tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-69918251681003460422024-02-20T16:40:42.967-08:00WhimsySmittenReflections on Authenticity, Faith, Family, Words, Wounds, and the Beautiful Mess of Grace.Cara Sextonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02597396513424389268noreply@blogger.comBlogger200125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6991825168100346042.post-42651907145932979362013-11-21T18:07:00.000-08:002013-11-21T18:07:12.029-08:00Things Not for Sale: Why I Stopped Blogging<div class="MsoNormal">
Somewhere along the line, all the blogging voices, all the
faith failures and victories, the devotions and encouragements and bickering
and conference hoopla and book promotion and linky parties and giveaways and
friend requests and…well, all of it…started to clamor. And the Christian
blogging community, though <b>not in any
way bad by nature</b>, became in my head a record day at the New York Stock
Exchange, with beautiful, hard-working people all shouting over each other in a
crowded room, and my head hurt and my heart raced and I had to retreat, and I
don’t mean the kind with workshops and book signings. And if I haven’t read or
commented on your blog as often as you’d like me to, and if I haven’t seemed to
have an explanation for it, or if you’re one of the many that assumes I’m just “too
busy to be bothered”….that’s really, really not it. <o:p></o:p></div>
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For so many reasons, I’m tired. Not tired of bloggers or
tired of blogging, and not at all tired of writing, but I’m tired for a lot of
unrelated reasons, and also because going through the ringer with Jesus? It’s an
exhausting business already, even more so when you’re trying to extract a 600-
to 800-word <i>something</i> that makes any
kind of sense and has application to a general audience with a few nice
pictures thrown in. My spiritual journey and my writing journey both
simultaneously took a few complex and beautiful twists and turns, and while I’m
grateful to be in the midst of it, I can’t manage to put it all into any words
I can live with putting out into the world. Everything I’ve tried to write for the
big, wide space I’m navigating right now feels like half <i>Fight Club</i> and half <i>The 700
Club</i>, and it just doesn’t make for great content for the “Best Christian
Bloggers” checklists, I’m afraid. <o:p></o:p></div>
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There is great and terrible beauty, as the saying goes, in
this down and dirty open-hearted life. Not all of it transfers cleanly to the
page. Not all of it has spiritual application for the masses. I am, just now,
basking in the wild and intimate uniqueness of God and how He relates to us each
in ways that cannot be quantified, and sometimes speaks messages for us that
are not for sale, and that cannot even be given away, even with the purest
intentions. There are love letters, gifts and challenges in the world, I am
finding, that are embroidered boldly with only my own name (and some with only yours
too)—devoid of usefulness for anyone else, but priceless even so. <o:p></o:p></div>
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For a long time, I fought it and wrestled myself because
when writers who are also extreme introverts struggle in any real way in their
lives, they can’t really get through *anything* without working it out in words
on pages. And when you’re just trying to get through the days and you know you
ought to be doing “something for Jesus,” blogging as a ministry makes a lot of
sense. And when your calling to write is clear, and you aren’t writing about
Jesus for the masses, there can be a big fat gap in the idea of purpose and
giftedness and all the things we’re taught about what we’re supposed to do with
ourselves in this life. <o:p></o:p></div>
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There are those of us who don’t find dialogue with Jesus
easy or particularly natural but even we still get the chance sometimes to hear
the still, small voice amidst the blinding clatter. And of all the things I can’t
clearly make out in this season of faith, within the big silent echo I hear so
often in response to my exploration, one big thing comes through loud and
clear. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>I am not a commodity. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
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And that’s kind of the final word on the matter for now. He
is not for sale, for profit, for show, or even for the people I want most to
love and give everything to. This supernatural and private and wild and
wonderful secret place of the soul is just between us for the moment, and
though I am divided into so many segments in this life, this little bit is, for
now, just ours alone. I will have more that are intended for this community in
the future, I hope. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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I’m still in the thick of things. I’m still writing and
seeking out loud, and telling it like it is, and I have no intention of
disappearing. I just value honesty, and I don’t like to leave folks wondering
what in the world is going on with me. I am not losing my religion. I am not
leaving the fold or straying or backsliding or any of those things. I am just
navigating the depths of what my faith looks like from the inside out, and it
is time to be quiet and thoughtful about it until I know where He is taking me
in all of this. And so, this place will continue to be a tad bit unmanned until
further notice.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Thanks for loving me and walking near me and being my
friends. I’ll be around. Mad love. <o:p></o:p></div>
Cara Sextonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02597396513424389268noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6991825168100346042.post-74652483832145983902013-07-30T20:25:00.000-07:002013-07-30T20:25:23.081-07:00In Which I Go Ahead and Admit It...I'd Rather Be Agnostic<div class="MsoNormal">
I’ve tried a thousand times to bring words to this place over
the last few months, and inevitably I give up, dissatisfied with attempts at authoritative
writing in what is proving to be a wide and hazy place of quiet but intense spiritual
growth for me. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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But here’s the thing. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I spent some time on the mountaintop, in solitude, last week.
I sought silence and the presence of God and had my fill of both in more
abundance than I ever knew was possible. I heard in the rustle of leaves and
footsteps of speckled fawn on wet grass an enormous, wild dream that is so
outside of myself, so contrary to anything I could conjure or even imagine,
that it bound me to the heart of God in absolute surrender. <o:p></o:p></div>
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It was life changing, and it’s hard to know how to return to
regular life after an experience like that—a closeness with God I would do anything
or go anywhere or give everything to sustain. I understand the oaths of monks
and saints now, how one’s entire life could possibly be full with only the infinite
fullness of God, to a devotion to Him that leaves little room for temporal
distraction. <o:p></o:p></div>
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What I don’t yet know, what I am only now learning with each
passing hour, is how to live a life infused, how to make spaghetti or answer
email when I am bursting wide with all I am learning how to see and hear and
experience. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I have more clarity than I’ve ever had in all my life, more
faith and footing in solid places, but it’s time for me to say three words out
loud, in surrender, from the heart of this state of growth and depth and transparency.
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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I. Don't. Know. <o:p></o:p></div>
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There are just so many things I don’t know, things I’m not
willing to pretend I do know because a denomination or pastor or theory or
tradition or text tells me it’s true. There is so much of God I don’t
understand—so much He has not made clear in this world. There is so much more
to Scripture than taking its life-infused words without the aid of context or
serious, open-hearted, prayer-infused contemplation. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I don’t know how to reconcile the angry, destructive God of the
Old Testament with the absolute consuming warmth and love I have experienced of
Him. I don’t know how to balance the stories of Scripture with the science that
claims to counter their truth. I don’t know the answer for every question under the
sun, and I’m aware, more than ever before, that I am not meant to, that <i>we</i> are not meant to. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Scripture does not tell us that He came to answer our
questions, that He came to make us puppets, or that He came to give us the
tools for effective evangelism. He did not come to make us healthy or smart or
strong or wise. He did not come to give us logical satisfaction of His ways. <o:p></o:p></div>
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He came<i> <b>that we might have life and have it
abundantly</b>. (John 10:10) <o:p></o:p></i></div>
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Abundant life is so much deeper than whether or not we read
the Bible in a year or how many church-approved best-sellers sit on our
bookshelves. Abundant life is not the absolute knowledge and understanding of
God; rather, it’s the abandonment of yourself into His abundance, forsaking everything
else with the potential to captivate your heart. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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My study of spirituality and the sacred truth of Scripture is
for the purpose of drawing my heart nearer to His, not to memorize canned and
shallow apologetic responses to complex matters of life and faith. Nothing on
earth or in the heavens is as easy as it seems. No verse in the Word of Life
stands on its own or means a thing without the breath of holy wisdom within it.
So why, friends, are we so afraid of embracing His mystery? <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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I know just enough to know that I know God’s heart deeply
and intimately only because He knows mine, because He actually, actively dwells
there. Yet I do not know His mind or His purposes for everything under heaven
because <i>I am not Him</i>. Everything I
know about God confirms only one thing: I know Him and I need to know nothing
more under heaven but that which drives me further into seeking more of Him.
This includes a surrender to the deep unknowing, a sobering awareness of the
orchestrated Divine that is far too large to be condensed into either a single
mind or an entire galaxy. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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The only thing big enough to contain the mystery of God is
the heart of the human spirit which has stopped seeking to solve an equation of
God in order to make way for all of Him—even, no, <i>especially</i> the parts of Him that challenge our finite minds. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Knowing Him means letting go of my attempts to shape the
universe to my understanding, to answer all my questions and linger instead in
the holy mystery that is bigger than me and bigger than humanity and bigger
than all the forces of nature together. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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I have enough faith to tell you I don’t know, and to tell
God right to His face that I just don’t know. And I’m grateful for that. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I don’t know if I’m a mystic or a Lutheran or a Methodist or
a Baptist or if I will touch earthly dirt during the Tribulation or if all dogs
go to heaven or why God made mosquitoes. I don’t know if any particular thing is right
given the circumstances or if any particular wrong is wrong without any regard
to the heart of the person engaging in it. I don’t know what happens in the
hearts and souls of those who have not yet seen God as He really is and not
merely the biased and blurry portrait we paint of Him as a Church. And mostly,
I don’t know why we’re all so afraid of all we do not yet know about God, why
it is shameful not to know something which has not been revealed clearly to us
directly by Him.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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I read earlier today that the word agnostic means “not
knowing.” And friends, even if you have the Bible memorized, even if you’ve
graduated seminary, even if you prayed a sinner’s prayer at the age of four…you
are…all of us are…<i>not knowing</i>. We are
all <i>agnostic</i> when it comes to the
Divine. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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I am a Christian with all my heart and soul—more now than I’ve
ever been. I claim the life and teachings of Christ and the all-consuming power
of God in Father, Son, and Spirit. And I feel no shame in telling you that I am
<i>agnostic</i> with all my heart, too. I hold loosely to my earthly understanding of all
things eternal with the certainty that there is much I cannot yet know, things that man cannot teach me, with
the knowledge that I am not privy to the Secret Things of God. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I don’t know what will happen with this online space as I
consider all the directions it could go, as I consider even whether to altogether
let it go. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Right now, I just <i>don’t
know</i>. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p>To borrow the words of Ian Morgan Cron in <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Chasing-Francis-A-Pilgrims-Tale/dp/0310336694/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1375240763&sr=8-1&keywords=chasing+francis" target="_blank">Chasing Francis</a></i>, when one of his characters is asked about the differences in beliefs between evangelicalism and Catholicism... "I'd rather be a reverent agnostic. [...] There are countless mysteries that I have to stand before reverently and humbly while saying, 'I don't know.'" </div>
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<br /></div>
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But my prayer, in this space of my life and all the others,
is this:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Let God alone be the source of all I know or claim to know
or need to know. Let my mind be clear and discerning of Truth, let my humanity
not reject anything the Lord would show or teach me, either temporally or
eternally. Let my not-knowing be an honest seeking after the heart of God, and
let me never allow any religious teaching, logical response, or crafted defense
corrupt my awareness of the scope of God’s hugeness and holiness. Let me never choose
the wisdom of humanity over the wonder of God. Let me never be satisfied with the
boxes of logic and reason which seek to contain the Great and Holy Lord into
matchboxes fit for modern human pockets, flints with which to strike religious
fires that keep our egos warm. Keep me not knowing the things which will always
keep me seeking the face of Him alone. Keep me captivated and consumed by the God I don't understand, and collectively consumed in unity with His whole Church, and all the people in need of His love, which is to say, every person on this planet. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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And let me never be afraid of <i>I don’t know</i>, perhaps the only space where I am truly teachable,
where only in emptiness can I be made whole. </div>
Cara Sextonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02597396513424389268noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6991825168100346042.post-74210517802510199002013-04-29T21:28:00.003-07:002013-04-29T22:04:51.710-07:00Rise From the Battlefield, My Friend<br />
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It’s our first spring here and the tree outside our bedroom
window started blooming this week. I’ve strained long for those shoots of green,
narrowing my vision to examine brown bark, longing for a breakthrough. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The last few springs have been dark ones for me, humid and
hot ones and icy cold ones too. They’ve been cast in the shadow of all the
wrong places, darkened in the depth and ache so familiar to those landscapes which
became spiritual battlegrounds, bloody and muddy, gray like the dented armor of
my walled-up heart in those years. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Endless were the midnight games of holy hide-and-seek and I
was running in place, peering for God inside heart holes and behind graffiti’d buildings.
<br />
<br />
<i><b>Come out, come out, wherever you are.</b></i><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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But this spring is different. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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This spring there are fat yellow flowers and white petals
that trickle from trees and stick to my hair, and there are tulips and strawberries
right in my very own front yard, damp with the paint of God’s fresh brushstroke.
