I begin with a picture of me, because it’s the only one that got taken. The photographer has to work to make sure she appears in the family photo album occasionally.

I love this next picture. Christian and I had engagement pictures taken on this bridge, from this angle.

Generally when we come to the state park, it’s in the winter. Don’t ask me why. I don’t think I’ve ever been there with the wildflowers in bloom. It was so beautiful. I have better pictures of the wildflowers, but I love the tree in this one.

Heading toward the rock bridge…I’m not sure if Julianna  found the view or the climb most inspiring.

A couple of closeups I love: Christian reading an interpretive sign to Alex (gotta love a guy wearing a Snugli)…

…and how can you resist this adorable face? (So–does he look like mommy or like daddy? People can’t decide.)

The back side of the rock bridge:

 Nicholas wasn’t feeling very photogenic that day, but he gets so many pictures taken of him, I’m not going to feel guilty that I didn’t manage to get a closeup of him to share this one time.

It was a perfect way to start off Holy Week…as a family.

Image via Wikipedia

This weekend, I read the most beautiful description of a place, a description that picked up my heart and plopped it down in the Sierra Nevada, and my whole body ached to hop a plane and follow it there.

There hasn’t been much time for solitude and communing with God through creation in the last…I don’t know, year.  There was a time in my life when I took those opportunities weekly at least. But the proverbial stars hardly ever align anymore: child care, favorable weather, and no pressing errands or deadlines. I think the last time I went out was in September. Five months ago. My insides are crying out for that place of rest.

A few weeks ago at Mass the Gospel was from Mark. The point of the reading was that Jesus healed everyone they brought to him at Simon’s mother-in-law’s house. But that wasn’t the part that clung to my soul. This was:

Rising very early before dawn, he left
and went off to a deserted place, where he prayed.
(Mark 1:35)

The mommy pundits are all, to the last one, in complete agreement: You must care for yourself and your own needs. But what do you do when the thing you need, the thing you’re sure God is placing upon your soul, is not possible? Jesus had the self-autonomy to recognize his need and attend to it. He could say, “Whoa! I’m worn out from healing people; my soul needs recharging.” He might have to get up early to avoid getting caught, but he could go.

I can’t.

As long as I have a nursing baby, solitude is not in the cards. But I’ve taken each of my babies out to creek bottoms and clifftops in turn. Last week, when the mercury topped 50 degrees, I had babysitting lined up for the other two, and I had set aside all other vital-feeling commitments in the interest of a trek as far away from the city as I could possibly go in two and a half hours. And that morning the sitter called in sick…and that afternoon, I was in the hospital with Michael.

So when I say it is not possible, I actually mean not possible…not “I’m not prioritizing it.” It’s not possible.

And here, in the bleak midwinter, as snow falls outside my window and all my children, liberated from school, crowd around shouting into my sensitive, still-blocked and painful ear, I realize that I stopped listening to that Scripture passage too soon.

Simon and those who were with him pursued him
and on finding him said, “Everyone is looking for you.”
(Mark 1:36-37)

Jesus didn’t get away, either.

This is the point where another truism becomes clear: motherhood is a ministry. And ministry means you don’t always have the luxury of attending to your own needs. You certainly must do so when it is possible, but those of us who have been gifted with parenthood have inherited a ministry in which we must empty ourselves and give of ourselves, whether we choose to do it willingly or not. It reminds me of something shared on a list serve for pastoral musicians a few years ago, when I felt that the demands of full-time parish work were the most brutal I’d ever face:

Ministry is giving when you feel like keeping,
praying for others when you need to be prayed for,
feeding others when your own soul is hungry,
living truth before people even when you can’t see results,
hurting with other people even when your own hurt can’t be spoken,
keeping your word even when it is not convenient.
It is being faithful when your flesh wants to run away.

Alex has been waiting for the chance to jump in the leaves. Julianna has been waiting for the chance to plunge through them and kick them up, just like her mommy loves to do in the fall. Nicholas is ready to follow his siblings’ lead, wherever it takes him.

The sun shines warm, tempered by the chill of a wind waiting to steal the warmth as evening draws near. The smell drifts upward as I crouch close to the ground with the camera.

