Category Archives: inspirational

A mother’s view of graduation

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There is nothing that prepares you for the emotions you face as your last child graduates from high school. It doesn’t matter how many people say things like, “Just be happy for her.” Or, “Don’t cry, it’s a great milestone.” Or, “Think of all the places you can travel as empty nesters!” Or, the worst, “Don’t keep focusing on these ‘lasts’”.

I will focus on these lasts if I want to focus on these lasts. I want and need to cherish these moments and not forget what it feels like to be a mother of a high school senior. To be a mother of a high schooler. To be a mother.

And actually, I think that’s okay.

When our first child graduated, seven years ago, I don’t recall being a total wreck. He was so ready to go off to college. So excited to see new things and be done with the old. 

When senior year began for our middle child two years later, I warned the remaining family that September, “You know I’ll be crying off and on all year, right?” 

“Yeah, Mom, we know.”

But then along came Covid 19 and the entire second half of her year was so unusual that when we walked, masked-up, into her high school to record her commencement speech, it felt so joyful that at least she could do this little thing that the tears were weirdly absent – I just couldn’t stop smiling.

Now it’s five years later and I’ve been cherishing the lasts all the more because our middle child missed so many of them. She missed prom. She missed her last orchestra, band, and choir concerts. She missed graduation with its parties and ceremonies and public awards. 

This third time around, each one of these events feels precious – almost sacred – and I am not taking them for granted. 

Please understand, I am not using that word sacrilegiously. If something is “sacred” or “holy” in the Bible, it means that thing is set apart. Sure, generally we use these words in a religious context, but we also speak of “sacred spaces”, a room or building or outdoor location that is “set apart” in purpose and feeling. It is held as a special place that one can go in order to, ideally, commune with God or nature or even one’s own self. 

Well, I do believe that these “lasts” are set apart, cherished moments, not only for my graduate, but for me. Set apart for me to breathe it all in. The recognitions, sure, the proud moments, yes, but also just set apart to bathe in the sheer ecstasy of being a mother.

Are all mothering moments ecstatic? Ummm…in the understatement of eternity…no. No, they are not. And that’s why I choose to revel in the ones that are. 

I choose to celebrate with tears and smiles and Facebook posts and phone calls and texts and more tears. I choose to brag about my child. I choose to invite friends to rejoice with me. I choose to cherish every. Single. Moment. 

Because being a mother is hard stinkin’ work. And I deserve this sacred time as much as my daughter does.

So if you see me crying at this event or that, if you’re talking to me and I suddenly burst into tears, if you question why I skipped a meeting or chose not to go to work one day, please understand this: I am cherishing all these moments, and it’s rather overwhelming.

But in a good way. In a marvelous, heart-bursting-with pride, wonderful kind of way.

Happy Valinash Day!? Or is it Ashintines?

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I can’t even say how much I love today.

It’s Ash Wednesday.

But it’s also Valentine’s Day.

Apparently this conjunction of the holidays happened in 2018 (I vaguely remember that) and will again in 2029 and then won’t again until we and possibly even our children are all long gone.
Now, I’m not a big proponent of Valentine’s Day. It’s overblown. There is too much pressure. Too much emphasis on “what I am doing for you; what I am saying to you; what I am expecting to receive from you…”

Ironically, I’m also not a big proponent of Ash Wednesday…or at least I wasn’t until a few years ago. I didn’t grow up celebrating Ash Wednesday. The community church we attended never talked about it – at least, not that I recall. I didn’t know what Lent was, either. But I have enjoyed this added element to my faith as an adult.

And so along comes this year, a rare conjoining of two holidays, when the seven-week preparation of the ultimate gift of love meets the 24-hour celebration of the feeble (by comparison) love of humans.

Quite the mashup.

On the one hand: perfect love. On the other: fallible love.

On the one hand: Jesus. Fully God. Fully man.

On the other: Us. Made in the image of God, sure…but not able to live up to that ideal any more than we are able to sing the Hallelujah Chorus on the day we are born. We are “fully human”. Period.