This spring there are cloudy days too but the low wisps and gusts tickle
colorful branches, scattering light about us like a thousand tiny mirrors
tumbling from the sun. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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This blistering battlefield threatened to evaporate me in
those years. I thought I might dissolve into nothing but a puddle of melted-down
armor from the weight of it and the intensity of its temperature. Straining
hard for grace or maybe deliverance, still searching frantic for my hide-and-seek
God, I stumbled hard into patches of white, suspended in tangles of sweet honeysuckle,
fragrant and tangy with the taste of grace. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i><b>Come out, come out,
wherever you are.<o:p></o:p></b></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the stumbling, I learned to see. To look through eyes
that linger long on a dusky pink sky, to twist a child’s hair between my
fingers and take in a breath like a whisper, to taste a taste of love Divine. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p> </o:p>It is not midnight hide-and-seek after all but a secret scavenger
hunt, our moments and years on this earth. There are millions of tiny treasures
tucked away for you. Have you noticed?</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Love notes, written straight to you out there tucked inside
acorn shells and flittering from tree branches, scrawled on the footprints of a
child. They are bound majestically in a single grain of pink sugar, splashed
across the foamy coastline, dancing in the filtered lace-light of sunrays through
spring leaves and reflect the creative brilliance of our Father. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Rise from the battlefield along with me and smell the honeysuckle, my friend. There is
so much to see. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i><b>Come out, come out,
wherever you are. </b> <o:p></o:p></i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i><br /></i></div>
Cara Sextonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02597396513424389268noreply@blogger.com28tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6991825168100346042.post-76465672266348726632013-04-22T16:57:00.000-07:002013-04-22T16:57:39.026-07:00Amber Waves of Grace<br />
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I pack with anticipation. Dreams flood and fly and I reach
for them, frantic and flailing. He has a dream for me, I know, but trying to
capture it, narrow and clear, is trying to catch a river in a paper cup. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The conference sessions are circled and starred in pink
ballpoint. I can’t wait to internalize the holy truth, the power and beauty of
the words from the mouths of these women who look like Technicolor Jesus to me,
these powerhouses with humble hearts, beautiful speakers and writers, friends
and sisters that bring me hard to my knees. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I’ve come here to meet the Divine and it’s all right there
in my grasp, right in the retreat center meeting room where I’m sure I’ll meet
with Him, where I know He’ll whisper gently that one. next. step. toward His
big, beautiful dreams for me. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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It’s cost a thousand or so dollars for me to get here, a
small price to taste what lies in store, a holy encounter for merely a song, a
diamond necklace in a nickel machine container, and I am breathless for it. <o:p></o:p></div>
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We are giddy. Anticipation does that and so does the wine
and the salted caramels, the high from our still-bleeding foot tattoos,
identical, the forever reminder for our each and every step: <i>Act justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly.</i> I
am wrapped in the arms of my sister and the sun will be up soon but time does
not exist here. This is not a hotel room in the middle of Nebraska but a sacred
space where tears fall easy from eyes which have been dry too long, where the
seemingly insignificant trivialities are consecrated gifts, revelations in
disguise.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Amy plucks my eyebrows and speaks with the mouth of Jesus
and inexplicably, the sky ignites with fireworks and orange-breasted spring
robins dance across the icy parking lot and there is somehow nothing strange
about it at all. This is a <i>thin place</i>,
nothing but a gauzy lace curtain through which we stare right into the eyes of
Abba Father, locked in the gaze of <i>El Roi</i>:
the God of Seeing. <br />
<br />
Sleep is short and morning is hard. Bottles with prescription labels decorate
this space, bottles with white caps, impossible caps that taunt these swollen
knuckles and frozen fingertips, aid for broken bodies. In the sacred space
behind the veil there is no need for these bottles, but here in this broken
world these capsules are the currency that buys a few moments of flexibility
and function. Last night this was a thin place; today, it’s a thick one. Thick
with sickness and pain where the clock hands tick off the rhythm of this
temporal world: Eight, Nine, Ten a.m. has gone and now so has eleven, and
twelve. The hours pass past the pink ink on our conference schedules and we
lament a little because it wasn’t supposed to be this way. We were supposed to
be in conference sessions, dancing with the Divine, filling our hearts with His
dreams for our lives, jumping off mountaintops in tandem with our sisters, arms
locked, hearts beating wild with our one collective <i>yes</i>. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The heart wants what the flesh will not allow. Today there
are no fireworks, no dancing robins, no giddy laughter. Today there is vomit,
there is throbbing, there is frustration and disappointment and pills that
don't do their job. Today the veil is not a veil of lace. It is a brick wall
and it is a hard strain to see through it. He holds us still, there is no
doubt, but I cannot catch His gaze. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Practical attempts are all that can be done but let the
hours pass, let the darkness lift organically through the passing of time and
tiptoes through the dark. I fire up the car and veer it toward the conference
center, towards the speakers we long to hear, and drive right past. I have not
come for this just now. I have come for a cold coke and a chicken sandwich and
a prayer vigil held quiet in the driver’s seat of a rented Dodge Avenger. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I have come here, to Nebraska, to be spiritual. I have come
here to draw near to the heart of God and I cry out to Him. I ask Him to
intercede, to form my words and my prayers to the needs of my sister in the
moments that make her feel weak. I am a do-er and I pray for practical steps,
for action on her behalf while my own knuckles throb with the rhythm of
sickness. I have come here to be spiritual. I try and conjure beautiful
prayers, powerful prayers. I try and invoke a healing spirit because I believe
in His power, because I know she deserves it, because I still believe that we
will meet God here, today. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>What does she need,
Father? Oh, Jesus, what can I do? How can I help her? How can my words, my
empty spirit uplift and nurture, encourage and love in action? <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I think of the conference speakers, of the beautiful words,
the eloquence of holiness and the leaps I have yet to make to be so eloquent. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And all at once, the brick dissolves. Light spills and there
is lace once more. Holiness is not always eloquent. Holiness is messy and
holiness sometimes comes with a splitting headache and a runny nose. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>What can I do, Jesus? <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And there it is. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You can get her a chicken sandwich, Cara. You can stop
searching merely for moments of fireworks and lace and start standing in the
moments of imperfection and brokenness. You can stop praying and start driving.
You can buy a chicken sandwich and sometimes, that’s all. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s been a while since the elements held this much
significance for me. It’s been awhile since the taste of communion was more
than dry bread and sweet wine, and I have forgotten the taste of His body,
broken even for broken-up me, broken for my hurting but lovely sister sleeping
in the hotel bed upstairs, and I do this in remembrance of Him. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Today there is more than bread and wine. Today there is coke
and chicken sandwiches and a veil so thin it vaporizes into air. Today, I have
met with the Divine and He has dreamed of me. My time in Nebraska didn’t look
like I thought it would. I missed every one of the breakout sessions I’d so
looked forward to enjoying. I hugged necks swift with quick smiles and polite
words and too few stirred-heart conversations with the beautiful people
gathered in this Midwestern God-spot. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And yet, we found Him in Nebraska all the same. Tangible holiness,
sacred beauty in prescription bottles and breakfast menus, milk soap and nose
rings and airport bathrooms. Thin places, all of them…thin spaces thick with
grace and reverie. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I am grateful for the parts of the conference we were able
to attend, blessed beyond measure by the words and dreams of Deidra, Jennifer,
Emily, Dan, Shelly, Diana, Kelli, Holly and Holley, Sandra, the ViBella team,
Amy (of course), and all the beautiful women and men who dreamed big and
dreamed scared and slid hands across the table to one another this weekend. We
all whispered <i>yes</i> with trembling
voices in the middle of the corn fields of Nebraska, catching rivers in paper
cups, scribbling on stones with abandon in the amber waves of grace where
God-sized dreams unfold. <o:p></o:p></div>
Cara Sextonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02597396513424389268noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6991825168100346042.post-21084316323029776582013-04-15T22:03:00.001-07:002013-04-15T22:03:52.905-07:00Bread & Wine<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Here’s the thing.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I don’t cook. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I never really learned the real cooking basics and the
perfectionist within me has a little anxiety attack every time I read words
like <i>braise</i> or <i>soufflé</i> and I picture myself running out of my house covered in
flames, waving a Teflon frying pan, taking a swig of the lone bottle of cooking
wine I was able to save heroically while the rest of my life goes down in smoky
flames. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Dramatic, I know, but I’m lucky enough to be married to a
man who makes my eyes roll back in my head in pure ecstasy on a nightly basis, and
I don’t only mean in the bedroom. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ahem. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Me? Cook? Uhhhh….<i>why</i>?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Mr. Smitten cooks like it’s his purpose in life and I eat
like it’s mine, and me and Jack Spratt have existed just fine this way for many
years thankyouverymuch. Still, there is something about the act of nourishing
the people I love, about the magic of sizzling onions and melting gouda that I
admire with the kind of jealous longing I usually reserve only for bestselling
authors and mothers with green thumbs who actually look good in skinny jeans
and never yell at their children. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When I had the opportunity to review Shauna Niequist’s <i>Bread & Wine,</i> I didn’t pause for a
second, even though I knew the book was primarily one that was going to involve
recipes which included ingredients I had never heard of. Shauna is one of my very
favorite writers and I would probably buy her grocery list if it was for sale.
(If you haven’t yet read <i>Bittersweet</i>
or <i>Cold Tangerines</i>, it sucks to be
you. Get thee to a bookseller, STAT. Thank me later.) <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA7QREgVp7Xsb8_wef3IPcDGSR51i_IsGeUZCQacPrtCmyW4fVqqEurhA4BnUbEiOWLnCyO7KDigylcp2k9CZLH50DODQLJzUbjqKqgkFXsqzG7yLrMsz05j98YWJ12IJa69Tf43Q0_AY/s1600/bread&wine_cover_art.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA7QREgVp7Xsb8_wef3IPcDGSR51i_IsGeUZCQacPrtCmyW4fVqqEurhA4BnUbEiOWLnCyO7KDigylcp2k9CZLH50DODQLJzUbjqKqgkFXsqzG7yLrMsz05j98YWJ12IJa69Tf43Q0_AY/s640/bread&wine_cover_art.jpeg" width="440" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Bread & Wine</i> arrived
in the mail, the cover all wistful and beautiful, and it sat on my kitchen
counter for weeks. I swallowed the lump in my throat every time I walked past
it, afraid to jump inside, afraid that Shauna’s awesomeness would inspire me to
soufflé something…and we can all guess how that might turn out. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Eventually, though, I opened it…took in the words with
trepidation. And in the way she does so gracefully and beautifully, Shauna
brought me to tears and laughter with her narrative, her heart all over the
pages, stories splashed with wine and the smell of Grand Rapids, Michigan,
shimmery with love and grace and carefully crafted words. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
She invited me into the kitchen again, inspired me to care
more deeply about what I put in my body, encouraged me to laugh and love and
drink and dine and weep with the people I love, because that’s what the table
is about…communion with life, communion with God, communion with mystery and
grace, pain and loss. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Suddenly, I was baking something called Gaia cookies utterly
fearless of charbroiling the bottoms like I always do in my ancient, finicky oven
(which I think might be made of aluminum foil and paper clips, but I digress).
Picture me in the Dollhouse kitchen, chopping dates and wielding a pastry
blender like I knew what I was doing, and at Safeway buying goat cheese and
almond milk like a completely different woman than the one who came through the
grocery line last week with three bags of Cheetos and store-brand baloney. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Of all the mouth-watering recipes Shauna includes in the
text, I started with cookies because she calls them <i>breakfast cookies</i> and well, let’s face it, any reason to justify chocolate
for breakfast is a good one in my book. The process was simple, even if I was
tempted to forget the whole baking bit and just eat the batter by the fistful. Oh
Mylanta, were they good. Soft, chewy, and ten times more satisfying than the
mushy banana remnants I generally pick off Caleb’s plate and call breakfast. I
didn’t even burn the bottoms, which was surely a sheer act of Divine
intervention. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Do yourself a favor and buy a copy of <i>Bread & Wine</i>, then sit down and read it all in one sitting like
I did because you just can’t bear to put it down and if you stop mid-chapter,
you might put an entire French silk pie inside your own face in the span of a
minute. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Buy it for the recipes. Buy it for the soul-squeezing
stories Shauna tells. Buy it so you can have cookies for breakfast like me. (They
have granola in them. You’re golden.) <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Once again, Shauna, you rocked my world, nourished my
spirit, and you’re totally to blame for the cookie crumbs in my keyboard. What
an honor it has been to sit at your table, even virtually, to chop walnuts
under your inspiration, and to taste the beauty of life at its ripest. <3 p=""><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Read more about Shauna <a href="http://www.shaunaniequist.com/" target="_blank">here</a>. Buy the book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Bread-Wine-Letter-Around-Recipes/dp/0310328179/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1366088306&sr=1-1&keywords=bread+%26+wine" target="_blank">here</a>. <o:p></o:p></div>
</3></div>
Cara Sextonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02597396513424389268noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6991825168100346042.post-46889025332238303192013-03-16T14:33:00.000-07:002013-03-16T14:33:23.661-07:00On Hoarding Manna<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You can get your ketchup bottles made custom these days. Did
you know? Anyone with a couple extra bucks can just have their own name designed
right into the label on a Heinz ketchup bottle. This is a thing. Because we
deserve it, right? Don’t we hard-working North Americans <i>deserve</i> to have our ketchup personalized?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I read this morning about a new beauty technique that
involves a $2,000 procedure for removing blood from your body and injecting it
into your face. Apparently, it’s a rage with the Kardashians and, no doubt,
young women everywhere will follow suit since it allegedly makes you look
younger. Hide your age. Save your pennies. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
At the superstore this morning, I picked up an assortment of
color-coded insulated faux-mason jar drinking glasses for my kids. At $5 a
piece, they weren’t exactly an extravagant splurge but I find myself wondering
if there was a better universal use for that $20. Could it have bought a meal
for someone? Diapers for a struggling single parent? Added to the funds from
other unnecessary purchases to contribute to bringing clean drinking water or medical
help to the masses of people on this planet dying daily from contaminated water
and malnutrition-related illness?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Yes. Of course it could have. But I liked those cups and the
money was mine and no matter what I do in this life, I will probably always
have a warm-enough home with a cupboard full of more drinking glasses than
people to drink from them. What’s wrong with that?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I glance around and my heart calculates the sum total of all
the excess I can see from where I’m sitting. A man rides by on an $800 bike,
passed by a $30,000 car. I take a swig from my $4 bottle of vitamin-infused fancy
juice in its plastic bottle and make notes with my $3 pen in the university library
my $10,000 a year tuition helps fund. If it rains, I will open my $22 umbrella
and try not to get my $18 flats wet, which would be a real tragedy since I only
have about sixteen pairs of shoes in my closet. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Somewhere it all gets dizzying and I become nauseated. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s easy to think that what I have or don't have, what I do
or don’t do doesn’t matter that much. But it matters. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It matters because the sad truth is that there are more than
enough resources to go around in this world. More than enough dollars and
farmland to feed the hungry. More than enough words for everyone to be
encouraged and more than enough of us calling ourselves disciples to overcome
the poverty of love that exists all around us. We hoard the manna and it spoils
in our homes, in our bellies, in our pantries and bank accounts and vacation
homes. We are afflicted by the disease that comes from overabundance but to
cure it, we hoard some more and thank Him for His blessing. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It overwhelms me, the abundance of God’s manna and the way
it can still feel daily like we never have enough to go around. I never know
how much is too much, whether giving up air conditioning matters while my
family still pays $200 a month for cell phone access, and if having a hundred
bucks in the bank is responsible stewardship or if it’s hoarding riches so I
avoid the question altogether and buy a Blu-Ray player because, well c’mon, we <i>need</i> one, right? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As my heart cries for ministry again, I try to imagine how
it is we justify this lifestyle when we’ve all been told to abandon it. <i>Yes, Jesus</i>, we whisper in our
stone-walled churches with the patterned carpet and the cappuccino ministry. <i>I give it all to you</i>. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There are days I think seven articles of clothing ought to
be enough to live on, that a room with a bed and a loaf of bread is all I
should strive to keep ahold of in this life. There are days I think, “sell all
you have and give it to the poor” actually means <i>sell all you have and give it to the poor</i> and isn’t just a metaphor
for discipleship, that “go into all the world and make disciples of all nations”
isn’t an invitation for a posh holy land tour but a command to get our knees
bloody, to fill our mouths with the taste of the poverty which can only be quenched
by mercy. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I went back to college so I could someday teach at a university
and have a retirement account and health benefits but lately, its feeling an
awful lot like the pursuit of comfort above all things and I’m pretty confident
that the kind of comfort I need is not the kind that gathers zeroes in an IRA. I’m
not sure if “get wisdom” means the kind I can memorize out of textbooks or the
kind that can only be learned in the hard doing of following His footsteps.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The truth is, I’d like to balance the life I want, the life
I secretly believe somewhere deep down that I <i>deserve</i> with the commands of giving and serving. I’d like to do
what makes me happy and believe that things like sex trafficking and gendercide
are God’s business, that there’s nothing I can do about them but maybe cut a
check every once in a while because God has been good to me. But I feel myself
believing the lie… it’s okay to be comfortable while other people suffer. It’s
okay to worship in fancy churches and learn at fancy schools and talk about how
people suffer while I wrinkle my forehead and purse my lips because <i>how sad</i>. It's okay to buy a latte and
another new candle and do the kind of work that people do when they’re pursuing
their own comfort because that's what this country is all about. That's what this
life is all about. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’ve believed the lie that my happiness, my comfort, is more
important than obedience. I’ve believed that I can have a foot in both worlds—that
I can sponsor a child or two and hand the homeless guy a burrito and I’ve done
my duty. But I hold my wallet close. My children and my cell phone and my
apartment with a thermostat that works, because I don’t really want to give it
all to Jesus. I don’t really want to lay down and die, even if that’s precisely
what I signed up for when I asked Him to make me His. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The honest truth is that I know all of it. I know it and I
believe I’m off track. I make small changes and buy fair trade coffee and
sponsor a kid and think I’m doing something good in the world but all the while
I’m smothered by the abundance we’re all neck deep in around here. I don’t know
how to live <i>in</i> this world but not be <i>of</i> it. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I don’t know but I’m willing to learn and I’m going to
continue asking for brokenness until I abandon the idea that I can balance the
American dream with the commands of Christ, because I suspect that there really
is no balance. There are only personalized ketchup bottles and luxury cars and
children in Africa being suffocated by their own tumors for lack of medical
care. There are only cheeseburgers and sale racks and girl babies buried alive
because they should have been born as males. There are only plastic bottles
filled with designer water that I can swig and gulp from all I want but not
without the image of the thousands dying every day without clean water access,
of the bottles that linger in the earth longer than the bones of the babies who
died without it. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And I pray the prayer I’ve been afraid to pray all along.
