Twilight

I preach my first Easter sermon this Sunday.  It's kind of a milestone for preachers, the opportunity to put your own take on a 2000 year old story.  I know I'll one day approach the text with less fizzing energy, but now I find myself staring at screens and pads of paper, trying to find a way into the story.  It's harder than you'd think. 

Right now though, I find myself fixated on the fact that scripture tells us that Jesus rose from the dead before the dawn.  In the darkness and silence of a stone tomb, with no one around, Jesus unwound his graveclothes from his body.  And then?  He stepped out into the deep inky blue of night, alone.

We make so much of light, and day and dawn, don't we?  When people make big life changes, we say things like "It's a new day!"  Many Easter services happen at sunrise (with unfortunate punning to accompany them: Sunrise & Son-rise), drawing powerful metaphors about dawn into the resurrection.  It's pretty, I'll admit, to find so much inspiration from light and the possibilities of new days.

But the Resurrection, Easter....

They came in darkness.  In silence.  Before dawn.

I find so much peace in this.  That God could meet us, could meet me in the dark places of my existence, right in my deepest pain and quietly breathe life into me again.  That God did meet me when I was entombed in grief and helped to unwrap the linens of the grave from around me.

It was standing in the waves of the gulf that I finally released myself from the grave of my old life, my failed marriage.  But God had been meeting me, night after night, in the darkness, in the silence, not waiting for dawn to begin the process of my resurrection.  

Perhaps we should stop emphasizing dawn to each other, to ourselves.  Scripture calls us children of light, it's true.  But Genesis reminds us that God created the light AND the darkness and called them BOTH good.  The Christ child was born at night, his arrival heralded not by dawn but by bright evening stars.  And the Risen Christ took his first steps into the darkness that precedes dawn, our Living God revealed in twilight.  

If you are searching for your own Easter, for your own rebirth, your own healing, your own resurrection, do not be dismayed if dawn and daylight pass you by.  Take note, my friends, of what God is doing in the darkness that precedes the lightening of the skies.  Perhaps like Christ, God will breathe life into you while the Milky Way twinkles and blood moons rise.   Do not be afraid of the shadows, dear ones. There are many of us here, being healed in the stillness of night, removing the shrouds of our graves.  

May you find your own Easter, whether it comes in darkness or light.

A Wing and a Song

A bit ago, my sister urged me to change the name of my blog.  "A Lonely Bird" was more than fitting for the last several years, but in the wake of all the good that was finally coming my way it seemed a bit morose.  She provided some much need inspiriation and I quickly settled on one quote, which if you're reading directly from my blog you can see under the header.  For those of you who are reading through feedly or some other reader program, here's the quote:

"Be like the bird who, pausing in her flight awhile on boughs too slight, feels them give way beneath her, and yet sings, knowing she hath wings." - Victor Hugo

What struck me so powerfully about this gorgeous quote was what ended up as the new title of the blog, "and yet [she] sings..."

Singing is a big deal for my family.  Both of my parents are trained - my mother a lyric soprano and my father a baritone.  My sister sang alto in no few school choirs and my brother went to a peforming arts high school for his incredible bass voice.  My extended family were all raised Church of Christ, which means that every single member of my family knows how to read music and sing in parts.  Every holiday I can remember has involved singing in some way - singing the prayer before a meal, singing as a family at nursing homes, singing Carols at home on Christmas Eve.  At my Ordination, my parents and siblings sang "Be Thou My Vision" in four part harmony.  I even dragooned my surprised family into singing the Benediction at my Installation service.  

I took one semester of choir.  And then did theatre for the next 10 years.  And then went to Seminary.  I can sort-of read music; mostly I can follow the direction of notes and I have a good memory for tunes.  I sing recreationally, I sing with family, I sing to my son at bedtime, I don't sing in public.  I refuse to do karaoke, I don't join choirs, I have no real training.

And yet, I sing now.  

My tiny church can't afford a choir/music director, so I find myself in the position of being the music leader.  Which really just means I pick all the hymns (the ones I know) and I stand at the front and sing loudly, hoping my congregation members sing along.  This is a rather harrowing experience for me every Sunday.  I'm confident in my ability to pray and speak and do children's sermons and preach.  But singing?  It uncovers my deep-seated insecurities about my voice, it brings to mind my feelings of inadequacies in comparison to my better-trained family members.  Sunday morning, though, are no time to wallow in personal doubt, so I put on my big-girl pants and sing anyway.  Every Sunday morning feels like a leap off of boughs too fragile to bear, hoping that the Spirit will bolster my voice for one more worship.  The Spirit provides me the wings each and every time.  I am afraid, and yet I sing.

Hugo's bird feels like an appropriate symbol for me (and for this blog) because I know what it feels like to balance upon the boughs of life which seem ready to slip away from beneath me.  But it is only recently that I remembered that I have wings, that I have the strength and ability to soar up from the fragile circumstances which I live within.  It is only recently that I remembered this and it is this truth about myself which opens up the voice of my soul and helps me to sing again.  

Despite what has been lost...

Despite what could be lost...

Despite the tenuousness of all the good which I take joy in...

I have wings.

So now, I sing.

(But I still refuse to do karaoke.  A girl has to have standards.)

(check out the artist here:

http://lora-zombie.deviantart.com/art/blue-bird-song-153480889)

In the Midst of

Life is better.  In almost every possible way.

And yet...

There are still times when I feel my soul clench.

I never know when it will come, I can't predict when the grief will sneak back in.

Sometimes I catch and hold back a sob when my son hugs my neck fiercely.

Sometimes I have to pause in the midst of a store and breathe through reverberating sadness, unexepectedly caused by charming pictures of my son with his paternal grandfather.  

Sometimes I have to release the anger and shame that roils in my deep places when people ask "are you married?" and I answer "I was."  

Life IS better.

Sometimes my son hugs my neck and I swing him around and I feel only brimming-over love.

Sometimes I pause and laugh delightedly at charming pictures, rejoicing that Gareth is loved so well (exceedingly well) by Cliff's family.

Sometimes I can answer difficult questions without flinching, resting peacefully in my choices.

Life is BETTER.

But I cannot escape grief, because whenever it rises to the surface of the waters of my spirit it is a sign that I have work yet to do.  That I have healing yet to pursue.

LIFE is better.  And partly it is better because I have learned to take grief in my hands and let it be, to let it ebb and flow and to not fight it's part in my life.  Because the halting sobs, the scattered tears, the   aching sadness, the swirling anger, they are necessary.  They are purging acts, leaching poison from within me.  

I am in the midst of better days, days which are framed in what has been.  Days which are not leashed to what was.  Days which are drawn forward by the Spirit into what will be.

Life is better.  Even if life will always encompass these moments of grief.

This New Life

To be an insufferable wretch for a minute, I am currently sitting outside a Starbucks.  It is 72 and Sunny, I can hear the waves in the background and I'm drinking an Iced Valencia Orange Refresher (lemonade instead of water).  And it's JANUARY.  Take THAT Polar Vortex!

Also going on the list for "Why 2014 is a WAAAY Better Year than the Previous"

- I started the year in NYC watching (from a considerable distance away) the Times Square Ball drop.

- My dad recieved another "cancer-free" scan from his oncologist and doesn't have to have another one for a year.  

