Lambertville Halloween, My mom, and stuff

Never have I ever seen Halloween done up in the way New Jersey does up Halloween. You should’ve seen it. Heck, I should’ve seen it. Most of what I saw was from the window of the restaurant where I work, but even so, it was pretty amazing. Streets strewn with costumed revelers of every age, a flash mob dance of witches in the street, Cruella D’Villes and gnomes and popes at the bar ordering beers and then the rains began to fall. A pirate ship, an art teacher’s house, a town full to bursting like a little kids pillow case candy sack after a good night. It reminds me of when we were kids on the floor of the TV room inventorying our haul into little piles of smarties, hersheys, reese’s, snickers, bit o’honeys, and the gross almond joys I was never gonna eat. Parties all weekend, fun and celebration and a coming together that was joyful to witness while walking to table 8 to see if they were doin’ OK.

And now it’s November and we’re faced with the very real reality of seasons changing, mounds of leaves gathering beneath trees quietly with no 20 mph wind to send them into the neighbor’s yard to the south. Just quietly resting and patiently waiting for rakes and bags and boys with chores on a Saturday morning. So weird after 12 years in Nebraska.

I cry over lots of things. The tears come so much easier with every passing year and maybe it’s because I need to make up for lost time or maybe it’s because the beauty and yearning, the heartache and truth of this one life we live are simply undeniable as age gently informs me that we are, in fact, participating and living moments never swiftly hastening past, that it’s going faster than we thought it would, and, that the strength of our younger selves can’t control the turning of the earth, nor the forecast of this coming day so we better get moving or we’ll miss the chance. Feel it now. Be here now. Now is the most powerful thing we’re ever gonna get.

I like to fool myself into thinking my hands and feet will save me. My work will be my redemption. It’s the only thing I can do to get someone to love me. What can I pour out? What can I give? What of my beggar’s bounty can I share for a shadow of a scrap of love? How can I get it right? What rightness is beyond my grasp? What shall I give up wanting in order to be content with the now I’ve been handed to make it count and earn some points? I know this whole story isn’t about me. How can I prove I know it’s not about me? Let me count the ways.

And then I think of my mom. I am my mother’s daughter. She was always a striver and always a worker and resisted the notion of rest right up until the notion vanished from her grasp along with all the others.

When it’s my turn to disappear I don’t want any of the drugs. When it’s my turn to fade into the shadows I don’t want any heroic resistance to the ushering of what I’m supposed to become next. Gilbert Meilander wrote a piece a while back about wanting to be a burden to his friends and family but I can’t see how that’s possible for me when my mantra has always been to be the exact opposite. And then I think of my mom.

Jon, in his wisdom, reminded me that she’s safe now from the turmoil that can plague the human heart and human mind. She has left the illusion of earning a place and has entered into the place of being. Her being, her presence, her existance has earned her a place in the kingdom because she is loved. She is loved by the one who created her and that is enough. No illusion of some intellectual argument, some moral high ground, some ability to win favor and garner ribbons. She just is. And she is enough. Her place is this world is rooted in being, in love, in being beloved. Period. Like a small child, like anyone on this earth outside the realm of achievement or knowing, she is safe and secure and loved and cherished. And really, she didn’t get that seat of safety when Alzheimer’s took away her ability to strive and earn. She had it the whole time. We all have it this whole time and i do too. And you do too. Love and value apart from CV, trophies, accolades, prestige, effort, and work.

We don’t start empty and then fill up our coffers. We start full of love and value and stay that way. Somewhere along the way we may be fed lots of stories about getting more than the next guy, being better that before with some good old elbow grease and some college degrees, some bank account heft and a shiny list of contacts, but those are just human stories and they don’t erase the treasure we had when we first got here. What we got here with was love and being and that’s what we’ll have that’s treasure enough.

The world wants us doing and fearing and wanting and getting and comparing and bullshit.

Rubbish. Like dressing up on Halloween only a complete bummer. A better Halloween would be to show up as we are, dancing a witch’s boogy for all the world to see and leading with love and snack sized candy bars. That might be truer to the mission than hustle and bullshit. It is the wisdom of the eldest feeblest elders in need of assistance and grace, gentleness and being seen. Being seen for who we are and not what we do. That’s us. That’s a gift to reorient our vision to something truer and deeper and will not fade away.

If you love learning about cross cultural stuff like I do, you’ll probably have learned that North Americans are some of the only people on earth who ask “What do you do?” as a cocktail party question. Most cultures think that’s the least interesting part about you. Instead, in other countries, one might talk on travel, past times, family, food, ideas and living. All us American efficiency experts have a hard time adjusting to the four hour dinners, the 6-8 hour house visits, the slow living of life over the frantic checking of boxes.

Halloween in a way that gathers, delights, imagines, plays, celebrates, and eats lots of candy. When it comes to “what it looks like” from an outsider’s perspective, the nuttier, the freer, the better. What a notion. It’s food for thought that isn’t empty calories or a recipe for a sugar crash. Hell it might be the launching pad for something more present, more vibrant, more teary-eyed beautiful than we usually like to consider. High five.

Me and Martha Beck

I’ve been reading lots of Martha Beck recently in preparation for starting her Wayfinder Coaching Certification program a week from tomorrow. I’ve just finished “Finding Your Own North Star” and am presently in “Steering by Starlight” before jumping into “Finding Your Way in a Wild New World.”

It’s in reading Beck and learning about her own journey that I’m reconsidering my own and finding through lines that had been hidden from me previously. It’s in reading her own synthesis of her life that I’ve begun to see my own hidden North Stars propelling me inevitably to this point, this place, this next chapter of my being and moving in the world. Just because one may have bounced around from thing to thing, from focus to focus doesn’t mean there hasn’t been an inner hand guiding the pathway and connecting the dots this whole time and that goes for me too even after all those years of feeling somewhat lost and rudderless. Perhaps I had a rudder and map and path from the very beginning. Just because I couldn’t see it doesn’t mean it wasn’t there.

I can say my journey started from before I had even left home. Always curious about the new people and guests walking through my parents front door, staying in my room or my brother’s room temporarily displacing us to couches or sleeping bags bringing with them suitcases and stories from places far way. Such wondrous people from all over the country and the world and I was always curious to know them, learn about them, make a connection with a new person and feel connected to something new and different than my own little life. I’ve always loved it and admired the adventurers among us and I was blessed with an adventurous mother who always lead the way to model what exploration, learning and connection could do to make this life richer and more wondrous.

So when it was my turn, of course, I raised my hand and took up the adventurer’s Standard at fifteen and spent six months in Paraguay. With me I took my first journal and I basically goofed off, day dreamed, spoke Spanish and sat in the corner of a local coffee shop and wrote every day all day long from February to August, 1993.

I’ve been a writer my whole life, but since I never talked about it, and no one ever asked me and it just came so naturally to write, I never even had the chance to realize I was a writer. I was just being me and doing what I needed to do to breathe and that meant writing. I loved it. And I loved the page more than anything and I loved how me and the page had an understanding the world would never comprehend. At the time I just thought I was killing time and warding off loneliness, but now I can see my inner North Star lighting my way to becoming the me I was meant to be.

By the time I left Paraguay I just knew everything was possible. I put myself in a challenging place with little to no skills and I managed to get to the other side knowing something about myself and the world and believing I could do six months anywhere in any circumstance and be just fine. The hero’s journey wasn’t anywhere in the brochure, but that was pretty much what I lived and I did it like a boss. Coaching level: unlocked. Sixteen years old.

And I kept writing through the hardship of re-entry. Living the intense reality of having lived something no one else would understand, missing my weird Paraguayan village and being out of sync with the Southern Californian world to which I returned. I barely survived those final years of Mission Viejo before setting out into the world again for university. Who cares if I’d ever visited my future school? I’d make it work and it would be awesome. And it was.

I turned 21 in Granada, Spain drinking beers at El Mirador San Nicolas after sundown gazing across at the magnificence of the Alhambra Palace with my study abroad friends in awe of how awesome life can be. You know what spending a year in Spanish beauty is like? It’s the best. Another year abroad and me and my notebook went everywhere together. I was a student of Spanish History and language that year, but really I was working out this crazy thing called life just me and my blank page whenever I had the chance. This time I got back and I was cool with no one understanding. I had learned it’s OK that people don’t get. I found some kindred spirits who did and that was cool, I loved the people in my life who didn’t get it and that was cool too. No one needs to live by my requirements, no one needs to bend to earn worthiness. Coaching level; unlocked.

My school didn’t have a program for Spain and I was hellbent on going so I found a school that did and, dear reader, I have no idea how I pulled it off, but I did, transferred to Arizona State for one year so I could go with their program to GRanada and there I was. Then I transferred back. It was awesome. My North Star (who I know to be God and His spirit working in me) just walked me from place to place unconcerned for what it looked like or how it landed, I just did it. And my North Star (God) has been walking me here, to this place, this whole time. I made a decision, I was committed to that decision, it was crazy, so what, did it anyway. Coaching level: unlocked.