The prayer that I would mean it. The prayer that trades work for water bottles
and just enough for far too much. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Amen.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<br />Cara Sextonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02597396513424389268noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6991825168100346042.post-14787527839312454832013-01-24T05:34:00.002-08:002013-01-24T05:34:17.311-08:00It Starts to Feel Like Something Big<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZaQQkck2WOQ0gIuMsFjCSjUcuM9hstOyNoxuj5vY-02u_FBsDrYRLfSed5gk8V2FvzzX8LrDabQgaqCXU9AnezvspEHQjmowhui5CMcNBa0n6w9140cQdTqH69PZYOhcCuGlircl0dew/s1600/IMG_0579.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZaQQkck2WOQ0gIuMsFjCSjUcuM9hstOyNoxuj5vY-02u_FBsDrYRLfSed5gk8V2FvzzX8LrDabQgaqCXU9AnezvspEHQjmowhui5CMcNBa0n6w9140cQdTqH69PZYOhcCuGlircl0dew/s400/IMG_0579.JPG" width="298" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
I measure the grounds, three heaping scoopfuls because I
drink my coffee like gasoline, and I get the mug ready. It looks more like a
soup bowl than a coffee cup but there is much to be done today, pages-long
lists of writing deadlines, emails to send, assignments to complete, calls to
make. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It starts to feel like something big, some days. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Writing a book or two, going to college, giving speeches and
having a blog and writing deadlines and things filling up a calendar. It’s a
dream come true, after all. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I ponder the bigness of it a minute, feeling all of my 33
years for a change, like my words are taken seriously, like my foolish prose might amount to something that buds from my heart someday, something worth
these eye-strained hours but just the sheer love of it. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So I pour it dark and sweet and breathe it in, and think
much of me with my bowl full of coffee and my little words today. I am glad I
have persisted with my tiny big thoughts, glad I have kept click-clacking the
keys with contemplation and questions, challenges to those with
bigger brains and bigger titles than me. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I think, today, I will have my coffee hot and strong and I
will nibble the end of my glasses while I think. I will drink from my bowl over
an email to my publisher and feel right distinguished with myself, for a moment.
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But the thought is fleeting. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Five plump fingers rest upon the
flesh of my back thigh, just beneath the pink ruffled robe he likes to be
wrapped up inside. I did not hear him coming. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Mommy,” he cracks in his sleep-stuck voice, pulling at the
robe ruffles. “I don’t want breakfast yet.” <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
(I hadn’t offered.)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Mommy, I just want to snuggle.” <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He rubs his eyes and drags his gray blanket across the
floor, across dinner crumbs and the shabby teal rug that was new only weeks ago
but already looks destined for the garbage. Twelve trampling feet will do that
to a carpet. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
They will do it to a mother too, from time to time. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And even though I feel it now, the strain of this body
premature for my years, it stings and groans for the hours I have not sat, the
years I have not rested. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Bowl-mug in hand, we head to the couch and his head finds my
belly, pushing gently into the body gone soft under the laps of three babies, tempered
by the gnawing worry over all those not-born babies too, the one whose face I
never got to see or kiss and all the ones who wore size 11 Nikes and called me
mom just for a season. I am trampled shaggy and soft, body and heart, by those
pink baby feet and those smelly boy feet, and those patent-leather-heeled feet. I have gone shaggier than the teal rug in my kitchen. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It starts to feel like something big, some days. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Like all the mothering and loving and gnawing with worry amounts
to more than all the words I could collect in a lifetime. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
No title is bigger than mother, I think. None which I
am after, anyhow. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So I settle into stale sleep breath and blonde bedhead and
savor coffee and feel rightly distinguished, here, in this. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Not for words, not for notice, not for anything but the
elevated place of being the carpet below these precious toes, of a down-pillow
belly holding up this sweaty head with its drooping blonde Mohawk.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I ponder the bigness of it, and smile. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It starts to feel like something big, some days. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
---<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Linking up at Emily's place. Join us? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<center>
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Cara Sextonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02597396513424389268noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6991825168100346042.post-20017456843808759892013-01-10T19:42:00.003-08:002013-01-10T22:49:49.185-08:00When I Was Held Hostage: On Gunmetal and Grace<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #191919; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid. <br />~ Frederick Buechner</span></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://media-cache-ec2.pinterest.com/upload/144889312981338347_1drpCnBc_c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://media-cache-ec2.pinterest.com/upload/144889312981338347_1drpCnBc_c.jpg" width="460" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://media-cache-ec2.pinterest.com/upload/144889312981338347_1drpCnBc_c.jpg" target="_blank">Source</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Yesterday was heavy with hopelessness
for humanity.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I feared for the life of my boys last
night inside a fast food joint where an agitated, mentally unstable
man paced the floor and rallied angry, held his fist in his pocket
grasping what might have been a weapon...and everything I thought I
believed about nonresistance challenged me the instant my faith came
up against my fear.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Our french fries sat steaming but
untouched. We were, in a sense, held hostage. The man's writhing
angry body draped across the dirty floor, blocking that swinging door
with its golden arches cursing and forbidding any of us to leave, his
guttural groans bouncing off walls and tables. My heart beat for the
Lord's touch of grace upon this man, for God's will in this scary thing,
but when the man pointed and laughed maniacally directly at me,
singling me out with a terrifying glare, <i>first</i> I wished my
husband was there—a military-trained expert marksman—with
the concealed weapon he used to carry. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">With careful hands I texted
Ryan, telling him I loved him and that I was scared, and avoided the
foreboding words I wanted to say:</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>If I shouldn't come home, take care
of our babies. Make sure they know I love them. </i>
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“I want you to get a pistol
again...soon,” I texted instead, knowing the words would surprise
and sober him as much as they did me. I was afraid for our lives, and
I wished both for peace and for pistol. He has rallied for having one again,
a pistol I know he would never use to harm unless an innocent
person's life was at stake.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Unless.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It breaks my heart all the same.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">We are none of us innocent people.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I do not like guns in general and I do
not believe they are the answer to an epidemic of hate and hurt. I don't honestly know how you can turn the other cheek toward Jesus, toward peace, with a pistol in your pocket. I
grieve today that my heart reached for violence in the gripping midst of last night's fear, that it leapt for safety and not first for salvation. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This is
not about politics; it is about peace. Peace that transcends all
understanding.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So I muddied the waters of what once
was crystal clear because when the fire got hot, I valued my life and
the lives of my family more than I trusted in the name of Jesus. I
trusted the assurance of my husband's expertise, trusted that a
bullet in a crazy man's thigh might really save our lives...every one of
them already saved.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Yesterday, I saw humanity at its
bleakest, a gray haze over the world I'm tempted to call home.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">But it isn't.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It isn't home, this earthen-house, so
broken and blood-soaked. It's so tempting to forget its temporal nature
when the days run long and the body aches hard and I forget the joys
of this life are only notes in an orchestra of heavenly preview. I
forget that I am in this broken world only on official business...my
passport stamped with redeeming blood, my permanent address given at
Calvary.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In fear, I forget.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The police took twenty minutes to
arrive, minutes I spent texting my husband, praying beggy prayers of
safety and desperation, eyeing the crazy man's pocket and planning
our escape at the first glint of gunmetal. By the time the lone
officer pulled slowly into the restaurant, armed and heroic, the
crazy man had been swallowed by night. Only then did I pray for this man's healing, for his safety, for his soul if it needs it, and his hurt
and his life worth much as mine.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">He was gone and life went on. No fanfare. No media. The police took interviews. The fry machine sizzled and sparked into business as usual. Hamburgers were chewed by teeth still fear-chattering while we strangers all looked around at each other's goosebumps and stunned faces and wondered what we were supposed to do now, our frail makeshift family, united in an instant over terror and iced tea. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The boys and I got to the car and headed back
southward, silent and shaken on the highway. The scene recurred through my conscious on a loop, restarting every mile until my husband's call broke through. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">He announced that the two kids at home needed an immediate treatment
for head lice, which we later learn were passed on by my daughter's cherub-faced friend, curls always adorably tangled, whose home is filled with filth and animal feces but is starkly empty of a mother. </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Hers is just another kind of broken
home, I know, reminiscent of this earth which stinks and crawls with
the infestation of destruction. I groaned with the inconvenient
timing of this minor plague, so desperately needing something of
beauty to redeem.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I stopped at a store and scanned grocery shelves for the
three-step RID kit in the white box, the one that makes me nauseous to purchase, but a woman, worn with wrinkles and raspy cigarette-stale breath, began yelling at her husband and the pharmacist behind the counter beside me.
<br /><br />“CANCER?! <i>When </i>did I have cancer? I DIDN'T have cancer, you
lying sack of shit! I'm perfectly healthy! I'm FINE, damn it! I WILL
NOT DIE!” </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">She thrashed tearful at her husband's shirtsleeves; misty-eyed man hushing
and pulling her close, the woman swinging and spitting on them both. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So much hurt, here. So much darkness. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Have mercy.</span></i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Forty seconds later, a different woman
passed by, crying into a cell phone that her husband had started
making meth again, that she didn't want to live anymore, and the
whole black night reeked hard and heavy of Hell on Earth. I wanted to give up my citizenship right then and there in the Beauty department, to cash in the earthly heartbeat I'd
been so scared to lose hours earlier just to make the madness stop. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I tried to muster hope, to bring a holy
thought to mind that could bring me back from this nightmare, but I could land on nothing but the question of where gunmetal fits into grace. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">...where gunmetal fits into grace.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Recoiling again at the darkness that flooded
these desperate lives, I feared despite truth that evil could triumph
on a night like this, and I wept.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Just a few blocks from home the radio sang
loud, “Though darkness fills the night, it cannot hide the light.
Whom shall I fear?” but the song ended before the darkness did, so
the music faded into a radio interview. A meek and whisper-thin voice
gathered strength in narrating her own horrific survival story
through the car speakers, and our scathed spirits sat seatbelted
stiff in our bodies, wincing at the endless grief of the night.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“I love Jesus,” the woman declared
in shaky whispers, “because I know He forgives me for being a
battered woman.”
