Deep

I was reading something about love today. Deep-heart love. A funny way to describe the indescribable. I had a vision of a body, stumbling off a cliff head over heels into the abyss. As she hits the water with a piercing crash, it envelops her and closes over her head, filling her ears with its great silence. She swims down, down, down, like the Little Mermaid...no need to know what is ahead or even to draw a breath. The deep, dark unknown.

My picture of Deep is the ocean, so much of its vastness never seen by the human eye, nor touched by a ray of light and yet life is present there. Life happens, whether we know it or not, whether we've seen it with our own eyes or not.

True love is down deep also. We may think it's up on the surface, on the bright pink raft, with the fruity adult beverage in our hand, the sun on our faces. But it's really under the surface, way under, where everything is not so apparent. The deeper you go, the more pressure is applied. It's not easy to go deep, but most things worth having are not...

There is always something new to discover in the Deep. The reward of going there is being the first to see what there is to see. You may get eaten by a shark. Or you may fall down the rabbit hole into a new country, the delights of which you have never known. Either way, the deep holds secrets that I want to know.

The Don't Wannas

Sometimes we don't want to go to school. It's fun there, most of the time. But sometimes it's scary. There are people there who rub us wrong, and there is food we don't like to eat, and there are problems we don't know how to solve. It's also frequently loud and and sometimes unfair. People don't do what they are supposed to do. People ask us to do things we don't want to do. Sometimes we're mean to each other. Sometimes we say things we didn't intend to say.

Come to think of it, school is just like home. Or the office. Or church. Or anyplace a bunch of people cluster and rub up against each other.

I'm going out of town soon. Because going to school is ruining our lives, I told Small Fry I'd come to her school lunch, but she had to make me a promise. If I came, no crying when I had to leave. Because it would make me cry, too. You know how that goes.

She promised.

After we ate our saltines and turkey slices and drank all the juice and sweet tea, it was time to say good-bye. And do you know what that turkey did? She lets out a big wail - Nooooooooo - and throws herself onto my lap. Great, I'm thinking. How am I going to get out of this?

Suddenly she pops up, one finger in the air and a smile on her face.

"But I'm not crying," she said. "I'm just shrieking."

Love that kid.

Taking Love

I really enjoyed this beautiful post about falling in love, all over again:

http://www.aholyexperience.com/2012/01/the-4-minute-marriage-habit-how-to-make-2012-the-year-you-fall-madly-in-love-all-over-again/

It reminds me of taking love.

Sometimes Cutie Pie gets claustrophobic when we cuddle up. I know, right? This is a source of great entertainment to me, especially when he tries so gentlemanly-like to scoot out of my hot embrace. I can always make him laugh by clinging on for dear life and breathing hotly on his neck, refusing to let him escape. We call this "taking love." Sometimes he does it to me, when I'm in a give-me-my-space-I'm-trying-to-read frame of mind. He does it to the pets sometimes, when they try to climb out of his lap or jump out of his arms. He holds them ever tighter and pets them over-enthusiastically, exhorting them to take love.

He does it to our kids too, when one is crabby and sulky. He scoops the offender up into his arms, gangly legs and arms shooting out at all angles, and tries to rock them as he did when they were babies, shaping them into the little footballs they refuse to become again. Back and forth, tighter and tighter, telling them to take love.

It's just a silly thing that makes us laugh, but there is something profound even in the silly things. Aren't we grateful for those people in our lives willing to reach out to us in our prickliest times, when we are all Push Away and Grumble? Those who determine to remind us: We are loved. We are loveable. Even when we don't act like it. Even when we don't feel like it.

I know well that God puts those kind of people in our lives for a reason - to give us a glimpse of Himself. And because He delights in giving us good gifts.

Take love, He insists. Will I?

Stuffed

Here we are...mid-vacation, and I have just plumb stuffed myself.

I stuffed myself into a minivan with three other people for 650 miles (and counting).

I stuffed myself into childhood bedrooms, beautifully appointed guest rooms and cramped hotel rooms.

I stuffed myself with beautiful, rich, homemade food as well as poorly cooked, oversalted and overpriced restaurant food. I've scaled the heights of my mother's delicious baked turkey, and I've plumbed the depths of IHOP. I've eaten a lot of chocolate. I've downed countless cups of coffee and glasses of wine.

I've crisscrossed the state, taking in the glorious Atlantic Ocean, the manicured, blue-sky middle, the moss-laden oak trees, the swaying palms and the lakes and rivers that have formed the backdrop of my life.

I've stuffed stockings, suitcases, and gift boxes under the tree. I've stuffed Christmas traditions and child happy-making experiences into every minute of every day.

