What Mamma Did: The Making and the Doing

Posted on February 23, 2013 by melissafed

She keeps those hands busy this mamma of mine. She loves in action and says more with yeast and flour than others can, even with all of their flowery words. Her love smells like gingerbread, tastes like huckleberry pie.

She clothed me in jumpers, the worlds most extraordinary Halloween costumes and hand stitched quilts.

It was the sick beds and the home remedies and the makeshift oxygen tents.

It was murals on our walls and wooden mouldings carved.

It was every shirt ironed, every field trip attended, every sports event observed.

It was intricately decorated birthday cakes and handmade cards.

The garden was grown, the dough was made, the Christmas bread always baked. It was family meals twice a day at least.

It was the way we watched her love her daddy in his last days, not with poetry and sappy cards but with daily lunch fed, walls decorated, toenails trimmed. I think it was then I understood for the first time, the depths of this expression of love.

It is the language she speaks the dialect we all understand.

It isn’t really a surprise then is it? That if I like working with you I will buy your coffee, bring you baked goods. If you show up at my house and say “I just ate” I really have no idea how to show concern for you. If you have recently birthed a 15 pound baby, I don’t know how to help but to show up with a casserole. It is possible that I only understand your acts of service, your reckless hospitality.

And so. Though I can’t always (read as never) proclaim my love from the roof tops? Thankful that my man understands the sentiment behind a well marinated steak, a breathing bottle of red.

And mamma of mine? I love you so much and I understood every word you ever baked.

Linking with Emily and

What was it your mamma did that made you know you were loved? Something other than the words? Share in the comments?

Putting it all in the ‘be a better mamma vault!

Tell me of your HOPE: A Link Up

Posted on February 19, 2013 by melissafed

Tell me about the forest you see, all the pine standing tall; from here all I’ve seen is her broken limbs and I can’t seem to look past.

Just for today lets talk more like saints than saved cynics. Tell me how YOU hope?

Tell me then what lights your dark? What makes you keep walking when you really want to lay down? Tell me of that moment of beauty that reminded you of God?

Tell me about your FAITH, the unsullied theology of your children, how the sun glints in their hair. Lets talk about where you watched the sunset last night and the colour of Sky Writer. Lets talk about the kingdom coming, how you feel it in your bones. Today I don’t want to hear the rocks crying out, I need you to say it too.

Tell me about your BRAVERY, how you do the difficult things, love the hard people, draw the firm lines. Lets talk about the steadfast ones, the everyday heroes, the women breathing justice, the men standing up for the underdog. These are things I need to learn.

Tell me about your LOVE so pure, it keeps your heart in check. Lets talk about the marriages standing strong or being restored, the parents sacrificing greatly, the churches living as one. These are the tales we need to tell.

Tell me about your MIRACLES, the prophesy fulfilled, the promise kept. Give me news of the sick healed, the broken bound, the depraved purified. I want no more of the scar tissue and torment, I’ve had my share of that.

Tell me about the STEADFAST ones, standing up to all the quitters. Lets talk more about the everyday heroes who keep getting back up, keep living their call, keep seeing the forest despite all the broken trees. I want a vision like that.

Tell me about your PEACE, your hope beyond the grave. Lets talk about the angels in human skin that help you believe it still. Lets talk about your deep drawn breath the way you aren’t afraid. Teach me how to breathe like that and to turn from fear that binds.

Tell me of the friends so good, the hearts so pure, a love so genuine. Lets tell of hope together today.

No really…TELL ME! Leave a comment, write a blog and link it back! I even made my first little linky-thingy!

Lets tell each other truth today shall we? A little bit of extra hope never hurt anyone.

Linking this post with the Wellspring, The Beauty In His Grip, Finding Heaven, Mercy Ink

The Fireball

Posted on February 15, 2013 by melissafed

A meteor fell from the sky yesterday.

Flamed up and burned out with all the power of an atomic bomb.

Crashed into the earth, left destruction in her path.

We had watched you for a long time.

Watched you over and over,

terrifyingly close to plunging into deep waters.