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The airwaves went silent; the
interviewer, wordless.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Did you catch that?</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">She
loves the Lord who forgives <i>her </i>for being
battered...beaten and stabbed by a man whose heroin addiction split her lips and broke her legs, whose violence killed their unborn child. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>Forgiven. </i>For being battered.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">After hearing the story, I only know what I don't know at all. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I don't know what forgiveness even is for a
God like that, for a person like me. I don't know what it looks like
to act justly and to love mercy anymore, when evil breathes near
enough to tickle my neck hair.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I don't know what faith looks like so
full there is no fear. I don't know how to long for the heart of
Jesus more than I do, how to gather trust up around my neck and
settle into its warmth and assurance when it's all I can do but to
whisper<i>, </i>"My God," at the madness. "Have mercy." </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I don't know how to pray or what to
pray for when the world seems eclipsed with suffering. I only know
that no bullet can take me. No bullet will save me because a nail
already has.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">What I know—all I I know—is that
there is no genesis in wickedness. Evil cannot create. It can only
destroy. Darkness disintegrates and deteriorates the sound of that
angel orchestra, the familiar melody of home still faint in the
weariness of my heart.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Demolition does not stop demolition. In
response to creation, we create. In response to destruction, we
create even more. We can cover gray haze with orange paint, redeem
hopelessness with the redemption and beauty of words made gospel, songs
and movement and laughter and wonder that shines pinholes of
grace-light through cloaks of fear, singing the joy-song of home.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In creation alone, I stop wishing for safety
and start seeking my Savior. I call Him in with words in graphite,
words of sacrifice, of love, of the home my heart sings for. Evil
destroys but holy creates. Holy redeems and holy survives. Holy glimmers bright with glory, brighter
than bullets and gunmetal, brighter than anger, brighter than fear. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Have mercy.</span></i><br />
<br />
<br />
Linking to: <br />
<center>
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Cara Sextonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02597396513424389268noreply@blogger.com25tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6991825168100346042.post-84760152849414835512012-12-31T12:46:00.003-08:002012-12-31T12:46:34.882-08:00Coming Home. Becoming Home.<br />
<br />
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<div class="MsoNormal">
The last day of the year and I have to scrape windshield ice
but I don't even care. My broken laptop has been resurrected and I whisk it off
to a coffee shop to warm its chips and wires, to warm my belly with fancy mocha
and pumpkin bread, to warm my hands and my soul with inspiration and words,
again. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It's been too long, friends, and I'm sorry. Life and hiccups
have kept me away but all is well and all will be well. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Happy New Year. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Our Jacob is finally home, and we are grateful. The holidays
are still lingering in a hush, woven into this creamy gray vapor that hangs
around us, barely noticeable upon the cracked cement sidewalk, the aged headstones
peeking out behind bare branches at the cemetery I drive past to get here. It's
a fitting sort of state, as weather often is, for the end of things, this year,
a little dreary but not unpleasant…a wash of whiteness and stillness like a
curtain being dropped. The romantic in me will see the same sights in Technicolor
tomorrow. I'm a dreamer that way, and new years always hold new promises, new
adventures, and I'm game. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOea5rF573PbXzGVMwS-8dICBgUfW2uw6LlIXbT7QugPcacOBVtG39SmCcJ9gi-8e2HHPqPkjstjPNgMx4BoD1bTe3NNPPvOj1yVAbMvDegaxMq_gWmSxA2rpXKHISNykGCZLcrmgn1hA/s1600/Dec+2011-Jan+2012+121.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOea5rF573PbXzGVMwS-8dICBgUfW2uw6LlIXbT7QugPcacOBVtG39SmCcJ9gi-8e2HHPqPkjstjPNgMx4BoD1bTe3NNPPvOj1yVAbMvDegaxMq_gWmSxA2rpXKHISNykGCZLcrmgn1hA/s400/Dec+2011-Jan+2012+121.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I declared 2012 the year of Home. I thought, perhaps, after much
weariness from our nomadic years that it might have been the year of settling
down, the year of tying up loose ends, the year of holding down the fort in
pajamas and feeling like a normal family for a change. It sounded so healing
just a year ago, so safe and warm, a year of Home, a year of family and
laughter and too much good food. What I wanted, looking back, was a quiet place
for my heart to nurse its wounds, a space to linger long on whatever was
supposed to come next. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It was that. Sort of. In some ways. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Just not like I expected. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Because the year of home…the year I planned for <i>coming</i>
home, was really about <i>becoming</i> home, in a million ways that were
nowhere in sight on the milky gray horizon of last winter. And this next year,
too, will be a series of blind-sighted developments, surprise plot turns, and new
things big and small. I return to college in seven days, four days before I
turn 33. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So I'm pondering today all the words that I think might mark
2013 in a way I can't even imagine from where I sit right now. Bloom. Revel.
Embrace. Worship. Jubilee. Inspiration. Wonder. Explore. Listen. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I hope, no matter what, that this new year will be full of
words, full of life and connection and a still sort of dwelling on the magnitude
of every present moment, for me and for you, my friends. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Stay safe, tonight. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Cara Sextonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02597396513424389268noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6991825168100346042.post-71439545851884813932012-11-09T15:12:00.000-08:002012-11-09T16:06:37.395-08:00In Which I Break Up With Martha Stewart<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRon3xgDyf80l5ezerDl7cl_2GYiPhOmGfcx-7CXswIO4AhG3QI5w" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRon3xgDyf80l5ezerDl7cl_2GYiPhOmGfcx-7CXswIO4AhG3QI5w" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>"Every child's holiday will be made infinitely more
magical if your holiday décor features a homemade gingerbread replica of your
home, and don't they deserve a magical Christmas, you lazy slacker?"<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That was printed in the lifestyle magazine that showed up in
my mailbox yesterday. Well, it basically said that. Pretty much. A magazine I felt guilty
sitting down to read because there was probably some linen I should be ironing
or yogurt I should be culturing or fresh evergreen wreath I should be
fashioning out of clippings from the indoor ferns I didn't kill because of
course I'm an excellent horticulturist and I even know what a horticulturist is.
(You believe me, right?) But since this magazine held wisdom on perfecting my
technique of all of the activities above and the holiday spirit was upon me, I settled
into the guilt and flipped away at the glossy pages. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You know the magazine – it's the one that suggests stuffing
your Thanksgiving turkey with figs and pancetta and roasted artichoke hearts
with butternut squash (not slathering a half-frozen bird with Jell-o powder and orange juice
like I do) while you wait for the sautéed escarole on the stove. I'm not sure
what you're waiting for the escarole to do exactly because I don't even know what
escarole is and I'm too busy trying to figure out where to find fennel and
endive for the fennel-endive-pomegranate seed salad every decent human being
can whip up for a light lunch when having surprise company. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You know the magazine. <i>Martha Stewart Living</i>. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT9oDd7JBdmLmDGhYV9c1sYUuB_fjolv1eNZ3mtBOg6ibw2RSG0" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT9oDd7JBdmLmDGhYV9c1sYUuB_fjolv1eNZ3mtBOg6ibw2RSG0" width="333" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Because of Martha, I know how to make handmade marshmallows
in Christmas-y shapes and create my own hand-beaded bag, which I should be
making unique for each outfit or at least for every day of the week. Page 3 tells
me I need a $10,000 oven to ensure my cream puffs are baked with the most even heat
distribution possible, which must be true even though I've never baked cream
puffs in my life, but I still feel good about myself for a split second because
at least I know what a cream puff <i>is</i>, which is more than I can say for the
endive. I'm pretty sure the oven in the Dollhouse retails new for about twelve
bucks. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
With every page, I wonder things I hadn't even thought of
until this very minute. Things like whether my hair is thick enough or my
kitchen mixer can make pasta. I start realizing things I need that I never
needed before. A hybrid. A wine cellar. A sheep whose wool I can make into fashionable
winter clothing for my family. I see things I probably should make because I'm
sure every other person in the universe is making them and the instructions are
right here! In my hand! Page 26 alone gives me all I need to know about making
both a catmint pillow bed and bracelets/tassels made with the hair
cultivated from five Friesian horses…and I'm not even making that up.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Page 69, spice-infused milk and sugar-dusted macaroon trees.
Page 71, scented tree ornaments. Page 37, a $520 makeup bag. Page 45, perfectly
complected laughing children in matching outfits. Page 53, hand-punched paper
doilies. Page 55, patterned men's socks, folded, lined up in a drawer and
organized by shade. Page 61, handmade bell jar terrariums with miniature skiers
and tiny penguins on snowy glitter mountains. Page 62, toast in the shape of
the <st1:country-region w:st="on">USA</st1:country-region>.
Page 82, chamomile-yogurt panna cotta. Page 112, a hand-carved menorah. Page
124, a miniature winter forest in a $172 bucket. Page 145, a "simple
desert" – lemon mascarpone crepe cake made with 62,789 layers of crepes
and lemon curd made with eggs from your own personal chicken who is also a designer
poultry model. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Plus 186 other pages I didn't mention. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
None of this resembles my life. Martha's calendar (which she
graciously shares with us on page 2) features twice-weekly appointments with
her personal trainer and other ridiculously unrealistic pursuits like "harvest
citrus from greenhouse," and "write thank-you notes."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But somewhere during my mental vacation to Bedford Farm, I become
overwhelmed and tired. Those hand-beaded purses are kind of ugly. Escarole
sounds a lot like cooked snails. I have zero desire to dust or even possess a
collection of tiny skiers in glittery jars. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This all is the brain-child of a woman who might as well
live on another planet, a woman with a team—nay, an <i>enterprise</i>,
dedicated to this kind of fluffery. I don't have a maid or a stylist, and my entourage
is populated with small people who still pee themselves. She wears tailored
pantsuits; I pick kid boogers off the knees of my mom jeans. She hand-glitters
her letterpress holiday cards; I haven't sent a Christmas card since 1998. She loves
propagating rare plants from cuttings (her words); I kill silk flowers. She has
an entire day marked off her calendar for Frederic Fekkai's birthday; I get my
hair cut once a year...at Walmart. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS0x7bC4_Li5-TO2fCq_eeRthIs0lX5pvOZZdTG6jNLzmKmG33m" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="299" src="https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS0x7bC4_Li5-TO2fCq_eeRthIs0lX5pvOZZdTG6jNLzmKmG33m" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Like so many others, this magazine is designed to make me
want this life, to be convinced that I need this life, and even more, that I
should spend time and energy and loads of money in the pursuit of it. But the whole thing really makes
me want to climb back into bed, on my drug-store sheet set in my thrift-store
pajamas, and give up the glittery ghost. I don't want to live at <st1:city w:st="on">Bedford Farm</st1:city> and I don't want
to be Martha. I don't want chickens with headshots or a beagle in Tartan
pajamas. I don't want to teach Snoop Dog how to cook or practice perfecting the recipe for chocolate kugelhopf (or give myself a headache trying to pronounce it). I don't
want to tolerate the message that I am not enough and don't do enough, and I
sure as hell don't want to pay for the privilege. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So here it is. So long, Martha. Your pantsuits are lovely.
Your home is impeccable (both the gingerbread and brick-and-mortar versions).
