’s really growing on me.

Reasons why Peri may be the perfect dog for us:

• She loves to sleep. She’s a late sleeper and excellent napper. She loves her bed. Me too, Peri. Me too.

• Once she wakes up (not before 10:00 a.m.), she does like a nice walk outdoors. She likes to stop and sniff things, whereas I like to stop and take pictures of things. But a little fresh air and sunshine seems to lift her spirits. Just like me.

• She’s an introvert. Allen took her to the dog park today. She does not so much interact with other dogs as allow them to be in her presence. My favorite thing about her may be the way she completely ignores me.

She does not jump up on me or lick me or beg for attention. She sometimes follows me into a room to see what I’m up to. But mostly she seems happy to quietly cohabitate.

• Which is all to say, she’s a middle-aged woman. The rescue place said she was 8, but they were just guessing. We’re thinking she may be a little older. Basically, she just wants some food, water, sunshine, and a warm, comfortable place to sleep. And to be left alone. She knows who she is and what she wants. She snores and farts. She wants her bone chew toy in her bed with her, and ignores her other soft toys. She lets us know clearly when she wants to go out and when she wants to come in; it’s up to us to learn her ways.

I never, ever imagined that I would become one of those “dog moms,” and I still don’t believe I am or will be. But as dog’s go, Peri’s an awfully good fit for me. Old, lazy, introverted, and really pretty cute.

Not that she’s my dog, of course. She’s Allen’s dog. But if I have to share space with a dog….

That’s my girl.

No more let sins and sorrows grow

#blog52 #week49

Holiday weirdness

No more let sins and sorrows grow
Nor thorns infest the ground
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found, far as the curse is found
Far as, far as the curse is found
– verse 3 from “Joy to the World”

Here we are, a week into the Advent season. Our church’s theme this year is “repeat the sounding joy,” from the second verse of the carol Joy to the World. I’ve started each day this week with a reflection on joy. Tomorrow night is Christmas caroling and hot chocolate, and the next week brings the children’s Christmas program, with Christmas cookies after. It’s a joy-packed season.

And I’ve had a highlight reel’s worth of joyful moments this week: we adopted a sweet new dog last Sunday (my husband’s long-awaited Christmas present); I was in New York for a quick work trip on Wednesday and Thursday and got to see the city all lit up for Christmas; last night we got our tree up and decorated, and it’s giving the house a cozy glow tonight.

Allen with his new best friend, Peri

Wednesday night on 5th Avenue

Our little tree

But all is not joyful. Pretty lights and happy songs are not enough to block out the darkness and grief that stalks us.

There have been 9 mass shootings in this country in the first 7 days of December. Nine. I think only three made the national news, and I’d already forgotten about one of them. 19 people who were just going about their daily lives — working, shopping, going to a football game — killed in acts of mass gun violence. This week.

And then there’s the horrific story and video that came to light this week of 16-year-old Carlos Gregorio Hernandez Vasquez. Sick with a 103-degree fever and the flu, he collapsed onto the concrete floor of his Border Patrol holding cell, where he lay unnoticed for four hours until he was discovered by his cell mate the next morning — dead.

An immigrant child, sick, vulnerable — neglected to the point of death. By our government. By us.

It does not feel like the hap, happiest time of the year. It feels dark and broken and awful.

Which is also the point of Advent, I think.

A people, oppressed and living in a world of darkness and violence, waiting in hope for a deliverer. For things to be made right.

The Christmas story tells us that God showed up then, coming into the world in the form of a baby born to a poor, unwed teenager, an ethnic minority and refugee, without access to basic healthcare at the time of delivery.

(I don’t know why baby Jesus is white; I’m sorry.)

And he grew up (in a blended, working-class family) and then he went around talking mostly about love (love God, love your neighbor) and about taking care of the poor, the sick, and the stranger. About peace, and forgiveness, and generosity. And somehow, that was a radical enough agenda to get him killed.

Which leaves us where?

Still living in darkness, surrounded by violence and injustice. Grieving.

Still waiting for something. For things to be made right.

And Advent somehow reminds us that there is hope. That God is with us, even in the darkness. That God is found in unexpected places, and in the faces of children, and of the sick and poor and vulnerable. (Which is all of us, really, eventually.) And that love is a powerful force; stronger than hate.

I went to Clarkston today, as I often do on Saturdays, to spend some time with my immigrant and refugee neighbors there. And of course I found hope and love there.

