A Dwelling Place for God

It's a curious thing, really. But I know it's a real thing. Mothers of many who are nearing the end of their child-bearing years experience a longing--a painful, burning longing for another infant. We find each other in the pain and we talk quietly in the dark of the morning. We pray mightily for each other and hold our collective breath as we wait for news. We share the cyclical disappointments, the heartbreaking losses. And we wonder together: What did God have in mind? Why did He inspire in us this holy longing for a child? Why does He let us want something so much? We've been faithful and obedient and open and, at the end of this season of our lives, it hurts so much to long for something we know so well and to find that it is no longer His will for us. Why does this beautiful, full gift of life-bearing love seem to end with longing and loss? What are we supposed to do now?

I think, maybe, just maybe, this answer is in Christmas. I think we who know so well, with such certain familiarity, what it is to have life live and move within our very beings, are called to be dwellings for God. It is Ann, the poet among us, the one who listens so well, who articulates it for us. Perhaps now, in our morning conversations, wedged between our offerings and our intercessions, we might have instead, understanding. We hope, we pray that we will one day very soon be dwelling places for a baby. But we know, with ever-increasing certainty, that we are called to be dwelling places for the Holy Infant. He alone can fill us forever.

Perspective

I was coming here tonight to tell you about my bad day. The short version is simply:

• I went out shopping at 6 AM in the 19 degree snow and ice because the packages I ordered for St. Nicholas Day didn't arrive. I couldn't shop yesterday because of that flat tire.
• I've been hurt by several people I thought were friends and it about crushed me early, early this morning.
• The van is still in the driveway with a flat tire and the AAA guy (who arrived around 5 today) assures me that if I call tomorrow morning before 7:00 he'll come fix it. Tomorrow.
• Patrick made the state ODP team (good news except that they practice in Richmond every weekend and the people we usually carpool with didn't make the team--have I mentioned how much I dislike driving? I dislike it even more when it's two hours away and likely to be cold).

• The trash men took my perfectly good stroller and tossed it into the back of the truck and then crushed it. When I ran outside waving and screaming, they stopped. And stared. When I asked them to pull it out so that I could at least retrieve the sweaters and the tool kit in the basket, they refused. And so my dear friends, I called Christian and Patrick  and the three of us reached way in and pulled that stroller, covered in muck, out of the trash truck. It wasn't pretty. And then I had a very pleasant talk with Customer Service.
• By this time, it was nearly noon. I locked myself in  my room and called a friend and totally fell apart. I wanted to crawl under the covers and stay there. She suggested gingerbread houses, St. Nicholas crafts, and Dawn's gingerbread cake. And  she came over and made it all happen.

Before I began to blog it all, I stopped by to visit Heather and read this poem.

And I was transported back seventeen years to a young mother who was bald. Her throat was so burned by radiation that she couldn't even swallow water. Her young husband was tired and worn and worried and her toddler knew all too well the waiting area at the hospital. But it would soon be Christmas and with Christmas would come the end of this treatment. With Christmas would come hope that they could begin life again with a rare and precious perspective. They would know that even the bad days are golden gifts of precious time. They would know that delayed parcels, flat tires, twisted, filthy strollers, and even shattered friendships cannot rob us of the awareness that time is a treasure and life is very, very good.  They would know that in the blink of an X-ray, a phone call from a doctor can shatter peace  and threaten life as we know it. They would promise never, ever to lose sight of the gift of joy. And time. And life itself.That young mother was me and my life is forever imprinted with gift of cancer.
It is no coincidence that it was Heather who shared the words of another young cancer patient. Nor is it a coincidence that it was the mother of a cancer survivor who filled the afternoon with fun and the house with the smell of chocolate gingerbread. Sometimes, we live through experiences that teach us invaluable lessons. While we never, ever want to learn those lessons that way again, we can appreciate the treasure of the lesson and we can honor its message.Even--especially--on the bad days.