- This morning, I ran 2.9 miles in 25 minutes (my first mile clocking in at 8:14)

- My tiny, aging congregation is staring possible closure (within the year) in the face and has decided to throw caution to the wind and come out as an "Open and Affirming" church.  Meaning - welcoming and advocating for LGBTQIA persons.

To sum it up:

I'm healthier than I've ever been (and so is my DAD)

I'm happier than I've been in years

I'm fulfilled in my vocation

I live by the beach

Past experience tells me that I could lose all of this in a flash.  My health could take a sudden turn.  A hurricane could decimate the island.  My congregation could close despite fervent efforts to serve and grow.   The list of possible badness is endless.  But past experience also tells me that almost all badness is survivable.  Given enought time, all the badness that existence can churn out can be invariably transformed into perspective and growth.  Now I know that my spirit is a crucible in which suffering can be poured into and heated and shaped into another ladder rung on which I climb up into my future.

Step up, step up, step up, step up...

I've not made any resolutions for this new year.  But perhaps I should because I've discovered that I now have a deep wellsping of LIFE from which to draw.   Now that I'm doing more than just "surviving", now that I can look into my future and postulate hope, I fairly brim with energy for the days ahead.  I still have a full plate - a church I am working to revitalize and a son that I raise by myself.  But maybe, just maybe I can choose some simple challenge and grow.  I cooked quinoa for the first time the other day, so maybe I'll learn to cook like a grown up.  I can run 3 miles without hoping for death, so maybe I'll sign up for a 5K.  And then a 10K.  

I've walked through a valley of shadows and death and God has given me the power to come out the other side.  So surely I can find within me the strength to do more, to be more, to test myself, to conquer a fear, to stretch beyond my boundaries and discover new and challenging landscapes both within and outside of myself.

This year could be full of joy.  It could also be packed with failure and dissapointments.  Most likely, it will be a mixture of both.  But I can walk through it, climb up out of it, be changed by it, and live.  So can you my friends.  

Step up, step up, step up into you year, into the life that awaits you just beyond sight.  We will do it better together, I think.  

To Begin an End

The beach in winter looks exactly like you'd think it would: heavy gray clouds, choppy waters, empty shores, lonely fishermen standing out on rocky piers.  The wind cuts through everything: flags whip violently, lone papers skitter across open roads, people walk with hoods drawn up around their faces.  My sweaters arrived just in time (thanks mom!), I've procured space heaters to take the edge of the biting cold and thanks to a quick google search, Gareth has some newly purchased consignment sweaters that he wears around the town.  Fall (if it was ever truly here) has quietly slipped into the roots of the trees along with it's companions Summer and Spring, and Winter holds court now.  Her robes roll out grandly as she sweeps through the streets, the leaves of the palms curling up as she passes.

It is a fitting season to file for divorce.

I am not of the theological leaning to assume that all things happen according to a plan.  It seems to me that the Creator of the Totality of All Things would have more pressing duties than to artfully arrange my life schedule.  But perhaps there has been some Greater wisdom in the timing of my new call and my decision to end my marriage.  Winter is not truly a season of death, of course; it is merely a season where the earth rests from the frantic business of producing life, where it draws its beating heart deep within its core and waits for the warmth of future days that will encourage it to begin again.  Leaves fall and flowers fade and greenery becomes a memory, but death does not lurk like a spectre beneath these silver skies.  It is merely Winter, gliding just past our vision, whispering to the earth and sea and sky: "Sleep, Sleep, and Wake again soon."

I try not to think of my divorce as a death.  It is more helpful for me to imagine myself as a tree, submitting to the turn of seasons and releasing those leaves that once held life and now must be released to decay, to enrich the earth in which I grow.  There is grief in the winter winds that swirl around me, watching as the husk of that which was green and vibrant being tossed in the sky and lost in the distance.  But my Winter God murmurs hope to me, assuring me that by letting go of that which must be given to the ground, I am preparing for a new crop of life.  I listen to the slow and sleepy song of the season and protect my pulsing core of life, believing that these days will pass and warmth will one day creep up again into my roots.

I have finally begun the processes that will legally end my marriage.  And I wept to do so, the tragedy of this future (and it's preceding past) cutting me anew.  But my tears are the falling leaves of my soul, a prismatic purging that clears the way for the unknown life to come.  I wait now; wait with stripped limbs for the passing of time that lead out of the cold winter of these present days.

(go here for more info on the artist:http://lnx.dys-art.eu/?q=node/201)

Twitching

For the first time in my life, earlier this morning, my collarbone (clavicle if you're feeling medically fancy) hurt.  I'd taken Gareth to daycare early and so was running without pushing him in his stroller.  As I passed the 2 mile mark, I had to stop and breath through pain that suddenly radiated out of my collarbone.  The interwebs tell me the most likely culprit for my mystery pain is that I was tensing my shoulders too tightly as I ran and that I needed to loosen up as I ran.  

Imagine that - I'm tense.

That tenseness manifested in other ways this weekend.  I took G to see Cliff on Saturday, and during the visit the muscle under my right eyebrow started to twitch.  And kept twitching until this morning.  Again, I surfed into the deep darkness of google and discovered that I needed potassium, or sleep, or a lack of stress in my life.  

Imagine that - I'm stressed.

I've learned to pay attention to my body and what it is telling me.   Scripture tells me that my "self" is not just my spirit or my soul or my body, but that I am all things at once.  My soul is never separated from my body and my body is never to be escaped because I am all of them together, a blending of aethyr and earth that cannot be compartmentalized.  So when my eyebrow starts twitching and my collarbone radiates hurt and I can't shake a cold, I know to look deeper and see what the root is of all the distress.

It didn't occur to me till I was almost finished with my run what today was.  Two years ago today, I sat with my sister on the couch of my house in Waco and waited to hear the judgment of Cliff's jury.  Two years ago today, my life burst apart at the seams when I read a well-meaning text message from a concerned friend that only said "I'm so so sorry Elizabeth."  I wasn't in the courtroom to hear the verdict, but those words told me all I needed to know.  Guilty.  Guilty.  Guilty.  Guilty.  Guilty.  Guilty.  All charges.

Imagine that - the latent pain of this day wends its way even into my cellular structure.

---

I'm not really sad today.  Choosing to pursue divorce has helped me to let go of the more stinging aspects of grief.  But whether or not I'm married to Cliff, I'll always be connected to him through our son.  So I will never stop having to negotiate prison visits and legal repercussions, custody concerns, financial arrangements, etc.  And I do it alone, still.  I'm a metaphysical weightlifter in this regard, bracing myself under the burdens of life after "all the evil", so its no wonder that I develop twitches and tense muscles.

This last Sunday, the lectionary gospel reading was a dark one - Jesus' apocalyptic predictions in the book of Luke.  Wars and rumors of wars, persecution, moons like blood, suffering and the like.  It's pretty depressing stuff, except the last verse in the pericope.  "By holding fast," Jesus says, "you will gain your lives."  Indeed.

Jesus knew that life was filled with unfairness, with unearned punishments, with unlikely tragedies, with unforgiving judgments.  Jesus knew that and was always honest with his disciples about the trials that every life intersects.  And he told them to hold fast - not that they would escape the pain, not that they would escape the loss of the days ahead.  He told them to hold fast.  To belligerently choose existence and tomorrows and dawn and new experienes and life even as the world crumbled and roiled around them.