It wasn’t until I was 30 years old that I considered writing something that someone would actually read or hear and by that time my writing showed up as songwriting. I finally found the thing that had been there that whole time but even then it probably took me 3 or 4 years of writing constantly before I ever dared use the term ‘songwriter’ to describe myself. It’s only now that I can clearly see that what I was doing for all those years in silent coffee shop corners and pre-dawn kitchen tables with me and my pen and my paper was the same as what i was doing in three verses and a chorus (and a bridge if I was feeling lucky)- I was working out what this thing called life was and trying to make sense of myself inside the story. I also arrived at the place where I could allow myself to simply be myself without trying to become something for someone and earn approval. To make peace with who you are created to be and then just do that. It can take a lot of unlearning and a lot of letting go of old templates and expectations, but it has us showing up so much better for the people in our lives. Selt acceptance. Unlocked (it’s a work in progress- people who read this blog no I am not pretending to have it all easy in this category, but I’m commited to allowing it to change me for the better).

That was 15 years ago. For fifteen years I’ve been singing the pages and performing the pages and sharing the pages with whoever might need them all in the hope of better understanding, of bearing the Adventurer’s Standard, of active living from one day to the next.

About five years ago I found coaching work and it brought blurry images into focus. Leah, my Life coach, taught me skills to wrestle with this living in a good way, with more love, less judgment, more North Star knowing and now I’m here.

Me and Martha Beck.

Did you know she lives just across the river from me? My new home is right near New Hope and isn’t that a good name for someone like me? I imagine myself asking her if she’d ever want to get coffee. I imagine telling her my story and saying, “I see it now! I see how God was shaping me and teaching me and guiding me all the way to here!” I imagine our shared delight in how delightful this place can be. I imagine we exchange warm smiles and wish the other well and we return to own paths no matter how disconnected they may look from an outsider’s perspective.

AS a writer, I don’t know if I could ever invent a story. I’m too deeply interested and connected to the real one to ever want to imagine something of fiction. I don’t know why arriving at clarity can take so long for some us, but when it appears, one would be wise to see it and not return to previous blurred vision again.

I’ve been coaching myself for all these years just me and the page becoming aware of my movements, my thoughts and ideas and allowing the walls to fall down that fool me into thinking the page can’t handle all the different parts of me both light and dark. It can. I know it can.

And the notion that I can keep following the through line is a pleasure and something that has me breathing easy. I’m not really starting anything new, I’m continuing what I started back when I was a kid. Isn’t that a nice thought? I think it is. Have you taken a moment to consider what inevitability you’ve unconsciously cooperated with to become who you are? Can you see the goodness that was hinting at you and shining a light toward your safe passage even when you didn’t know it? I wonder what you’d find has always been there. I wonder what would happen if you cooperated with it more now that it’s clear. I wonder that for you. I wonder that for myself. I wish you very well, my friend.

Last Night at Anton's

Last night Jon and I went back to Anton’s at The Swan in Lambertville.

The last time we dined there was May 5th, Jon’s birthday, the first day arriving in New Jersey for a visit to see if we might consider moving here and taking the call to serve St. Peter Lutheran Church.

Last night we drove from our parsonage home beside St. Peter Lutheran Church and returned to where it all began.

You think a lot can happen in five months and then you live the busiest, nuttiest five months you’ve had in quite some time. From Anton’s Night Number One to Anton’s Night Number Two:

Folk Alliance International in Kansas City, Lake of the Ozark’s Family Vacation, Vacation Bible School, Kickass new tattoo, Major Hail storm loss of power, busted windows, siding and roof, Germany trip, bring back Mia, Branched Oak, Camp Luther, National Youth Gathering, sell the house, pack up the house, bid farewell to St. Paul and everyone in Utica, moving van, drive to Indiana, Oliver Lake family week, drive to New Jersey, moving van, Sammy comes to visit, Jersey shore day, New York City day, Mia says goodbye, Hopie goes to California, Jon gets installed at St. Peters, Tom and Terry and Phoebe and Aunt Karen come to visit, Jesse and Joey start a new high school, Hopie starts a new job, New York City is a regular thing (I went twice last week) and now I get to stare at the beautiful Delaware River every time I go to work. Now we go to Anton’s and it’s ten minutes from home.

In five months the whole world turned upside down in exactly the right way.

Jon and I sat there admiring the lights from New Hope and the reflections in the water in awe of how we got from then to now. I suppose the short answer is a willingness to say yes. Yes, we’ll see, yes, we’ll pray, yes, we’ll consider, yes, we’ll accept and on and on with yes and do the best we can.

Jon and I have had some good practice with yes. Yes, we’ll try something new, yes, we’ll stay open to the unexpected, yes, we’ll include this as a possibility and we’ve learned a lot from those yeses. We’ve learned hard lessons, and cried many tears from those yeses but we never second-guessed the decision in the first place. A yes can put you in a very precarious predicament, but it can place you on a path where the only move is forward and through, forward and through. We’ve done it at seminary, in Germany, in Iowa, in Nebraska and now New Jersey and we’ve learned a lot and lived a lot and we know how to do both.

God is good. He is a good creator who wants good things for his people and we are all his people. This is a broken world, but flowers find cracks in the pavement and are determined to bloom. We are his hands and feet extending love and safe harbor to one another according to the gifts we were gifted and the places we dwell. We made that reservation last night at Anton’s because we had eaten there before and we remember liking the dining room (it’s old and colonial and the walls are covered in big gilded mirrors, framed oil paintings and sconces). I don’t think we expected the wave of remembrance and the completion of a full circle to meet us there as we sat down.

But it did. And we looked at one another and smiled in thanksgiving and delight for the days we have lived between then and now. And we are here and are present and feel alive as we listen, trust, notice and watch for where the road will lead us next.

When it rains here I think of Nebraska

When it rains here I think of Nebraska. I think of the farmers and the rain gauges being checked by Sandy and Gloria and so many others. I think of the timing and if it’s good or if it’s too late for the corn in the fields getting closer to harvest and how dry it should be.

When it rains here I think of California, my dad and the weather and how much they need rain.

This rain seems to just fall from the sky in abundance, no sprinklers or pivots because the sky lets it fall. Lake Mead and the Colorado and all those thirsty places would dance to see this kind of rain falling down.

The wind isn’t a factor, the limbs keep being branches, nothing scatters or breaks or gets swept off in the storm. At least it hasn’t since we’ve been here and that’s already been a month of Sundays where the rains came and we watched the earth lap it up and turn green.

Green is a given, growth must come easy, moisture that others pray would bless them as well. I heard it fall lightly, then some time after midnight it really started coming and then it rained some more.

The kids missed their school bus, the sun broke through briefly, a family of deer stood at the treeline and stared. I started a new job, the only reason to go shopping is for uniform pieces and socks for the boys.

When it rains, it’s a blessing, when it goes quiet after drop off, when it’s a gift to see newness spring up like a bloom you didn’t notice was growing, you never spotted in the garden and then one day a flower emerges to behold.

Labor Day

Jon did his morning adult Bible Study on the third commandment yesterday as befits Labor Day weekend. The third is, “Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.” It’s one of these foundational human rhythm gifts given to us by a God who loves us, a God who actually never needed to rest after six days of creating- he coulda just kept on going, but, instead, modelled it as a way of teaching us worker bees to rest and make it part of our life. Not just that, it’s a commandment of the people of God to extend to everyone they know and work with- let your servants rest, let your farm beasts rest, even let your land rest because stopping is good, resting is good, being someone who finds identity away from labor and in the sheer being-ness of existance is part of our calling. Be the dad who knows their little one needs a nap and so will go in and lie down with the little one to model rest, to share in it, to say, ‘See? Rest is good. Let’s stop together.’ I wonder how many of us do that for one another even after naptime becomes something of the past.

My son, Jesse, is reading, “The Jungle”- a real ‘what to read when you think you’ve got it bad’ commentary on the tragic working conditions for recent immigrants to our country one hundred years ago. Yesterday, we did a family shopping trip for some clothes and groceries and this is the part of the blog when I remind everyone that Aldi lets their checkers sit. They sit on nice swivel chairs and do a great job and why do checkers historically stand? Who the hell knows. To make it look like they could run and get you replacement eggs in five seconds flat? To quick grab the dropped penny before it rolls under the register table? Come on, man. Let checkers keep their jobs and let checkers sit. We’ll all be better for it. Aldi, you blessed weird little store, keep doing what you’re doing.

And then we were driving home with our truck full of polo shirts and socks, sweet potatoes and off brand Nutty Buddies when a gorgeous black and orange Maclaren drove past us. We were not the only people who noticed this magnificent automobile because, while we were stopped at a light, the car just beside the Maclaren rolled down its window and offered the passenger of the Maclaren a half bag of chips. It was as close to a real life Grey Poupon moment as I may ever experience.

Today we’re going on a hike, picnic and a late afternoon quarry swim because entrance is half off after 4pm. I told JOn I didn’t want to swim in the quarry because the water’s too deep in a quarry…..

But I did just give him crap about not watching “Breaking Away” and those guys all hung out and swam in a quarry so what kinda jerk would I be if I didn’t just allow 50 feet of water to be beneath me and my floating human body in the water on the last official day of summer?