Your holiday table is splendid. Your cider-braised slab bacon looks delicious. But
we have to break up. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Because here's the thing. My bacon is just fine like it is. I
would rather strangle myself with tinsel than create a to-scale gingerbread
replica of my home. Sheep stink and so do chickens. You should consider
changing the name to <i>Martha Stewart Can't Even Live Like This</i> magazine,
because at least it would be truthful. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Consider my subscription cancelled, my ticket for the guilt-trip
torn to bits. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
How's that for <i>Living</i>? </div>
Cara Sextonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02597396513424389268noreply@blogger.com32tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6991825168100346042.post-92028735555396225422012-11-03T08:12:00.000-07:002012-11-03T08:12:57.979-07:00Thank You for the Dollhouse<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://media-cache-lt0.pinterest.com/upload/66568900712794408_axJcSzQF_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://media-cache-lt0.pinterest.com/upload/66568900712794408_axJcSzQF_b.jpg" width="332" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He is<i> </i>bringing me to surrender.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And while I spout words and thoughts about freeing my heart
to Jesus on a regular basis, surrender is a difficult place for me. Sure, I'll
surrender my worship, surrender my words. I'll surrender time for Scripture
reading and some crumpled bills for the offering plate. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But what about <i>stuff</i>? Comfort? The redefining of <i>need</i>?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Back in January (or was it February?), I pegged this the
"year of home." </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Home.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It has come/is coming to mean something other than what I thought
it would, as these things usually do. Adoption. Moving. <i>Again</i>. Paring
down. Letting go. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We get keys to our new place in 16 days, a townhouse on the
university campus with faded pink paint and a blue door like the one on my daughter's
plastic dollhouse. There is a clipboard on the front door for family game night
flyers and street sweeper notices, clothing exchange announcements and
resident-only softball league signups. Our next-door neighbor is crafty, if the
Halloween swarm of paper bats and a cardstock moon fastened across her front
door and window is any indication, so I wish like a 6-year-old that she will be
my friend. Maybe we will ride bikes to school together. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The usual new house excitement and chaos is underway now and
all the preparations loom ahead. Except that it's more of a stateroom than a house,
really. Part apartment, part dormitory, part submarine berth, part communal
abode. Our new back porch is wide open to the grassy common play space and I'm about to have all manner of neighborhood children up in here, up in here. <br /><br />I wonder whether we'll be able to fit very much more than a couple
of forks and some warm bodies into the dollhouse with us. The dimensions of the
dining room are actually smaller than the dimensions of our dining table, without
any chairs. I call about borrowing a saw to hack two feet off the ends off my
brand new dining table, a handmade anniversary gift from my husband. I am
nothing if not determined, and resourceful. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But the line between need and want is a dashed and dotted
one, I think, and life with four forever children means a hard process of
purging the comforts I've always treated as deal-breakers. The dollhouse has no
dishwasher, for instance. No washer/dryer hookups either. I am accustomed to
clean laundry piles that reach my chin, a daily soundtrack of washing machine
chugging and spinning, and the truth is, I don't really want to spend half my
hours in a coin-op Laundromat with my neighbors. I don't want to end up with someone else's underwear by mistake and have to locate the rightful owner. I don't want to be a goldfish in a glass bowl again, inviting people in when my floors have crumbs and my sink is full<span style="font-size: xx-small;"> because I have no dishwasher</span>, and my kid is covered in purple marker. I don't want to revisit all the boundary-crossing that happens when you live in community, blurring those lines between yours, mine, and ours. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But it's time I did. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It makes me worried, the thought of giving up so much of <i>my
</i>stuff. But I'm grateful for the process, grateful for the paring away of
internal, emotional clutter that comes alongside getting rid of the things I
think I need simply because I like them. Grateful we'll be part of a culture again and that letting go of things often means making room for people. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So as I try to downsize, it's with that end in mind: blessing people, making room, living in community. Though I've taken a few
sizeable car loads to Goodwill already, I'm aiming to be more intentional about
finding needs to meet with our excess rather than merely discarding or selling
it. There is something about <i>giving it</i> <i>away</i> that energizes and
brightens so much more than simply <i>giving it up</i>. Furnishing the new home
of a friend who had to leave everything behind, bundling up extra toys for the
foster babies to bring along with them when they leave, adding resources to the
church library… it is all His way of turning <i>paring down</i> into <i>building
up.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And the truth is, I can't wait for the dollhouse. To be
stepping on the toes of my family all day, piling up together on the day bed we'll be using as a couch, rubbing elbows with my neighbors
at Taco Night, tossing scraps in the complex compost pile to feed the community garden that will feed us too. I can't wait to wonder aloud about Jesus over a pint with the girl in my algebra
class and meet my babies for lunch in a crowded student union. To learn. To
grow. To live with less. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It's appropriate, I think, that we are moving in over the Thanksgiving
holiday. The time for gratitude is here. </div>
Cara Sextonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02597396513424389268noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6991825168100346042.post-13725206336374391432012-10-24T13:15:00.001-07:002012-10-24T13:15:50.935-07:00When It's Time to Breathe<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Like others in this season of politics and tension, I am
thirsty for grace. And in my thirst, I realize how much grace I fail to show,
how strong my desire that others see things my way, how hard I have to fight my
own nature to reflect Christ's character. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But today, I'm asking you for grace. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Grace because I'm far from this place lately, wrapped up in
a budding life ahead, a bunch of big changes on the horizon. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I'm going back to college, God willing, and I've brought my
kiddos home to learn at the kitchen table again too, navigating a public
charter school curriculum program that looks exciting but still has me a little
lost and anxious while we get our bearings. <br />
<br />
The foster babies are very nearing their own transition out of our home, a home
the lot of us are moving out of at the end of November to be nearer to school
and other things. I'm neck deep in editing a book and writing another one, and
I can count the days until our newly adopted son will be here without having to
even turn the calendar page. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Deep breath. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I've had to pull away from blogging and reading blogs for
now, and I just thought I'd tell you all why. Soon, the dust will settle and
life will look like something I recognize again, and we'll begin to build
something new, brick by brick. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Love you friends. Thanks, as always, for grace. </div>
Cara Sextonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02597396513424389268noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6991825168100346042.post-1066340631821081422012-10-13T09:15:00.001-07:002012-10-13T09:23:56.367-07:00Rinse (First Rain)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://instagr.am/p/Quoj2CCOo9/media/?size=l" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://instagr.am/p/Quoj2CCOo9/media/?size=l" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
I've been dry as the ground, this season. The grass had
turned to straw and twine. Smoke billowed from a new hill every day and even the
deck wood and telephone poles looked thirsty on the backdrop of crispy beige
foliage, parched.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Crumpled and bitter, I've fought my tongue around every
corner. Thirsty, threadbare, and dried in drought, dust was all I could manage
to cultivate upon these lips, and from this weary heart, gasping. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And though I had better things to do, things that couldn't
wait, I pulled out the paint box and dirtied my brushes and smothered the
canvas large as life with paint and longing. It felt like air and space, so I
opened windows, then, and dotted frantic with the mix of pink and white, and I
was a fish, brushstroke by brushstroke, caught and released, and released, and
released, and released. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Children slept and hours passed, one and then another, dark
but for the colors on the canvas, and with the music swirling, I smelled it
strong and sudden. Struck with alertness like a whiff of strong coffee, I
recognized in the dryness the aroma of <i>rain</i>. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The ground opened to receive it and my heart opened to
receive it and I could breathe again, breath so full it tasted like color. I
swam. And the music and the rain and dust made painted fingerprints upon that
canvas where my soul spilled in splats and curves. I laid awake and watched it
fall until clouds and trees were backlit with foggy air and it's all still hanging
there this morning…a misty linger like even the air doesn't want to let go. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The TV tells me we'll be dry again in an hour but I plead
silent with my eyes to the sky like I'm pleading with a lover not to go, not to
go. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Don't go.<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Cara Sextonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02597396513424389268noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6991825168100346042.post-79297489415976333202012-09-30T20:53:00.000-07:002012-10-04T18:55:52.174-07:00Soul Bare -- Call for Submissions<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://civitaspress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Soul_Bare_Portfolio_Featured_Image_Large.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="297" src="http://civitaspress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Soul_Bare_Portfolio_Featured_Image_Large.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>By faith, Noah built a ship in the middle of dry land. He
was warned about something he couldn't see, and acted on what he was told.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">-Hebrews 11:7 (MSG)</span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I'm no Noah. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
And if God told me to build an ark of <st1:country -region="-region" w:st="on">cyprus</st1:country> wood in the middle of dry
land, I'd call a mental health specialist but not a lumber yard. I am <i>ye</i>
of little faith. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I'm no Noah. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
God knows I build with words and not with nails. Build
bridges, build a home, build friendship, build understanding, build ships in
the desert with the alphabet because it's all I ever knew about saving people. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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And <a href="http://civitaspress.com/soul-bare-reflections-on-becoming-human/">this</a>?
<i><a href="http://civitaspress.com/soul-bare-reflections-on-becoming-human/" target="_blank">Soul Bare</a></i>… Right here, in this season, this book is my ark. My ship
built of words instead of wood, with stories instead of nails, and covered
inside and out with a thick coat of love instead of pitch. It's no ark, but
it's what He asked me to build, a tiny little offering in the face of the
floodwaters all around. </div>
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It's all I ever knew about saving people. It's how I've
always saved myself, how I've turned my eyes back to the only one who really
saves. Hammering out the words to float your stories safe, and I ask… would you
like to join me? Lend your tender heart, your only-yours story among the rest
of us typing mad because it's how we know about saving, because it's what we do
to point to Him? </div>
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There's one month left to submit an essay-length piece
(1000-2000 words) for publication if you're interested in contributing to this
project of building up faith from the root of our hearts, digging out
authenticity and redemption from the heaviness, mining for joy in the
unlikeliest of places. </div>
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From <a href="http://civitaspress.com/soul-bare-reflections-on-becoming-human/">the
project page</a>: </div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 17.25pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="color: #777777; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">It is a vulnerable and
difficult practice to open ourselves wide, to share the gritty and painful
parts of our story, or to explore against-the-grain ideas. Standing emotionally
naked before God and others can be an intimidating but richly prolific experience.
It is a progression of salvaging our own broken pieces, telling our story, and
gaining a deeper understanding of one another and of God’s beautiful purpose
for us as we seek to develop who we have been into who we are becoming.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 17.25pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 17.25pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="color: #777777; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">The very Word of God
is a collection of soul-bare stories, of broken people salvaged and sanctified,
lives poured open for a holy purpose. By its words and the beat of our own
hearts we live out and share a beautiful picture of grace and ransom, of unique
(but shared) humanity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 17.25pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="color: #777777; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">We are looking for
real, honest stories of your journey through self-expression in your process of
becoming authentic. Why and how do you bare your soul and for what holy
purpose?<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://civitaspress.com/soul-bare-reflections-on-becoming-human/">Get more
information here</a>, if you're so inclined. And in the meantime, your prayers for
this book and its writers are both grace and blessing, as is your support and
spreading the word about the book however you'd like. </div>
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*Title, subtitle, and cover design are likely to change. We're working with a bit of a fluid concept here that will be further defined once submissions are chosen. If you have a piece that feels like a good fit for this project but the categories or title/subtitle are having you second-guess whether it works, please send it anyway. Blog posts are allowed but must be removed from all sources prior to publication.<br />
<br />
Linking to:<br />
<center>
<a href="http://www.emilywierenga.com/" target="_blank" title="Imperfect Prose"><img border="0" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-3s5KmhxpIYU/T4Inziu4R4I/AAAAAAAAENk/LTq221viFVc/s144/imperfectprose.jpg" /></a></center>
</div>
Cara Sextonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02597396513424389268noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6991825168100346042.post-35203153371834972472012-09-25T10:22:00.000-07:002012-09-25T10:22:09.699-07:00Tiptoes in the Water<br />
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I'm slow in returning to the world of public words… here,
just beginning to poke my head in through the quiet and back to this virtual world
of voices and beauty and community after a short-but-longer-than-planned hibernation
from the same. </div>
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There are a few reasons for my extended absence and they go
like this: </div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]-->-<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span><!--[endif]--><span dir="LTR">My Internet has been down on and off for
days (my apologies to the <a href="http://www.emilywierenga.com/">Imperfect
Prose</a> community most of all for my absence this week.) My phone data access
from my house is spotty at best. </span></div>
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</span><!--[endif]--><span dir="LTR">My fibromyalgia has flared up something
awful and I've been particularly weak/tired/in pain the last two weeks. </span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]-->-<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span><!--[endif]--><span dir="LTR">I carved out time to write a dozen or so
blog posts ahead of time only to find the next day that my computer had
mysteriously dumped and disposed of them all completely…several thousand words
just plain gone. I haven't had the energy to start over again, yet. </span></div>
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<span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">-</span><span style="font-size: 7pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
</span><span dir="LTR" style="text-indent: -0.25in;">I've been up to my eyeballs putting out
fires like dealing with a water heater outage for three days and catching up on
overdue things like cleaning the carpets and folding laundry.</span></div>
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</span><!--[endif]--><span dir="LTR">I found out I won't be able to go to
Allume Social conference this year, which bums me out tremendously. It's for a
good purpose (our adoption moving forward) but it's a tough thing to give up. </span></div>
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Mostly though, I've lingered in the quiet space to give my
brain and fingers and soul a rest and it's been good. The infamous fibro brain-fog
meant not spending quite so much time in deep reflection as I had planned, but sometimes
just walking through the daily things is healing and restful on a different
level, and it was.</div>
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My tiptoes are back in the water, now, and my fingers
teasing the keyboard again. Hope it's been a great September for you so far. </div>
Cara Sextonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02597396513424389268noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6991825168100346042.post-43157486067128111892012-09-13T14:35:00.000-07:002012-09-13T14:35:43.908-07:00When It's Time to Untangle<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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My heart took a big tumble this week. It bounced around and
hit a few sharp corners. It is bruised and bleeding today still, pulse-tender
like blistered flesh burned on an electric stove. It is still on crutches
today, slathering itself in ointment and retreating to quiet spaces. </div>
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And I have a lot of thoughts to work out about what's behind
all the brokenness and what God has to do with any of it and what it means for
my understanding of The Church at large and my voice and my place in things. I don't
know quite how much of the pain is a result of my clumsy tendency to stand up
for unpopular injustice with a fierce spirit and too many words, and how much is
an answer to that prayer I pray in the dark… the scary, exciting, beautiful,
awful one. The one that goes, "Break my heart for what breaks yours."</div>
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But it's all tied together like a knotted necklace chain and
I'll have to untangle it later, after the ointment works its magic, after the
wincing has stopped. </div>
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Because I'm still slipping between raging indignation and quiet
tears. I'm still racing from corner to corner of my mixed-up mind, from the icy
shadows to the warmth of the sun. </div>
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Somewhere in the midst of this, truth and love and healing
will bring me back. They're already beginning to. </div>
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But what's saving my life this week are the soft places,
like the crook of my husband's arm…the first place I want to bury myself when
the hurt stings sharp and the brokenness weighs heavy and he listens, quietly,
and <i>hears</i>. Ryan is my safest place, the corner I retreat to when nothing
is sure in the world… when my thoughts about God and friendship and mothering
and church and work and life bury me in fear and doubt. And then he sits with
me, quiet, and I don't need to speak and he doesn't either, and it's love all
the same. Ryan is all I know about love on some days, because the way he does
it is really something worth taking notes on. He understands the value of
presence and his short words linger long when I'm tempted to ask
"Why?" What's saving my life today is gratitude for the man in my bed
who taught me all I'll ever know about staying. </div>
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What's saving my life today are the tiny miracles… picking
up <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Searching-Knows-What-Donald-Miller/dp/1400202752/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1347493333&sr=8-1&keywords=searching+for+god+knows+what">the