On the one hand: Looking to Easter as the ultimate fulfillment of our needs…

On the other hand: Looking to a person as the ultimate fulfillment of our desires.

Wow. When I put it that way, it really brings the picture into focus for me. If I come from the premise (and I do) that Jesus is God and his payment for our sins on the cross was the ultimate fulfillment of my needs (forgiveness of my sins), then to compare that to anything a human can offer by way of fulfilling another human’s desires…there is a lot left to be, well, desired.

And that’s the problem with Valentine’s Day. We’re imperfect. We don’t match up. We fail. We forget. We don’t live up to expectations. We disappoint. Valentine’s Day only seems to prove that we aren’t everything we should be. We simply can’t be everything that the object of our affections wishes we were.

We are, in short, human.

Ash Wednesday, however, is all about pointing us to the cross. Pointing us to the ultimate love. Pointing us to the One who Never Fails. The One who was the perfect sacrifice for our sins.

Perfection vrs. frailty.

All mashed into this one day. “Ashintine’s Day”. “Valinash Day”. This day, when we celebrate the ones we love as fully as we possibly can despite our human weakness.

This day: when we look to the ideal love of Christ.

This day: when Jesus, the ultimate Valentine, reminds us that “when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy.” (Titus 3:4,5)

God knows about our imperfections. He knows and he still loves us.

As any good Valentine will do.

This is the world…

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A few years ago I came across a quote by American theologian and writer, Frederick Buechner. Here it is, in context. (This is from his book, Wishful Thinking.)

“The grace of God means something like: ‘Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are, because the party wouldn’t have been complete without you. Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can ever separate us. It’s for you I created the universe. I love you.'”

Apart from Scripture, this is pretty much my favorite quote in the world. The part I italicized above, especially. I have an art print of it, hanging near my front door, with an arrow pointing out the window.

Here is the world. It’s right there: out the window. But it’s also right here, all around me. In the dirty laundry, waiting to be taken downstairs. In the groceries I just loaded into the fridge. In the mail, lying unopened on the kitchen counter. In the awkward and possibly misconstrued text conversation I’ve been avoiding all morning. In my car, in my work, in my friendships, in my church. In the news. In the books I read. In back-to-school sales and scheduled meetings and random meetings, too, on the sidewalk, in airplanes, in doctors offices and parks.

The world is in the neighbor boys looking for the golf ball they say they lost in our yard but which would have taken a miracle of science to reach the area where they’re looking. But I don’t mind and I tell them to search all they want. They run and yell and jump around the point, but no golf ball is discovered. Not in this corner of the world, anyhow.

Beautiful and terrible things will happen. And they do. Beauty isn’t only in a sunset. It’s in the lacy, decaying leaf that floats to your feet as you sit on the deck on a chilly autumn evening. It’s in an unlooked-for invitation, in 64 years of marriage, in patience from a harassed clerk, in a wave from a stranger on a gravel road. It’s in kindness and gentleness at the vet’s office when the news isn’t good. It’s in a donut, left on your desk at work. Or a note, slid under the door. It’s in the stray cat that blinks at you through the window, the nest of eggs unexpectedly in your hanging flower basket. The smile from a child you feared may never smile again.

But yes, terrible things are around us, too. Fires. Storms. Earthquakes. Tornadoes. Broken hearts and accidents. Stolen things and stolen lives. Politics, wars, illness. Missed sleep upon sleep upon sleep. Unintentional hurts. Festering sores, real or imagined. Loss. Sorrow. Death. It’s thing after thing after thing when you just can’t get a break.

Don’t be afraid. Really? After that terrible list? How can I not? How? Because of the next line.

I am with you. This line isn’t included in the quote on my wall. But that’s ok because I know it’s there and I add its intent in my head whenever I read it. The world is out there, it says to me, the good and the bad of it. But that’s ok. All that means is that in the midst of the beautiful, terrible world, fear doesn’t need to be your first response because you are not alone in the beauty and the terror. You are loved. You are wanted. You are together with the God of the universe at your side, in your very heart.

And that, my friends, is grace.

Beautiful and terrible grace. Beautiful because you can’t earn it. Terrible because you can’t earn it.