So there ya go. It’s all roadside fruit stands, Maclarens, quarries and hiking trails over here. It’s all packing coolers, lacing up tennis shoes and a thick layer of humidity. A hornet’s nest in our tree, a fire ring that could use a flame, a walking path around the perimeter and school starts tomorrow. I start my new part-time job in one week. I allow for life to be what life is and wonder what it would be like to see a neighbor over-worked and over-tired and gently take them by the hand and say, “Come rest with me.”

August 30th

It’s the 24th today. It’s a Wednesday and there’s this cool layer of cloud cover over Mission Viejo skies. I had forgotten this was a thing that only appears in the morning before ‘burning off’ by noon to make way for a big bright SoCal sun.

I like the cloud cover. It makes the world just a little softer and quieter. It makes drinking my coffee out in the yard cool and lovely before everything’s in full swing. Today’s my last full day of overcast morning skies moving into full midday sun taking the 5 freeway south to San Juan and then maybe hitting the Pavilion for groceries before heading back home.

I came out to help my dad who had a hip replacement surgery. My brother came too and I’m so thankful there were two of us to tag team the to dos. Dad’s doing great and moving better each day and I go to visit Mom down in San Juan come 2:30pm.

Mom has Alzheimer’s disease and August 30th marks her one year of being at the Memory Care Facility. This time last year I was moving my oldest son into college and fielding phone calls from my dad in the Student Union in line for parking permits because Mom had fallen and they had to call 911.

One year ago I came out to help and figure out next steps and move Mom from the Skilled Nursing Care facility into a permanent residence. One year ago I’ve never been so tired and so scared and so unsure and so stressed out and so alone in my entire life.

Matt and I had visited the Memory Care facility down in San Juan on a previous visit and so we had done some thinking about next steps with our brother, Billy, and how the future would play out. Dad and I spent a couple days visiting other places and trying to get as much information as we could to make a decision and by August 30th we had.

By August 30th last year Mom changed her address for good and we took her to San Juan Capistrano. And now it’s a year later and I’m going home tomorrow.

Adult life seems to want to teach me how to hold two things at once all the time. Adulting has so much to do with being scared and brave at the same time, mournful and hopeful, frustrated and productive, fearful and resolved. Children get to indulge in overwhelming emotions one at a time while us grown ups cry while putting our shoes on and making their lunch. One foot in front of the other and one moment to give room to sadness and love, loss and change all in the same breath while taking out the trash.

I moved this summer. Did I tell you that? I moved. After 12 years in a place where I raised my preschoolers into high schoolers, went from youngish to oldish, we made the decision to move to New Jersey and start all over again at the ripe old age of 45. Mom won’t ever see New Jersey and she’ll never know where I live and leaving that house back in Nebraska was leaving her a little more behind than before.

And so going home this one year later isn’t even the same as going home was this time last year.

And Mom’s different than she was. She giggles but not as much, she talks but not as much, she used to know how to greet someone but not as much anymore. She closes her eyes more, she’s further off. She’s fading into the quiet cloud cover of an early So Cal morning just like we all knew she would.

And it’s a practice in holding two things at the same time: here and there, past and present, now and then, what is and what is gone, joy and sadness, love and loss.

She’s good at her home in San Juan. IN fact, she’s very good. Here are the gifts that Alzheimer’s Disease gave us (I’ve said this many times): It put an end to fighting. She and I didn’t get along too well. Wanna make conflict pointless? Get a diagnosis that makes fighting foolish. The war ended a long time ago and, at the end of it, all was left was me and her, mother daughter and the world spins madly on.

Mom was never one to sit still. She was notorious for sitting down with us to watch a show and then popping right back up again ten minutes later. She could not, would not stop. She did that her whole life and my guess is that stopping felt too risky, too open to have her mind start going places she didn’t want it to go so she just kept on keeping on. Alzheimer’s disease finally got her to rest. It finally got her just being instead of hustling for gold stars and merit badges. What’s left when we finally stop running the race? The soft audacious truth that we get to be here and be worthy of love and space just because of our one precious soul and our one beating heart. The illusion that any of us earn our place disappears and all that’s left is life. Wanna see how the hustle is fool hardy? Get a diagnosis that eliminates hustle as an option and spend the rest of your life contemplating life for life’s sake. Adults don’t like that. Children, the elderly, the otherly abled? They know a ton of shit I’m too crazy to see sometimes.

You can fight reality or you can coexist with it. I can fight the reality of being a daughter watching my mom fade away or I can allow my identity to be that too. That’s been my education since August 30th of last year (and also before that, but you get it).

And so I’ll get on a plane. I’ll leave Mom here in good hands. I’ve been writing her letters and so I’ll write her a new one. I’ll hold two things at once- joy and sadness, love and loss, and I’ll buy a new ticket, put dates in my phone, come back come October and be this version of me that I am.

It's hard to say

It’s hard to say how I feel these days. Hell, it’s hard to say anything really. I’m so far from everything, I’m so deep into outerspace, I’m so off the beaten path, I’m so beyond the fenceline.

It’s hard to say how the master plan got forgotten in the back pocket of a pair of jean, didn’t weather the permanent press setting of the front load washer we call this crazy thing called life and left me here, out here to wander with no water to speak of that must be why it’s so hard to say.

That must be why I keep forgetting the date, not refilling the pitcher, taking turns round a neighborhood only school children walk. Not in a sundress and flip flops. These sidewalks are reserved for eight year old with backpacks or housewife workout warriors, not lazy lost lumbering lifers like me.

Or it could be that it’s just hard to say I’m sad. Nothing that earth shattering. I’m just sad.

And I’m tired. Sad and tired on a Saturday. Not tectonic plate shifting, just human frailty separating out and rising to the top of soul substance we all have from time to time.

Aging dads, disappearing moms, missing the mark, moving completely, so broke I can taste it, and the face in the mirror can’t think who to call.

Deep into outerspace, out beyond the fenceline, far past the breakers, currents and airstreams and treelines do as they will. They don’t ask for our input, they don’t owe us a rest stop, we got here ourselves so the choice is ours alone.

This is foreign land, this is wild country, this is no place for old ways. This is bigger than I am, this is not asking my opinion, this is hard to say and that’s that.

We got past the breakers, we got the possessions boxed and delivered, we got the boy in Nebraska and the two back at home. We got the girl back to her family, we had barely a moment, then everything shifted and I’m gone for who knows how long? Gone is a place name, Gone is a status, Gone is who I keep handing the keys. Like Gone knows the answer or Gone’s gonna love me, or Gone’s better than landing somewhere else, somewhere cool.

It’s hard to say why I do this. It’s hard to say why I keep clinging

to what’s hard to say, hard to feel when Love’s so close it could touch me, it could hold me, it could love me if it weren’t so damn hard to say.

Listen, man, we both know we want to win the Mega Millions

Listen, man. We both know we want to win the Mega Millions.

Did I just learn of its existence yesterday? Yes. Do have to have a long committed relationship with what legal gambling is, its history and merit of the lottery system to qualify for, get ready, MEGA? MILLIONS?

That’s a hell no. Thanks, Lotto system, for making it so easy for me to hear about the pot from Emily and trot my sweet ass up to the Bronco Spur for a couple of hot tickets for me and my baby. Two. Two mega millions tickets, please. And there was Rachel like the sweet angel of mercy that she is, taking a break from prepping personal mini pizzas to fulfill my request. And I paid her the four dollars and off I went like a dummy down a yellow brick road.

And here I am. The morning of the draw feeling pretty dang excited at the notion of extreme abundance in my free tshirt, sweatpants, red bandana, drip coffee in free coffee mug in a half-packed house come quickly, Lord Jesus.

In fact, you might know this already, but I’m always game for Jesus to come back. He’s my “get out of jail free'“ card and most days I think I am totally cool with him coming back at any given moment. I especially like the notion when I’m staring at a mountain of laundry that needs folded or a Childrens Christmas Program that needs rehearsed. BUT, dear reader, yesterday, there I was, in my yard with my husband and I said (remember this, this is important), “I don’t want Jesus to come back until I get at least one morning to drink coffee on our new deck.”

Noted. Dunbar doesn’t want the second coming of Christ until she gets one hot cup of Folgers in New Jersey in her lawn chair looking out at her new backyard. Let’s pray the Cosmos heard me, y’all.

So there I was yesterday, cleaning out my pantry and cupboards with my best friend sister, Emily, at my side and she tells me Megan got them all Mega Millions tickets. And I’m like, “Tell me of this free money /America is a dreamland/yes, toss those three bags of powdered sugar but keep the bag clips/ how do I get my own two tickets to paradise?”

And it turns out all you gotta do is find a mini-mart and a Rachel-type angel, get yourself two dollars and the dream is your’s.

If I had Mega Millions on one side and the one hot cup of Folgers coffee looking out at my new yard somewhere in Jersey on the other, dudes, I’d pick the coffee. If the Lord himself deems it appropriate for me to get both? Not gonna argue.

I jest. I am jestingly joking, everybody. Calm the hell down. I am also stirring the energetic pot by cleaning out cupboards, getting rid of clutter, moving things around, moving my whole human family east, imagining something new and bigger and I gotta say, yesterday was a mega millions type day. Elon Musk woulda hated it, but I liked it.