Time to dig small hands in the leaves, to crinkle them beneath fingernails, and fling them skyward.

Yay God, indeed.

Shared with Wordful Wednesday at Angie’s Seven Clown Circus.

I know, writing about spring should be illegal. When we start waxing poetic we employ ten dozen clichés and deeply selective vision. You know, the kind of vision that ignores the old tire half-buried in silt at the edge of the stream, the sad remnants of somebody’s fake poinsettia, the non-biodegradable plastic swimming pool hung up on a branch—all the remnants of a wet winter.

Still, this is my blog, and spring never fails to evoke in me a wonder that cries out to be expressed, especially after an endless winter like the one just past. I’m not going to annoy any editors with my musings—I’m just going to share them with you. And maybe someday I can steal the images for use in a story. (I’ll be like Tchaikovsky: repeat offender in self-plagiarism.)

It’s a perfect day, and as I sit in the warm sun, I try to identify how many different bird calls I can hear. They sing in such perfect ensemble that no matter how many times I count, I always lose track after three. I glory in the air rushing past my face as I pedal along the trail. Wake up, world! And wake up, soul. The mind-numbing days of staring at the same four walls are over. The dandelion war begins anew. And…

Wait a minute, what’s that hiss? That noise like escaping air? Surely that’s not a sharp trail rock, wedged in my bicycle tire, a mile and a half (all uphill) from home?

Bah, humbug!

Shared with You Capture: Spring at I Should Be Folding Laundry

When I get up to walk on Sunday morning, it’s already well above freezing. All morning, while we get dressed and go to church (jackets, not coats, thank you), the snowpack melts. As the day goes on, the sound of running water down in the woods crescendoes: first a whisper, then a gurgle, and at last a steady rush. The cul de sac is clear for the first time in weeks, and in the afternoon, Alex and I go outside. He rides his bike for a while, and then we put on our boots to “slop” our way down to the woods. It’ss harder going than I anticipated. Eighteen inches of super-fluffy snow doesn’t just pack down as it melts; it morphs into to a snow state I’ve never seen before. I guess my boots are really shot, because slogging through snow at the threshold of melting ends with my toes being very wet.

The last time I was there, it looked like this:

A pristine wonderland crisscrossed only by animal tracks and a trickle of water peeking from a layer of ice.

Today, Alex and I pause at the edge of the bend in the creek and survey the busy water.

He stands with his hands jammed into his pockets, and watches the gurgling waters round the bend, then says, “Come on, Mommy!” After all, there are rocks to throw.

And vines to investigate, to puzzle the mystery by which they grow up, then down, and somehow manage to loop upward again. How do they do that?

And untouched snow in need of shuffled tracks made by little bare legs.

And fingers to poke into the snowy drifts at the edge of the creek bank in an attempt to make raccoon tracks. I watch, then bend down to do the same, and my fingers sink into something barely cold and soft like velvet. I’ve never felt anything like it. Or maybe I’m just paying attention for the first time. “Look,” I say softly, and point to the creek bank, where green shoots sprout from the soft earth. “The world thinks it’s spring.”

And despite all the stressors, the lack of time, the projects pressing down, the nudging that I’m out of balance, at this moment, this moment in the woods, all I feel is joy.

Today I am thankful for signs of coming spring:

Driving with the window down for the first time in 2011

Opening the deck door for a precious half hour to let fresh air into the house

The first day that my early-morning exercise is accompanied by a blush of dawn

A gorgeous sunrise—food for the soul

Riding bikes in the cul de sac

Animal tracks in untouched snow…even if they aren’t destined to remain so

A little boy with fists jammed into his pockets

The mystery of vines

Shuffling through untouched melting snow

Making raccoon tracks in the snow

Green shoots along the creek bank

The whoosh of running water outside my window

Last year’s grasses melting their insulating blanket

Image via Wikipedia

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Best link of the week, hands down, in honor of the upcoming movie release (anybody want to be super geeky and dress up for a midnight showing? ): Hogwarts Gets the Internet. Ever wondered what Dobby might say on Facebook?