Unknowingly, that has been my theme during these passing years, the one repeating refrain, the goal in all the turmoil of my life - Hold fast.  And I am grateful for the words of Christ that remind me WHY I'm holding on in the first place: because I gain my life this way.  It may be a life where I occasionally twitch under stress.  It may be a life where I have to focus on letting go of the tenseness that I carry in my shoulders.  It may be a life where colds linger and where I still have the occasional late-night cry.  It may be a life of gray Novembers.  But I gain my life by facing the moons of blood and devastating spiritual earthquakes and holding fast.  

The days pass my friends, quickly and haltingly.  The days pass, and some memories fade while others remain burned forever into the film of your mind.  The days pass, but we can hold fast.  The days pass, and there is life to be gained.

December is almost here.  

Praise be to God! 

The Edge of Trust

I've been staying in generously donated housing for the last 10 weeks.  It's a one bed, one bath bungalow and it's been tight quarters for me, the boy and the dog, but it's been a blessing.  It's a furnished place so when I moved down at the beginning of September, I only brought office books, clothing and a box of toys for Gareth.  Sparse living, I miss all of my books, and I really miss the privacy of my own room (and my own bed!), but I can't complain.

Except the people who own the place need the house back (which I totally expected and I'm not complaining about!) and now I find myself in the position of hurrying to find housing (I've got a walk through of a place scheduled for Friday) on an island still in recovery from a hurricane.  After Ike slammed into the island, one of the aspects of life that never really recovered was affordable housing (for rent or to buy).  So there are lots of little houses and apartments that you can rent, but in my price range?  They may be in the less.. safe parts of the city.  And as a single woman with a small child, safety is one of those prime considerations.  But that's not even the part that has me really concerned.

My house is still on the market.  STILL.  I even opened it up to renting at the end of September and it is STILL on the market.  And I have absolutely NO idea how I'm going to be able to afford a mortgage payment and a rent payment.  It's going to eat up close to half of my monthly pay, with G's childcare taking up most of another week of pay and that leaves me with a very tiny pile out of which to pay for groceries and gas and the utilities from the old house AND the utilities from the new.  Color me anxious.

My prayer life is a bit frantic lately.  (Key words: please, help, and how?!)  I'm at my own edge here - there's nothing I can do and it's horrible.  I can't MAKE anyone rent or buy the place.  I have to trust my realtor to actually do his job despite the fact that I have no way of verifying that he does (what with the fact that I'm hundreds of miles away).  I can tighten my belt and live VERY sparsely, giving every dollar (and cent) a name.  But I still am out of control of the situation and I hate being out of control.  It is very tempting to turn my gaze towards the heavens and say "God? HELP ME! What are you doing?"

Which I know is petulant.  Because obviously God has been present and helpful in my life for a long time.  I mean, I'm here aren't I?  Serving in a church in a place that I really like with a son who is funny and smart, and I'm on my way to a new life.  But apparently, the edge of my trust in God is housing, because right now I feel like one of those grumbly Israelites in the deserts after they escaped from Egypt.  "Yeah yeah Moses.  Manna from the sky - great.  What has God done for us LATELY?!"

I'm trying to breathe through the anxiety and trust that God will care for me in the midst of paying for two houses.  I'm trying so hard to believe that God's providence stretches beyond this vocational position and into all aspects of my life.  I'm trying not to let panic take over, so I'm spreadsheet-ing like a madwoman and trying to do all the math to stay afloat during this especially lean time.  I'm trying y'all, but I'm still pretty scared.  And angry that I'm still tied to Waco despite my efforts to leave it all behind.  

Pray for me, my friends?  Pray that I would rest in God's care no matter what happens; that I would stretch the edges of my trust in God beyond the yard of my house.  Pray that very soon someone would find my house and just HAVE To buy it - or rent it.  Pray that I would manage our finances with a deft hand so that we don't have to go without.  Just pray, yes?

Here Again

The weather has finally turned in Galveston.  I'm sure that to anyone from farther north than Dallas, it appears we've merely turned our nose towards fall, but the skies are gray and the water is choppy and winter at the Beach is still winter.  I've enjoyed the reprieve from cold weather that comes from moving farther south, but last night when I took Gareth out for a bit, I had to make sure we both wore jackets.  As the breeze blew over me, so did unhappy memories.

It's November again.  If months have colors, November is gray to me.  It was in November that the police first contacted Cliff about our impending ordeal.  It was in November that he was convicted and sentenced to prison.  It was in November that my dad's cancer got its name.  My facebook feed is full of people celebrating November - some are writing novels and some are growing beards and some are donating money to charity and some are recounting their thanksgiving each day.  But I cannot celebrate this month.  The cold winds start blowing and with them come the ghosts of the past three years, and the chill in the wind merely lets me know that it's time to gird up my loins and trudge towards December.

Thankfully, this month only has 30 days.

All the newness of my life here most assuredly helps mitigate the power of these November days.  I have plenty to focus on at church.  No one here remembers those days and their ignorance is actually a boon: there is no pity in the eyes of those around me.  I do not have to drive past the dreaded courthouse, or take the turn to my house and wonder if the police will be there; I do not have to pass by the community theatre where Cliff took our wedding vows in hand and ripped them as if they were fragile muslin.  Here, there is only the water and the rocks and the sand and the strangers and local businesses and the life yet undiscovered.  

But it's still November.

The song of this month is a sad one, melancholy notes, minor chords sliding around in the air,  plaintinve sighing strings and wordless choral moanings.  I think perhaps that it will always be this way, though the years will blunt the jaggedness of the pain until all that is left is the song, the song and the memories and the wind like a sigh that the whole earth lets out on my behalf.

I am far enough from those knife-sharp days, though, to see the people around me and wonder.  Who else is swimming through memories like I am?  At the post-office, in my congregation, at my son's daycare, who else feels the cool weather change and finds themselves unhappily transported back into their own past? Or who is frenetically celebrating these current days because they have made it through their own painful anniversaries?  Or who is looking ahead to the days to come and planning their survival strategies?  We are all around you my friends - perhaps you are one of us.  The invisible crowd who carry on with around you, shouldering our tragedies and unshed tears like modern day Atlases.  

November is a time when I frequently find myself standing still, gazing at horizons.  My mind wanders widely during these days, and I cannot help but stare out beyond the people and places around me, vision cast out and searching the vast expanse of sky.  I have less words during this month, less coherent explanations, fewer stories to tell; I have less words and more need for silence while I listen to the song my soul is trying to sing.

I named my blog "Lonely Bird" after Psalm 102, a psalm of grief and loss that contained these haunting words: "I am like an owl of the wilderness, like a little owl of the waste places.  I lie awake; I am like a lonely bird on the housetop."  In the wake of all the tragedy that swallowed me up 2 years ago, this psalm seemed to speak most closely into my broken heart.  And though since then I've found joy and peace and happiness again, November is the time when I return to the roof of my soul and perch like the little owl of the waste places, lonely and fluttering in my memories.  I won't stay up here forever, my friends.  I've life to come down to now.  But still, this is a retreat I must make.  These are days that must be counted.  These are memories that must be aired out again.   Even gray Novembers have their place.