I got my first east coast gig confirmed, I got a show inquiry out of nowhere, a friend of mine texted me telling of a HUGE gallery sale she made, our front windshield on the red car got repaired, they put down those nail strip thingies you need to lay carpet down in the basement, the guys dropped off a huge load of roofing supplies to re-roof the house tomorrow. And the beers we treated ourselves to at the bar yesterday afternoon only cost four bucks a piece (that’s a total of 4 mega millions tickets for two beers). If that kinda winning doesn’t signal Mega Millions tickets, well I don’t know what does.

Yes, I have an over active imagination. Yes, my dreaming life is more interesting than my real life. Yes, I don’t mind imagining even a sliver of mega. (I’m like the mom at thanksgiving who will just keep telling you to slice the mega millions pie thinner with a, ‘oh well that’s too much, can you just cut me off about half that much, sweetie?’). A sliver of mega to take with me to my new place with my deck and my coffee before Jesus comes back.

Wealth is a trickster. Wealth is a siren, you better know wealth or it’ll fudge you real good. Wealth is a moment, a feeling so expansive I’ve felt it before and I’ll feel it again. It’s disembarking from the bullshit, throwing your watch in the water, breathing in breathing out and the birds and the trees and the morning and the evening and the holding on loosely and the sky up above us that never runs out. It’s Rachel at the Bronco, it’s Emily junking parsley, it’s the boys driving off to go hang with their friends. It’s a backyard and red blend and washing the windows and giving space to just feeling what the heart wants to feel. It’s Marci on a Thursday, it’s Byron and Jody bringing over jerkey fresh off the smoker, a homemade card to reflect on twelve good years gone by. Wealth defined helps us find it around every corner and be thankful when we get it and not flip out when it’s gone. It’ll come back, it comes back covered in frosting and candles, it comes back as the boy back from college who doesn’t get why exactly Mom’s crying as he walks up the drive. Wealth comes back in a garden, on an airplane, in a moment where the two of you sit social distanced outside discussing the present, hopeful for the future, full knowing the heart holding both in its scales. So Mega Millions sounds cool and would add to the picture a better floaty, a cooler car, a new chaise lounge for my deck, but if it’s not in the numbers and if it’s not in my fortune for fortune to find me and for mega money to be mine, I’ll still pack up the boxes, look forward to Jersey, wait for Jesus, and pay by monthly installments from now til the end.

One and three quarter Skeletons long

Whatever gets writ, I pray it’s writ by us. The ones who lived it, the ones who know the hidden tale beneath the story, the sleepless nights, the quiet kitchens, the silent weeping, the fearful doubt. One can let the story float off up up up into the air and watch as cottonwood seeds float up up up above the water as far as five miles out before lighting upon their destination and, when asked, from where they came, have nothing but dreams in reply.

Whatever gets writ, may it be writ by us. Details can always be added by the cast at a later date.

The human skeleton becomes all new again in seven years. But. Because of the fall of man, cell regeneration never stops, but cell regeneration gets tired and worn, tired and worn and regenerates something less than in our younger years and on and on from dust to dust and ash to ash. In seven years skeletal frames are made anew and upon these frames hang portraits and wardrobes, protections and softness for holding newborn babies close, kittens, and laundry fresh from the dryer.

We were here twelve years so that’s just about one and three quarter skeletons longs on the corner of two streets with a house facing northwest, a blue spruce in the back and one pine tree slowly dying. The boys were in preschool, Sammy started 2nd grade, Jon went to work and in the quiet I wrote songs. Paycheck to paycheck with extra cash from waiting tables, and gig after gig going further afield. Leading songs on Sunday morning, helping at school as we were able, walking over to the office, up to the grocery and back home. The sound of the train, the waiting at the crossing, the potluck in the school gym and the driving for band.

Remember the garage sale? Remember how I helped at Utica Days? Remember the Ukulele band, the teaching guitar lessons, the one year Spanish classroom? Remember Colorado and the Song School full of magic? Remember how I found something far off and close at home? Remember Catalyst and Coaching? Remembering my many failed kitchen gardens and resigning to flowers, perennials and a prayer? Remember Hastings and The Listening Room? Remember cub scouts and campouts and taking 3rd graders on a five mile walk to fulfill the goal? Remember all those VBSs? The New York trips with the youth group? Remember when Mom could still visit and helped us so much with the kids?

She won’t know where we are once we leave come next Monday. This is the last place where her memory still lives in each room. She’s reading a book to Joey, she’s in the living room folding laundry, she’s sorting out legos and Lincoln logs and cleaning Jesse’s room. She’s washing the dishes, she sits down for dinner, she smiles in the picture at Christmas with the boys. She won’t know that we left here and she won’t know where we’re going and when I tell her all about it she won’t understand the words.

But whatever gets writ should be writ by me and I would hate to overlook that heartache no one can plot on a map. We bought all new appliances, we got three roofs after hailstorms, we’ve replaced the siding, the everything and the carpet’s still not in. We fell in love with this kitchen and the bay window facing south and the light it lets in when the blinds are pulled up. There’s a heart here that’s hidden beneath the unfinished projects and the rooms unimpressive when the realtor walked through. It’s not showy or good on paper, but it was a good place for a pastor and his family who never in a million years thought a house within reach.

And I’m different than I once was and I don’t fear the narthex and I don’t fear the same things I used to fear long ago. And I’m different than I once was starting from bone working outward and I’m older as confirmed by my cells regenerating to decline. I fought demons, I shed burdens, I kept at the hardest most invisible climb where one must lay out their guts on the table and sift through whatever bullshit residue’s gotta go. I came up with a thought and I repeated it daily and I cried at my own weakness and started turning the light on my shame. I stopped worrying so godamn much about outward appearances and I’m proud of myself for all the work I have done.

I wrote songs and kept writing. I played shows and kept trying, I calmed the hell down in the right ways and gave a damn more in others. I went through a desire to break everything but I never picked up the hammer, I just sat with the pull to pulverize until one day I found some peace. Appointments and pills and more appointments and sessions, six sessions free with good insurance, then repeat.

I’m not always sure about why we’re all here and what exactly are we doing besides breaking our own hearts then breaking others? Sometimes I think our marching orders are mercy and forgiveness and mercy and forgiveness for as many skeletons as it takes. I mean that’s the model from our maker: mercy and forgiveness and mercy and forgiveness from now til kingdom come. I wonder about families, lovers and friendships, I wonder about closeness because it’s not a gift I have. I wonder about persons and wholeness and being and how in the end I won’t be that proud of the list of stuff that I’ve done.

I’ll be proud of the being. I’ll be proud that I stayed standing, that I faced demons and dragons, examined my guts for all to see. I’ll be proud of reconciliation, making peace with the paradox and doing my best in all circumstance as if that were enough. One and three quarters skeletons worth of learning and growing and shedding and strengthening for the journey ahead. For friendship and belonging and commitment, perseverance, mourning, renewal and the promises of what’s to come.

Whatever gets writ, may it be writ by us alone who have lived it and know it’s workings and still the mystery remains. I’ll miss you, Utica. I’ll miss you, dear friends. I’ll miss this life and this place and waving to whoever drives by. I’ll miss this kitchen table positioned by the bay window and what it gave me and how it started every morning anew with writing and words. My words. My story. Whatever got writ, I wrote it myself.

On the edge of the endless

On the edge of the endless wondering why while the sprayer turns at the end of the field to go back the way he came spraying for weeds and it looks like rain, dirt roads and grey skies and just more of the same walking out to the tree then back home.

The busted dryer, the busted car, the basement without carpet, the boxes, the clutter, the walk through via zoom to choose bedrooms and make labels for the stuff and the stuff and the more stuff heading east. Things are broken, things get fixed, we cry tears, we laugh loudly, we walk to keep moving, we move to find lessons unlearned elsewhere supposing we can still change into someone we haven’t been just quite yet.

Thank God for summer, for friendship, for rain, for the safety of small towns and the road leading out. Thank God for mercy, forgiveness, renewed restoration and a heart that keep beating forward march, forward march.

I think about flowers and deck chairs and new chapters beginning, I think about God and his wisdom, about peace and good growth. I think about writers and singers and players in time. I think about marriage and oneness and covenant love. I think about hymns when the organ drops out and the voices rise together, I think about the readings for Sunday, my Dad back at home, my mom in contentment who can’t remember my name. I think about how I thought this would go and how it all came to be and I’m astounded at the bounty, the blessing and the blessed. I wonder on the edge of the endless like the stars and pre-stars and pre-pre-pre galaxy stars that satellite telescope took photographs of and sent back to us. “Brightest and best of the stars of the morning, dawn on our darkness and lend us thine aid; Star of the East, the horizon adorning, Guide where our infant redeemer is laid.”

On the edge of the endless, oh the endless, oh the when this careless precious, feckless sensient mess of breathless souls attend this planet sent us by the endless love of Christ divine, will we see it, will we be it, will we let our goodness shine to the endless edge of getting it lit to let burn and burn and burn big and bright.

