faith
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Walk With Me
The other week I took a long walk with a new friend. From our southwest London neighborhood, we walked through the commons to Richmond Park where – oh the blessed history of it all – King Henry the 8th used to hunt deer. Six miles on foot, lunch by the Thames, and a bus ride home on a double decker. Pure loveliness. Walking with someone carries certain, yet unspoken, expectations: you’ll travel in the same direction, often side by side. You’ll talk. You won’t pop in your ear buds or take a prolonged phone call. The walk is the means by which you spend time together. Specific destinations and step…
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Give Weeds a Chance
My garden weeds were actually flowers. I just didn’t know it a few months back. I almost pulled those gangly eyesores. But the pink roses that bloomed unexpectedly in my own back garden, without any help from me, prompted me to take a wait and see approach. After all, I had limited horticultural knowledge in the States; I was even more clueless here in the strange and bipolar climate that is London. So I left those weeds alone, let them get good and ugly. Then a peculiar thing began to happen. They bloomed. They turned into this: And this: Even the vine arching our front door produced these masterpieces, as…
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Treasure Up
With the hoopla over and done with, Christmas odds and ends now line store shelves bearing garish clearance priced stickers, just as Christmas leftovers line our refrigerator. (Is anyone going to eat the rest of this turkey? Please?) Carol singing and candle-lit services give way to the cold reality of January and our mentality shifts from the magic of it all to monotony: back to work and school, back to trudging through snow and waiting for busses and paying credit card bills… and cleaning out the fridge. The advent book we started but failed to finish sits on the coffee table like a half done To Do List. (I can’t read…
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Queued for Grace
I limped over the UK border at my weakest point, and perhaps that was for the best. The plane ride from Chicago to London was wonderfully uneventful, until the final hour when my insides turned against me. Not the kind of turning that left me reaching for that little paper bag in the pocket in front of me, but the kind that caused me to dash to the minuscule loo more than once, despite the illuminated fasten seatbelt sign. Yep. That kind. Sorry if this is getting all too personal. I debated whether to write this blogpost and after I wrote it, debated whether to publish it. They say good…
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I blinked
Wasn’t it yesterday that we forgot the chicken in the microwave? That day when the nurse called to tell me that my strep test came back negative, but my pregnancy test came back positive, and in our delirious excitement we neglected the chicken thawing in the microwave for dinner, forgot about it until breakfast, and went out for celebratory pizza instead? Didn’t that just happen? Wasn’t that baby just born, that sweet pink baby that kept us up at night, that toddler with the infectious laugh and lively eyes, who learned to ride a bike, then mow the lawn, then shave? How can it be that, days ago, we dropped…
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When Hope Died
Oh it was bleak Those days in between. When hope was dead. Not wounded or missing, ill or asleep but dead. Lamb followed freely to the execution tree And before their own eyes, hope breathed his last. Spear pierced in, evidence poured out Body was lowered, wrapped-up, entombed. Hope said it himself, with final exhale: It is finished. What was finished? Light? Life? Goodness? Hope? Darkness cackled, death crowed Evil cheered, despair rose. But sun set and sun rose. Sun set and sun rose. Sun set and sun rose. And then. And then what was hidden rushed forth What was humiliated became adored What was impossible came to be What…
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Little Did We Know
This is us four years ago. The autumn when my husband cashed in airline miles and booked a trip to visit friends in France without telling me, (which yes, is romantic, but also stress and argument inducing) and sold his blood–or plasma rather–to help pay for it. You might say we have a wee bit of a travel addiction, as proved by this picture. Taken in Italy because, I reasoned, if we’re going to be in Paris anyway, why wouldn’t we pounce on $80 roundtrip airfare to Verona? It would be a crime not to. Even if Verona would only be ours for a mere 48 hours. Even if our…
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Lights Please
For some of us, March madness has little to do with basketball and more to do with a mild and (hopefully) temporary insanity due to lack of sunlight. One grey day rolls into another. For weeks—or months—on end. Our souls grow grey while our skin grows paler. Where are you, O Sun? We need you. If we think hard enough, we remember you. Ever read Bradbury’s All Summer in a Day? I did in seventh grade English class and it’s haunted me ever since. It’s about a girl—Margot—who once lived on earth but now lives on another planet. She vaguely but longingly remembers this blazing sphere called the sun and…
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Transformation
It’s here. Finally. Snow. We’ve been waiting for it, expecting it, watching the skies and the weather reports—this is Wisconsin after all—and it’s come. It came in the night and transformed our yards, covered up any leftover leaf piles and our oddly green grass. All is changed. All looks new. All is covered over, fresh with promise. Transformation is beautiful. The snow is beautiful, at this moment, early in the morning, as I lounge on my couch and write. I love the snow, from inside. I love the idea of snow. But later, when I step outside to shovel or scrap off the car, or when the kids and the…
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Often It Comes Down to This
I like my smart phone. I like Facebook. I like texts and emails. I’m warming up to Pinterest and Twitter. (Slowly) I like these things… and yet often they seem like clambering puppies. Before kids, I worked with infants in a daycare one summer and I don’t know why but when 4 o’clock in the afternoon rolled around all of the babies wanted my attention at the same time: Me me! Pick up me! Spend time with me! Sometimes, this is how social media comes across: Frantic. Desperate. Demanding. Coffee in hand, I often give in to them because they’re just so loud, causing certain thoughts in my head to…