right book</a> at the right time, communities so full of grace and love that I
can't escape from Jesus love even when I try to retreat. What's saving me now is
that slowly, hour by hour, I'm reminded that there are others standing up for
the kind of love I believe in, people who aren't afraid to listen, to speak up
for the marginalized and the wounded, people whose stories and lifestyles make
a lot of people squirm. Fear brings out the ugly in some people, but intolerance
brings out the ugly in me. I'm working on it. </div>
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What's saving me now are people like Tammy and Lindsey and Annie
and Emily, praying and loving and sending me emails like grace with skin on all
through my day. What's saving me, as always, is wild, extravagant grace, and a Nazarene
whose love is making nothing in my world comfortable anymore and I suspect it's
exactly the way it's supposed to be. </div>
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When the heart breaks open because you prayed for it to
happen, because you know deep and raw that there's more than the moldable deity
you see in modern American culture, it will mess you up. I'm not all that sure
I even know what to make of it yet, or what it's going to mean for me, but I
know this. It's time to step into quiet for a few days (a week?), to tiptoe
away from social media and politics, from hot button issues and phone calls, to
quiet my fired-up soul, listen to the breeze that wraps around in an embrace, and
learn love from my kids again, the ones who I overhear in their bedroom in tiny
voices saying, "You are beautiful," and "I love you," and
"Jesus gave us to each other", because this is the love that washes
over and saves us all, the love that is worth stopping and smelling and tasting
and grasping with all our grip on the tender, unsure days. </div>
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So, friends, thank you for grace as I slip quietly away from
this space for a few days to read and bake and pray and paint and swing and
slide and laugh and sing and be still. </div>
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I promise I'm okay… really, truly. Quite full of joy and
peace today after the fog of hurt is lifting and just being mindful that this
is a place I need to linger for a beat, a pause to usher in Fall and learn a
few things about the nature of love and experiencing God. A sorta-kinda spiritual
retreat, if you will, a chance to untangle. </div>
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Love, love, love. </div>
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Be back soon. </div>
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Cara Sextonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02597396513424389268noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6991825168100346042.post-6457519486085319242012-09-12T09:13:00.000-07:002012-09-12T09:13:29.995-07:00When You Fight to Illuminate Hope - Imperfect Prose on Thursdays<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6zw_rI3qeb4e14XkMMBsxxfZomMKtnkUHcFdVEh3t97OQwO3j4f5QRbyW5F5b-eMopkJ1GsXOmINmPj01ieEDcSZdrkVBcCySSBelI9Vo8cwMRAik1PeUiWugqTOxjiU2ll6XBhLccdY/s1600/Paintbrushes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6zw_rI3qeb4e14XkMMBsxxfZomMKtnkUHcFdVEh3t97OQwO3j4f5QRbyW5F5b-eMopkJ1GsXOmINmPj01ieEDcSZdrkVBcCySSBelI9Vo8cwMRAik1PeUiWugqTOxjiU2ll6XBhLccdY/s320/Paintbrushes.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #463c37; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">I am tired and too delicate for this world. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #463c37; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #463c37; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #463c37; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">It all seems to fly at me at once today, an assault of worldly concerns and it feels like just too much and I whisper for Jesus to come and come soon and </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #463c37; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">all the while I feel like a hopeless lunatic</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #463c37; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;"> just waving my arms as the merry-go-round spins. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #463c37; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #463c37; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #463c37; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">Let me get off. I want the ride to be over.</span>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #463c37; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">...</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #463c37; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">Continued here over at <a href="http://networkedblogs.com/C3OkL?a=share" target="_blank">Emily's place</a> for Imperfect Prose. Join us? </span>Cara Sextonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02597396513424389268noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6991825168100346042.post-70087756379384728112012-09-10T19:04:00.000-07:002012-09-10T19:04:02.715-07:00On Gays and God-Haters and Me - A Facebook Conversation, continued<br />
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{This post is actually a continuation of a personal Facebook thread
in which I posted a link to <a href="http://rachelheldevans.com/church-stories-forgive-them-father" target="_blank">this blog post</a>. The responses I received were from varied
perspectives and highly charged on all sides. This issue is important to me, so I appreciate your time in considering it prayerfully.}</div>
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I do not write this lightly, as I wept over the responses
this Facebook post got. Actually fell to my knees in the middle of Barnes and Noble,
phone in hand, and cried hot tears. I'll tell you why in a second. First, I
need to clarify a couple of things, so as not to be misunderstood. I shared
this link as exactly what it was – a powerful story about a family's experience
with conversion therapy (a method of "curing" gayness that a lot of
churches support). I disgree with this method since at its core is the teaching
that homosexuality is caused by something lacking in the father-son
relationship (something that research shows to be false and damaging, and in my
opinion, is just plain hurtful). I strongly disagree with a church
supporting/teaching conversion therapy. I made no indication, statement, judgment,
or position on whether homosexuality was right or wrong. None. Nor did I
represent anything anyone else said as a Christian perspective. However, I am
Christian, and that was my perspective about conversion therapy, on a public
forum in which we are free to share thoughts and opinions, Scripture verses,
prayer requests, barbeque invitations, or whatever we fancy. It's the same hard-earned
freedom which allows us to worship Jesus openly that also allows this man and
others to share their words and hurts. </div>
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I shared one man's perspective and experience, a man whose
perspective is no less important than yours or mine. I do not believe to do so
calls into question my Christianity, rather I believe that to show active love,
to learn how to love like Jesus, means to listen to and acknowledge the
experiences of those who are feeling like outcasts, those who have been told
they aren't welcome in church. Being listened to is a way to be loved,
practically speaking, and I'd wager a guess that if more of the homosexual
community felt like the church was willing to listen and support rather than
condemn, we'd see many more gay individuals coming to Christ. </div>
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Since it was suggested that I may not be familiar with what
Scripture has to say about homosexuality, please be assured that I do. I know
well what both the Old Testament and the New Testament say, as well as Christ's
silence on the particular topic. I do believe the Bible is
the inspired Word of God, as I also believe that to study it is to also study
the historical background of it, the original languages it was written in, the meaning of the traditions and such, and to
not take it out of context. The Scriptures condemning homosexuality also
condemn wearing mixed fibers and eating certain fish, but I don't know any
Evangelical churches ostracizing polyester pantsuits. I'm very grateful
personally that Jesus taught about the dangers of living under religious law
instead of freedom, which helps me understand that keeping the Levitical laws
holds no weight in regard to my salvation and access to unconditional love,
grace, and forgiveness. </div>
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I know all the relevant Scripture and have studied the Greek
and Hebrew in modern translations and ancient ones, with historical
implications, and have studied a smattering of theology on the issue, from
various viewpoints, in order to help my gay friends get to the bottom of the topic.
I am more acquainted with the Bible's standpoint on homosexuality than most
Christians you know… I promise, and to be fair, arguments can be made for
several positions on the issue, all of which I understand. I won't debate
theology with anyone here, mostly because this is the Internet and not seminary,
but also because I doubt it will matter. We may have different ideas about this
position. It does not mean we don't both love Jesus. </div>
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But again, I did not take a stance in the above post on
whether homosexuality was okay or sinful or anything else. I never will. I am
not God and until I reach the day where my own eyes are plankless, I won't
attempt to let my moral standards have authority over someone else's life.
Scripture warns me of the consequences of doing so. It is only the Holy Spirit that
can convict us of our failures, and I am so glad that I was shown agape love by
Christian friends that caused me to first want to know and understand God's
love as an outsider, and only after that could I care anything about His law. I
have read the Bible cover to cover, in several translations, and studied it in depth.
What I have found every. single. time. in every. single. translation is the
same, and it is this: </div>
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I have been given a greater responsibility, along with all Christians,
to show love than anybody else. I follow a man (God), who taught that love was
the most important thing and that without it, we are nothing but "clanging
cymbals". Sadly, a lot of my friends will never set foot in a church or whisper
a prayer because they can't hear love over the clanging, because God has only
ever been portrayed to them as hateful. Those of us who intimately know Christ
know that in Him is freedom and grace. I want my gay friends to know my Jesus.
I care more about their soul than their sex life, and I believe strongly that He
does too. I believe that Jesus, friend of sinners, would build a bridge of love
before attempting to deal with lifestyle. Jesus saw to the heart of a person
and it is my prayer that I can do so, too. </div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
A popular Christian catch phrase on the gay topic is
"hate the sin but love the sinner." What I want to know…what many of my
gay friends want to know…is what that means for you on a practical level. HOW
is the church, how are you and I, as the body loving the sinner? What are we
doing to make Christ attractive to our gay brothers and sisters? Are we hearing
them? Are we listening? Are we wrapping arms around them, showing them the
grace we've been given? Do we care about anything more than their sex life? I
hope my answer will be yes. I believe to love like Christ means to open the
dialogue, to not generalize gays or claim to know everything about them because
of one aspect of their lives. I am a sinner saved by grace and I believe that
is available for all people who choose it. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Here's what sent me to my knees in tears in the middle of
the bookstore on a Monday afternoon. I have many gay friends, some of whom are
seeking truth actively. What they will see on my Facebook wall, between the
lines of all of this, is not that they are loved and welcomed, not that there
is room for them in the Christian community. They will see that they are
compared to murderers, drunks, and liars by the world's greatest lovers, and that several sides of the issue
will bear their teeth over a stranger's personal life. They will see that people
who don't know them at all are willing to speak out about their sex life, but not
about any other aspect of their beings. They will be reminded that there are
many churches they aren't welcomed in, that they can find hateful statements galore
by people whose greatest assignment is to love. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To the Christian friends/family who spoke out, I know the position of
many of you is that tough love is still love and it seems that you believe to
acknowledge or discuss homosexuality in any open way is to water down Scripture
or ignore the law of God. I understand the perspective and acknowledge it, but I
simply can't bring myself to see it this way. I have learned far more about the
love of Christ, about how to walk in love, by listening and exploring and acknowledging
people who are different from me than I ever have by starting the conversation
with a statement about their sin. Respectfully, I don't think it's how Jesus did
it or would do it now, and though I fail at it every day in many ways, I am
growing in my understanding of His love and making every effort to walk in it
through the grace I've been given. I will continue to share the perspectives of
people I believe need to be understood and I freely invite you not to read it
if it offends your values. In the same breath, I also invite you to (respectfully)
disagree with me. I want all my public spaces to be open doors for all people. It
doesn't mean we will agree, but I promise to always consider your perspective prayerfully.
I make the same promise to anyone who finds their way here. There are ways in
which we will adamantly disagree and I don't think our faith has to come into
question because we might approach it from a different perspective. To the
contrary, you teach me more about Jesus, you draw me to the Word and to my
knees for wisdom when we disagree. I appreciate given the freedom to speak my
truth and therefore honor everyone else's right to do the same. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It comes down to this for me. It breaks my heart that most
of my gay friends think Christians are hateful, condemning, religious, and
spiteful, when Jesus adamantly, passionately taught against all those things. It
is not only "God haters" who are giving Christianity a bad name. Plenty
of people, in Christ's name, are willing to loudly condemn and assign that
designation to the rest of us without our permission. I am the body, too, so I
am doing what I can to help bridge the gap between the church and the
homosexual community, in the interest of love. I do not have to make a judgment
call on someone's choices in order to love them. Listening to a gay person's
story, understanding their heart, acknowledging their hurt is not watering down
God's love (or His law) in any way. If I am willing to listen to them, show
them grace and understanding, there is hope that they will care about what my
heart holds too and prayerfully, that they'll eventually know the source of it intimately,
that they'll receive the love and grace and freedom I'm blessed to know. I hope
that makes things a bit clearer, and I invite my gay friends, my Christian
friends, and anyone else that wants to respectfully add to the conversation to
do so. </div>
Cara Sextonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02597396513424389268noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6991825168100346042.post-4258418023954764082012-09-05T14:31:00.000-07:002012-09-05T15:12:30.937-07:00Heartbreak, High School Style<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://instagr.am/p/PIgb27iOmY/media/?size=l" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://instagr.am/p/PIgb27iOmY/media/?size=l" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"He has a girlfriend now and I really think he is
changing his mind about wanting this adoption to happen." </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
She says it frantic through static on the line, and this is
what I feared, too, but couldn't—wouldn't—admit to, not with the foster babies
getting ready to move out, not with having to keep my heart intact while I
watch them shuffle headlong into a painful future and can do nothing to stop it. He
wouldn't bring us this far in the adoption of this boy we already love—a whole year gone by—if it
could unravel this easily, would He? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Would He? <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The woman on the line wants me to move quickly, take action…
do something, <i>anything</i>, to keep this from going the way it could go. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But I can't give her
anything to go on. I can't stop the world from unraveling. I can't be his
mother if he won't let me, even if mere weeks ago it was all he wanted in the world.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I am held captive by the ever-important and always fluid social
life of the American teenager. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The rumors come by telephone now like they did when I was 15
and I'm back in my high school bedroom somehow with Rolling Stone magazine covers
and vodka advertisements littering the walls, holding my breath and willing the
pieces of my fragile heart to stay put until I know the truth for sure. I am
holding back breath and holding back tears and wondering how love can melt away
so easy. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I'm afraid I'm being dumped by a 15-year-old boy. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Traded in for another girl because having a girlfriend is
safer for injured boy hearts than having a mother. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Mothers drink. And mothers die.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And just like the first time, when I was all ribs and elbows,
I start to dial his number and pause over the last digit, unable to complete
the call. What would I say? How do I ask this burning question? And if the answer
is what I fear… what then? What happens next? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Who else will fight for you like I will? Who else will
love you every step of the way? <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A lot of adoptions don't work out and I scold myself for
being so hopeful, for already being his mother. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A lot of mama heartbeats echo beneath ribcages for what
should have been, and I know there were never any guarantees in this. But I am
reduced, nonetheless, for the fear of what we'll never give him. I am wounded by
the fear of being replaced by something temporary and where that will leave him, and I am all ribs and elbows again, all captive-aching
heart and whispers to my pillow of <i>no, this can't be happening</i>. But this time, the pillow is his. <i>His</i> pillow, on <i>his </i>bed, in <i>his </i>bedroom, in what was supposed to be <i>his</i> house. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I have no magazine covers on the walls these days, no room
to call my own. No boyfriend troubles or stepfathers or algebra homework or raucous youth
retreats to heal tender wounds with laughter. Just a house full of babies from
all sorts of bodies and a mama's heart left behind. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>No matter what happens, child...</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i> I will love you every step of the
way. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
Linking up to Imperfect Prose, back from its summer hiatus. Join us here as we revel in grace and community?<br />
<br />
<center>
<a href="http://www.emilywierenga.com/" target="_blank" title="Imperfect Prose"><img border="0" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-3s5KmhxpIYU/T4Inziu4R4I/AAAAAAAAENk/LTq221viFVc/s144/imperfectprose.jpg" /></a></center>
<center>
<br /></center>
<center style="text-align: left;">
<br /></center>
<center style="text-align: left;">
<i>* Update: Made that call and asked the hard question. And he admitted to having second thoughts, of how hard it is to imagine a life other than his past, but...gently...that he believes his future is still here and I am grateful and relieved and a little more grown-up in my own heart again. We will proceed with the adoption plans still and pray for a heart guarding and lots of approval stamps before the wind changes. </i></center>
Cara Sextonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02597396513424389268noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6991825168100346042.post-8288925486904117532012-09-03T18:56:00.000-07:002012-09-03T18:56:29.834-07:00Abide. Proclaim. Bestow. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://o.twimg.com/1/proxy.jpg?t=FQQVBBhNaHR0cDovL2Rpc3RpbGxlcnlpbWFnZTExLmluc3RhZ3JhbS5jb20vMjdjZjlmODBmNjMyMTFlMWI0NjAyMjAwMGExZTlkZTJfNy5qcGcUAhYAEgA&s=lfZ1VOHndiQXHzwlcfYrwCa79fGDSEO3PtGbGK38ZO4" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://o.twimg.com/1/proxy.jpg?t=FQQVBBhNaHR0cDovL2Rpc3RpbGxlcnlpbWFnZTExLmluc3RhZ3JhbS5jb20vMjdjZjlmODBmNjMyMTFlMWI0NjAyMjAwMGExZTlkZTJfNy5qcGcUAhYAEgA&s=lfZ1VOHndiQXHzwlcfYrwCa79fGDSEO3PtGbGK38ZO4" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives</i>,
says Isaiah*, and later Christ in the Gospels*. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The words unravel and re-weave this anointing of my flesh,
the very calling of my spirit. I know deep and hard this work and this purpose.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I write <i>to proclaim release to the captives</i>. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I write, as Christ lives, <i>to provide for those who grieve
in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Zion</st1:place></st1:city>—to bestow
on them a crown of beauty*</i> by pointing to freedom, proclaiming release. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is my longing to tell you, with all of my breath every
day and forever, to take heart dear friend and receive the crown of beauty.