No matter how hard you strive, no matter how often you go to church, no matter. God loves you, plain and simple. The grace – the gift, the beauty – of his salvation comes to us because Jesus died to cover over our iniquities. Our sins. Our terribleness. It is a gift and by definition, we don’t earn gifts. We are handed gifts simply because we’re loved. Simply because: beauty.

And so: we must respond. Take the gift we haven’t earned. Or not.

Here is the grace. Beautiful and terrible grace. Don’t be afraid.— 

This.

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One month ago, today, my mama stopped breathing.

And never started up again.

She moved from this world into eternity.

She slipped her mortal coil.

Why are all those phrases easier to say than the actual word?  All those poetic euphemisms to avoid the stark reality. I guess because even thinking the actual word makes me cry.

She moved on. She gained her heavenly reward. She went to be with Jesus.

It happened early in the afternoon of Christmas day. (“It happened”…still avoiding the word.) We’re two hours ahead of my family on the West Coast, so we were done unwrapping gifts, done snacking (temporarily), and the kids had even moved their loot into their respective rooms. My husband, Colin, was on his ipad, doing whatever it is that he does on his ipad, and I was sitting in the middle of the mess, reading a beautiful book that a friend had given me, a book full of kindness and wisdom and love. I was feeling sentimental. Cozy. Thankful.

Colin’s phone rang. I could tell by his voice that it was family. I expected a, “Yes, she’s right here,” but instead there came, “Ah. Uh huh. Okay.”

Colin hung up and turned to me.

“They’re giving your mom CPR.” He said it gently. But really, there’s no way to gentle those words. No euphemism for breathing air into your mother’s congested lungs.

I looked back down at my book, automatically, as if to make sure that the world still looked the same as it had before this monumental shift. But the words before me blurred. The whole room, really, faded away to be replaced with a distorted mind’s view of my sister’s living room, gifts unopened, children’s excitement turned to confusion, my medically-trained sister and brother-in-law doing all they could, my dad…oh, dear, Lord, my dad.

Colin told the kids, who wandered, empty-handed, full-hearted, to sit, awkwardly, in the living room again, wrapping paper still strewn about, stockings unhung by the chimney with care. Somehow I stood, moved to the mudroom for something, I have no idea why, talking of I know not what. Colin joined me, let me finish my words, stepped to me and took me into his arms.

“Your mom’s gone,” he whispered. “Patrick texted.”

Gone. Another euphemism. Another way to gentle the concept that the world as I knew it had ended.

I don’t blame Patrick for texting. Words are easier to write than to say. I’m thankful he’d called to give the first news.

It all happened so quickly. Ten minutes? I don’t even know. Fast. Gone. Such short words that say so much.

Our son read some Scripture. I made tea, because that’s what Mom would have done. We hugged and cried and made more tea. Mom’s parents were Scottish, and tea cures all.

Only it couldn’t cure this.

This.

This = death.

There. I said it.

I’ll say more, later, but for now I leave you with this…

This = hope:

“’Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
1 Corinthians 15:55-57

No, tea can’t cure death.

But that’s okay. Because Jesus already did.

Let’s Talk about “Essential”

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What? I’m actually posting? Yes! Here I am!

I feel as if I ought to apologize. I have been absent from the “blog-waves” (is that a thing?) for weeks now and I said I’d be here weekly. I feel both bad about that and defensive about that. Bad because I said I’d do it. Defensive because, by golly, life is hard right now and some things have had to be set aside in the interests of mental health and that just has to be okay.

Honesty is good, yes?

I wrote a whole paragraph about the stress of living during a pandemic and then I erased it. You all know about that stress. I’ll just leave it at that and say that I hope you don’t mind that I won’t appear here every week because I just can’t handle it every week. 

‘Nuff said.

So…on to more theology and less dishevelment, how about?

I recently looked a little bit at the story of Dorcas in the Bible. Remember her? In Acts chapter nine we read that Dorcas, aka Tabitha, had died and a lot of people were very upset about it. Apparently she had been a great servant for the Lord, especially known for making “robes and other clothing”. 