I've stuffed as much meaningful conversation and lingering hugs and expressions of love as possible into brief, once-a-year encounters with far flung loved ones and friends. I've stuffed 365 days of life into two hours. They call it "catching up."

I've grieved...we've lost people this year. I've been elated...we've gained new people this year. I could cry just thinking about it all.

Today, we're quiet. The four of us stumbled into my parents' house and pretty much passed out. We are veggie-like, lying low in our birth soil, breathing in the nutrients all around us. Recharging. I think my children have watched about 6 hours of Sponge Bob, Square Pants. This will scare me, tomorrow. Right now, I'm so grateful for the quiet.

I'm stuffed full of life and all its messy, beautiful, overwhelming bits. Or to say it more eloquently...my cup runneth over.

I hope yours does as well.

Are you ready?

"Are you ready for Christmas?"

These late December days inevitably lead to that question. And the inevitable answer...nah, still have this to do, that to do... And the sometimes spoken (sometimes not) feeling of, ugh, I just can't wait for all this craziness to be over.

But I think we are ready. In fact, I think we are desperately ready. Today, I declare myself DONE (love those Target commercials) and ready to receive the gift of Christmas. Ponder my incarnation, my devotion read this morning, but not intellectually. Instead, do as the wise men did...follow the leading of the star and fall down in humble worship when you find me.

It's time to get quiet and get out of the stores. I'm pondering my blessings, the grace that God has shown me and all of us. He still performs miracles in our midst! Just look at the two He performed for me. Walking, talking, funny little miracles. Even as He offered the grace of His Son, He still cares about our little happinesses and our everyday joys. This is a mystery that I cannot ponder intellectually, but humbly and with my whole heart.

Merry Christmas.

Taking Sides

"Why can't you see my side?"

These are the words I was faced with tonight at the moment, the very moment, when I was so tired I didn't want to see ANY sides except maybe my backside glued to the couch with a glass of eggnog on one side and a quiet, loving husband on the other.

The trouble is...I do! I see both sides of every pancake but it doesn't make it any easier to resolve the trouble. I just don't know the right answer. Do we just enjoy the argument, the spiraling down...("What's a debate team, mom?" Lord, help us.) Or do we truly hope for a bit of wisdom, some nugget that will make everything OK again? Don't I long to make everything OK again for them? God knows I do.

When I run to Him with my list of grievances, isn't that what I desire? Make it all OK again! Ride in on your white horse and smite these bothersome enemies who have unfairly bothered me. TAKE THEM OUT. It's all I want. Didn't David beg for the same thing? And when it doesn't happen, don't I feel slighted, petulant, gloomy and unloved? But how does a mother (or Father) choose between two beloved children? I envy God His perfect justice.

There's something there, something profound, that I'm still trying to grasp. Justice, fairness and dealing in Reality, all wrapped up in unending, unstoppable, Ain't No Mountain High Enough kind of Love. And there is Christmas in a nutshell. Nothing could keep Him from me. Nothing could stop Him from delivering Perfect Justice wrapped in Perfect Love. The ultimate gift.

My shortcomings will continue to pain me. But I just keep hoping that wrapping them up in Love will make everything OK again.

Linking up with Chatting at the Sky for Tuesdays Unwrapped here:

http://www.chattingatthesky.com/2011/12/20/tuesdays-unwrapped-the-last-one/

Words with Friends

We were discussing Words at supper the other night. I didn't bring it up, I swear. But I do so love a Word discussion.( Reminds me that they are really mine.) We were talking about how certain Words give a sentence extra meaning just because they are awesome words. Small Fry says - Yeah, it's like if you were trying to say you really, really want something...a good word to use would be yearn. Oh yeah, she's 7 (you can't see me, but I'm doing the cabbage patch dance whilst biting my bottom lip).

Yearn is a really good word. Because yearn is different from want, isn't it? It sounds different. It feels different. Want is utilitarian. It's salt and pepper, it's the bathroom sink. Yearn, however, is full of intensity. It spills over with desire. It sounds like you are grasping for that one shining thing that is just out of reach. What do you yearn for?

I yearn for plenty of shallow things. Plenty. Like winning a tennis match (so far out of reach). A full-time housekeeper and personal grocery shopper. A dog that doesn't need to go out at 4 a.m. every morning, yes every. An annual trip to Italy. No, no here is the yearning: a second home in Italy. With my own vineyard and wine press and a cheese market next door and the smell of the sea pouring into my open windows.

Also, I yearn for time to stand still. I yearn for more connection with small people who are always one step ahead of me. I yearn for that intangible sense of stopping.

These yearnings seem just beyond my grasp. But I try to remember past yearnings that indeed panned out, even though at times they seemed outlandish and impossible.

I yearned to fall in love. I yearned to have babies. I yearned to see the world.

I've done some serious rose-smelling, but I yearn for more.