Dwight

I cannot capture the joy, travail and enthusiasm of one pilgrim I will never forget. We met Dwight a month ago after he had served all the guests at Desert Chapel. He is a tall man, but somehow unaware of it. He is an effusive man but somehow entirely gentle. He is proud of how far he has come without any ego. He was wholly unimpressed that we came to visit as representatives from the Upper Room Ministries, until... he told us his own story of coming to the Genesis Project for a meal, volunteering to help, joining the church, becoming one of the Trustees, and going on the Walk to Emmaus! Walk to Emmaus - that's the Upper Room! He began to cry. He hugged us and told us that we had saved his life. Celebrating a year clean, and he pointed to his Emmaus journey as the turning point. Standing with Dwight and Pat, we were on holy ground.

So we were anxious to see him again. In our carefully planned pilgrimage we hoped to stand with our companions outside of Desert Chapel and imagine ourselves homeless, knocking on the door of the church daring to hope that we can enter without judgment and be received with grace and joy. But Dwight couldn't stand to let anyone stand outside. By the time Ciona and I had gotten off the bus, Dwight had already ushered the pilgrims into the building, asking their names and beginning to tell his story.

He captured the hearts of everyone there that day, just has he had Ciona and I.

On Pilgrimage

I've read about it, written about it, designed it, prayed it, but never walked it. But last week I went on pilgrimage and prayed in step with fellow pilgrims. We met a chatty group of adults in the church foyer, prayed for our journey, and loaded the bus expecting to meet God in the everyday-ness of life in Apache Junction, AZ. I'm embarrassed to say how surprised I was when God showed up...

Our first stop on the pilgrimage journey was a desert intersection. The pilgrims tentatively got off the bus to stand in fairly familiar territory - desert roads, homes, some horses and a not-too-hot February sun. We asked them to imagine this landscape anew, as more than a familiar landscape but as the home to 250 homeless men and women. What would it mean to sleep under the stars on this hard ground, to seek shade in the heat of July, and to have nowhere else to go? And what could the persons who make their home in the desert teach us about the desert wanderings of Abraham and Sarah, of Moses, of the temptations of Jesus? The pilgrims stepped out into the desert, imagining and praying.

As we gathered together to continue our journey, a large pick-up truck pulled off the road and up next to the van. A large man with overalls and a straw hat strode toward our group. I felt my words coming more quickly as I tried to "shoo" our group back onto the van, "Busted," I thought, "we're on private property." But the man came forward with a tentative smile and introduced himself as Frank, who had previously been a certified lay speaker in the United Methodist Church. He no longer had a church, he told us, and was looking for a church home. He had seen the van and wondered if he could worship with us.

Are you kidding me? We went out to meet God, not have God pull up in an F150! But there he was, telling us how he had started driving at 3am for no apparent reason and stopped when he saw the van. He cried as the lay leader invited him to church on Sunday, as we prayed with him, and praised God for this meeting. And then he went to get his camera, to capture the moment when he "found home again".

We got back onto the buzz dazed. Our journey could have ended there with such a spectacular display of God's persistence, love and timing.

Preparing for Pilgrimage

Ciona and I were off to sunny Phoenix to lead a pilgrimage for participants of SOULfiesta. During our site visit the month before we realized that God had already been preparing our path. We walked into the kitchen at Desert Chapel UMC and were warmly greeted by Pat. More than telling us the story of the Genesis Project feeding ministry, Pat embodied the ministry. With passion, excitement and prayerfulness he told us of how opening the doors of the fellowship hall to provide a heat respite for the homeless men and women of Apache Junction, grew into a beautiful ministry of hospitality. From peanut butter and jelly sandwiches came relationships that continue to draw persons from around the community - some come with food and some come with appetites - and no one is turned away.

We couldn't wait to return to Desert Chapel. We journeyed through the desert, a new and beautiful landscape to us, and arrived to scan the parking lot for a boundary or fence where the pilgrims could pray. As we walked the fence at the perimeter of the parking lot we met a couple who lived just on the other side. In the few minutes that we talked I was struck by the care they demonstrated for their yard and surroundings and the compassion that prompted them to take in a small puppy that had survived Hurricane Katrina. Their friendliness made their parting comment all the more shocking... They asked if we knew the pastor at Desert Chapel UMC and if we could talk to him about closing the gate in the fence. Apparently "those people that they serve" walked through their neighborhood on their way to lunch and they would hang around in the parking lot after the meal. The trash that they left behind was an unbearable nuisance.

The contrast between Pat and the neighbors was startling. We set out expecting to see God. But I found myself challenged to see God in these persons. They are so close to the transformation that God is working in dozens of lives, and yet so annoyed by it.