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All right, people. This is a note to some of you Blogger bloggers. I love to leave comments, BUT. Sometimes I want to tear my hair out and ignore any site with an orange “B” in the URL line. I write my comment, I hit post without doing a word verification because all I got was a little red X, and not a word; it reloads; I scroll down; it displays a red dot; I hit post again; it reloads; I scroll down; it tells me to match a word; I match the word; I hit post AGAIN, and THEN it tells me, after all that, that you still feel the need to approve my comment. Please, for the love of all that is holy, bloggers: If you’re going to enable comment moderation, PLEASE SKIP THE REST OF THE NONSENSE. I know you like getting comments. Don’t make it so freaking hard! (See here for someone else who feels the same way, and knows what to do about it!)

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I read a great writing quote this week:

The first chapter is the last chapter in disguise.
- Richard Peck.

Apparently, he writes a book, finishes the ending, then ditches the first chapter & writes a new one. Hmm. Now, this sounds like a good plan to me, especially after the weeks & months I’ve spent obsessing about how to start in the right place. One more nudge that it’s time to STOP PROCRASTINATING and START WRITING.

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Kudos to Parenting Magazine! They want pictures of kids with Down syndrome. Pass the link around to anyone who can oblige! 

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We made a family page to send with Alex to school. It’s an album that makes the rounds of all the families in the class, and it was fun to pick out pictures and scrapbook them, with Alex making most of the decisions, on Sunday afternoon. We talked about what he liked, who he loved–all that fun stuff that you can include in such a project. On Monday morning he stopped on his way down the stairs and turned back to me, peeking through the railings as I changed diapers and dressed little ones. “Mommy,” he said, “the two most important things about me are my Iron Man costume, and God. I love flowers. I love all the things that God made.” Warmth to the heart of a mommy who finds God in nature.

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Recently, I was sitting by a lake, seeking stillness, when I happened to glance down at my shoe and see a tiny spider, no bigger than the head of a pin, building a web between the loop of my shoe string, my sweat pants, and the surrounding pants. Close as I watched, I never could see the threads she was traversing. And it occurred to me what a miracle a spiderweb really is. I understand what they’re made of; I know it’s produced by the spider’s body…but I don’t understand how they get from one point to another to put up the strands in the first place. Can you imagine staring out at a gap the size of the Royal Gorge, and simply hurling yourself out into the abyss, trusting…trusting in what, to keep you from plunging to certain death?

Of course, I suppose it helps that you weigh virtually nothing, so you can be your own parachute. Still, it’s kind of miraculous, don’t you think?

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Pray for me–have a presentation to give to the diaconate candidates today on NFP, and I’m not feeling very good the last couple of days!

Originally uploaded by One-Speed Photography

I didn’t want to come out today. I knew I was not going to find a truly quiet place, and I have so many works in progress that I really begrudged the time. At the very least I ought to be folding clothes so that’s not hanging over my head, too. But I have a sitter, so I take my best guess and head northward, my head a jumble of anxiety about the old novel that got two more rejections this week and the new one I’m too intimidated to start on.

I reach the Pinnacles and find that I was right. It’s not quiet. But I head for the quietest place—where the overhanging cave and rapids mask the sound, and I spread out a blanket and eat an apple.

I’ve never really appreciated the sedimentary rock here—the bulk and the variety of it, from mud-gray to caramel to slate gray and black, layered upon each other. The water tore through here, smacked into this solid wall, and in turning the corner, gouged out this deep overhang. Trees and shrubs cling to its brow, spilling roots and branches over the edge, their branches emerging from patchwork shadow in a rainbow that marches from olive to green to gold against the flawless blue sky. Its underside huddles black above the water, and rich, warm red-brown over the sand where I sit. Behind me, I hear the trickle of an underground stream working its way down the back wall. Before me, the water lies serene, reflecting the world in its depths, but in the distance, rapids sparkle, drawing my vision with motion.

A wind growls progresses along the valley, drowning out the traffic and the rapids as it rushes from tree too tree, sending a cascade of leaves whirling before it. When Alex was little, I would say, “Look at the trees dancing.” But a tree doesn’t dance with an edgy, raucous bump and grind. It follows stately Baroque forms, bowing to its neighbor and circling round. The leaves, though—no inhibitions there. Millions of thrill-seekers hurling themselves from the heights, some plunging in free-fall, others twirling madly, while the rest flicker back and forth, landing daintily feet-first in the water and then settling back on it with the sigh of those finally getting to rest after a long day’s work.