Shortly after she passed away, Dorcas’ friends asked Peter to stop by to see if he could help. I guess they held out hope that they’d witness a miracle and turns out they weren’t disappointed. Peter “got down on his knees and prayed” for Dorcas and then said, “Tabitha, get up.”

And she got up. She was dead, washed and ready for burial, and she sat up.

People die all the time. We mourn them and we grieve for them and we wish that God would work a miracle to bring them back to life but for all of the millions of times that has been wished, it has only occurred a small handful of times that we know of from the Bible. 

Dorcas, for some reason, was deemed indispensable. Perhaps her sewing skills or something else we don’t know about made God put her on the short list of “the dead raised to life”. Her absence created a hole that no one else could fill. 

God decided she was an essential worker.

Kinda rings a bell, doesn’t it? 

We have heard plenty about “Essential Workers” during this pandemic. But what about poor Dorcas? Here she was, dead and in the presence of God, and she’s brought back to life for reasons we don’t know, put on hold from her heavenly reward, only to come back and sew a few more “robes and other clothing”. 

I kinda think that she’d much rather have been deemed “unessential” at that point and been allowed to remain in the presence of God. Yet God had His reasons. We don’t know them. But we can trust that they were made with far better wisdom than our reasoning can understand. 

That’s the thing about God. We don’t always understand His ways. Let’s face it, we often don’t understand His ways! But we always can trust that His ways are best. 

“As for God, His way is perfect;” says 2 Samuel 22:31 (NKJV) “The word of the LORD is proven; He is a shield to all who trust in Him.” Or, in a different version (NIV) and a different reference (Psalm 18:30) it says, “As for God, His way is perfect: The LORD’s word is flawless; He shields all who take refuge in Him.”

So if we believe that God is who He says He is, and if we believe His word, then we believe that His plans are perfect, tested, true and flawless, and that He protects us when we run to Him. 

And that means that we can trust Him. We may not always like where He leads us, but we know that anywhere He takes us, He is right there with us, protecting and shielding those who trust in Him.

And that, my friends, is essential.

I’ve been having fun on Canva

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My head is tired. Tired of planning when I can’t plan because who knows what will happen in the world in a week? Tired of thinking deeply. Tired of trying to organize my thoughts into coherent words that people can read and be inspired by. Can you tell I’m tired? I even ended my sentence with a preposition.

Since I feel incapable of thought, I decided to have fun instead. I hopped onto Canva and began messing around with Bible verses and old photos. So, for the next few weeks, this is what you’re getting: verses and pretty pictures. 🙂

I took this photo several years ago. It’s of beach glass that my sister and I collected over years of beachcombing. This photo makes me happy and this verse is comforting in these difficult days.



Barn Blessing

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The Apple Barn

I’m a sucker for old barns. The kind that are barely standing, just waiting for a massive gust of wind to smack them down. The kind where the wood is gray with age and the last re-roofing took place in the Carter Administration. The kind where skunks are more liable to live than horses or cows.

I’m fairly sure that I know the origin of my love of barns. My dad, a semi-professional photographer when I was growing up, had the same obsession. If a barn on Orcas Island was picturesque, screaming for a photo shoot, he was there to oblige.

Several of those barns remain in my mind and, thankfully, in his files. There is one – most people called it the Apple Barn – which sits (yes, it’s still standing) in a small, often misty valley, not too far from my sister’s house.

We pass the Apple Barn on the way to and from the ferry landing whenever we visit. When we pass it upon arrival, I feel like I’m really there, back in Washington State. Home. When we pass it upon leaving, I feel like it waves goodbye. Like the benevolent apple-scented spirt of the barn ushers me off of the island and wishes me farewell wherever I fare.

We round the corner, and the barn disappears, and always, always, the loss that settled down upon me like a cloak as we braked down the hill from my sister’s house, releases like a wheezing balloon and for the rest of the drive to the ferry dock the tears I fight back are tears of joy. Joy that I grew up in this place. Joy that I have sisters and parents and family to love. Joy that God has given me this visit, this moment, this island to come home to.