They have not left my head or my heart since that visit. I left the church stunned by their request. As I sat in worship that night I found myself frustrated and angry with them. As we set out on our pilgrimage the next morning I began to see myself in them. There are fences I willingly cross but there are even more that I avoid or deem unworthy of the effort. As I pray with my feet in the coming days I'll be looking for those boundaries in my life and hope that with the grace of God I choose to stand on the side of transformation.

all the cool kids are doing it...

Hooping, that is!

Check out hooprama.com for more detials.

Pounding stones into gravel

Last week I showed up in Claire's classroom for my first opportunity to volunteer in her classroom. Eager and dedicated, I started to worry when her teacher looked up as I entered with an almost guilty look on her face. She walked to a cupboard without making eye contact and removed a smallish platic container. As she took the lid off and handed it to me she said rather sheepishly, "This is clay from our science kit. It comes in large clumps but I'm hoping you will take this," handing me a 6 inch long wood dowel about 1/2 inch in diameter, "to pound the clumps into powder. The mom who did this last year," she tried to convince me and herself, "said it helped her get out some frustration."

Being the gracious volunteer, I said, "Of course". Carter and I (oh, did I mention my 2-year-old was along to help) headed to the teachers' lounge where we spread out newspaper, poured clay clumps and started pounding, grinding, and rolling. After an hour, Carter and I were both out of patience. I was satisfied with our progress and happy that we had accomplished our goal without making too much of a mess in the teachers' lounge. So we headed for home and a nap. That morning was a fond, nearly forgotten memory of what it means to be a parent, helping out in the classroom.

Then this morning I opened a video titled "Dashed Hopes in Southern Sudan" on the New York Times website. The first scene is a woman sitting outside a government ministry building pounding rocks into gravel in the hopes of rebuilding her country with it. We are both women. We probably both have children. We both long for a safe and sane country in which to live and raise our children.

But there our similarities end. She has lived through a civil war. She lives in a country mourning the murder of a head of state who took hopes of peace with him. Just miles to the north a genocide still rages. She doesn't even have a dowel rod with which to complete her task. Yet she pounds. Not just for one bearable hour, but for hours and days. She doesn't send letters of protest and advoacy to her government (that some unknown Poli-Sci major pre-wrote for her) from her laptop in the comfort of her airconditioned home. She works with her hands, bruised and calloused so that the title of the video might one day, "A United Sudan Builds a Hopeful Future".

Give me a squeeze

Carter has figured out how to grasp and hold on, commonly called a hug. He and Jeff call it a "squeeze". This is a wonderful ability... he can now have piggy back rides without falling off and cracking his head open. He can run up to me in the morning and give me a kiss and a "squeeze" - there's no better way to start your morning! And at night, I've discovered that he can also squeeze with his legs. As I carry the sleepy boy into his dimly lit room with the beautiful lullaby playing, he snuggles down on my should until the moment he realizes the crib is his destination. Then he uses this new-found "squeeze" to wrap his arms around my neck and legs around my waist so tight that requires a full jar of Crisco in order to slip out of his grasp. But once pried off my body and lowered into the crib, it just takes a few rubs of his back and the deft switch-a-roo of Ojo, monkey or penguin to sqeeze and he's off to sleep. So go on, give someone you love a "squeeze".

A Trip to the Zoo

Monday morning I innocently asked Claire Marin what she would like to do on her day off. "Go to the zoo," she said. Well, it was 7:30am, we'd all been up for an hour, the zoo didn't open for another hour and a half so... okay! We packed snacks, filled the water bottles, loaded the wagon in the oh-so-handy minivan and went to the zoo.

This was Carter's first trip and it was a riot. I thought he might explode from excitement in the Reptile House; he ran from one glass enclosure to another pointing, naming, asking, "wat dat?" Priceless. Claire led the way with map in hand. We saw a primate swinging through the trees while holding his breakfast in his foot, we saw turtles munching on lettuce, leopard cubs playing with a ball, and meerkats scurrying, sniffing and flinching.

It started to get hot so we skipped the last couple exhibits to play on the amazing playground. Carter jumped and fell in the toddler jumpy place while Claire Marin and I climbed the net bridge to the top of the zoo kingdom and hollered our way down a very long twisty slide.

But what's a day at the zoo without some fast food to top it off? We couldn't resist some Chik-fil-A! fyi... if your child does not want the educational toy and graciously returns it instead of tossing it in the trash, she gets a free ice cream cone. I knew I liked that place.

So if you have a child, or can borrow someone else's, take some time to enjoy the zoo. Spiders never look so wonderful and goats as spectacular as when you see them through the eyes of a child.