Voices approach; a young father arrives with two tow-headed boys, 5 and 7, I’d guess, and a mutt that looks half Huskie. Being boys, they pound around in the soft sand, closer and closer to the junction of water and rock wall, until one of them shrieks, “Daddy, I’m sinking in the mud!” I’m closer, and so, chuckling, I abandon my NEO and attempt a rescue. I manage it…barely. He wasn’t kidding about sinking in the mud; he loses a shoe in it and has to stretch out across the mud to dig it out. The dad heads off a tantrum by telling him to take his shoes and socks off and wash off in the creek. That wouldn’t work in my house, especially not at the end of September, with the water temperature edging downward toward winter, but it does the trick; soon the boy is running around barefoot on the chilly Missouri “sand.”

They don’t last long. Soon they’re packing up and leaving me alone again, and as their voices fade along the trail, I wonder if my long, creative descriptions of nature really interest anyone, whether I should post this on Monday or not. But I know that I will because I don’t have time to write multiple blog entries. I have too many irons in the fire.

So I twist my neck and look up again, at the monochrome rainbow. And as I turn to face forward again, I realize that despite the imperfect quiet, some of noise in my head has eased.

For monochrome rainbows,
dancing trees,
whirling leaves,
and the chill of Missouri clay seeping upward below my back

For subterranean streams
shady banks
swirling winds
and Jonathan apples

For running water,
clear blue skies,
ancient rock
and the irrepressible energy of childhood

For restful nights
busy days
invigorating work
and a rich life

*

Shared at Multitude Mondays and On, In and Around Mondays

I slept poorly last night, haunted perhaps by the images on the movie screen, or more likely a prisoner of my own adrenalin. The children moaned in their sleep, and I woke. My husband, ensconced downstairs on the couch with a cold, coughed, and I woke. A dream ended, and I woke up.

So when the alarm sounds at 5:30 this morning, the last thing I want is to get out of bed, tie the running shoes, and pound the sidewalks. I grab the basal thermometer and stuck it in my mouth out of habit, and while it measures, I try to convince myself I don’t need to go, but I know better. And so, when the thermometer beeps, I roll out of bed.

As I cross the room, my shadow startles me as it flits through the dim pool of green cast by the smoke detector. I creep past Christian on the couch and go outside, where a brilliant early morning starscape greets me. When I come home, I’ll go in the back yard, away from the street lights, and enjoy the view. But when I reach the top of the first hill, I realize I don’t have that long. Out of our little valley, already the eastern horizon glows white. And so I forsake the usual maze of a cookie cutter development and jog along the straightest shot to the neighborhood park.

I lie down on the gravel path, hoping no one is watching. The sharp edges of rocks bite into my head, but my attention is fixed on the sky. Orion, Cassiopeia, the seven sisters, shimmering against charcoal gray. Then a thread of fire traces a path from north to south, a split second of beauty that makes my breath catch. Why don’t they last longer? Do they really burn out so quickly?

I drink it all in, the khee khee khee and ch-ch-ch-ch-ch of the insects filling my ears, as dawn comes creeping westward, stealing the stars one by one. And when I rise, pulling fingers through tangled curls to check for gravel, the world has changed. It is full of magic—the best kind of magic, the kind whose inevitability surprises.

Homeward bound, my breaths conform to the pounding of my Asics on the pavement: In-two-three, out-two-three. I cross over the dewy imprint of rabbit tracks on the concrete, and a moment later the rabbit itself startles from its hiding place in the grass and darts across the street.

I arrive home to find the trees in our little creek valley silhouetted against the murky light of predawn. The birds fly silently across the sky, as if positioning themselves for the morning chorus. And sure enough, as the sky visibly brightens, as the last stars wink out, the singing begins.

When I was growing up, my bedroom faced north, toward the pond and the gentle swell of a hayfield. And the chicken yard, which meant that any time a raccoon got into the henhouse, I was the one who raised the alert. No wonder I’m such a light sleeper.