No second class citizens

There just aren’t any second class citizens in the family of God. There are believers in Christ and there are those who do not believe and the only difference is the crucified Jesus standing in place of the believer saying, “My righteousness is their righteousness now. My connection to the Father is their connection. The broken bridge has been mended.” There are those of us living in forgiveness and reconciliation with the Father and those of us who have yet to have the broken bridge mended through Christ and his sin and death conquering and that’s the difference in the eyes of God.

We down here in the muck and the mire keep trying to wipe the shit off ourselves or dance around and flaunt or cleanliness in front of fellow shit dwellers like we have no need of God, like God doesn’t make us good, we make ourselves good and oh my my my what a tragic, impossible road that be.

Of course I keep thinking of the Dobbs decision, of course I keep thinking about my own trek to get “good” stamped on my ass finally and then the voice of God whispers, “You forget brokenness abounds. You think you can fix all this on your own and force everyone to be repaired according to your own human standards for good and bad, worthy and unworthy. Listen, man, I get that you don’t get it. I do get it cuz I built this whole thing and I’ve been around for eternity. Calm the hell down and remember I don’t need your help.”

There are no second class citizens in the eyes of a loving God. This is a good place meant for good. It fell and we fell with it, but it was always meant to be a good creation. Just when we think we’ve fished the fly out of the sweet tea of life, another comes dropping in for a dip again and again and again so we never take a sip. There are virgins and there are young mothers, there are a whole spectrum of body users and love definers that we may mourn, hate, believe that if they just were more like us, we’d all be good. God doesn’t need our help to see each person here beloved whom He hopes to gift love, care, rest and redemption over and over as a cup runneth over. There are no pure versions of ourselves from back when we were little. There are things we did, things we didn’t do, ways we survived as best we could with the information we had and that’s the same for all of us. And now we’re here. And this is us. And can we all just lower the temp on that for a minute?

It’s always comforting to hear therapists say how very few really wicked people they’ve ever met in their practices. Broken? Yes. Hurting? Yes. But truly evil? Very few. It’s just us, man. And this is us from forever til forever and this is what it looks like to live here.

Each one of these oxygen heart beat 24 hour boxes we check off is an exercise in hopefulness, patience, mercy- not from us, but hope, patience, mercy and love from a Heavenly Father watching the road from his porch hoping beyond hope he sees His beloved sons and daughters coming home, remembering the safe place from whence they came, being showered with that reconciled love that makes the muck and the mire fall away and the good/bad test for worthiness seem utter foolishness and folly. And he’s not waiting for his sons and daughters once they’ve unlocked some certain secret or quit doing what they’re doing now. Nope. There are no pre-requisites in the kingdom. But in the kingdom you will be asked if you’re ready to put down your sword. In the kingdom you will be shaped in ways you didn’t have planned. (Me, personally. I am into that. I am in. for. that.)

Why do recovering addicts seem to be so at peace? They have learned how to be comfortable in their own skin without drink nor drug to alleviate the very real discomfort of this thing called life. That’s kinda the goal for all of us. To look in the mirror owning our failures and the free gift of forgiveness and seeing these oxygen heart beat hours as a gift rather than a test or punishment or something to be endured.

Thank God we’re all loved. Thank God He does not hold us to our own efforts. Thank God he starts shaping us into his children through the gift of the Holy Spirit and not through our own bizarre notions of how to get this shit off.

No second class citizens means less focus on what we’ve done and more time spent on what God does for us. No second class citizens means not having to worry about how to curate in-crowds and out-crowds and signal we’re good to the world. The world is the world, God is love, we are who he says we are: beloved and set free to explore a life in Christ’s freedom. It’s different than what the world says it is. Hell, trust me, it’s way different than whatever super weird “christian” take you’ve probably read scrolling through your social media. (Hot take: most practicing Christians who are educated in the faith are mostly like, “What the actual Fu**……?”)

And I tell you all this because I have to tell myself this: I am not a second class citizen in the eyes of God even though I live so many days thinking I am. I didn’t lose my status of first class from all that stuff I’ve done. I wasn’t a good girl and then fell into this not-so-good girl realm I desperately try to claw my way out of. That’s all lying liars who lie bullshit. Heck yes I’ve got stuff. Heck yes the ghosts haunt me and taunt me and won’t leave me alone and yes, they may never quiet the hell down and maybe getting OK with that will make it a little easier to manage. God calls me holy. God says I’m his daughter, God’s not too worried about the past because he’s too excited about the future he’s preparing. Everyone’s ass is stamped “beloved,” every ass is stamped “holy” the evidence is nothing compared to the fullness of His Love.

Best Summer Ever/ 25 days of Nebraska

The van we ordered is bigger than this one.

First, my recent trip to Germany was wonderful. Reuniting with lifelong friends, feeling so at home in a place so far away and then getting the joy of playing a couple shows for my friends while I was there? Amazing. It’s a real blessing to fly across an ocean and be greeted by such comfort and love, such peace and familiarity that the streets lead to the same places as always, the paths in the woods are right where you left them, the table in the garden has a seat with your name on it and the gathering of people contain so many familiar faces from the past 20 years that it feels like a homecoming. What a gift.

Second. “Snowflake Mountain” on Netflix? (I call it ‘Snowflake Island’) Am I watching enough reality television? Clearly not cuz this little gem scrolled through my transum and I was like, “this feels right.” And it is. And it’s ridiculous and the British kids on it are so funny and, from my point of view, an extended stay at a lakeside campground looks like absolute heaven. They are busy putting on makeup in their tents and not doing the dishes and I would be all KP duty and firewood and fetching water all day long. They never have laundry hanging out. IS the production team washing their clothes? All the girls still have their hair done all the time. Are they taking long hot showers somehow? So many questions.

25 days in Nebraska and the reality of our upcoming move comes in and out of focus depending on the hour. The basement is getting finished little by little (trim goes up today!), the kids leave for Houston on Friday, the movers are scheduled, the van is in the shop, the red car is next for fixing, the house has a buyer and it’s me in this kitchen like I always am at 6am in the quiet house after all these years.

Yesterday I threw out on Facebook the getting rid of things. It’s time. I really do see the wisdom in making room for something new. One must part with what has become old first. So goodbye couch and club chair, goodbye mid century modern wall art, huge tub of Legos, young reader fiction and whatever else I can send off onto its next journey via social media post. If we’re going, those things should get a chance at something new also.

25 days and just shy of 12 years. In this town, on this corner, at this kitchen table. 25 days left of swimming pool here, church here, school here, post office, bank, grocery, gas station and driving to Seward and York and Lincoln and Hastings. 25 days to tank, swim, walk the dirt road under this big Nebraska sky, drink a drink in my festival chair in my backyard with Jon on a Friday after 5pm facing westward. 25 days to say thank you, cry tears, lay to rest, say goodbye and head east. It’s a practice in sitting squarely in reality, making the move on purpose, getting clear on intention and excited for what’s next. I am excited for what’s next. It will come with discomfort, but it’ll be the good kind that fosters change. It will come with frustration, but the kind that comes from newness and not knowing what’s next. It will come with miles and miles and making mistakes and that’s exactly how it should be. It will come with togetherness and trust, with anticipation and angst, with all the things we know come with what’s next and what’s new and I think 25 days is just the right amount of days to shepherd it up the mountain. Peace.

The Exquisite Lightness of Being

I think more and more about personality types and how they inform how we move in the world. Those built for purpose, those built for connection, us with a predisposition for peace, us with a predisposition for battle, an insatiable desire for first, a banner labeled, ‘rightness,’ a banner labeled ‘labor,’ a banner labeled ‘wander,’ a banner labeled ‘legacy’ with a gold- standard grandparent as the guide. And we hold them high and fight for their freedoms while fighting for our own convinced that if everyone’s eyes were focused like our’s, the world would be so much better.

We never want to stop to consider the perplexing paradox of everyone everywhere desperately trying to get it right, to heal old hurt, to maintain safety in us and among us. The arrested development that keeps us stuck in a “when we act we are acting from goodness, when others act they act from something other than goodness” is a time loop playing out in every place at all times everywhere you can think of. The next phase beyond that stuckness is the terrible beautiful tenuous tight rope that we are all flesh sacks acting from our best selves as best we can and so is everyone else. There are very few evil people. There are many hurt people. They are even more people who simply do not see what we see and think like we think. And I do believe we were created like that for a purpose. For good work and good relationship in our difference and in our vision and in our willingness to put one foot in front of the other side by side. How tragic would it be to do otherwise? (Dear reader, this is my personality type shining through with a ”I really don’t want to hold my neighbor under the knife of rightness with a clipboard in hand” thinking. That is a total drag for me. Hard pass.)

Going to another country is a wonderful reminder of how differently we can all interpret the same raw materials of a life from day to day. How is that the hours feel different elsewhere? How is that time, the same old bag of 24 hours we get every day, shines differently and moves otherly somewhere across an ocean? And if our old friend Time can do that, well then what about that old human heart? What about those watchful weary eyes? How can daily bread rise and bake into so many versions of the exact same thing?