You stayed in the sky while under our watch, despite your best attempts.

Instead you fell, now, a decade later, in the middle of a city.

All the cloud of witnesses are wondering what sort of force field we could have built to protect you from this atmosphere that broke you into fire the moment oxygen struck.

We called the experts when we should have, looked for ways to extinguish the burn.

We did everything the text books say.
But still you burnt.

We prayed until we both shook on your behalf.

And yet still…

The cities are burning. You’ve left a natural disaster in your wake.

Rest In Peace TB.

The Measure of A Woman

Posted on February 5, 2013 by melissafed

Joining with Amber Haines as she poses writing challenges ‘abstractions of the concrete’. I struggled with this piece and mixed metaphors like a maniac but I hope in the end I came out with something…

Today? THE BOX…

When they stretch me out someday, on that cold metal table, unfurl my curled up toes and measure the length of me for that big wooden box; one last test to see if I FIT. I wonder if then we will finally measure rightly…

You see, I’ve been trying to fit into boxes for most of my life. To strip away any of my excesses, to fill in my lack with tissue…light, fluffy stuff that makes you feel good but makes it awful hard to breathe in there. I think you will like me better if I do that, take the edges off the corners, soften myself up a little.

When my children stand next to that gaping hole in the earth, will they crack jokes about my fad diets and Pinterest boards of weird exercise regimes? Or will they, in unison with you, talk about the way I spread myself thin on their behalf? Will it be that I wasted my moments on the temporary or that I counted my days, measured my moments, lived the entire circumference of my life?

When they throw that fist full of gravel, that first red rose (and if someone loves me well, a purple lupin), I wonder what they will remember me throwing? Will it be the shame I tossed their way or the grace I near overwhelmed them with?

When they kick the release on those levers, and start to return that wood back to its roots will they say ‘she already did that’? Will they say I lowered myself, that I sought the last place or that I lifted myself, fought for only the highest honors?

Will I be free of all the other boxes then? All the other ways we measure to see if we fit in?

Will we still compare with one another; the diameter of our thighs? The passion of our love affairs? The density of our curriculum vitae, the dust on our coffee tables?

Or will we then, when the box lid closes firm for that last time, measure each other -ourselves-

for the breadth of our love,

the depth of our grace?

the radius of our mercy?

Will we measure correctly only then?

Country Chronicles: Best of January 2013

Posted on February 2, 2013 by melissafed

January sped away with me this year. I don’t know where it went and I notice the blogs were few and far between and had very little to do with what ACTUALLY happened to us this month (sorry again mom and dad that my last post…which was fiction writing practice…made you think I was crashing into snow drifts). So with that I present…THE BEST OF JANUARY.

THE BEST BOOK READ:

We have long loved Sally Lloyd Jones “Jesus Story Book Bible” so when I saw she had written a children’s devotional it was a MUST PURCHASE. It did not disapoint…GORGEOUS.

I have started too many books since December and not finished any. Generally I have two or three books on the go at a time: A non-fiction (parenting, doing church, marriage, memoirs, gardening, other Jesus-y books), a book on craft or practice (writing, community development, nursing, research ideas), and always, always, some fiction. Fiction is always where I learn most, where I hear loudest, where lessons last the longest.

Currently reading are here…and I am joining a book club here (theology for this theology phob…blerg).

Did you read any fantastic books this month? Winter is stretching long ahead of me, anything I should add to the list?

MOST IMPORTANT RITE OF PASSAGE:

O particpated in his first Feddersen Hockey Game. It is a big deal in this family.

BEST MEMORY:

I wish I was a better photographer because then you would see a photo of E and I on the our rink, skating on a mild winter night. The sun is setting and has burnt the sky vibrant red, simultaneously the full moon is rising on the other horizon and placing itself in a nearly purple sky. We skate and hold hands and then we sit in and watch the light of the moon reflect off the ice, watch Joel and O sled down the driveway and tow back up behind the quad. It was magic…and I don’t think I will soon forget it.