26 more days.

Gravity

The Deer Make-Up in Question

I went to the movies last night and saw “Gravity” upon the recommendation of most of my Facebook timeline.  It seemed appropriate – Halloween is the day when you’re supposed to let yourself be scared, and I’m much more likely to watch a science fiction thriller than a bloody horror flick.  So with my face painted like a deer, 3D glasses, and tub of butter popcorn at my disposal, I settled in for some fun.  

I wasn’t prepared for the visceral impact this movie would have. 

Thankfully I was the only person in the theatre, because throughout the film I would frequently fling my arms up around my head in stunned fear or let loose an “oh God, no!” despite the fact that I hate it when people talk through movies.  This movie, y’all.  Holy Hell, this movie.  It was gorgeous.  And terrifying.  And heart-wrenching.  And grip-your-chair-arms intense. 

When it was over (it was only 90+minutes), I walked to my car and started driving home.  And then burst into tears.

Dramatic, right? 

“Gravity” was exactly what excellent Sci-Fi should be – a story framed by the technologically (im)possible but focused on the heady questions of existence and life.  As I drove along the seawall, catching glimpses of rough seas and shredded cloud-cover and the lights of stars long dead, I tried to make sense of what I’d seen.  It’s the consequence of degree programs that push analysis and elaboration; you can never “just” watch or read anything ever again. 

As I reflected, it occurred to me that “Gravity” was about more than just the titanic struggle of astronauts; it was about, amongst other things, the desperate struggle to live in the aftermath of the cataclysmic choices of other people; it was about the aching loneliness that survivors feel as they struggle to carry on; it was about the difference between merely living and choosing life.  It was, at its heart, a story about what it means to be human – to suffer, to experience joy, to accept defeat, to conquer adversity, to let go, to live with hope, to die with dignity.

Or maybe that’s what I saw because I see all things through the lens of my own history and experience.  In Sandra Bullock’s character, I saw myself – the numbness, the hopelessness, the fear, the anxiety, the incredulity that life could really go as badly as it was.  But I also saw myself in her struggle for meaning, her relentless unwillingness to lose it all, and her self-discovery that she wanted more than just existence but LIFE.  To search for dawn, and earth in her hands, and the possibility for a tomorrow that isn’t burdened by loss.

For so long, I thought I was the shredded remains of a life destroyed, listless in the vacuum of tragedy, being pummeled over and over by the circling consequences of Cliff’s choices, consequences that never seemed to stop multiplying.  But I cried in my car on the drive home from a space-movie because I realized I am more than a scarred victim – I am the triumphant survivor who has emerged from the unthinkable and discovered that I still have the power to walk.

Choose to LIVE my friends.  Choose to carry on.  Choose to walk out of your own darkness.  And if it seems too hard, call on me and I will venture back into the shadows for you.  We can make it – together.

Found Things

Today was my installation service, and it was lovely. I alternated between the giddy desire to high-five everyone and fighting back tears of joy. I'm still processing, but I'm mostly thankful and happy and ready for what's next.

Sometimes services like these have times for preaching, but I felt an urge to write a responsive poem rather than a prose lesson. So I've included it below.

Thanks y'all, for helping carry me to this moment.

----

"The Response"

I imagine that Noah stood by the window on the ark much more often than he should have.
Head out of the musk of animals and the heat of arguments.
Looking, just looking at water like glass that surrounded them.
Waiting, just waiting for the bird to return with hope in its beak.

I imagine that Jacob stood by the door to his tent much more often than he should have.
Head out of the cloth darkness and away from his arguing wives.
Looking, just looking for his long lost son.
Waiting, just waiting for a sign that he should hold on to hope.

I imagine that Moses stood on the edge of the promised land much longer than he should have.
Head out of the elders circles and tribal squabbling.
Looking, just looking for the returning scouts.
Waiting, just waiting for the return that would bring hope to his people again.

And I imagine that Mary Magdalene stood by the empty tomb much longer than Scripture reports her to have.
Her head filled with grief and anger and shock at the evil of the world.
Looking, just looking for her beloved teacher and friend.
Waiting, just waiting for a sign that hope could come out of a graveyard.

They have been my waiting companions, these men and women.
When I was tired of the long days ahead, when the long days ahead had no visible terminus.
When I was hopeless of the state of things, desperately seeking the change that would come.
When I was looking, just looking for a sign that the call I was faithful to would one day actually become real.

They waited with me.
And whispered

of birds 

and sons

and scouts

and graves

and of the God who was faithful through it all.

I have stood long on the edge of my call, longer than I thought I would.
My head, my mind out of sync with those around me, away from normal dreams.
I have been looking, just looking for the place where I could serve.
I have been waiting, just waiting for the church that would walk alongside me to speak hope to a hopeless world.

And here we are.
Done with looking.
Done with waiting.
We have found each other,

found dry land,

lost sons,

returning scouts 

and the Risen Christ.
Thanks be to God.

--

It's a new day!

Remnants

Remnants of my old life hang about like webs in tall corners:
a wedding ring,
a beaded rosary,
check stubs with OUR names.

And of course, some remnants are harder to unsee:
the dress that hangs like a ghost in my childhood closet,
the album filled with pictures of promises (and lies),
and our growing son, made of us and raised by me.

How do you purge the past from your present? Or do you?
My son is as central to my existence as breath and sun and God - He stays.
And the pictures are frozen tableaus never to be recovered - I cannot forget.
But the rings, and dresses and check stubs - they stay only by reprieve;
their day is coming, their days are ending.

But my hands shake at the thought of truly losing any of it,
of letting go of all of it,
of parting with the life that has already been lost.
It is my pride, perhaps, that whispers to me of repurposing.

Is there a lesson here? A moral dancing out of the mouth of lions or crows?
What is to be learned here in the middle of this pile of life that I must sort?
What is to be gleaned from this harvest of loss?
What do I pull from the kiln of this suffering?

Maybe it will come to me while I categorize the fragments of this life,
For him, For Gareth and I, For the trash.
For him, For Gareth and I, For the dump.
For him, For Gareth and I, For the curb.

Remnants.  All of life, creating still more remnants to sort, to purge, to keep.
Rings, and checks and dresses and pictures.
Children and pets and frozen memories.
Pain and Joy and the Nameless Million emotions that make a life.

I am not the only one busy at this work, I think.
Happy sorting my friends.

The Present Danger

My installation service is this Sunday at 3pm.  And the day before, my parents and some friends from Waco are going to celebrate Early Thanksgiving with me.  Or as my dad calls it, "Life Day."

(Quick side note - after the first Star Wars movie was released, George Lucas optioned out a Holiday special which focused on the SW's universe holiday called ""Life Day."   This special actually aired on TV and is by far the WORST PIECE OF CRAP I have EVER EVER EVER seen.  It is TERRIBLE.  Even Lucas realized that and has done his best to destroy any evidence of it.  But the internet is a deep dark hole out of which nothing can ever be fully extricated.)

Anyway, Life Day is coming. This will be my second year to celebrate Thanksgiving early, an attempt to mitigate the painful memories that surround the actual holiday.  In review, Cliff went to jail on the Thursday before, was sentenced to 90 years the next day, that following Tuesday my father was diagnosed with stage 3 throat cancer and then it was Thanksgiving.  Ta-Da!  You can imagine why I'm eager to distance one of my favorite holidays (it's just about food! How great is that?!) from cataclysmic loss.

