An interview with Emily on the first day of grade TWO!

My favorite food is: “Pizza”

My favorite colour: “light blue”

My favorite toy: “stuffed dogs”.

My favorite TV Show: “Scooby Doo”.

My favorite movie: “Scooby Doo”

My favorite thing to do outside: “Mostly everything”

My best friend: “I don’t have one”

The coolest person in the world is: “I don’t know”

My favorite sport is: “Soccer”

My favorite animal: “DOGS”

My favorite thing to do with daddy: “Going on daddy daughter dates.”

My favorite thing to do with mommy: “Mommy daughter dates”

Favorite place to go: “HOME”

When I grow up I want to be: “Dog trainer and an artist”

My favorite snack is: “Crackers and cheese”

I LOVE to…”Play with dogs”

My favourite thing about me is…”I am good with puppies”

This year I want to…”More about dogs”

When I die, cremate me with all my journals and crummy short stories; Mix my ashes with a pack of lupine seeds and plant me under a pine tree at dusk.

It is a romantic thought, if I save you from the preceding one.

The thought in which I considered my death. Thought about how, the world I inhabit could do a little better next round. Like how my husband could choose a woman who could keep up with him. Like how I wish my children had a supermom…they deserve better than what they got.  I imagine they could come across a woman strong enough to parent our daughter, gentle enough to mother our son.

I want better for you too. I want a pastor’s wife for you who inspires you to righteousness. Who makes you want to join in this story and adventure. One who is wise and brave who shows up when you need her.
I want a better daughter for you, a better friend, a better sister, I want to be better for all of you. You deserve better.

But here is the thing. I am the one here now. I know better than these thoughts. I know better. Stop that email you are composing about my worth put the facebook comment away about how I am the mother meant for these children. I know that I have the capacity and the wisdom to love my kids well, to lead them.

I know.

I am the one here now. I am the one tasked with the ministry of these 18 inches in front of me. We are forgetful though aren’t we?

We need to remember.

I think we all feel this way some of the time and so we don’t step up and choose the life meant for us. We all feel like frauds, fear that any moment now someone will show up, figure out mind reading and will put all our sin and disfuntion on display. We will be shown for the short cut takers we are.

These thoughts keep us from being bold enough to step a little further in our calling. So many trade the crown of authority for the sludge of mediocrity, let insecurity rule when faith should.When we fail, when we compare, when we measure our progress – spiritual or physical. When we falter. We step away from the call on our lives.

I might be failing you even more than I realize but that might be the point. I know grace. I know my failure is the starting place and the finish line. My inadequacy is my blessing and my curse.

There are people better than me at everything in my life. But they are not here, do not have the authority to breathe on the lives before me. I am called to this space…only me. YOu are called to your space…only you. Tomorrow, may we walk into our days knowing this truth.

Grace. It smells live wildflowers not yet in bloom, apple blossoms, whatever that pink burn on the horizon might smell like.

Breathe deep.

Last night we went out for supper. Last night…of all nights…was a night we should not have gone out for supper. Last night, we could not afford to go out for supper, but we have hosted close to 500 people at the ranch in the last eight days, and tonight? Well…we needed someone else to make our food for us.

So off we went. We found a hole in the wall restaurant we have never been to before. As we were finishing up the waitress came to us and said “I will not be bringing a bill for you tonight. The elderly couple in the corner told me they were just so blessed to see a family like yours out together on a night like this”. We went over and thanked them, and I (as is my way) ugly cried and embarrassed the lot of us. The gentleman just gave each of the children a dime to make a wish in the fountain, turned and said “you’ve no greater gift than those children in front of you”.

We cannot know what our seemingly small gifts could mean to someone. We cannot know.

I’ve rested recently. Not in the sense of sitting still exactly (but a little of that) but also in the way of pure intention. I have been alert these lasts weeks, watching for all the ways God was speaking, healing and resurrecting me. It is amazing what you notice when you look up.

Some weeks ago I was out for a large group jog. I took my place nearly smack dab in the middle, and oh, this night. It was one of those evenings when the temperature is perfect, the sun is setting all red and blurred on the horizon. The cows in the birch trees are grazing on grass that looks neon green. Two Canadian geese landed on the creek beside me, a storm of starlings settled on the branch, the air was filled with all the promise of spring and new life. Most of the runners wore ear buds…sun glasses…they stared at their shoes obsessed with the immense pain of kilometer eight. But here is the thing…sometimes we run so hard in the right direction that we don’t notice the beauty until we are forced to stop…until we hit that wall.