STRANGEST PURCHASE:

Does your family ever do things just because you think it would be shockingly fun? We do. My husband has a hobby…he trades things, non stop. Most recently? He traded up until he bought…A 1985 Cadillac limousine CONVERTED into a motor home.

Look out spring (Hide yo’ wife) the Feddersens are coming. And yes…that does look like a rocket on top…imagine us coming down the highway in your direction.

FAVORITE PHOTOS:

What a babe.

January SoundTrack:

Civil Wars, All Sons & Daughters, and this that I just can’t stop watching.

Also looking forward to Daniel Romanos new album…anybody have it yet? How is it? Missy Jayne?

BEST FILM

Without a doubt the best film I have watched recently (though it may have been December) was “Beasts of the Southern Wild”. Have you seen it? As someone who must continually turn around and scream at fear it was POWERFUL.

Additionally as our first “Pursuit Justice” event we screened “Live 58”. You can order the film free from here or if you are a Kelowna-ite and missed our screening let me know and you can borrow it!

BEST RECIPES TRIED

I talked about it before but seriously…we can’t eat enough fish tacos. This month I started making our own roti for currys and I used this veggie ladden version as a wrap for the tacos. Big hit.

Other yummy things in the kitchen? Apple fritters, tomato soup with pesto swirl, and O says the best thing I made lately as popcorn and hot chocolate. So it goes.

This winter is treating me well…I have no sign of the Februaries this year which is a HUGE PLUS.

What about you? What is on your ‘best of’ list for January???

The Rock…An Abstraction

Posted on January 28, 2013 by melissafed

Joining with Amber Haines as she poses writing challenges ‘abstractions of the concrete’.

Today? THE ROCK…

I like the quiet. I drive my back roads in the Canadian wilderness. They are home, I am on automatic, cruise control. I wind through the fogs heavy bottom, I’ll cross over Daves creek freezing in the culvert beneath me, past the volunteer fire hall, I’ll wind up our driveway full of switchbacks. The snow has frozen everything to silence, even the trees hold steady and still. The sounds stop short in all this snow, echoes absorb into the soft white. My man might meet me at the door, we will settle into the quiet corners, the kids fill all the other spaces, a dull roar.

I can drive that eight kilometers and not pass another soul, so when he shot that rock clean out of no where it struck like a bolt, the electricity clear through me, the thunder shaking me from my daydreams. My heart started to flutter, I let it run away, my imagination too. That cliff there, just to the left, my tires touching gravel. Speed and adrenalin make terrible friends to me…my sense flees quicker yet. That crack there where the rock struck, I can’t stop watching it. How it creeps further each day splitting my vision clear in two. It creates a blind spot, I don’t know, it might even get me in trouble again. I will get the glass replaced in spring. Till then I will try to keep my eyes on the straight path ahead of me, even while the sun in that chip creates broken rainbows on my dash.

Motherhood…the thinnest place

Posted on January 24, 2013 by melissafed

I am not the same person I was seven years ago.

It isn’t that I have changed exactly, it is just that weight of motherhood resting on my very core, pushed most of me to the edges, to the extremes.

I am a polarized version of what I once was.

Life seems somehow heavier, sadder, worse. Simultaneously I feel lighter, happier, like the world is full of only beautiful things.

I laugh more than I ever did before but I cry more too. For my babies, for yours, for the babies without a mamma to cry for them.

I did not know I had a temper before they arrived, I couldn’t imagine being capable of child abuse before and now…I can. At the same time, it is even more unfathomable than ever. I am much more gentle than I thought I was, less calloused, less caustic.

I thought I was a patient person before they helped me to find the end of it. And now? They’ve drilled me and my patience runs to wells and depths I wouldn’t have imagined I needed.

I’ve never felt like I’ve failed at anything like I’ve failed these children. Also? I’ve never been so proud of anything I’ve done in my whole life.

Things seemed more complex before my little people arrived. Now loving God and man seems like PLENTY.

My tongue seemed to sharpen equally but paradoxically to the softness of their skin. My heart seemed to grow to accommodate the whole of them.