Gratitude check:
Tonight, dear Lord, as I sink into the comfort of the evening, I thank you especially for (14) a brand new box of Saintly Soaps, herbal tea, and a very hot bath. (15)I thank you for children who delight in the feast of their patron, despite the chaos and the disappointment of the grownup world. (16)I thank you for the lessons of cancer and the gift of perspective and (17) for friends who understand perfectly both the gift and the perspective. (18) And I thank you for tomorrow and the hope and promise of a new day, filled with You.

A Pilgrimage to Our Lady of La Leche

We had three very specific missions for our morning in Saint Augustine. The first was to thank Our Lady of La Leche for hearing our prayers of nineteen months ago. With great joy, we brought Karoline Rose, now nine months old, to the Chapel of Our Lady of Leche, where my husband and I had asked Our Lady to intercede for us on our previous visit. We took our sweet girl and all her siblings to the rustic old chapel set beautifully in St. Augustine, Florida.
Once there, we thanked Our Lady, but then, like audacious children conscious that their mother is unceasingly generous, we asked for more. We took this post from Bridget's blog, where she has listed all those Catholic friends of ours yearning for just one more soul and we read the sidebar to our gentle Mother. Then, we left it in the petition box. Still, though, we were not finished.
I had just received an email asking for a very, very specific prayer request. My dear friend Donna was welcoming a grandchild into the world. For the past several years, Donna and I have had an inexplicable bond of interwoven prayers where babies are concerned. My family and I had the great joy of praying to  Our Lady of the Milk and Happy Delivery for Stevie and John, and for Leigha Rose, and for her wonderful grandmother. Leigha was born that day and I just know Our Lady of La Leche was smiling at the happy coincidence.

An Utterly Lovely Rabbit Trail

On the second night in Denver, after the busyness of a full day of the conference, my sweet husband and I snuggled up in bed with his laptop. He had stashed a movie with which to surprise me. It was a movie he'd seen on an airplane a few months ago. I remember him coming home and declaring that he'd just seen the most perfect movie for me. My children all found this quite amusing since I don't like movies. It is unimportant why I don't like movies--and I'm not quite sure I've figured it out--but my definite bias against movies made his claim to have found the "perfect" movie all the more preposterous.

But this was the man--the traveling man--who had just taken time off from work to get back on an airplane and travel across the country with a baby so that he could stand in a vendor hall and hold the baby while he watched me talk to one woman after another. The least I could do was act like I wanted to watch a movie. And so I did. I sat right next to him while he fired up that computer and I acted like I loved that movie. For the first three seconds. Then I was mesmerized. Hooked. Drawn into the story. And smiling. I smiled through the whole movie until we got to the sad part. Then I cried. And then I found myself smiling again when the protagonist did. Oh, what a perfectly lovely movie! Oh, how I wish I could roam the Lake District and come home to a farmhouse and paint darling pictures to which I could put timeless prose....

Oh, how I adore Miss Potter!

I loved Beatrix Potter before the movie. I loved her art, her delightful turn of phrase, her obvious respect for children. I'd read biographies and played with websites and even done an extensive unit study that was written with Melissa Wiley. But this movie inspired something different altogether. The movie inspired me.  I wanted to develop an adult relationship with Miss Potter. I went to sleep that night and dreamed in watercolor.

(Note: I wanted to give you an  link to the complete set of the little books, the way that Miss Potter insisted they be published, but they are unavailable at amazon.com or at Barnes and Noble. Here is a complete set in a single volume, but that seems a bit heretical.)

When I returned home, I was eager to share the movie with my children. The bigger boys snickered a bit as I settle to watch it with the littles, but I noticed that none of them left the room. Perhaps they were just so surprised to see me sit for an entire movie...

And as soon as it was over, Nicholas headed up the back stairs.

"Where are you going, Nickle-pie?"

"I have to write a story about animals and I have to paint pictures to go with it and I have to have it made into real books. And I have to start now!"

That's my boy!

The conversation had begun. One by one, children asked at different times for more of the story of Miss Potter. How much land did she end up buying? Did she have children? How many books has she sold? Who makes decisions about her books now?