Recently a woman I have admired and adored the whole of my life said something to me. If it had been anyone else, I would’ve shrugged it off, as we do when someone says something kind (Why is it that a word of discouragement near melts our bones but words of affirmation run off of us like water?). I let these words of hers sink deep into me, I accepted them as blessing and maybe even prophesy. Words that would have meant nothing from any other lips. There have been wounds healed that I didn’t even know had not yet scarred. There has been inspiration reignited that I did not even know had been snuffed.

What is it you are holding in your tight and fearful fists? What gift do you possess that is absolutely meant for your neighbor? Who is it, facing a giant, that would be so much  braver if you just stood behind them? What is it that you will not miss, but will mean the world to someone? What candle could you light for someone trying to make their way in the dark? What elbow could you steady? What leftovers could you deliver?

What…what gift is it you hold? Who looks to your for affirmation, conviction, forgiveness? Who is the recipient that is desperate…right now.

Look up.

All of April, I felt a bit like a kid on a merry-go-round who has been spun entirely too fast. Our crap was flying every which way and I was creeping near the edge. Now it is May. Watch me…hand over hand…creep towards the Centre…find me there where all the forces are held in balance by the One who hung the stars.

I was carrying your burden heavy on my broken heart.

I was allowing your pace to infect my plans. Your vision to dominate my view.

I was allowing my pace to quicken under the weight I kept lifting, thinking I could handle every speck of it.

It reminds me of a yoke I once wore.

But no. I won’t go back.

Instead, I will listen to the Pacific Chorus Frogs as they sing me to sleep, smell the wind through my metal screen as I finally still at night. I will let the wind in the pine trees blow and I will think about my smallness. I will rest as one who knows my God is Sovereign.

We begin…with extravagant picnic in the woods.

If you are tired, like you think there is no cure, I promise you there is…

This blessing is for you…

There was a man reciting his poetry in front of the drug store last week.  I stood while the rain misted, my eyes welling as he went on. His words were filled with wounds and glory. My heart turned over, reignited. This tiny gift, his act of grace to me. I held out my hand, we locked eyes.

“Thank you. Thank you for sharing your gift”. He stuttered, stammered, looked down at his worn out shoes. No, he said, Thank you for listening.

Just listening.

I might not have stopped on another day but God has talked to me about thinking small. Talked to me about watching for Him in unexpected places, listening for His voice, not rushing on. I am a woman of Big Vision, Big Plans, Big Emotions. I am always, perpetually, ready for the next Big Thing. I can walk fast, multitask, organize the multitudes. You got a dream? Lets get it done.

All I keep hearing these days though, is THINK SMALL. All he wants me to care about is spreading Good Seed. And finding tiny Pearls in forsaken fields. He wants me casting any net I can find. Working a teaspoon of yeast into the batch.

We have always begged God for the straightforward answer, what is the Kingdom like? What should we do? What is your plan for my life? God just says, Go Love Everybody. I don’t really care how. I want you to watch out for my prompts and leadings in each of your moments.

Isn’t it always, by the skin of our teeth, the head of a pin, the edge of a knife, the split second or just by a nose? Aren’t the most life altering things a single cell? We dare not despise the days of small beginnings. Big things only serve as spaces for the small to make manifest, to provide the conditions for the seed to sprout.

Give us this day, our daily bread. Tiny rounds of yeast grown into something that sustains us. Feeds the whole world. The Kingdom Come.

I am one of those who gets excited about words like subversive. That is just the thing for me. You can go and make your life make sense in all the practical forms, I’ll just be upside down and backwards. I hope this life never makes sense to the powerful.

Find me, chasing down back alleys and sitting at bus stop coffee shops even though I am not going anywhere. Isn’t this where the truth got dropped off?

I met a man on Commercial Drive the other day. He wanted to take me on a date to the Union Gospel Mission….amazing food for just a couple of bucks…dinner on me he said. I told him my cab was coming to take me to the airport, he waited it out as he didn’t want anything bad to happen to me. He stood a bit too close and the speed of his movement didn’t set me at ease. But wait he did. He said I could catch the bus to anywhere after lunch, he would show me how. I said I am always going too many directions and I do need someone to tell me which way to go. He stood with me, closed my yellow door,  watched me go. He waved me off like I was a loved one crossing an ocean.