Throw open your arms and soar a while in your own sweet release, because I have
known it, because it is magnificent. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But I forget, daily, to breathe in and receive. I forget to
slow the thundering hooves and linger in my freedom long enough to proclaim it.
I wash laundry and file papers and shepherd babies and my fingers don't find
the keyboard. I make phone calls and wonder where the days go and when I will
find the time to <i>proclaim release</i> when I'm jailing my very self with too
much of the wrong kind of work and sit behind the bars of self-doubt to mold a
casing around my tender heart with the liar's black clay. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I am mentally and spiritually aware that to <i>abide</i> is
not merely to obey or to exist. This awareness, though, comes up shy of
internal some days and days turn into weeks as days are wont to do. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And so I make the paper remember for the words to instruct
when the brain forgets. I make the schedule to cradle a cushion to abide, a
daily space for the fingers to find the keyboard: first, time to read and sit and pray and receive, then 4 hours a day of
like-it-or-not writing time, beginning tomorrow. No excuses. No escape. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Because,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I am a writer before I am a housekeeper. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I am a writer before I am a chef. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I am a writer before I am an interior designer, a patio
sweeper, a phone app dawdler, a grocery shopper, an iced-tea guzzler. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I am a writer before I am a Facebook junkee, a Twitter
checker, a Pinterest surfer. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And? I am a mother before I am a writer. A wife, a daughter,
a friend. So I puzzle the things together and remember them all as gifts. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I must first breathe in my freedom and break through with
release. First, I dance, radiant, with <i>my</i> flowering crown of beauty. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
First? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Abide. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Then? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Proclaim. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Bestow. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And Write. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Will you join me, too, in this? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Abide, dear friend. Live in creativity. Live in amazement.
Live in love. And let the rest all fall away. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love,
you'll be able to take in with all Christians the extravagant dimensions of
Christ's love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the
depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i> -Ephesians
3:14-19<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><o:p> </o:p> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">*Isaiah 61:1-3, Luke 4:16-21</span></div>
Cara Sextonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02597396513424389268noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6991825168100346042.post-87979392329182700582012-08-24T15:02:00.000-07:002012-08-24T15:02:10.769-07:00Olly, Olly, Oxen Free<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
A couple of times a day, The Little One peeks around corners
and under things and wonders aloud, </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"Where's God?" </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
She plays a cosmic hide-and-seek game all alone, turning
over Matchbox cars and lifting rug corners. "God?" she says, eyebrows
furled, "God?" </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
She glances around the room and below the dining table,
between chair cushions and chair bases, under couch pillows, in clothing
drawers. She traces peasant faces with her fingers on the toile tablecloth. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"Is <i>this</i> God, Mama?" </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"God is in your heart, honey girl," I say, but her
eyes droop at the answer. She wants something tangible. She believes He's here
somewhere, an ant below a Matchbox car, a pale-faced shepherd in a fabric pattern
on the dining table. She wants to touch, to find… to lock eyes with Him. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Me too. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I let her play the game over and over and I don't step in
until she directs the question at me. I don't intervene with her hide-and-seek
game because I might be surprised at what she finds. Because I'm playing my own
grown-up version in my own grown-up heart. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"Where's God?" </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And I look high and low, deep and hard. I look for God, for
grace incarnate. I look in the dishes, in the laundry, in the tangled bedsheets
and peanut butter sandwiches. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Where's God when my husband is away, when I'm overwhelmed,
when the kids need more than I can give? Is He looking back at me from the
toile tablecloth that I wipe down a dozen times a day? In the medicine bottles?
The dirty barbeque?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I look in the pile of bills, the cat dish, the sunset. I
look in the eyes of my babies and the bookshelf in the hall. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I play my own hide and seek game with God, and it is daily. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"Come out, come out, wherever you are," I murmur. "Olly,
olly, oxen free!" </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It's a cry of gratitude, a cry of trust. A cry of faith and
truth and a bare naked heart. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And there He is. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Under a Matchbox car, in the laundry bin, beneath the toile
tablecloth. In the eyes of all these babies and inside my own crumpled heart. He's
right there, in plain sight, for those willing to look. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I have looked and I have seen. There He is, and He grips my heart again. I'm caught. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I'm tagged. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I'm <i>it</i> now, I suppose. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And if I'm <i>it</i>, in this hide-and-seek game where God
peeks around corners of His world, will He find me? Will I be there? Will I be
about my Father's business or will I be consumed by my own? Will I be found in
the eyes of these babies, in my work in this world, or will He have to search
below and between for me, calling my name to find me hiding from it? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Olly, olly, oxen free. </div>
Cara Sextonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02597396513424389268noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6991825168100346042.post-13829682264770414712012-08-19T17:24:00.000-07:002012-08-19T17:46:18.183-07:00On Excavating Earwax, Panty Raids, and Joy With Dish Gloves On<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://instagr.am/p/OevLLGiOgj/media/?size=l" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://instagr.am/p/OevLLGiOgj/media/?size=l" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #660000;">Friends, this post is long... like <i>making-up-for-lost-time </i>long<i>...</i>like <i>more-of-a-chapter-than-a-blog-post </i>long, and I apologize (kind of) for the length. I really feel desperately that I need to post it anyway and I ask if you'll give me the grace of getting through it because I think this message is a good one for us all this week. There are some things around here knocking my socks off... things I believe truly will rock your world, too, if you soak it in. So go get a coffee refill and stay with me in this, if you can...come back to it if you have to. Thanks for trusting me, for getting through my wordiness and letting me unravel the beautiful, terrible mysteries I'm drifting through these days. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b>----------------------------------------------------------------</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I haven't been writing much lately—not here anyway, and I'm sorry for that.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It's not for lack of trying. I've sat down at my keyboard dozens of times
this week and the last one and the one before that to keep this space current
and relevant and real. What happens, though, is that no matter what I set out
to write, it all ends up coming out something like this:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>"This is hard. This is hard. This is hard. Joy is here. God is good. He
is teaching me so much. And oh, yeah… did I mention? This is <i>hard</i>. "<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It's true of course. This <i>is</i> hard. God <i>is</i> good.
And He is teaching me measure upon measure more than I ever dreamed this season
would be about. I am learning dependence and how gratitude can overcome
attitude. I am learning about love in action when the feeling of love is
elusive. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I am learning about what importance and success look like in the Kingdom,
and how wrong I've had it all this time. I am learning about need, about nourishment,
about food and laughter and organization and the power of a smile or a scowl,
about volume and voices, love languages, trust, fear, home, and the wild and
wonderful human spirit. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
- I am learning that <b>love is joy with its dish gloves on. </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
- I am learning that the words I grumble or yell or whisper or
pray are longer lasting than the words I type, that tying up life lessons nice
and pretty in a package works well on paper but doesn't serve me at all when
there is poop in the sandbox or when I see my own forked-tongue wagging back at
me from the mouth of my flesh-and-blood boy. I am learning that hot, silent
tears into my pillowcase are a hallowed kind of prayer, and that I would be
wise to utter <i>less</i> the phrase "Lord, give me strength" and utter
<i>more</i> the phrase "Thank you, Lord. Give me <i>joy.</i>" Also, that He always
responds swiftly to "Help me, Help me, Help me," even if I whisper a curse
word in the middle of that prayer somewhere. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>- I am learning much, much, much about grace. <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Overcoming my critical, complaining spirit in this means
not running to my blog just to purge out the grime of the day every time I'm tempted to, even though you
all take it so graciously and mold it into a golden gift through your comments and
outreach and prayer. You all are my heroes and you are how I do most anything—all
this inspiration I get from the people out there walking around on Jesus-feet, kissing
with Jesus-lips, giving with Jesus-hands.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Having foster kids in our home these past few months has rocked us, not in a flip-our-world-upside-down
sort of way, but in a gnaw-away-daily-at-our-false-ideals one. The temptation
is to say that with each challenge, I am growing and loving them deeper and deeper because that's what the neat and pretty answer might look like, but that just isn't always
true. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What's true is this. I still don't have a maternal instinct for these babies, not
completely, and though I love them as much as I can make myself love anything, this
is a hard love. It's a love that acts and does, a love that wipes and kisses, a love that moves
and rocks and holds and bites its tongue, but not so much a love that <i>feels</i>. It's different,
and I am learning, too, to be okay with different, all the while praying for a
bigger heart to overflow with Jesus-love when these little faces still seem so
exoteric, so marvelously foreign here. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The intimacy with which I am caring for these sort-of strangers who are also long-neglected little children means this work is mostly gross and bloody and sweaty and stinky, covered in waste that emerges
from bodies I have not carried and have not watched carved by formative years of nursing
and growing and living. The truth is, it often makes me wearier than I wish it did. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And though I am immune, mind and body and spirit, to whatever is
produced by my own children's bodies, there is no such lack of repugnance with
these children, yet. I shouldn't admit it but that's the hard work of
motherhood, what biology affords us the capacity to endure out of instinct. When biology is the missing
link between these strangers and myself, the already-hard stuff gets harder, if
only because it is not nature but effort that drives me.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I am shamed further by the shame I feel, by the way I cringe and curl
inwardly at the hazards of motherhood, the green and brown and foul-smelling
things, the yucky stuff that from my own children leaves me unscathed. Per doctor's orders, I had to go out and buy a tool last week
designed to excavate impacted earwax, a tool I never knew existed and have lived peacefully without for 32 years. Then, draping wriggling half-dressed children over my lap one by one, I dug deep
into their oozing orifices and hummed loud to make them still and safe but also to suppress
my gag reflex, to transform repulsion into grace, to remind me to find the joy
here, in earwax, somewhere…in puddles of drool and vomit, in overflowed toilets, in asthma and tantrums and middle-of-the-night toddler pantry raids (not to be confused, of course, with <i>panty </i>raids, but with the same sort of commotion and cunning thievery involved). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I am struck by how <b>unnatural</b> this love can be, how the actions of <i>what
love does</i> can sometimes be so instinctual but other times requires intense suppression of human instinct. And yet, even this <b>unnatural and irregular love is complete and perfect love all the same, for such a time as this</b>. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Foster parenting is, by nature, the role of coaxing a square peg into a round hole and making it as comfortable there as possible. It is oddly unnatural. Intentionally unnatural. And, <i>challengingly</i> unnatural for me. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
- It is an unnatural love that chisels impacted sludge out of a half-naked stranger's head with a miniature plastic melon-baller and sings her quiet all the while.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
- It is
an unnatural love that peeks beneath peculiar habits and whispered statements
to the dark underbelly of human existence and reveals the despicable truth of the
trauma and turmoil which raises babies in badly broken homes.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
- It is an unnatural love that attempts to explain <i>foreskin</i>
to a puzzled preschooler who accidentally discovers anatomical differences in
his same-age counterpart (a delicate and highly charged conversation to have with a
boy still wearing Spiderman underpants, just a baby but already corrupted and
confused by sexual abuse and body shame). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
- It is an unnatural love that whispers lies to a baby for a holy purpose. Their
mama won't be visiting today; she's in jail again, but their hearts can't receive the truth of this. Not yet. <b>And sometimes, a lie can be an act of love, too</b>. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b>Love so often is the tough work of exposing joy when there doesn't seem to be any.