We were delighted to extend our movie experience with a gem of a journal. Beatrix Potter: A Journal is a heavy, substantial book with period writing taken from Beatrix Potter's own diaries and journals. There are photographs and sketches and watercolors and scrapbook memorabilia all beautifully bound into a lovely hard book. It's perfect for perusing, setting aside, and coming back to again and again. My children have spent hours with this book. It's the ideal book for strewing casually on the living room table right after the movie has been watched.

Since this is my rabbit trail and I have this intense need to know, I'm deep into Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature and I'm already sure that Miss Potter will have a profound impact on my approach to education once again. The book captures Beatrix Potter the author and illustrator and the naturalist and conservationist. She had a passion for a place and she was a close observer and a gifted recorder. That is what I want for my children: passion, attention, and the careful stewardship of their gifts. Why, Beatrix Potter is a curriculum;-)!

My friend Leah, who is an extraordinary librarian (I highly recommend that everyone should have a dear friend who happens to be a librarian), recommended to me the The Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter by Susan Wittig Albert . The Cottage Tales are a series of mystery stories in which Beatrix Potter is the protagonist. Susan Wittig Albert has done extensive research and befriended Miss Potter in order to write as faithfully as possible. The stories are easy, delightful read alouds that capture the attention of both boys and girls, particularly those who finish watching the movie and just want to know more--even if that more is fiction steeped in fact. These are available at audible.com--can you guess what we will be listening to on our next road trip?

And what is a Beatrix Potter rabbit trail without a  tea party? Mrs. Albert plans one for us and lay it out in lovely detail, complete with decoration suggestions and recipes at the Cottage Tales website. Dear friend, you might want to brew yourself a cup of tea before you begin to click around here.

Oh, and before we leave Mrs. Albert, here's the ultimate librarian tip: she and her husband also wrote the China Bayles mystery series. And at that website, we discover the "herbal" mysteries, that is mysteries solved by China Bayles, lawyer-turned-herbalist, who is quite the sleuth. Each mystery features an herb and lots of herbal lore and information is woven into the story. And, with all good herb stories, there, are of course, more recipes.(scroll down to the recipe index) and another sweet tea page (click on Tea Parties for a whole year's worth of themed tea parties). Note: I recognize that I have now left Beatrix Potter entirely but that's the stuff of great rabbit trails!.

Sigh. So there you go: a warm, wonderful movie that makes one want to wrap her shawl around her (if one had a shawl) and go for a walk around a lake--and then to come home again and paint beautiful pictures for and with children!

 

Tah Dah!

It's still Wear an Apron Day! And I'm wearing mine.

Mine as in I made it! And I'm extraordinarily excited about it. I totally fell in love with an entire line of fabrics. I bought a couple of yards of it even though I don't know how to sew. Then, I saw this bucket hat and thought how much Mary Beth likes hats like that. So, I bought the book recommended by Soule Mama. Around that time, I read about Wear an Apron Day.

I love aprons. I am the world's messiest cook. My favorite aprons are denim and heavy twill and I wipe my hands on them all day long.  But, in the book, there was a pattern for a reversible apron. And, I think I might love fabric even more than I love aprons. So, I temporarily forgot I can't sew and chose what was rated the hardest pattern in the book. Then, I added a ruffle and pockets to it.  I made a deal with Katie and Nicky:  I would only sew if they could "drive." That is, I'm only sewing if they press the pedal. It's rather like having a student driver at the wheel. And it slows the progress considerably.  They leave me alone during the cutting and the pinning and the turning and the pressing parts.  The book says that this apron will be so cute that you might just want to wear it out of the house. I'll tell you what, three seconds after it was finished, I was on the phone to see if Mary Chris was home. And if she had been, I think I would have worn it across the street. Maybe.  For now, I'm just floating around the house in it. And I'm avoiding the kitchen. Don't want to get it dirty:-). So now, all you homeschooling moms of many, go tie one on!

Note to the people in Denver: I still have to make that bucket hat and I promised Mary Beth that she could make an apron, too. Then, I really will buckle down and write a talk or two!