I don’t know at what point it happened, but I discovered the beauty of that view, a beauty ever changing, depending on weather and time of day and season. I shoved my bed up in the corner, and from then on I did everything stretched out across the bed, where I could look outside: homework, Journaling, spinning stories. At night, I shoved my pillow in the window frame and watched the sun set, then rolled over and pressed my head against the screen so that I could see as many of the stars as possible. And that was how I fell asleep: listening to the sound of the crickets amid the clover and foxtails.

I also took to having long philosophical discussions with no one, a narrative of my day, and all the people in it. I learned to analyze my own reactions and feelings, and came to new insights. I’m not sure at what point I realized I was praying, not just spouting opinions at the sky. I was actually seeking, in those seemingly one-way conversations with the stars.

A teenager doesn’t place a lot of value on listening prayer. And yet, as I learned the shapes of the constellations, saw them shift through the year, and sent my words winging toward them, stillness crept over me, a stillness that finally succumbed to sleep. And of all the beautiful memories of my childhood, that sense of stillness, which always came on as I grew close to sleep at last, is preeminent among them. It was a stillness of the earth—of insects chirping and coyotes howling and bullfrogs pulsing their low, laid-back grunts. It was a stillness unbroken by human noise, except when an occasional car rumbled down the road in a thick cloud of dust. There were many times when, in the throes of some adolescent moral quandary, I remember envying the simple placidity of the singers’ existence.

I suppose I am thinking of it today, in this very early morning, because we slept with the windows open last night. In the wake of a cold front, the interstate noise succumbed to distance, and all I heard was that familiar hum and pulse of nature, the soundtrack of my childhood. This morning, of course, the traffic noise is back, but all through the night I woke repeatedly, just long enough to reassure myself that the stillness still pulsed outside my window.

I dream of someday returning to a remote place where I never have to listen to jet braking and tires squealing and the incessant roar of humanity. A place where I can once again shove my pillow into the window frame and stare up at the vastness of the universe.

But today, as the sky begins to lighten on this, my thirty-sixth birthday (see, I’mnot afraid of sharing my age), it’s time to seek ot the holy in a different place. One that involves very little stillness or serenity, but an awful lot of sweetness.

In other words, time to rouse the munchkins for school.

Shared at On, In, and Around Mondays

At quarter of nine in the morning, the mercury stands at 83 degrees. Already I have mowed the lawn, written a blog, revised a writing assignment, and cleaned up half a gallon of forest green paint from the office floor. The sitter arrives, and it is time for me to go in search of stillness.

The humidity presses inward like a damp electric blanket, but I am going to the woods, so I drive with the windows down, park at the Boy Scout camp, and take off on foot. The path is muddy, its edges overgrown, but in the deep parts of the woods, undergrowth drops away, laying bare the skeletal lower branches of cedar.

And then green returns as the edge of the bluff approaches. The path turns, and the view opens up.

A few steps farther on, I find my spot: a rocky outcropping that looks like a sheer dropoff to the creek far, far below, but on closer inspection reveals a lower shelf, hidden from prying eyes on the path. I watch the vagaries of a breeze that sets a line of trees in the middle of the valley to swaying, while the wide swaths on either side lie still and untouched.

Still, the noise of traffic remains, a persistent, annoying buzz and rumble. I sit for a few minutes, and then, feeling restless, I move on. I follow an unfamiliar path over the ridge, away from the noise. At last I sit on a tree fallen across the path. I want to lie down; my overtaxed brain cries for rest. I’ve learned that sleep is the road to stillness, but I’m afraid that all the plants around me are poison ivy. At last I lie back along the tree trunk, and after a few false starts, find balance. I drift. 

I wake to the swelling ssssshhhhh of wind in the trees above me. I open my eyes. Neither words nor images can do justice to the sense of space, enclosed yet endless, of a room made of long, leggy trees. I see the Paraclete in a patch of sky.

I stretch out my hand, and it looks like the handprint of God. Here, at last, is stillness.

I make my way back to civilization in stages. On the other side of the hill, the rumble of lawn mowers and traffic waits. The sweltering weight of heat pounces the moment I enter a sunny patch. But even here, the whisper of Heaven accompanies me, in the spice of wild herbs and the cool scent of cedar, in the bee that flies circles around me and the butterfly flit-fluttering alongside. And by the time I reach the camp, the words have begun to flow. Yay God.