Raise an eyebrow?

Yesterday, I spread a sheet on the wet grass, stretched out in the slanted sunshine and read poetry to the kids.

Can you believe this???  I shake my head even as I write it.  If one of you were to openly write you had done the same, I would raise my eyebrow, seriously wonder about you, and feel slightly sorry for your children.

But people, this was no ordinary week.

Experiencing an eerie east-coast earthquake on Tuesday and then hunkering down through a howling hurricane Saturday/Sunday lends itself to poetry.

Trust me. 

As does lighting several hundred candles, hauling water to flush toilets, and praying over every ancient, snapping and swaying tree surrounding the old farm house.

When the winds finally abated, there was a yearning to get outside, stare at the sky, snuggle close to the earth, and wonder at the awesomeness of it all.

It might take another natural wonder for us to head outside together with a book of good poems, but I really, really hope not.

Whether the Weather

Whether the weather be fine Or whether the weather be not, Whether the weather be cold Or whether the weather be hot, We'll weather the weather Whatever the weather, Whether we like it or not (Anonymous)

Considerably less shiny

I realized yesterday that my children and I had spent every single day and night of the whole summer together.

Eighty two days and nights.  Seemingly endless hours in each other's physical and emotional space.

Sadly, the better part of my emotional landscape this summer was wrought with fatigue, frustration and discouragement.  I am sure all the kids were duly delighted to be sharing that space with me.

I have always yearned to know each of my four kids deeply, to understand their individual hearts and dreams in order that I can love and guide them best.  But, this was the summer that I became known to my children.

I couldn't hide.  I couldn't go for a run.  I couldn't preach or teach or plan a party.  The four Hall offspring saw their mother in a new light, and it wasn't pretty.

They observed my heart at it's driest, witnessed my peevishness, felt my ugly ungratefulness and patted my back while I struggled not to cry.  I must have asked for forgiveness a hundred times and they were always quick to give it.  A choked "please forgive me" opening my human heart's dam to a river of grace from the ones I love the most.

Like the velveteen rabbit, I'm considerably less shiny and significantly more worn as a result of this summer.  My heart has been unnervingly exposed to my family for the sinful mess that it has always been, and unbelievably, I am known, and I am loved anyway.  

How amazing is Grace?


Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, who sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord doesn't count against him and in whose spirit is no deceit.  (Psalm 32:1-2). 

Free falling and fur

I'd been having scary Alice in Wonderland dreams of falling, falling, falling....

Josee Bisaillon

My bed (with me in it) was falling through the floor into the basement.

David had recently noticed, with no small amount of alarm and thinly veiled panic, the structural beam that supports the whole house was rotten, you could poke a pen in the wood, soft as sawdust.

This fun discovery helped explain the two-inch gap between the floor and our bedroom walls.  The house was slowly collapsing.

911 Larry.

He brought over a three TON jack and a heavy beam, and jacked the whole house back to almost plumb.  This was done with a great deal of panache and pride.  It's not every day you get to save a sleeping family from certain death.

Thank you Larry.  Now my dreams involve what I just found in the radiators.

Come visit soon!  Your radiator will be free of fur and you will not fall through the floor.

How's that for a marvelous marketing motto???

The Sum

I sit and fidget as I wait to to stand and address my gorgeous grandmother at a 90th birthday celebration in her honor.  

She is sitting at the front, center stage, elegantly dressed in a cool celadon suit.  Blessed with Norwegian skies blue eyes, silver hair and flawless skin, she is breathtaking.

On the other hand, I am teary, splotchy, undone with gratitude and love for this extraordinary matriarch.  How best to honor such a life in a two-minute verbal tribute?   I fumble, stumble for the right words, which fail me.   It is daunting, completely impossible.  As usual, it's easier for me to write a poem.

The Sum

She has seen nine decades pass,

Ninety years of life.

Thirty two thousand eight hundred and seventy two sunsets

Flowing with prayer and a song every single day.

What will be the sum of my life when I’m ninety?

She has raised four children,

Fourteen grandchildren arranged like sparkling jewels in a crown.

Fresh-faced great-grandchildren abound,

Each one prayed for by name every single day.

What will be the sum of my life when I am ninety?

She was a plucky pioneer, plowing soil and souls in a foreign land.

“She’s a pistol I tell you!”  You don’t mess with grandma.

True in her words, with actions to match,

Persistent in song and prayer with her husband every single day.

What will be the sum of my life when I am ninety?

She is ready to go home when her Father calls her,

Her handsome love waits for her, singing, in heaven’s courts.

Both have run the race well,

She counts her blessings in prayer and song every single day.

What will be the sum of my life when I am ninety?

She is the rarest gift to those who come behind her,

We all know that prayer needn’t be fancy, but frequent.

A cloud of witnesses remains to testify
That Jesus loves you, and so do I, that’s why I pray for you every single day.

What will be the sum of my life when I am ninety?

Happiest of birthdays grandma!

If you could only harness it.

"Her vitality, if you could have harnessed it, would have supplied a whole town with electric light."

I love this line from Young Archidemes, a short story by Great Britain writer Aldous Huxley.  His  description makes me think of so many of the radiant, electric women I adore.

Next line.

"Enormous stores of vital energy accumulate in unemployed women of sanguine temperament, which vent themselves in ways that are generally deplorable: in interfering with other people's affairs, in working up emotional scenes, in thinking about love and making it, and in bothering men till they cannot get on with their work."

Mmmm.  This is like finding a bone in a mouthful of fish dinner--it will certainly prompt you to swallow the remaining bites of the meal with more care.  So one must read Huxley's tale gingerly, chewing the words slowly for sharp points, thinking and enjoying the whole meal, bones and all.  Good writers don't make things easy or safe, but it's always a feast.

That said, this is what a seven-page short story from a 1920's author made me consider today, and I pass it on to you...

Fabulous women, how do we harness the vitality that has been placed purposefully inside each of us?

How do we best provide light for loved ones, neighbors, even a whole city, without working up emotional scenes?

Where can we vent our God-given energies in ways that are generally not deplorable?

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things.