</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Love can be natural or unnatural, and the tough kinds are pulled and stretched from all corners of our body and soul and spirit. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
- It is hard <i>physical</i> work to excavate joy like I
excavate earwax, digging and prying and scooping for it to make things better, to
enhance my ability to listen more clearly. I round my posture and strain hard for the delicate sound of joy amidst the clamor, the wailing racket in the world all around. There is a din of falling ashes and abundant hopelessness, but I tune in careful and with clarity hone my senses to simply hearing. In doing this, I decipher a soft symphony of intricate miracles, joy's peaceable volume growing over the clatter with each passing second. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This love? This hard love... this careful, deliberate, focused, slimy and grimy, exhausting love? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It amplifies the sound of joy. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;">
<b>Love always amplifies joy because love teaches the lover to <i>listen</i>.</b> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
- It is hard <i>mental</i> work to locate joy when a food-obsessed
toddler leaves a midnight trail of empty soda cans and potato chip bags strewn about in her wake like rubble
after she cleans the cupboards bare and we are all oblivious, snoozing in spent slumber. But as tight fists unclench, I look closely and there it is...joy, giggling about the silliness of it all under a pile of granola bar wrappers. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;">
<b>Joy finds a pathway to humor when humor is a lifeline to grace.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;">
(Or a pathway to chocolate. Chocolate is <i>always </i>a lifeline, in my book.) <b> </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
- It is hard <i>emotional</i> work to find joy in rising anger
when three sets of tiny, mighty hands demolish weeks of careful bedroom decorating in mere seconds of raucous fun. They tear curtains off walls, thrash the personalized name signs I
meticulously painted for each one of them, bust closet doors, and crush the paper lanterns that once
hung from the ceiling—cheerful orbs now ripped and ruined by careless,
overactive play. I almost cry but I yell instead and lose my cool completely. Later, we talk about destruction and forgiveness and how wrong we each were in all of this, me especially. And we forgive. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<b>Joy flees when anger roars but gathers at the feet of a humble lover.</b> </div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<b style="text-align: right;"><br /></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
- It is hard <i>spiritual</i> work for me to remember, minute
by minute, that they are <i>children </i>and not just to find joy in that but to create and nourish it also with room for imagination, creation, amusement, and wonder in the bustle of passing days. I'm so often tempted to wish them into mature beings fully capable
of order and reason, but joy knows better and sees clearly.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;">
<b>Joy in you begets joy in others, and where there is much joy, peacefulness abounds.</b> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Though it doesn't make it any easier, I am grateful in small ways for this fissure between me and
my foster children, for what is lacking here. These are not my forever babies, and my soul has not given birth to them the way it has to my others,
the ones I could not bear losing like I will lose these ones, someday. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So I go about the work of stitching my heart to theirs word by word and action by action, bathtime by bedtime, meal by hug by juice cup by storybook by smile, each action another stitch in the fabric of our stories. I baste love like scar tissue over fresh wounds with wide, loose stitches. I sew loops
of thread like care and clockwork with lots of open space in this tapestry of
grace that covers over them, space for the tight stitches of redemption that
will someday not only cover the scars but heal them also. I am leaving room for
those who will come after me, the new strong embroidery of an adoptive family perhaps,
or the delicate healing sutures of reformed (or, rather, reform<i>ing</i>) biological parents. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Theirs is not a forever love within me, not a soul-birthed
love like I have for my biological kids and also for our boy in <st1:state w:st="on">Texas</st1:state>
whose adoption is underway. His stitches are sewn short and tight and strong like
my others, and with the sweaty, painful work of bearing and birthing a grown-up
boy from my heart's womb with all the fight and fire and breath of bringing
forth new life—new life right out of existing blood and bones, thoughts and scars
and needs and dreams and fears…a partnership between redemption and creation, a partnership between an average family and a Divine and Holy God. I don't know why it was different for him than the others, why his love gets to be natural and permanent, except that it was designed to be. The story was already written. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And just like there are different sorts of stitches—wide and long
and loose, short and tight and strong—there are different sorts of mother love,
too—fierce and physical and permanent, nurturing and healing and temporary,
bold and beautiful, quiet, clumsy, complicated, selfless, distant, biased,
graceful… And I might exhibit a different love dynamic with each little body,
each big life that passes through my care. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>I see now that my work in this world, in everything, is not merely about action but first about vision, to see joy and Jesus everywhere, and then to act accordingly. </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
So, I seek joy...deliberately, intentionally, increasingly, I seek joy in every. little. thing. <b><o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I don't always find it. My heart gets hard and my voice gets
loud and the laundry pile grows and I give way to weariness. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But I squint hard through the goggles of grace and try to be
mindful if nothing else because the thing about joy is that it's really the awareness
of its presence that's elusive, not joy itself. It is sometimes just a vapor, a
supernatural and hazy transformation from empty to full, heavy to light, beastly
to beautiful. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Sometimes it's wide right there in the open like a spring
tulip, beaming bright in a child's happy smile or whispered thanks. Often
though, at least for mothers, it is buried as treasure, settled hard under dirt and
germy filth or else obscured and camouflaged—an optical illusion that requires
a spiritual squint to recognize it hidden from sight right there in the open.
Grace goggles, like paper spy glass prizes in sugary-cereal boxes, reveal the secret message in blue beneath a blur of red squiggles, beneath the ugly and exhausting work of mothering, of sustaining <i>life</i> every single day, all day long, again and again and again. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The secret revealed is always this: </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<b>This is hard. This is hard. This is hard. <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<b>Joy is <i>here</i>. </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<b>And God is good. <o:p></o:p></b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b><br /></b>
<b><br /></b></div>
</div>
Cara Sextonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02597396513424389268noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6991825168100346042.post-38048827510016376172012-08-13T11:39:00.003-07:002012-08-13T11:39:36.408-07:00Coming Back to Gratitude<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://instagr.am/p/OP_SNOCOuv/media/?size=l" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://instagr.am/p/OP_SNOCOuv/media/?size=l" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It's been awhile since I counted gifts one by one and letter
by letter. I utter them in whispers sometimes… I grasp for them when feeling
overtaken, overwhelmed, overcome. But today, I need to chronicle and count,
when the month has been marked by groundhog-days, over and over the tasks that
make me weary and worn, days where I wonder if I'm doing anything at all except
driving my own self mad and making my own self sicker and sorer. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Rubbing swollen knuckles, I ask him <i>why this?</i> when I
thought my work on this earth was something so different, something I was good
at, something that came natural. And he whispers in the every day that all of
these heaps of garbage and nothing glamorous keeps me needing and it's not
about what I'm doing that matters. All that matters is that I keep needing,
keep hitting my knees and crying out, because that is the only place I'll ever
be right in any of my efforts. Needing, turning, receiving. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Today I'm tempted to chronicle the hard things, to list out
the ways I'm struggling with the assignment I've been given. Instead, I breathe
in and squint hard through the mental fog to search for beauty, to count gifts.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
-- A new kitty, Jack-Jack, who curls up beside my daughter
in bed. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
-- Sleeping until 8 a.m. today, a restful morning.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
-- Kids coloring together on the deck. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
-- Phone call from our boy, Jacob, in <st1:state w:st="on">Texas</st1:state> yesterday, a quiet, teenage <i>I Love
You</i> at the end of the call. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
-- Five upcoming days "stuck" at home to catch-up
and settle in, a nice break in all the constant motion of these months. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
-- Positive progress with the adoption paperwork. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
-- A new school year, right around the corner. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
-- A restful day in bed nursing the flu while Husband held
down the fort. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
-- An old friend, checking in on me. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
-- Animal crackers, in bulk. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
-- That having "barely enough" means having
"exactly enough."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
-- Feeling the inner stir to write, again. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
-- The anticipation of fall, of cooler weather and small
luxuries like apple cider and hand-knit scarves. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
-- Parenting books to keep my chin up when I'm feeling
hopeless or overwhelmed. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
-- Having a mailbox at the end of my driveway. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
-- The sandbox, hours of entertainment for keyed-up kiddos. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
-- My new sewing corner and crafting area in the bedroom – the
option of cultivating creativity in my home. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
-- My oldest son coming home soon from his long trip to <st1:place w:st="on">California</st1:place>. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
-- The gift of music, its powerful effect on my mood and my
mind.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
-- Submissions collected for <a href="http://civitaspress.com/soul-bare-reflections-on-becoming-human/">the
Soul Bare project</a>. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
-- Hand-me down furniture. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
-- Dreaming of thankfulness and humility, an inspiration to remember everything for the gift it truly is.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://www.aholyexperience.com/" target="_blank"><img src="http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff162/annvoskamp/multitudesonmondaysbutton2-1.jpg" /></a></div>
Cara Sextonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02597396513424389268noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6991825168100346042.post-80729179101911509032012-08-09T14:16:00.000-07:002012-08-09T14:16:29.466-07:00Book Review: Raising Financially Confident Kids by Mary Hunt<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=000000&IS2=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=whimsy0e-20&o=1&p=8&l=as4&m=amazon&f=ifr&ref=ss_til&asins=0800721411" style="height: 240px; width: 120px;"></iframe><br /></div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div>
Because of how crazy busy I've been these days, I'm actively pulling back from doing many book reviews. I couldn't turn down the option to review this one though, since the topic at hand is one I'm eager to have resources for. I have always told my kids that whatever they choose to do in life, I have two major hopes for them. One is that they love and follow the Lord first and foremost. The second is that they would not get caught up in being enslaved to anyone or anything (drugs, alcohol, bad relationships, or debt). <br />
<br />
Growing up, money was such a stressor for my family that I learned very little about it other than this: It takes a lot of it to live and there's never enough. I didn't receive any training on handling money or managing my financial life, and when I was old enough to begin teaching myself these concepts, much of the damage had already been done. As a result, I learned everything I know now about managing money through the old trial and error (and error, and error, and error) method, and what has resulted is, sadly, a serious financial ruin for my family that has resulted in so much stress and pain. I have resolved to give my kids more tools than I had in hopes that they won't make the same bad money decisions that I have, so that they can be free to live a generous life and have peace about handling money.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Raising-Financially-Confident-Kids-Mary/dp/0800721411/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1344545869&sr=8-1&keywords=raising+financially+confident+kids" target="_blank">Raising Financially Confident Kids</a> is a book that introduces a "salary" system for children, in which their income and financial responsibilities are increased as they get older. It is designed to teach kids to manage money through personal experience and allow them to make mistakes and understand the way money works before they are capable of getting into serious trouble. By the time children are crossing over into adulthood, by this system, they are handling all of their own financial business and ready to take on the real world. I absolutely love the plan and will definitely be implementing it with my own family.<br />
<br />
I highly recommend this quick read and the family financial management system which it proposes. It is not a complex or terribly detailed system (great for people like me who don't have the focus to implement anything with too many variables) and it relies much on personal experience, something I think is a great teacher for children.<br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">“Available August 2012 at your favorite bookseller from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group.” I received this book for free in exchange for a review. All opinions are my own. </span></div>Cara Sextonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02597396513424389268noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6991825168100346042.post-79514402072137799982012-07-28T23:27:00.000-07:002012-07-28T23:27:12.409-07:00The Anatomy of a Fight<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_bLEhghia197QVSt-KwbMjYM1cnYMueuII5c_jzMUBGzClnaqlW5wAim5iQ1dp-DSbwhVNoNQljbBGZneDP_IYzR4nx-9kVGiQYe-L9FyF8c88uG_hJaROvcxJJo_ESCnwdiY4qo_EFY/s1600/January+2011+045.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_bLEhghia197QVSt-KwbMjYM1cnYMueuII5c_jzMUBGzClnaqlW5wAim5iQ1dp-DSbwhVNoNQljbBGZneDP_IYzR4nx-9kVGiQYe-L9FyF8c88uG_hJaROvcxJJo_ESCnwdiY4qo_EFY/s320/January+2011+045.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It's hard to be a good wife. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Especially when you don't always know what that means. When
you practice selflessness and not being a nag and you try and remember to rub
his feet more often than you'd like to, and you work on first and foremost
being aware of his needs, and their needs, and the needs of what seems like the
whole entire world so many days. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And then you have an argument about who should drive which
car and you feel for a while like you've been had, like you're the only one on
the whole planet looking out for you, for them, for what seems like the entire
world, and it's. all. up. to. you. to do it all. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So you get fired up and it rises within you because somewhere
inside you're afraid that what it really means to be a good wife is to always
be pleasing and agreeable, even when he's wrong, even when he's <i>dead wrong</i>,
because that concept makes your ears ring like they did another lifetime ago when
your head was being smacked into walls by a different husband. And even though
the memories are distant, the gripping anger rises up inside when you get
afraid, because your value as a woman is attached somewhere in the folds of
these words about gas mileage and seatbelts and who ought to make the decisions
here, and you think, fists clenched, <i>I just have to put my foot down. If no
one else is going to look out for me, I'll have to look out for myself</i>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You're not afraid because he made you that way but because it's
scary how fights can always seem like the end of things to a girl too used to
getting left…how the brain can flesh out the disastrous destruction of this
whole big life anytime the paint gets scratched, when the fading color starts
to show. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And you stew and you steam and when it's time for bed, you
stay awake awhile because you're still fuming mad, because nothing was
resolved, because he's snoring with the Olympics on full volume and you hate
the Olympics and you hate snoring and you aren't even sure how to verbalize what
this is all really about, whenever you decide to speak to each other again. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So you breathe a lot and you think about perspective and
grace and the benefit of the doubt. You remember that you're on the same team,
even when it doesn't feel like it. You do what it takes to stop having the same
conversation over and over again in your head, the one where you tell him off,
where you really let him have it, where your words are so enlightening that he suddenly
just <i>gets it</i> and agrees with you and everything is happy and wonderful
again. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Instead you study the state of your heart, you figure out
where all this is coming from. You remember that he was up before the sun today
to take a side job for extra money because the family needed it, and he's sleeping
because he's dead tired from lifting bags of concrete all day, on his day off. You
remember how your legs looked all tangled together while you chit-chatted only yesterday
and recalled together all the wonderful things about life these days. You
remember the babies you made together and how he kisses them on the forehead
and nicknames them and sees straight into them the same way you do. You
remember how happy your whole wide life is this season and how a few short
hours ago, you were praising God for this marriage, for this man. </div>
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And you see from behind your fear that this really is just
about gas mileage and surface semantics and not about control or power or upper
hands. You remember that this is the man who has sat in hospitals and held your
hand, not the one who put you in there. You realize that respect can sometimes
just look like taking a different vantage point, stepping over the divide and
into their court, even when his logic isn't clear to you. </div>
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So you sit in the dark for a few minutes and listen to the clock
on the wall, how it reminds you of this fleeting life, of all that's not worth
hanging on to. You graze all the sleeping babies' sweaty foreheads with your
chapped lips and smell their hair and whisper goodnight. You tiptoe to the
bedroom and wriggle the throw pillows out from under his arms, the ones he's
all wrapped up on, the ones you made for your marriage bed that say "Mr." and "Mrs."
on them. </div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
And even though he won't hear you through his slumber, you
whisper <i>I'm Sorry</i> and <i>I Love You</i> and you trace his wedding ring round and
round because rings are so very fitting an icon for what marriage is really…round
and round, swirl and roll and circle 'round each other. And sometimes it's a
whirlpool of turmoil, but sometimes it's a band of strength or a halo of
sacredness or a wreath of celebration or sometimes a belt, round and round, just
holding this all together. </div>Cara Sextonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02597396513424389268noreply@blogger.com8