And will we rejoiced therein? (I kinda think I would like to rejoice therein, actually)

For trains to run and planes to fly there must be an understood code of co-existing. There must be a level of moving in, with and under fellow flesh sacks from the platform down the stairs to the train nach Friedrichsdorf just as the school children all let out for the afternoon. Life together is not our enemy. Life together is our teacher and our friend but some personalities will fight to the end to defeat it and claim the solitary as sacred and the fellow flesher as foe. That’s hurt, that’s fear, that’s something other than who we were written to be inside this play of plays. (Hopie’s personality leaning right there)

I sat waiting for my next flight thinking of the many things I’ve accomplished thus far in my life. Some may say not enough, some may think it’s been far too much (she’s avoiding something). I sat there thinking of work and achievements and accomplishments and they are great and I’ve loved what I’ve done (mostly), but nothing for me is so satisfyingly beautiful as the exquisite light of just being. An afternoon in a garden, my birthday on El Mirador San Nicolas just looking at the Alhambra and drinking beer with my friends, at camp at Song School by the river talking songs, on a picnic in the mountains with my family dappled sunlight, in the sun beside the Seine in the springtime blossoms blooming, in my yard facing westward in my camp chair, Jon beside me. My personality likes those moments like that infinitely more than succeeding and ribbons. I don’t know if it’s me or a version of me I created. I just know the exquisite lightness of being and it’s richness and beauty. I just know that weeks in Germany with old friends from forever are my treasure, my thanksgiving, my insatiable pursuit of joy and beauty together in moments inside hours dependent on the soul.

Everything, Everywhere, All at Once

I know it’s a title to a new movie in theatres now (check your local listings for show times near you), but it’s also the appropriate way of describing what feels like my life right now.

The power was still off yesterday around 4:30pm when Jon and I finally walked through the door having chosen wood trim, door, stain color, door knob, primer, paint color, paint supplies and I finally sat down on the couch and cried. I don’t know how I’m going to do all this all the time all at once.

We’re moving to New Jersey in August, I leave for Germany on Sunday (first gotta drive to Chicago since i got a cheaper ticket out of that airport), a huge storm with 115 mph winds came through on Tuesday night shredding our siding, busting up our roof, breaking one of our windows (not all the way through, thankfully) and knocking out the power from 1am Wednesday to 6:30pm Thursday night. We’re still on a water boiling ordinance but that will lift soon, I imagine.

We have claims agents working on our two cars parked out in the storm, the claims agent for our house, plus the home improvement project remodelling the basement we started before we had plans to move. The drywallers hung drywall yesterday, Eric hauled the dump trailer off full of the first round of thinning when thinking of what won’t get packed. Meanwhile the water was on the cookstove in the driveway boiling for the French Press and the contents of the fridge on ice in a cooler on the kitchen floor.

Who wouldn’t cry on the verge of a big trip searching for her passport she swore she put right there, but it’s not there anymore? What tears wouldn’t flow when, upon looking around, everything in eyesight is either under construction, mid- demolition and commencing transition all at once all the time?

Everything is happening whether you see or you don’t. The devoted mother dies too early of cancer days before her daughter’s wedding they bumped up to June so Mom could be there. A storm rips through a small town and the fields that were green and growing yesterday are torn and tattered at sun up and the world keeps on spinning but with plywood over window panes shattered from the hail. Everything is good all the time, everything is heartbreaking all the time, everything is helloing and goodbyeing and disappearing without a word and without warning. Just because it’s not your turn doesn’t mean it’s not there. Someone somewhere is taking first breaths while someone somewhere is taking their last. Don’t forget.

Everywhere. This house, this yard, this basement, this light switch, this. garage full of stuff we hauled up to rip out carpet and walls and now new walls are coming any day any day. This hotel, this passport, this guitar, this phone call, this street, this dirt work and concrete steps we still have to fix. This arm, this right arm, this right arm getting tattooed today to stamp it with ink to say, “The old is passed, the new has come.” This town, this church, this community, this kitchen and living room and all the things that proved insignificant and useless once life boiled down to potable water, ice and propane. Jon boiled eggs and grilled us toast and we sat right here like we always do. I cooked spaghetti in the driveway and we ate side by side in lawn chairs in the shade.

I called the church office in New Jersey where we’re moving and I talked to Kim who was so friendly and asked her what our new mailing address would be. I texted my sons to ask them how they were doing and only one ever responded so I’ll take that as good news. I drove to the library to use their free Wifi and just checked with the hairdresser to see if I could get in. I. booked my hotel room, I made plans for going, I dropped off the camera at the building where the AC unit flew off the roof and landed smack in the drive- like one of those scenes from a movie made in the 80s depicting house parties with TP in the trees and a sofa on the lawn (Weird Science).

I held hands with my husband, I cried at the table, I got scared I can’t do this all at once all the time. I had replanted hollyhock and found that one was still living even after the storm front, even after all that. After finding the dead birds, after raking the yard up, gathering branches and crying it out, the hollyhock was still upright, right where I put it, drinking in sunlight and thirsty for rain.

Jersey Plates

We’re moving to New Jersey in August. Between now and then we are refinishing our basement, landscaping around the house, fixing old steps, painting, putting our house up for sale, I’m going to play shows in Germany, we’re hosting our friend, Mia, from Germany, maybe going on vacation and then bidding farewell to the plain states.

Next Friday I’m going to get my first tattoo and, since I’m already 45 and haven’t had a tattoo before, I’m making up for lost time and it’s going to be huge. Good job, Hopie. This is either a great idea or a terrible idea, but the good news is I’ve already got one foot in the grave so it won’t matter for too much longer (assuming the Lord calls me home around 70).

Since I’m getting one big tattoo on Friday, I’ve already got plans for my next big tattoo some time after that.

LIfe is crazy. Life is change. Change is good. It’s always happening even when we think it isn’t. I like the small shifts and movements as much as I like the massive plate tectonics of the heart and soul, the mind and body.

This is one of those big plate tectonic type shifts eastward to where New York City is a train ride away, where Asbury Park is calling out it’s greetings how it’s no coincidence that I’m going from Springsteen’s “Nebraska” to Springsteen’s New Jersey and it was all meant to be,

This is an exercise in abundance, this is an exercise in building one’s life on purpose, this is exercise in ushering in beauty and landscape, adventure and exploration, creativity and inspiration as though life were just getting started. Hell, I might go vegan. Hell, I might ride horses, I might get famous, I might just step into my greatness somewhere in New Jersey we’ll have to wait and see.

Did I see this movement coming? Could I have predicted this next step routing? Is this where I hear whispers of freedom on the wind? Will I miss this central empty? Will I believe in something better? Will I fall in love with living beside a river and jump in?

Probably. Maybe. Yes. Definitely yes.

It's nice to look out on water

It’s nice to look out at water even when it’s raining and the rain keeps you from going outside to get a closer look.

It’s nice to be in a house that isn’t your’s for a week long vacation where the clutter and the closets aren’t overflowing with your stuff. The countertops are clean and the kitchen table is a novelty round one and the picture windows look out on water and you finally get time to breathe.

It’s nice to sit down and play a long board game at the round kitchen table with your teenage sons and husband talking trade wars and new worlds and who’s building steam engines so you can build a three token ship.

And it’s nice coming home again and it’s nice being here again and I’ll cry when it’s time and then I may just cry some more. One driver’s ed course, one week up at camp, one garden needing tending, a gutted basement laying in wait. A garage filled with boxes, two cars that need washing, a calendar calls my attention, five more songs yet to write.

There’s stuff I wish to tell you, but I fear it’s all a jumble, my mom’s birthday is tomorrow and I’m not there to wish her well. There’s stuff I want to tell you, but what’s the point in talking when talking never gets us more than blank stares?

She’s the one who gets emotional. She’s the one who exagerates. She’s the one who just needs to paint with words til she gets a silhouette something she can name. She’s the one with a touch of drama, don’t mind her hyperbolic handling of the moment, she thinks it’s nice to look out on water, she hates to admit when she’s afraid.

Bridges

There are rivers that cut the earth in two parts making it so that man must build a bridge to close the gap from one to the other.

There are softer, gentler canals beside these rivers above which wind paths inviting wanderers to follow the black top ashpalt wherever it leads.
There are green fields and low stone walls, horses and trees and roadside fruit stands, there are gravestones jutting up from the green beside white churches where the road bends where the names of the departed are hard to read weather-worn since Washington marched his troops thereover to battle.

There are fields ready for planting. There are children who have reached their eighteenth year under the impression that they have entered some realm of adulthood and independence, but will wriggle from their childish exoskeletons yet for years to come, but don’t tell them that.

There are irises that crave blooming, there are songs echoing since they ended, there are tears in times of transition and there is so much more to come.

I think I’ll keep boxing up the basement. I think I will walk this gravel road come morning. I think I will create space where currently there is occupation and I think I will ponder that space to discover new direction.

There are fires in the brush and tall grasses, there are firestarters among us who want to add to their ranks and celebrate lack of water. There are water carriers reduced to spectators watching bonfires brightly blazing, and there are blood thirsty bloodsuckers calling the rest of us cowards. More fire, they say. More fire, more destruction. See? This burning down is really building up. See? This war is the recipe for peace. This screaming is really what serenity requires of us all.