Why We Don't Attend WNAB (an unfinished thought)

As I parked my van two blocks away from my church, forced an unwilling two-year-old into the stroller, snapped at my 7-year-old to hurry up, arrived sweating in the basement of Parker Hall for our weekly church meal and opened the elevator door to a cacophony of baby cries, whooping children and older adults greeting me with the astounding assumption that I could carry on a conversation with them the realization about knocked me over that parenting well is hard. Not just, difficult, but agonizingly, not-for-the-weak-of-heart, Calgon-take-me-away hard. And a task that I may not be capable of...

As I recovered from this onslaught to my senses and personal incompetence, I was amazed to see that other parents didn't seem to be experiencing this same crisis of vocation. Mothers sat chatting with one another as they spooned strained carrots into open mouths. Dads arrived from work kissing their wives on the head - knowing better than to interrupt one of the only adult conversations they had been able to have that day - wiped ketchup off another young one's forehead and sat down to enjoy dinner. As I waited at the table for my husband to arrive, hoping he would skip the kiss on the forehead and just take the toddler, I wallowed in my ineptitude…

Snakes in My Path

In our first condo the laundry was located in the basement of our unit. We had to go out the front door, around the corner and down a dozen wide concrete steps to the laundry. This simple path was always an adventure with laundry on one hip and Claire's small hand, just two years old, in the other. One day as we rounded the corner and made our way to the 6th step I saw a small garter snake sunning itself in our path. I startled as a daughter of Eve, charged with some ancient distrust of this slithering creature. But the enlightened, exegete in me knew in an instant that I did not want to pass on my irrational fear of such a small and harmless creature. So after a quick, and surely imperceptible, intake of breath I exclaimed to my innocent daughter, "Look, Claire, God made snakes too." I'm sure the high pitch of my voice landed on her ears full of excitement and delight at God's wonderful creation and not the choked anxiety of a mother wanting so desperately to do the right thing.

I used to think that such rich moments of anxiety, wonder and theology were few and far between, beautiful anecdotes that I would sprinkle through a bestselling novel one day. But as I sat with friends last week telling them how tired I was, the image of Claire and I on the steps came to mind. There are delightful, "blog-able" moments that do happen with my kids, but these isolated events do not capture the persistence of the anxious and wonder-ful events that lead directly from one to another to create the days of our life. In each moment I find myself confronting different snakes and struggling to see the legitimate concern and the simultaneous beauty. Soccer will add more time in the car for all of us, but it will be good for Claire's physical development. Carter loves his teacher and time at school, but wouldn't five days be irresponsible since I only work part-time? I should not have yelled at Claire, but a responsible parent would not let her carry Carter down the stairs. People are shocked that I go out every Tuesday night with my girlfriends, but isn't self-care a healthy model for my children? Oh, it's exhausting.

All I want is to be perfect - to be sure that in every moment my discipline and my affirmation portray the grace that I believe motivates our lives together. I pray that my attempts at love and concern draw them closer to the Parent of us all rather than seeing such a poor reflection of Unconditional Love that they will reject the faith I claim.

When Claire Marin and I saw that snake in our path it slid off the step and down into the grass so fast that Claire barely got a good look at it. For all the internal upheaval and burden I put on that moment, Claire experienced a mild amusement and it became a fleeting moment in the 700+ days she had lived. So maybe the best I can do is to be aware of the path we walk together, looking toward the future, holding my children's hands when they will let me, recognizing God's presence, and giving thanks for it all.

The importance of the music

So Saturday night we told Claire Marin that we had a new book for her. She got very excited and we asked if she'd like to read it together. "Sure!" So I went to get Where Did I Come From? She liked the title and was glad we were going to share this information with her. She giggled at the children's explanations of where they thought they had come from. Then when we turned the page to see "Mommy" and "Daddy" standing naked she began to slouch ever so slightly on the couch between us. As we continued to read about this mysterious process called making love her arms folded and she looked at the pages through half open eyes. Then she perked up again as we looked at the pictures of a baby growing from a kidney bean to a full-formed and beautiful baby. When we finished she didn't have any questions and "no" she didn't want to keep the book in her room.

Our friend and esteemed professional and sex educator, Mark Huffman, shared with a group of parents several months ago that the important part of any conversation with children and youth about sex is not so much the information that is shared - that can always be re-visited - but the tone of the conversation. He likened it to a person who leaves a musical humming the songs. She may not remember every word of the songs, but she will remember the feeling of having heard and experienced them. I hope Claire remembers our discussion as a peaceful, non-anxious melody. And I hope we sung well enough that she will want to hear our song again when the time is right.