And honestly, it worked really well last year.  This year, though, will probably be different.  During the actual holiday, Gareth will be with Cliff's family.  I suggested the arrangement, and I've no regrets about it.    Gareth will never be able to spend holiidays with his dad the way most kids do (whether their parents are married or divorced), so it was really critical for me that I foster deep and commiitted relationships between him and Cliff's family.  And I will have some friends coming down to visit me during that week.  But still - I'll have plenty of time to myself to ponder the state of things.

Danger, Will Robinson.

I'm in my own head a lot.  Part of that is just my nature.  Part of it though comes from spending the last few years learning to be circumspect around congregation members (boundaries! I haz them!) and another part is that I've spent the last two years raising a child by myself with not a lot of adult interaction.  Interestingly enough, toddlers don't want to discuss government misconduct, cultural shifts, pop-culture phenomenon or the insignificant nothings that can be the delight of casual conversation.  So I spend a lot of time on an island in my own head, concertedly turning over and over and over again the sharp, the interesting, the confusing, the precious, whatever, trying to get more persepctive within the realms of my own introspection.  And when you've got no one to bounce things off of, doubt and anger and overreaction and fear start to lurk around the edges of your island like blood-frenzied sharks.

I'm trying to plan to help out in a soup-kitchen or church-ministry or something on the day of thanksgiving - a way to serve others so I stop looking at my own navel.  And hopefully I'll be in a new house by then (please dear GOD, let SOMEONE rent my house!), so perhaps I'll be able to unpack or decorate or clean.  And there's office work and books to read and naps to be had and maybe I'lll drive up to Houston and meet up with long-lost friends.   Or

I could wallow.  I could pout.  I could rage against the turns my life has taken.  

That sounds way less fun.  But if I'm honest (and usually I am), it could happen.

I'm not a sunny-eyed optimist like I used to be.  And thankfully, I'm exiting out of the nihilistic depression part of my life that suspected betrayal and pain at every corner.  But I'm still not fully recovered, still unsure about what to expect in the days and months and years ahead.  I'm afraid I'll always parent alone, that relationships I want to have will be sabotaged by elements outside of my control, and even that this precious church that I'm about to be OFFICIALLY the pastor of will fail to rise up and live despite all the energy I'm pouring into them.  It's like my hope is a healing limb, recovering from a vicious break.  The cast is finally off but I'm nervous; do I dare lift heavy things? Do I dare stretch out and reach?  Do I dare take chances that could land me back in dark pain?  I'm timid y'all.  I've NEVER been timid before.

So I was thankful this afternoon, when  writing my installation service, I came across these words from the prophet Isaiah: "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; when through the rivers they won't sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you won't be scorched and flame won't burn you...you are precious in my eyes, you are honored, and I love you. I give people in your place, and nations in exchange for your life. Don't fear, I am with you."

I've passed through fire, through raging torrents of loss, through waters that threatened to choke me.  And I live.  And God loves me.  

"Don't fear, I am with you.  I love you."

Indeed.

What is there to fear?  Truly?

Piecing Together

Yesterday I ran across and was stopped in my tracks by an opinion piece in the New York Times (go here: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/06/opinion/sunday/great-betrayals.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&).  At it's heart, it was a piece about the nature of memory and betrayal and how the latter always rends the former.  I felt my spirit ring like a bell when I read it; it was as if she had written about the titanic struggle of my last three years.

Last Thursday, I went through an album of my facebook pictures looking for an old-but-cute picture of Gareth and myself to use for "Throwback Thursday."  TBT is a creation of social media, first found on twitter but now spreading to facebook and instagram, and it is a way for users to share with their circles precious/embarrasing/funny pictures of their past.  I like the idea but hadn't utilized it much, and so began a run through my memories as preserved by the FB servers.  And while I found a great picture, the process became suddenly and breathtalkingly painful.  In amongst all the other sweet pictures I lingered through, this one made me gasp and then weep.

That is Gareth when he was less than 3 months old and he is sleeping contentedly on Cliff's chest.  For some reason, this picture pierced (and still pierces) me deep into the spiritual wounds that are still in the process of healing.  This picture represents for me everything that was and everything that is and all that was lost.  Cliff, holding our child, knowing the crime he had already committed against both of us.  Gareth, sleeping in the arms of the man who would one day lose the right to even touch him.  And me, taking the picture of a family that would cease to exist (in all practical ways) within the next 18 months. This picture practically shivers on the screen for me, emitting a song only I can hear, a tune that loops over and over, words that repeat: "What was, What was, What should have been, What never will be again."

What was, what was, what should have been, what never will be again.

When I see this picture, when I see any picture of Gareth's early infancy, pictures of my pregnancy, pictures of my wedding and honeymoon and vacations and life with Cliff, I experience the shrieking disjointedness that the article above hints at.  My memories are compromised, just as if a virus had worked its way into the codes of my mind and corrupted everything that Cliff touched.  I cannot trust my memory, cannot even trust the good memories that remain (that are very, very hard to keep a steady grip on).  Every moment, every touch, every word now has a shadow hanging over it, a haunting presence that insistently asks me "was he faithful even then?  was he really at work?  were you paying close enough attention?  did he mean the words he said to you? Is it real? Is it real? IS IT REAL?"

I DON'T KNOW! I DON'T KNOW!

...i dont know....

I am not the only one, my friends, who has had to piece together life again after years of being lied to.  And it is as devastating as it seems - to look back into the bright and dark roads of your past and not be sure what actually was true.   Thankfully, my marriage and life with Cliff was not the unifying narrative of my life; thankfully, I had long ago sunk my identity deep into my call as minister and follower of Jesus.  Still, my marriage had entered into the larger sense of my story and uncovering the pervasive and corrupting lies that were woven throughout it from it's inception was violently disturbing. My memory, in part, has become an untrustworthy place, a room filled to the brim with shadows and prowling ghosts, every beautiful moment of joy and peace and love from my years with Cliff suddenly taking on sharp edges and yellowed tints and the smell of rot.  

Who was he?  Did I really know him?  Could I have?

So many questions.  Questions unanswearble.  Questions that cut me still.

The future is built upon our present moments and the past as we understand it.  And I am thankful that I found a therapist who could help me hold together my precariously fragile sense of self while I struggled to believe that there could be any future for me and gareth (and cliff) that had any wholeness or joy in it.  But what gives me strength and courage and even the footing to go forward now is that larger story that I situate myself in (the Kingdom of God) rather than the story that turned out to be a dark parable of "What Marriage Should Never Be."  I cannot dwell too long in the darkness and loss of the years of lying that my relationship with Cliff turned out to be because there is no way for me to piece it together, no way for me to make sense of it, no way to pull any kind of meaning or purpose from it.  

I force myself to turn my eyes from the chaos of those memories and their grating cries and towards the God who has been my constant.  To my boy who was created in but stands apart from the pain.  To my church and my vocation that cannot be taken from me.    I turn my soul towards a future and memories yet to be made and try to release the fury (and the grief) that years of my life have been darkened by confusion that may never be lifted.