And then the sweetest part…there in the middle where they weigh on me the heaviest, where I feel like I am near worn through to nothing? That place where things get thin? I’ve seen Jesus there more than I thought would be possible this side of heaven.

And that has been the greatest gift.

Ecdysis (A great word I learned today)

Posted on January 21, 2013 by melissafed

(Joining with Amber Haines (who I am THRILLED to have back on the interweb) as she poses writing challenges ‘abstractions of the concrete’.

Today? SCALES…

(image credit)

My son found a snake on the road this summer. It had been crushed by a car. For all his scales, it still didn’t make him invincible. Turns out scales are not armor. Snakes too can bleed.

We find them sometimes. Once strong, protective skin reduced to a moulted crumbling shell. Even the thickened skin can rarely protect completely, much to our dismay. When the bellies rub in the dirt, sneak around the underbrush, hide amongst the thistles and cacti one has to toughen up a bit. Sometimes even Purest Light feels like it is burning pale pink skin.

Life is sharp isn’t it? We find ourselves gauged and prodded, trapped in boxes too small. We think the only way to stay safe is to batten down the hatches. Call upon every defense.

And then don’t you feel it? When your mouth turns to mock? When your brain jumps to the bad report? When your jokes choose the lowest common denominator? Saliva turns to venom and fangs poke through. We bite our brothers and sisters and melt their bones with our tongues of death.

Don’t you feel that skin thicken? The very cells elongate, turn into designs that look like diamonds on our backs, a place to carry our heavy loads. I join the serpent in the grass, slithering and whispering lies seeking to glorify this moulting flesh.

But it cracks. We wiggle out, we feel vulnerable and sometimes we hide but the only way to grow is to shake off that out-of-size skin.

This morning I tried to open my eyes but the night felt like scales. HE shook them off, I looked at the world fresh and new. This spirit sees things the slithering can’t. I stepped into the winter sun, turned my face upward, noticed the light not the heat. I’ll keep my pale pink skin, the burns I feel sometimes. Turns out, there is more for me than what a thick skin can produce. Turns out I want more for you than creating a puddle at my feet. Turns out…I want more from this life than rotten apples and safety.

Keep it Simple

Posted on January 16, 2013 by melissafed

“Mom, it feels so good when you help someone”

“Of course it does O, that is what you were made for”

And there it was, suspended in the air between us.

“O…Everything in you was created to love God and the people around you. It is your job in the world”

The truth of all of our lives, when all else is stripped away, should boil down to this.

Theology can be crippling in its application. Life can be challenging with all its frustrations. Church politics and our own preferences can make us sharp and selfish. And even love can often be more complicated than sharing your extra fruit leather; first grade kind of simplicity won’t last forever even though it should. Love at its most generous can be misconstrued as lust at its most selfish… But still how do we keep our lives spinning on the axis of LOVE alone? When we live a world that complicates, over analyzes, thinks the worst of others, seeks to feed our own fulfillment, what then do we do? How do we live that out?

Later, when I take my little girl to bed, there is an envelope on her pillow. Her face near lights up the dark room and she opens it to find a drawing by her brother. The two of them, stick figures beneath the most basic of sunshine, and she is near shaking with the joy of the discovery. She runs to her big brothers room wraps herself around him. I sit on her bed, a bit shook by the sweetness of it. I hear down the hall:

“I did that cause I love you so much E. Did you know that is what we are supposed to do? Love each other and God too.”

As simple as that. Create a space in your heart for the person that is before you right now, let them know that the space they are treading belongs to them alone. Make space there for God too. When our minds spin on this? Somehow all the rest of it makes so much more sense.

Country Chronicles: The Big Chill

Posted on January 12, 2013 by melissafed

Chill has set in this last couple days…we don’t mind because we hope the rink will soon be skateable. We had the first blades on it last weekend but it wasn’t actually quite ready.The kids have been loving the extreme amount of snow we got earlier this week. E isn’t quite as keen as the snow is well above her waist and she gets tired. The boy, keen on jumping off structures into snow piles, lasts much longer. He also figured out how to attach a head lamp to his sledding helmet, so his post dinner GT sessions are lasting extraordinarily long.