I’ve thought again about all my directions. Like how my best friends have never met my work friends, who don’t know my church friends who have never met my running buddies who absolutely have not met my family, not even my husband. The parents I visit with every day after school do not know that I keep a blog, that I make friends on the internet who I hold quite dear. Nobody knows that I write short stories as the day turns to night or that I read depressing articles about the abyss of this world non-stop but also how I consume books that lay out the formula that will turn the abyss inside out and kingdom side up. I’ve a twitter account for my job and a facebook page for this blog and I manage social media for ministries I start and all the directions I go. I am excitable you see. You can say a lot about me but unenthusiastic is not one of those things. I keep pushing at doors that are locking me out and I’m reading it as a sign of change coming and I’ve said for years how ready I am. I know a dream when I see it, and this hasn’t been mine but it pays the bills you know. So tell me how it is I turn all these passions to purpose, and purpose to something that pays back the bank?

I know for sure if I looked myself in the eyes and gave that girl my best advice I would talk about a concentrated focus and setting my eyes on the prize set before me. I would tell myself that life is never about our place in the race but about how our legs keep moving forward. I would tell myself to catch the bus to nowhere, that seems to be where the adventure is.

But there are small winter boots kicking at the inside of my dryer tonight, scuffing it up with black rubber. They remind me of my people here and how much I wish I was the sort of woman who could attend a PAC meeting without having to crack wild jokes to throw off all that would bind me. I wish I was the type of woman who could care about manicures and cleaning my mouldings. I wish I could be the kind of person who could put all of THIS on strips of paper and into a paper cup, draw out just one and make a life out of it. I wish I was the kind of woman who could be tamed and bridled. I just keep kicking at the trainers, bucking off the rider, biting the hand that feeds me. I am a mustang, kicking at the fence, let me race. I don’t care where.

I wish I had gone to the mission for lunch. Perhaps his directions may have helped.

I stepped in a muddy puddle today. It looked like ice but it wasn’t. Loosing your footing happens mostly on ground that looks solid. There isn’t anywhere to truly trust your steps except the rock. Everything else is quick sand, speeding treadmills.

So here we are, half past January and I’ve starting watching Sherlock like I am one of his fiends. These cold days, it can’t be helped. I hope for so much more, but here it is. I squeeze all I can from the days, nestle quiet in the clear black nights.

I’m torn up by the state of the world. Desperate to find my place to stand. Solid footing. You know that space? The pressure point that keeps the tear from reaching deeper, the world from ripping in half. This seems to be my permanent state, right here, the simultaneous devastated heart-break, and an overwhelming sense of hope, and profound peace. If that is not proof of God then I don’t know what.

Grace, crumbs, spinning planets, dirty dishes and the setting sun…we begin again. People doing the best they can though it seldom looks like that. That is the nature of the kingdom coming, the way it begins in our broken hearts. The way we never split in two.

Today I read about the training grace. And I thought yes. That is it. Training. The point is in the walking, the ever more deliberate gait, the learning to recognize and trust the worthy footholds. Learning to walk with him even if the belt seems to be spinning beneath our feet and the progress is slow. This is the training grace.

There were people out in the woods the other day. They were calling a name. That happens out here, dogs take themselves for a walk sometimes, they love to accompany the deer, join a gang of rogue mutts. This was different though, there was an urgency about the call, the name was “Lawson”. Did a child wander out into my woods? I got dressed, headed out in the direction of the voices but by the time I arrived, all was quiet. I could not find a way to help.

Last night a fire truck went by. You cannot know how many coyotes are at your door until that happens. It seemed like every tree turned into a coyote, the whole forest howled.

It smells like smoke today. I keep checking the horizon for licking flames. The breeze seems pregnant with catastrophe. It is hard to read the news, I just can’t absorb anymore of it.

It is an act of will to bring that gut feeling into submission. To focus on helping and healing and hope. To find a way to join with the light bringers and hope mongers and grace addicts. Today I choose to join them. Today, see me beauty hunting, watching the sun set in all red and calling it beautiful. See me kneeling in prayer, with assurance of things hoped for. See me, in the nitty gritty of it all still at peace.

(Join me in a beauty hunt today? Find the helpers, the healers, the beauty and the hope. Really notice it. Really see it. #beautyhunt)