How do I tell them how hurt we are? How do I tell them there’s a reason why we choose water? How do I tell them getting out from under boulders took so much strength that sucking blood is not an option? How do we explain that we had swords we were forced to swing so many times that when we finally found surrender, sanctuary and safety we swore never to return to battle again? How do I tell them it took so much for us to live that killing things will be our own dying? How do we choose water instead?

And somewhere there are rivers. Rivers that separate landmasses. Rivers that require bridges and bridges are of men.

REVIEW: "Word & Water" EP by FLAME

In the words of the iconic band, Chicago, “Does anybody know what time it is? Does anybody really care?”

There’s good news: FLAME knows what time it is and he’s got some new music for this moment.

And what time is it? It is time to put ourselves squarely in the narrative of grace and salvation through Jesus Christ by doubling down on who we are in the light of Jesus’ perfect gift and quit the game of observation in exchange for pull participation in the way we were created to do by our maker and redeemer.

Bottom line: I am always on the look out for the work that is undeniable and FLAME’s work is undeniable.

“Word and Water” is FLAME’s third release rooted and inspired by his graduate education in systematic theology, with minors in church history and counsellng from Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, MO (where my husband went to seminary full disclosure). This release was preceeded by the Extra Nos EP in 2020 and Christ For Us in 2021. Needless to say, he is prolific in his creativity and passion for his work starting long before these latest releases.

FLAME only came into my realm (thanks, internet) perhaps three month ago after seeing his short videos on the sacraments and means of grace floating through my feed that had me curious. Who is this thoughtful artist? Where is this passion for the word of God coming from? How do I find out more?

In doing my research, just because I was in the dark all that time didn’t mean he was! FLAME, true to his name, has been building and maintaining a fire for his work with an extensive catalog since releasing his first album eponymously named in 2004 and subsequently releasing eight more under a reformed Calvinist understanding of the scripture earning him multiple Dove Award Nominations, Grammy Nominations and “God Knows” won him a Stellar Award for Rap Album of the Year in 2018.

Cue his introduction to Lutheranism and three EPs of monstrous work since 2020 expressing to his audience his journey to deeper clarity and connection to the historical church founded on a sacramental understanding of the bread and the wine, the water and the word and justification by faith for believers through the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I’d venture to guess his long time fans along with his new Lutheran ones were taken aback and that, my friends, is worth five thousand pages of praise on its own. In a sea of never ending new releases, debuts, sophomore attempts, established, mature releases, the musician who successfully astonishes across genre possesses strength the likes of Sampson says me. And FLAME’s got it.

I have had Extra Nos, Christ for Us and now Word and Water on loop for three days now and can’t help but make the connection between Lin Manuel Miranda’s masterwork, Hamilton, and FLAME’s masterwork on Lutheran doctrine presented in his last three records. When old things land in the hands of empassioned innovative creators, the world better look out because something new and paradigm shifting is afoot.

And shift it shall. Thanks to FLAME.

“Word and Water” begins with stripped down melodic confidence with the 17th century hymn, “God’s Own Child, I Gladly Say it” perhaps lovingly referred to as ‘#594’ to all those LSB worshippers in the know. Not to worry, the clarity, pace and beauty of such an intro has the listener trusting the voice, curious for what might come next, perhaps surprised by such tradition heralding in anticipated hip/hop. Already, I’ve read comments of listeners hoping he might eventually release the hymn in its entirety and I would vote yes on that.

“He Delivers” starts with spoken word explanation of baptism and the listener can hear the echo of ‘trust and believe’ and as the hook takes over, we can tell where we are: in the well crafted musical habitat of an artist who knows exactly what they’re doing. “God He gon’ get you the gift/Water Him deliver the gift/Water and word watch it drip/Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” and we’re off. In two verses he artfully and creatively, not to mention rightly explains what Jesus did on our behalf and what we receive (the full forgiveness of sins, robed in Christ, filled with the Holy Spirit) in the washing of the water and the word.

Am I sucker for Lutheran doctrine? Of Course I am! Am I geeking out at how FLAME is geeking out in this masterful, awesome way? Of course I am!

So who doesn’t love a spoken word interlude? FLAME includes 4 exerpts from Luther’s Small Catechism on the teaching of baptism and God Bless Him, for it. Luther hasn’t spent much time in the Rap Aisle of the local Tower Records and it’s about time he did! Luther’s wordsmith obsession with the pen and relentless fire for the grace of God will find kinship with the rap innovators of the 20th and 21st century! Both rooted squarely in the present, in the reality of their neighbor, harnessing their love of word and love of neighbor to extend a message of connetion and freedom resisting an oppressive teaching that excluded precious children of God from accessing the right gifts the Father intended for all of us? Luther, please join us at the rap battle. FLAME, he musta known and so he included Luther’s own words all us junior high schoolers worked through after school on Wednesday nights to learn the faith. Now everyone gets their confirmation in musical form in three albums and then some!

All of which to say, you want your face to melt off? Listen to Track 5, “The Patristics.” Have I ever heard a rap song listing off church fathers who confessed the saving sacrament of baptism as a gift from God? No I haven’t. And now the world has one, thanks to FLAME. “Family, it’s clearly unanimous, baptism is truly regenerative/Go Study the early Patristics (Like Clement and Polycarp)/the position is really ubiquitous.” I’m amazed by this for two reasons: 1. The creation of musicality around the listing of old Church folks while simultaneously tackling the theological disagreement between those church fathers and the calvinists who ushered in an alternative, lesser view of baptism is, again, a huge task to attempt and then stick the landing on in a four minute song. And he does it.

And FLAME’s just getting started, my friends.

“Mark Them” is about bringing those babies to the fount of baptism and I am reminded, as a listener, how rare it is for men to ever pen lyrics so loving and honest about the joy of children. Put the notion of delightful infant baptism complete with cooing baby sample inside the rap genre known for its overdrive machismo and general disregard for the weak and lowly in exchange for power and dominance, you’ve got not just a great song celebrating the whole family of God, you’ve got an artist bravely commanding the artform according to his own voice and what we feels called to express. Other listeners more familiar with Christian rap (any Christian music, for that matter because I admittedly know very little) may not be as surprised as I was, but even so, it’s worth noting his vision, his focus and his clear mission to sharing with his audience his new sense of freedom propelling him to speak, sing, write, perform. It’s a great thing whenever an artist takes an artform, uses its strengths and expands the canon to include more than the expected content that we stereotypically put inside a rap song. More of this, please.

Lucky us.

Here it is, 2022 and the race to. be cool is changing every day. The race to be the next best thing, the next viral video, RT sensation, Reel of the moment, Insta story flash in the pan whatever is exhausting. And FLAME, instead of doubling down on the Christian pop culture of the mega church laser light filtered just right mass media appeal of the seeker and the soundstage, goes back to 1517 and aligns himself with someone who would not keep silent when the grace of Christ unchained his anguished heart and off he went. It makes me think of St. Paul, an enemy of Christ, called by Christ to be set free by Christ. A guy like that encounters a love that big and he can’t be silent. He refused to be silent and off he went.

Thank God for such freedom that, when it lands for reals, even after lurking in the shadows for years in the life of a Christian, it ignites the kind of liberation we’ve all been waiting for. I can’t help but think FLAME knows what I’m talking about. I’m guessing he might relate to the despair of Luther plagued by his own sinfulness transformed to feather light Light of the World justification leading to Christ-centered fearlessness.

That kind of freedom, when it finally becomes clear that the heavy lifting has been done FOR US setting us free to live and serve in whatever ways we’re called to do so? That’s unlike any mountain top experience that can be found this side of heaven.

Not to mention the fact that he’s a young, creative rapping black man making historically white, German church doctrine his own.

Hot take: Just because it started in Germany doesn’t mean it was supposed to stay there! Just because some guy spoke German doesn’t mean we were supposed to preserve the European face of a universal truth. Like FLAME says (cuz church history proves), the Ethiopian church is the most ancient Christian church untouched by the east and west disputes of later centuries and holds older untouched teachings after the riga-ma-roll of the reformation. Now, I don’t know what I’m talking about and I’m sure there are a line of white guys just aching to tell me I’m wrong but here this: These truths of the faith need to be in the hands of every person of every color and origin just like Christ intended.

And the rap needs to be rapped just like Grand Master Flash intended and in FLAME we find both. Artist and believer, free to do his thing because Christ did all that was needed FOR US. (See FLAME’s EP, “Christ For Us.”)

It’s always a good sign when someone’s interest in a topic is so all-consuming that they cannot resist the urge to stay in it. Lin Manuel Miranda did it with Hamilton and, thanks to his obsession, he opened up the founding Father immigrant story to be claimed and owned by so many more people than back when it was just a dusty old chapter in junior year American History textbook filled with white guys. In the same way, FLAME, in these three albums, takes the Small Catechism off the shelf and makes it his own. By making it his own, confessed in HIS words, he allows it to be owned and claimed by whoever hears it and feels the pull of such beauty and freedom expressed in an artform that feels real, that gets to the quick of this moment we are in and what it feels like to be searching for that life preserver in your own hometown. That’s not just pop culture Christian bullshit- that’s the heart of the matter because Jesus is the heart of the matter and FLAME is throwing it DOWN.