The work now, of course, is to let the broken tales of my past stay within the past; to refrain from pulling the painful threads of my memory into my present and ruin what is and what could be.  Pray for me, dear ones?  Pray that I would relinquish my grip upon my memories and the prideful impulse that drives me to make sense of them, to order them, to write a story best left unwritten.  Pray that I would let the dead stay dead and instead open my heart to the new, to the risks ahead, to the life and possibility and potential memories that await me outside every door.  Pray that one day, I would look at this picture and only sigh with the melancholy all parents feel as their children grow.

To Breathe

It seems like there's more air lately.  Even with the heavy humidity, the fulminous cloud cover, the salt hanging in the skies, it seems like I breathe more than I used to.  It probably has to do with the running I do, the first regular exercise routine of my life.  But I like to imagine that it's more than just the health of my lungs that has changed.  Perhaps its the health of my soul too.

Breathe.  Breathe.  Breathe.

I've never had to have medical assitance to breathe, but it seems these last three years that I've had spiritual asthma.  Long periods of normalcy punctuated by frantic, panicked, terrifying moments of loss - as if my soul was suffering from hypoxia.  And many of you have been the hands that soothed me, the soft voice of calm that reminded me to be at peace, the blessed puff of metaphysical medicine that opened up the swollen branches of my spirit and let life course through me again.

Breathe.  Breathe.  Breathe.

It's hard to laugh when you don't have enough air.   You can do it - and I did - but you don't laugh as hard or as long or as freely when laughing seems to cost you in the end.   And these last few years, my laughter hasn't been as hard, or long or as free as it used to be.  But now?  I'm a cackling hyena, a hooting kookaburra, a grinning ape who breathes in and raucoulsly expels laughter like a gale-force wind.  There's air again.  There's laughter again.  I can breathe.

Breathe.  Breathe.  Breathe.

When God created the earth, Genesis tells us that it was by Holy Breath.  And in the hebrew and greek, the word that is used to describe God's Spirit is Ruah or Pneuma - Breath.   I think a lot about God's breathing here at the edge of land and sea, where waves crash ceaselessly as if powered by the eternal breath of the divine.  God breathes here and I breathe here and I mourn how little air I've had in the last three years.  Why didn't I breathe deeply?  Why did I think that life required me to limit myself to short gasps, to desperate fits of coughing, clawing the air with my outstreched hands?  Why didn't I listen as God breathed peace and grace all around me?  Why didn't I pause and take in the Holy Breath that was desperate to invade me and heal me?

Breathe.  Breathe.  Breathe.

There isn't truly more air than there used to be.  But I am finally aware of it, attuned to the swelling winds and the whispered currents and the rustling of leaves and the banging of shutters.  I hear it and smile, feel it and it seems as if God holds me close in the brief moments where air brushes through my hair like a lover's hand.  Paper flutters by me and birds soar through the clouds and mosquitos race across my skin like a skipping stone, and I'm so aware of the air.  That I stand within an invisible maelstrom of life and possibility and I can finally take it all in, lungs and spirit once again open to recieve and expel and live.  

Breathe.  Breathe.  Breathe.

I breathe more than I used to.  Or, maybe it's not that.  Maybe I just breathe deeply now.  Slowly, deliberately, delightedly.

I breathe.

I breathe.

I breathe.

Stand with me my friends, within the whirlwind that our lives can be, and breathe.  

Choices Made

I run along the beach everyday.   When I was staying with my parents, I began to run on their treadmill, and whenever I would try to run on asphalt, along neighborhood streets, my knees would scream in protest.  But here?  Here my knees are silent, and the only sounds that fill the space of my morning runs are the crashing waves and the passing traffic and the labored sounds of my own breathing.  And of course, the occasional exclamation from Gareth as he enjoys the jog from the comfort of his stroller: "MOMMY! IT'S THE BEACH!"

Indeed, my precous one, it is.

I am hesitant to wax eloquently about the beach to you all.  I am firmly convinced that every day along this island, maudlin and sacchrine poetry is being written about waves and tides and sand and sunsets and I do not want to add to the growing mass of dramatic prose.  But there is so much power, my friends, so much clarity here.  I understand the need to put pen to paper and record even a hint of the emotions that overpower you when you stand facing an endless expanse of water.

In my first days on the island, I was standing in the rolling tides with Gareth when I realized that I was being overcome with something strange yet so familiar: peace.  Oh dear ones, you cannot know (or perhaps you may) how hard it was to stand under the crashing realization that I was no longer hemmed in by pain.  My son stood next to me with his shorts growing ever more soaked, chattering delightedly about the water and the sun and the sand and I was frozen with relief.  The crashing waves came again and again and in my minds eye all I could see was freedom.  Freedom from the landmarks of pain that Waco held for me.  Freedom from the frustration of the call process.  Freedom from the people I truly loved but who were unable to separate me from the suffering I'd gone through.  

Standing there in the ocean brine, holding my son's hand tightly so that in his prancing excitement he would not be washed away, I finally made a choice that I had been avoiding for so long.   The freedom of this place had to be total, my new life had to be truly new.  The waves can only wash away that which you give to them with open hands, and I closed my eyes and opened the tightly fisted hands of my soul and let the words rise out of me....

I need a divorce.

The words of the prophets still ring in me, the words of God about covenant and faithfulness and redemption and radical grace.  But a new refrain begain circling in me, a reminder that God had spoken through Jeremiah and told his people that he was making a "new covenant", not healing an old one.  That threaded through me, the whispering voice that asked me "are you trying to raise the dead?  are you trying to piece together that which has become dust?  Are you insisting on holding onto the old when God can make you something new?"  And I admitted to myself, that no matter how much I tried, and fought, I would never be able to let Cliff into the vulnerable places of my life.  Into my private moments, the quiet conversations held in darkness, the privilege of my body in intimate closeness, the times of brokenness and self-revelation.  I admitted that too much had been betrayed, that sin really and truly does change the landscapes of our lives and our souls.  That the gate I had been straining to keep open had truly been shut.

It has been a long journey to make this choice.  I have had therapy, spiritual direction, endless converstations, nights spent in agony and hope, days heavy with introspection and God's Spirit has hovered over it all.  I won't claim that this choice is God's Will; I still believe that God hates divorce because I hate it too.  I hate the sin and pain and suffering that led to this place in my life.  I hate that a covenant was shattered and that lives that should have been growing together have instead shredded apart.  I will claim, however, that God is dreaming a new life for me, for Gareth, even for Cliff.  That there is grace enough even for me.  

I am peaceful here.  Peaceful because God has led me to this church to serve and I am in the midst of that task.  Peaceful because it is new and unknown and the horizon of possibilities stretch out before me, uncluttered by past pain.  Peaceful because I have committed to this new life in its totality, accepting the death of what was and opening myself to the birth of what will be.   There are still days ahead that will be fraught with anxiety and anger, misunderstanding, desparation and loss.  But I am strong enough to stand in the midst of it all, wise enough to know that life is much like these waves I see everyday.  Life keeps coming, strong or gentle, violent or peaceful.  Life keeps coming and I can surely hold still if God is with me, holding my hand tightly so that I do not wash away.

Be free my friends.  May you all find a future that makes you leap with joy.