In the Welcome sign at Refuge Coffee

With the volunteer crew at the Refugee Career Hub

And where there is hope and love, there can surely be joy.

Joy to the world, the Savior reigns
Let men their songs employ
While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains
Repeat the sounding joy, repeat the sounding joy
Repeat, repeat the sounding joy
– verse 2 from “Joy to the World”

Self-care strategizing

#blog52 #week48

Grandson Keller demonstrating effective self-care tactics: bundle up, protect your head, go outside and get some fresh air 

“Radical self-care is the secret of joy, resistance, freedom. When we care for ourselves as our very own beloved—with naps, healthy food, clean sheets, a lovely cup of tea—we can begin to give in wildly generous ways to the world, from abundance.” – Anne Lamott

Today is the last day of November. In other words, December starts tomorrow. There’s no stopping it.

December brings beauty, joy, love. Celebration, music, feasting, generosity.

And also: over-scheduling, social pressure, over-stimulation, over-commitment, over-indulgence, unrealistic expectations. And sometimes, real pain and loneliness.

Last Christmas was… kind of a blur

December can take me down, stealing every ounce of my peace an joy, replacing it with stress, exhaustion and guilt. Or not. I need a seasonal self-care strategy.

Anne Lamott was writing about radical self-care long before self-care became such a popular buzz-wordy concept that it’s practically lost all meaning. (See quote at top of blog.) One back-to-basics definition of self-care is “any activity that we do deliberately in order to take care of our mental, emotional, and physical health.”

Self-care doesn’t have to mean face masks or spa get-aways — but it could! I can’t take care of myself well unless I know and understand myself and what I need.

One key thing I know about me is that I’m an introvert.

Sometimes we just want to hang out and chill. Alone. (Actually Keller’s a highly social baby; I suspect he’s an extrovert. He just gets sleepy.)

How do I know I’m an introvert? Jenn Granneman, author of The Secret Lives of Introverts, helpfully offers 21 Undeniable Signs. And I solidly identify with at least 16 of them. Notably, I maintain a never-ending inner monologue; I dislike any kind of networking or small talk; hate talking on the phone and would much rather text or email; and structure my life around a balance of alternating between being social and being alone (or with just my husband).

Knowing who I am, knowing that the events of the next few weeks can present an existential threat to my emotional well-being, I can take a pretty good guess at what I need.

Here’s my three-point strategy:

• Optimize alone time
• Do something for others
• Give myself a break

I’m looking at the calendar. Noticing those “off” times, when I’m not working and not scheduled to be Somewhere, doing Something. Locking those in. And making that time for resting, reading, thinking. See point number three: I’m allowing myself to be unproductive. Taking a few minutes in the morning for meditation, or an Advent devotional (or a radical Radvent devotional). Making room for lounging and binge-watching, for taking walks and lingering over coffee, even if the dishes are in the sink and the Christmas tree isn’t decorated. Write a meandering, self-absorbed blog post. For me, this is radical self-care.

As an introvert, I spend a lot of time in my own head — and it’s not always the healthiest place to be. The quickest way out is to help somebody else. There’s no shortage of opportunities to give this season, and I can’t say yes to everything (give myself a break!) but I can sponsor a kid in need at the local elementary school and add their wish list items to my Target cart. I can probably join the church crowd to sing some carols to cheer up some neighbors. I can share out of my abundance.

Last year’s caroling event (to be balanced with quiet, alone time after) 

It won’t be perfect. I’ll have stressful moments. Honestly, I’ll probably spend too much and eat too much. See? I’m judging myself already, by some arbitrary standard I’ve set about how I should shop, spend, give, eat, manage my emotions, etc. I hereby remind myself to stop with the “shoulds” and allow myself to not get it all done, to tune into my own mind and body, and take care of myself.

I’m crazy lucky to have a calendar that’s full of fun things with amazing people. Friends, family, neighbors… I truly want to see them all, hug them, drink a toast to a new and better decade ahead. There are worse problems to have.

And you. Whatever it means for you… take care of yourself out there, okay?

Saving my sanity

#blog52 #week47

“To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.” – Mary Oliver

Week 47. Only five weeks left in the year, and they are jam-packed.

I am swimming in lists. Shopping lists, wish lists, to-do lists. People to see, places to go, projects to finish. Too many things, not enough time.

And again this week the blog topic is driven by something else I’ve committed to and need to complete this weekend.