One Twitter follower I read posted, “This is FLAME’s third record calling Calvinists to the mat without any response from the Calvinists.”

Oh the silence says something all right! He dropped that mic from such high heights there ain’t nothin’ to recover from the other side!

Are my hopes up? Yes, yes they are. I am dreaming of a stronger, brighter, clearer church with voices like FLAME’s joining the conversation. Do I hope we let go of whatever idol we’ve made of old German stuff? Yes! Why? Because this moment asks for baptized believers to speak the word in real and vital and current ways to reach hurting hearts who haven’t heard that God has a free gift for every single one of us here. And that means everyone. Luther was of his time, St. Paul, same. FLAME is amazing because he is in this moment synthesizing the ancient with the contemporary and breathing new spirit-led life into it making it soar out beyond the fence line of what we just assume is the end of the road.

THat’s what God does over and over again through His people who keep showing up and hearing the call of God and respond, “Here I am. Send me.” IN my sad little midwestern pastor’s wife heart I dream of an LCMS Council of Presidents where there is a seat at the table for the Black Lutherans, the LatinX Lutherans, the Chinese, the deaf, the blind, the Messianic, refugee, the immigrant -not because they won some majority vote, but because they need to be participating in the conversations of the greater church as though they were a part of the church completely-not just boutique subsets. There. I said it. Cue white guys telling me about Robert’s Rules or Convention procedure or whatever. But I digress (sorry, Man)….

Track 10 is some buttery R&B goodness to accompany the 4th Small Catechism reading with the verse starting, ‘God I tried/tried to scuba dive/tried to plumb the depths/in the ocean of affection and it left me out of breath/God I tried/tried to stay in line/perfectly in step/tried to keep your marching orders but my heart kept going left….this is why/need to look outside/outside yourself for your/help if you’re faith’s in God/and you’ve been baptized/then you’re blessed.”

Period pause. Track nine is spoken word catechism, track 10 R&B honesty about the struggle of the sin-sick heart reaching for God and then God says, “hold up.” And reaches down for us first. “Let us Remember,” especially for new listeners like me, keep expanding the palette of this artist and his command of the musical. I wasn’t expecting this kind of track when it first played, but now after a handful of listens, it’s clear that it is pitch perfect. FLAME’s flow is intense. His content, clearly, not for the faint of heart casual listener and “Let us Remember” breathes real nice and just right. It is followed, then, by a real high church baritone honeycomb drip dripping down the chin of the organ at St. Timothy and Titus Chapel hymn featuring the gorgeous vocals of Louis Anthony Smith in “Water, Blood and Spirit Crying” to close out a masterwork of an album. I can’t help but think the last three tracks together are that beautiful picture of heaven on earth we believers get to enjoy in fellowship with one another. Together with saints above and saints below, with all the company of heaven and earth, we laud and magnify your name evermore praising you and saying…..maybe something like, “Welcome home to the family of an unchanging God who has dwelt with us in all of human history and dwells with us still in this present moment inviting us to be full participants in this New Adam identity gifted to us all by the water and the Word so that we, like what FLAME did, live boldly, sing out, be here now trusting in Jesus’ promise. Amen.

Now go buy that album.

https://lnk.to/WordAndWater

https://twitter.com/Flame314

extranosacademy.com

https://clearsightmusic.com/

Sharon asked if it was OK to bring an Easter Orchid

Sharon asked if it was OK to bring an Easter orchid because Merle’s had run out of lillies.

I don’t know why we haven’t been decorating the chancel with orchids before now because it looked magnificent.

It’s 4/20 today so of course I have to celebrate by remembering the time my friends and I were at Folks Fest in Lyons, Co and of course we went to a dispensary to get the sticky icky, but we’re kinda nerdy do-gooders from out of town unfamiliar with marijuana culture in general and so, when we were waiting our turn to be let into the dispensary I agreed to be the spokesperson for our very green group of future tokers of America, walked up to the counter in my strongest, most confident voice and said, “One marijuana cigarette, please!” Like an old timey carnival barker in a top hat and handlebar moustache.

Look, it was a reputable place of business with functioning adults earning a wage behind the counter. I didn’t see how using ‘joint’ or ‘weed’ would have been appropriate in the legal shop I was patronizing so I tried to elevate the request to make it sound normal.

And I didn’t sound normal at all. I sounded like a total bonehead instead because the sales assistant laughed and then proceeded to ask the three of us follow up questions we didn’t know how to answer.

We were sent on our way with, in fact, one marijuana cigarette since obviously none of us had the capacity for more than a few drags and then we smoked it and then I don’t remember hardly anything of Jason Isbell’s set later that night. It was THAT tragedy that had me retiring my Future Tokers of America badge and going back to not smoking weed anymore. Why couldn’t I have blacked out through Conor Oberst or the vibey European kids? Why did it have to be through one of my beloved songwriting heroes?

Sigh.

In other news, I’m finishing a song for the Confirmation kids, I’m in something of a dormancy with my writing right now, I remember this time last year being all amped for making a new record but that’s settled down a bit, I do love playing shows and was reminded as much in Paris last week and I do love music and Cory Branan, and my friend said I need to read Brandi’s book “Broken Horses” and I want to get a copy of JOhn Hendrix Holy Spirit graphic novel and I want to read “Atlas of the Heart” by Brene and I want to rid my house of clutter, I daydream of a bench and stone statue and some hanging plants in my backyard, the wind is relentless and I crave a campfire and the outdoors for days on end. It’s somewhere west of here, somewhere east of here and in the middle is this kitchen table, this grey sky, these birds in the blue spruce and quiet all around. High five.

Blessed are the poor in spirit

Perhaps, because of my big build up around my Parisian jaunt, you’re expecting a big old bloggy blog recap of highlights from my trip. BUt also it’s Maundy Thursday, the day we wash feet and come to the table of our Lord AND I’m going on a big shopping trip for the weekend that includes candy, champagne, cheesy potatoes-everything that starts with a ‘C.’ So here’s the real condensed Parisian highlight reel:

Lounging in the sun at Luxembourg Gardens (google it), making new friends thanks to music and seeing old friends thanks to music, the Cruffin (croissant/muffin hybrid of ectasy), laughter, huge step counts, boat ride down the Seine, Mona Lisa (play the Wyclef Jean/Neville brothers song), red wine, late nights, too many cafes too little time, empty French church, rain and skulls and femurs, skulls and femurs, skulls and femurs, blossoms, wandering, metro, street crepe, picnic, beauty, living, friendship, best time ever.

And Blessed are the poor in Spirit.

When my husband went to seminary we lived in the Central West End far from the hustle and bustle of on campus housing and while he studied up on his Greek and Hebrew, exigetics and what not, I was mailing stuff and answering the phone at my day job. Talk about blessed are the poor in spirit, I was crap at that job and have been crap at most adulting from the gekko here on out til today. And Blessed are the poor in Spirit.

The road of redemption sits atop a hill where, on either side there is a barrier free cliff down which the poor in spirit traveler might fall. And fall they do. And fall I do. On one side is the valley of despair (this is my preferred darkness) down which I tumble over and again when I think of my fault, my fault, my most grevious fault where I have ever done wrong and betrayed the light into which I have been born anew. To fall into despair is the trap of the poor in spirit whose weaknesses demand restitution and payment and hope trades in hopelessness for all hope is lost. The poor in spirit miss a step and down they go. Down down down.

On the other side of the road lies the cliff down which the poor in spirit plunge when pride fools them into taking goodness into their own two hands and believing they can earn their place in the kingdom with the right words, the right actions, the right platforms and choices- that redemption is for the dumb dumbs who haven’t reached such clarity as I have with my posh answers, my obvious wisdom, my shiny gold plated everything camera ready and smiling. And down down down we go. The minute we think we have it all figured out is the minute we join the ranks of poor in spirit and claw our way back onto the road.

The road is on its way to the cross this Thursday morning and every weekday and weekend here on out. Should we lose the road and fall fast and far we rely not our own own cross, but the cross of Christ. It is through his perfect life and innocent death that we, and by ‘we’ I mean all people of every time and place in human history were reclaimed as children and renamed righteous.

“I confess that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ my Lord, or come to HIm, but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith.” -Exerpt from the Third Article of The Creed regarding Sanctification in Luther’s Small Catechism

To believe is the work of a lifetime. To count oneself among the poor in spirit in need of savior is the daily dying and rising to new life. “Believe in me. Believe also in the one who sent me.” By my fault, by my fault by my most grevious fault I fall at the foot of the cross over and over again asking God to number me with the forgiven and he does. I am abundant in my confession and He is ever more abundant with His reconciliation. To despise confession and to despise forgiveness is the most dangerous of places to be. Blessed are the poor in spirit who have empty pockets where their goodness and earnings should be. The Lord takes his riches flowing from his hands and feet and sides gives them to whomever should bravely whisper. “Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.” And he does for, as He says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.”