New Things

I went to DragonCon this weekend.  To say it was incredible would be a massive understatement.  There were costumes,  panels,  shows,  vendors,  huge crowds,  endless parties, and the beautiful  repeating ritual of strangers becoming friends.  It was overwhelming in the best possible way, and I was so glad that I'd taken my therapist's advice to buy my ticket last November.  I needed the frenzy, the joy, the freedom, the chance to be wild and to abandon grief and shame and quietude.  I'm an extrovert by nature, but ministry can be so inward focused and requires so much control, caution and poise.  I was none of that over this weekend: I was running to discussions about Elves and painted green with a ring of leaves around my neck; I was laughing and shouting about Hari Seldon and Admiral Adama; I was responsible for no one except my own momentary desires.  And I remembered my body.  I remembered what it was like to be filled to the brim with life and need and fierce emotion.  Perhaps for most of the folks there, it was merely a chance to be with friends and have a bit too much to drink and to wear meticulously designed costumes.  But I like to imagine that there were others like me, who felt as if the weekend was transcendent in its whole, a tearing away of that which was gray and heavy in our lives.    We were alive; we were accepted; we were apart of something living and growing itself.

I'll be going again next year.

In the aftermath of last weekend, I'm now preparing to move down to the coast of Texas to begin my first Solo pastorate.  The church that had told me "no" in May came back to the table with a contrite heart and asked for another chance.  I worked so hard to separate their no (which was truly just rejection) from Cliff's sins (which was truly betrayal) and eventually let God's spirit lead me into a yes.  So here I stand on the precipice of another new thing, another totally unexpected and yet yearned for adventure.  Most likely, my church will have no costume parties or panels on DS9, but it will be laid open for new things to grow out of it.  Chances to serve the community; chances to preach the words that God fills my spirit with; chances to walk alongside all my sheep through the sacred moments of life, death and everything in between.  When church work is good, it is transcendent, a stripping away of the mundanity of existence and an intersection with the presence of the Holy.  When church work is good, it is living and growing and the members who participate in it feel alive and accepted.  I yearn for that.  To be focused and poised and controlled but also to be wild with the Holy Spirit, to laugh and shout about Scripture and Christ and the Holy moments of life I will live.  To remember my whole self, to be filled with life and need and fierce emotion.

I am so afraid.

Afraid of what I will fail at.  Of all the obstacles that will stop and transform me.  Of all that will go right.  About how wrapped up I will be in the lives of people who are now still strangers to me.  About the unknowable WHO I will become, the version of myself who still strides ahead of me in the ether of possibility.  Afraid because I am building a life for Gareth and myself, totally uprooted from the life that Cliff had any part in.

God speaks to the prophet Isaiah about the restoration of Israel and tells him: "Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert."

The way lies open for me now, a path that I have been desperate to find for so long.  Rivers spring up alongside my journey and I am walking towards a new thing.   I open my hands to let go of all the former things, the things of old: the pain, the despair, the betrayal, the frustration, the trauma and loss and hopelessness.  I open my hands to receive something new, something from God: Life.

I am ready.

So, This is My Life Now

Sunday Night, I got a call from Cliff at 8:56pm.  The phones in his unit usually shut down around 9 and we'd already spoken earlier in the evening, so I was surprised that he was calling again.  Very quickly he told me "I'm on chain." 

And there it was - he was finally being moved from his "transitional" facility (where he'd been for a year!) to his permanent facility.  And here was the note of anxiety - there was NO TELLING where that permanent facility was going to be.  He could be moved to El Paso or Pampa or Beeville, and there would be no recourse for us.  Palestine was a 4 hour round trip for me, but it was still close enough that a monthly visit was within reason.  A move to El Paso would mean I would only rarely be able to visit Cliff - it would mean hardship for all of us.  But when you are "on chain", they don't tell you where you are going.  You just get chained up and loaded in a prison transport and wait for however long it takes to get there.  And for those of us waiting to see our collective fate?  There was only the waiting and the obsessive checking of the TDCJ Online Offender Search.

My phone conversation with Cliff was short, so I told my parents and Cliff's family about it immediately afterwards.  As I sat with my mom and dad, I realized I felt none of the panic and nausea of the last time this had happened.  I don't know if time heals wounds, but time does provide you with callouses.  And somewhere in between January 18th, 2012 and January 27th, 2013, a thick emotional hide has grown over my heart - or the part of my heart where Cliff lives.  I was surprised that he'd been moved (but not too surprised), I was worried that he would be moved somewhere incredibly inconvenient but I wasn't traumatized like last time.  When he was moved from Waco to Palestine, it was the finally severing of our geographic life together.  Nothing was severed this time, except my obligation to have to drive to Palestine EVER AGAIN.  There was nothing lost this time.  Nothing taken this time.  Even Cliff's stuff went with him.  The only thing that changes for ME is the direction I will drive to see him.

Which turns our to be Huntsville.

I was pleased to find out that Huntsville is only 20mn farther away than Palestine was.  Let me repeat that: I WAS PLEASED that my husband's new prison facility was in convenient driving distance.  I WAS PLEASED that his new prison facility will have better educational and job opportunities.  I WAS PLEASED that his new prison facility was closer to family so that Gareth's care won't be so hard to arrange on weekends I visit.

DAMN IT! 

Who is PLEASED for any of those things?  How screwed up does my life have to be for me to be PLEASED about ANYTHING that has to do with prison facilities?  How terrible has the trauma been in my life that I am glad for the opportunities my husband will have while he is IN JAIL?  And yet, that's what I am - pleased, relieved, unmoved.  How could I possibly have gotten used to this WRETCHED part of my life?

The answer is, of course, that I've gotten used to it because that is the only way to survive.  I would be a twitching mess if the grief I experienced in November/December of 2011 was the same grief I experienced today.  I've taken these dark places and cutting grief and absorbed them into myself and now they are a part of me in the same way that all the light places and joys are - they are simply a part of my internal landscape.  They are mental furniture that I resent and wish I could replace or be rid of, but they are there, firmly situated in my frame of reference.

Which is why, when I have to drive my toddler to Fort Worth at 10:30pm because of a possible food obstruction in his esophagus, I am annoyed but not panicked.  I've done this before.  Gareth will make it.  This isn't the worst its ever been.

Which is why, when I find out that because of budget shortfalls at my church, the new budget won't cover my salary after we hire a new senior pastor, I experience no anxiety.  I will find a new job and a new place to live.  We will make it.  This isn't the worst its ever been.

I wish I could say it is because of some kind of deep, spiritual sense that I find myself less anxious.  I do trust in God's movement in my life.  But that's not the reason that I can be pleased, or peaceful or blase in the face of turmoil.  The reason is this: I've already experienced worse than this and I have the callouses necessary to survive.  This is my life now.

So what's next?

Things to Come

A remarkable event happened this week - NASA & JPL managed to get the Curiosity mobile laboratory to Mars without any tragic mechanical malfunctions.  You should check out the video below and see how many things could have gone wrong and blessedly did not.

Curiosity launched on November 26th, 2011 and traveled for 8 & 1/2 months to get to Mars, a 2.5 billion dollar baby that was finally born this Monday.  Once it was launched, all NASA could do was wait and watch, hoping that everything they'd done in preparation for this HUGE event would come to fruition.  I guess that makes them Science Midwives. Sometimes, thankfully, things just go the way you expected them to.