 “So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.” Colossians 2:6,7 NIV

Wildflower inspiration

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Last week I posted a photo of me as a wee girl in a field of daisies. I have always loved that photo (is it vain to love a photo of oneself?!)  and always loved daisies – perhaps this photo is the reason why!

Daisies are, I suppose, wildflowers. Or, as my husband calls them, “weeds”. I refuse to call them weeds because they are too beautiful! I admit that they are rather hard to get rid of if you don’t want them in the particular area that they planted themselves. Tough roots. Strong stems. But that doesn’t stop me admiring them for their simple beauty. Yellow and white. Long petals, solid center. A child’s idea of a classic flower.

Ok, I know this isn’t a daisy. I love it anyway.

Another thing I like about daisies is that they are benign. Every summer I fight against Deadly Nightshade, another rather pretty weed/wildflower/vine that grows like…well…a weed around here. And while it may be pretty with its purple and yellow blooms, it is, as its name suggests, not something that you want to mess with as it is, as you may have guessed, extremely toxic.

I prefer flowers that are pretty and won’t poison you.

Daisies are also better than many other wildflowers in that you can cut them and bring them into the house and they won’t die immediately. My youngest daughter has brought me several wildflower bouquets recently, and virtually all of them – with the noted exception of the horsetail reed – have died within hours. They just can’t adjust to life when cut off from their roots.

Think about that a moment.

Wildflowers can’t thrive when cut off from their roots. They wither. They die.

A lot like people, when they’re cut off from each other.

I’ve thought often of Hebrews 10:24 & 25 in recent days.

“And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”

Ok, for all of you true theologians out there, I know that the context of this verse is about growing in our faith. That’s not where I’m going with this today. Today it just makes me think about our relationships with each other, rather than our relationship with God.

This is a weird, difficult, stressful time in the history of the world. Now don’t get me wrong. I do not mean to be political about this issue. I am not saying that isolating ourselves to protect each other is either right or wrong. What I am saying that as we continue to socially distance ourselves – to whatever degree our particular state or country says we must – we also must remember to reach out to those in isolation because to be alone, to be cut off from our roots, is to wither and die.

I remember, just a couple of weeks into one state’s Stay at Home order, a friend from college posted that his neighbor had killed herself because she couldn’t take the isolation. She didn’t want to face weeks – and as it turns out, months – of living all by herself in fear.

Again, I am not politicizing this. What I am saying is that people need each other.

Apparently this is the day for pictures of bees on wildflowers. 🙂

I have loved seeing how organizations, camps, churches, etc. are thinking of creative ways to reach out. For example, Lakeside Church here in Worthington, MN, dropped off crafts kits this week to those who requested it. Totally free. Totally to encourage.

How can you encourage others in this unique era? How can you spur people on toward love and good deeds? How can you “meet together” in safety? How can you reach out to those who are particularly isolated?

These are things I think we must all consider thoughtfully and then act upon our ideas.

Because no one wants to be a wildflower, cut off from its roots, withering away.

Please share some ideas in the comments of how you have reached out, or how you have seen others reach out to encourage one another in this COVID-era. Thank you in advance for your thoughts!

“Let the little children…”

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Yep. That’s me. Age about 4. I’m in the empty field next door to the house I grew up in. Dad told me to pick some daisies and so I did but there was a bee on one that I reached for and that is the shot that Dad liked best. Me, a little tentative, holding my Bouquet for Mommy.

That’s what Dad titled the photo: Bouquet for Mommy. He enlarged it in his mysterious and malodorous darkroom and it lived on our living room wall for so many years that it faded to a pale shadow of its former self, leaving a rectangular mark on the wall the day we moved away.

“Let the little children come to me,” Jesus said. Let them pick flowers from my fields. Let them enjoy bugs. Let them find the wild strawberries just over to the left, close by the gate — just out of the shot of the camera — where blackberry brambles grow fiercely along the edge of the cliff and the eagles rest in the old fir tree.

Let them come. Let them learn to know me as they learn to know my creation. Let them fall in love with my world and let them fall in love with me. Do not hinder them. Do not call them in too soon.