Which turned out to be a blessing — the best gift I can imagine on a Saturday when I have so many competing priorities that I’m beginning to feel overwhelmed and nearly paralyzed, not knowing where to start.

Because high on the list is preparing a presentation and discussion questions to lead a reflection on the poet Mary Oliver for “Meditation Monday” at church Monday night.

So I sat on the front porch in the rain for an hour-and-a-half this afternoon reading poetry.

If you’re feeling a little stressed, what with the holidays approaching and all, let me suggest that you could use a little Mary Oliver in your life.

One of her famous and most-quoted lines is from the poem The Summer Day: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” 

When that quote is taken out of context and posted on Pinterest or embroidered on a pillow, it can sound like an exhortation to be ambitious or productive, to not waste a moment in idleness. To have a five-year plan.

Let’s back up a few lines:

“I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”

Apparently Oliver’s answer to the question of what she planned to do with her one wild and precious life was to be still and lie in the grass, and take a leisurely walk through a field.

I wrote a bit about Oliver back in January when she died at age 83. She was a treasure, and it’s hard for me to narrow it down to a few favorite poems to share with the Meditation Monday folks.

Putting a blue post-it note on all my favorites….

But this may be my most favorite, from the poem Sometimes:

“Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.“

Mary Oliver paid careful attention to everything, but mostly to the natural world — noticing every detail. In her poetry collection American Primitive, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1984, she wrote poems dedicated to her observations of mushrooms, moles, vultures, and skunk cabbage (an odoriferous wildflower, apparently), among other things.

I do not have her gift for poetic description or her exquisite patience for attention to minute detail, but I can pay attention.

To the brilliant red of the Japanese Maple on a gray day

To the lush and multiple-colored carpet that nature is providing in the back yard

To the pure gift of a single egg from our chicken

My list is still long. I did not accomplish everything I’d hoped for today.

But thanks to Mary Oliver, I saw brown and yellow leaves raining down in the breeze after the afternoon rain stopped, while the sun was trying to break through the clouds for a brief moment.

As she said, “Tell me, what else should I have done?”

Making my joy complete

#blog52 #week46

Last Christmas, with the North Carolina grandkids. (They’ve grown since then, and now there’s a Minnesota munchkin, too….)

I have a writing homework assignment due, so that’s what you get on the blog this week. It’s the season of getting ready for the season of getting ready: Advent. For the church, Advent is a time of expectant waiting and preparation for the celebration of the Nativity — the birth of Jesus.

This year, our Advent theme at Kirkwood United Church of Christ is “Repeat the sounding joy!” And I am certainly ready for some joy. In preparation, we’re writing advent devotionals to be shared with the congregation: one for each day from the 1st through the 25th of December, each with a joy-related scripture assigned for inspiration. I took December 9th, which came with a snippet of a verse from 2nd John as a prompt.

Once I actually started writing, my biggest challenge was paring it down to the specified word count of 250-300. I cut a lot of lovely words to bring it in at 300 exactly. Here’s your advent devotional sneak peak:

Making our joy complete

“…I hope to visit you and talk with you face-to-face, so that our joy can be complete.” 2 John 1:12

Early church leaders like Paul and John were prolific letter writers. Today, a handwritten letter is rare. We have easier ways to stay in touch: calls, texts, emails, Facebook, Instagram.

But the idea is the same. We’re often far away from people we love. We want to stay connected.

Whenever I’m traveling and see a beautiful sunset, I send a photo in a group text to my parents and sister. They reply with a picture of the sun or moon from their vantage point in Missouri: a long-distance moment of connection.

But letters, texts and social media posts are just teasers for the real thing. A texted “I love you” can’t compare to a face-to-face “I love you.” A hug emoji is a poor substitute for an embrace.

It’s the season of anticipation and joy. I scroll through recipes and happily plan my Christmas menu. I shop for gifts, excited when I find just the right thing for someone special. I delight to see an Instagram photo of a grandchild dressed up for a holiday program.

These moments of joy are about anticipation: of when I will gather around a table with family to enjoy a feast together; when I will give a gift and see the delighted face of the recipient; when I will travel all day to finally hold a grandchild in my arms.

And when I will join with my KUCC family, singing songs of worship, grasping hands and saying “Peace be with you.” When I will feel my pastor’s warm embrace, see our community’s beautiful children dressed as shepherds and angels, and read familiar scriptures together. Then my joy will be complete.