I can't help but think of the Curiosity in terms of gestation and birth because it's journey to Mars began around the time that Cliff went to jail.  And what many of you don't know is that Cliff's incarceration was not the plan for our family in late November; we had, in fact, decided to start trying to have another baby after Cliff's trial was over.  

I was expecting to be pregnant in August of 2012.  I was expecting to be preparing another nursery with another crib.  I was expecting to be preparing Gareth to be a big brother.  I was expecting to be preparing for another speedy labor and delivery, for another early arrival of another precious child.  I was expecting my own precious Curiosity to make a safe arrival in this world, though admittedly without strangers watching the event on live-stream.  But obviously, I'm not pregnant.  There will be no baby, no new nursery and crib, no labor and delivery.  Instead I am helping Gareth along the road to being potty-trained, navigating life as a single mother and pastor, making a monthly visit to a Texas prison to see my husband.  Surely my life is curious, but the life that has been born this August was not the birth I was expecting.

Unlike the journey of Curiosity, my own journey has been fraught with disaster and course adjustments.  And admittedly, this new life (post-conviction) is still gestating, my future an unknown quantity. The landscape is alien and sometimes forbidding, and sometimes it feels as lonely as Curiosity's own new life might be on the Martian landscape.  I just keep rolling ahead, though, because what else is there to do?  Stop and break down? Run backwards in an attempt to wrest from the past the future I thought I would inhabit? No - there is only the horizon in front of me and the opportunities to see more than I have seen, to be amazed by something new, to look forward to something unknown and unplanned for.

I'm trying to stop dwelling on the life I've lost - instead of mourning the baby I'm not carrying, I'm trying to celebrate the "Baby" that has been born on the surface of Mars.  But it is difficult to not be swallowed and smothered by the what-ifs, the alternate universes that I could of inhabited.  I'm trying to remember the wonder and boundless nature of the universe I already live in.

Congratulations Curiosity.  May your journey be one of discovery and not disaster.  

May it be so for all of us.

Moving Day

A family down the street is moving today.  One of those huge commercial moving trucks is parked in front of their house, a ramp bowing and bending under the weight of loaded furniture and appliances.  It made me think of all the times we moved when I was younger.  I was born in Alaska, but months later we moved to Seattle.  And then months later after that we moved to Dallas.  When I was in the second grade we moved to Houston, and then back to Dallas when I was a sophomore in high school.  And then there was the move to college, all the moves in Phoenix to different dorms and apartments, and then the move back to Dallas after graduation.  Then came the move to Waco for Grad school, the move to our first place as a married couple and then the move to our house.  The house we first brought our son home to.  Looking back, it seems like my whole life I've been packing and unpacking boxes, looking up apartments, crunching budgets, transferring services, leaving a forwarding address.

But I had another moving day this week, one that I was expecting and dreading.

Cliff has been in the jail in town since November, and I'd gotten used to our arrangement.  I saw him every Tuesday and I brought Gareth to see him on Saturdays - 40mn a week to talk and see one another and share our broken hearts and abiding love.  We knew that he could be transferred to Huntsville at any moment, but we tried not to talk about it.  Tried not to focus on the fact that when he was transferred that we would be limited to one visit a month - a 2 hour visit - but just one.  Tried not to focus on the fact that we wouldn't be able to share long phone conversations anymore.  Tried not to focus on the fact that the miles that separated us would be long and difficult.

Thursday, I got a letter in the mail from the Sherrif's office, notifying me that Cliff had been transferred and that I needed to go pick up his property.

Moving day had come and gone and no one had told me.

I went by the jail as soon as I could and waited while an officer collected Cliff's belongings.  He came out with a big bag, jumbled with Cliff's stuff.  Books and paper, what seemed like hundreds of letters and cards, pictures and Cliff's clothes, his rings, his shoes.  The sum total of my husband's possessions was thrust into a large plastic bag and carried out to my car for me.  When I got it all home I sat in the middle of his possessions and sorted, books from letters, papers from clothes.  I touched everything he had touched, wishing that I could feel him instead of his absence, wishing that I had more of him than legal papers and uneaten candy bars.

I don't know where he is right now.  I've called to Huntsville but he isn't in the system yet.  I will try again this afternoon and every day until I find him - like a treasure hunt where the treasure stays locked away from you even when you discover it.  I won't be able to visit him or talk to him for 30-90 days while he goes through processing.  I will be able to write him and send him money for his commissary account, but I will have no contact until this system works him through and spits him out to his permanent facility.  My husband has been taken from me and hidden within the inner workings of a beast that has no mercy, and all I can do is look for him and wait.  I have no words to describe to you the powerlessness that has gripped me.

The moving truck down the street that reminds me I will be moving soon as well.  Though I am being helped financially by many family members and friends, I cannot live in this house much longer.  The mortgage is too much for my salary.  Once again, I will have to pack boxes, look for apartments, crunch numbers, cancel services, and leave a forwarding address.  And even though I have had my share of grief during other moves, the sadness of leaving behind family and friends, of fearful transitions and unsure future, this move is different.  This grief is more violent, this sadness tinged with anger and frustration, this fear unshakeable and life-altering.

Moving day has come.  Moving day is coming.

Lord Jesus Christ, Have Mercy.  God, Have Mercy.

Our Big Ole' Baby

Gareth turned four months old on August 19th and I (Elizabeth) spent much of that day remembering his birth.  It's really hard to believe that our baby boy is already 1/4 of his way to his first birthday.  It's also hard to remember life before baby...it seems like I've always been this tired

Today was the pediatrician's appointment, and here are his stats (for all of your interested parties):

Weight - 16lbs 8oz (75%)
Height - 26.55in (90%)
Had Circumference - 17.5in (90%)

As my mother said, "Good! We need a tall braniac in the family!"

Gareth got four shots and one oral vaccine today, so we're 4 needle pricks closer to never getting polio and that's a good thing.  And surprisingly, I didn't cry this time when he got his shots...I think that may be a sign I'm healing from the trauma of his surgery and subsequent stay in the NICU.

Gareth is still waking up a lot at night.  His longest stretch is usually from 9ish to around 1:45am and then he's up every two hours (or shorter if I'm honest).  That's tough.  To all of you moms who have babies that sleep - please, don't tell me about it.  Just say something supportive and sympathetic instead.  I'll love you forever.  I know that one day he will sleep through the night, and that this can't last forever, but it's been 4 months since I got more than 5 hours of sleep...so it seems like its already lasted forever!

Gareth is generally pretty stoic and serious, though he does smile when talked to and will laugh at funny noises you make.  He enjoys his bathtime (I think) by splashing most of the water out of the tub.  That cracks me up, and you can see the video posted below.  He likes to be held, and generally wants to see what's going on in the world, which means we spend a lot of our time walking around with him.  He even went with Cliff and I to the Baylor Church Fair and he got to meet over 3000 incoming freshman.  You'd think all of that noise (and heat) would have gotten to him, but he was a champ.

I think Cliff and I have adjusted well to parenthood.   I'm discovering how conflicted one can be as a parent and as a minster (how priorities readjust!), and Cliff is pining for the day when Gareth will walk and talk, but otherwise we're good.

Now I realize that you're really looking for new pictures of Gareth, so I'll update this post later with some.  Till then...