Let them make mud pies and walk along the beach and skin their knees and wade in the water. Let them climb the rocks and climb into my lap and reach up to touch my face, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.

Let them come, and they will keep coming when they grow older. When they question who I am and when they need reassurance. And when, after they run away and rebel and call out to me in the reaches of the night, they will remember. They will see that I am the same God they found in the fields, the same God of the mountains and the daisies and the bumblebees, and they will climb again, into my lap. They will reach their hands, tentatively, needfully, desperately, to touch my face, and they will remember.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this first of the occasional photo-centered posts. I have hundreds and hundreds of photos of my dad’s that I am excited to share with you. I have a few decent ones of my own, too! So, from time to time, I’ll focus on a photo!

Enjoy your week, my friends.

Summerband and the living is easy…

Video

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I was supposed to do something tomorrow, June 24th 2020, that I’ve never done before. I like doing new things and I think that I would have liked doing this.

I was asked, back before COVID controlled the world, back when we thought that summer would find us doing our usual things, to be the Master of Ceremonies at an Amazing Worthington City Band concert at historic Chautauqua Park on the banks of Lake Okabena here in Worthington, Minnesota.

Kinda makes me think of Harold Hill and The Music Man, though actually I wouldn’t have been directing – heaven help the band – I’d just be introducing the songs, talking a little, giving the band time to pull up their music for the next song.

Sadly, all of the band concerts have been cancelled for June, but happily the ones scheduled for July are still on! Summer band concerts have been a big part of our lives, given that two of our kids have played in the band for several years now and we’ve attended concerts since we moved to Worthington in 1997. (It helped that we lived across the street from the park for 8 years!)

(I don’t know why this video looks sideways, but it will play just fine!)

I truly have missed the concerts these past few weeks. Something in the air one evening last week – a scent or a sound, I’m not sure which – made me suddenly think of the band and I felt a little bit sad and a little bit nostalgic and a little bit cross with this COVID world, all at once.

Which is a lot of emotions to handle in 5 seconds!

Another aspect of the weekly (for June and July) concerts is that it’s a great time to hang out with friends, see people you don’t see very often, and meet new people – or at least identify them from afar.

Example: “Oh, the MC is so-and-so tonight. I’ve never realized that’s who that is!”

Or this:

Me: “Oh, I see that the intermission entertainment is Rolly Polly and his Dancing Dogs! I hope the dogs don’t leap into the audience and bite anyone this time like that did that other time.”

Friend: “Oh, I kinda hope they do. That was entertaining!”

(Just kidding. That never happened. But the microphone did misbehave badly once or twice, causing one or two headaches for the friendly neighborhood sound guy.)

One particularly cool thing about the band is that it is 127 years old! It began in 1893 and the bandshell itself, built from 1941-1942, is on the National Register of Historic Places. To top off the coolness, Chautauqua Park is so named because the Reverend Billy Sunday, professional baseball player of the 1880’s turned itinerant evangelist, preached there in his heyday, a fact which made this seminary graduate smile as suddenly her Church History class actually intersected with her real life.

I like it when that happens. When the things I learned in Seminary or in Sunday School or from sermons interconnect with reality. When the Bible applies to everyday life.

Which, of course, it does all the time. I just don’t always realize it.

That’s kind of my Disheveled Theologian mantra, actually. Or, rather, my prayer. That by telling my stories of everyday life, and showing how God and His Word applies in each of those situations, people will see God more in their own lives. In other words, I pray that when I open my eyes to see God in my life, you too, will open your eyes to see Him in yours.

“His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.” 2 Peter 1:3 NIV

P.S.: In light of the fact that I’m pining away for summer band concerts, I dug up a couple videos to entertain you! The first one (above) is a band classic, a patriotic tune we can all enjoy. The second (below) is a fun one that clearly entertained the audience!


Again, why this looks sideways I don’t know. I am no expert. I’m certain that someone can tell me rather easily, but I don’t know exactly who that someone is. I’m just glad that it will play correctly for you! 🙂