In which I choose a word for 2009

I have decided against making any New Years resolutions this year. Usually I'm a big resolutions-setter (is that a word? It is now.) I love to set resolutions and then keep them in front of myself all year. I write things with words like "weight" and "work out" and "reading" and "cooking" and "time" and "church".

But this year?

Nope.

No resolutions.

I have decided to strip it down. No more "lose that last baby-baby weight" or "read the Bible everyday"s. No more "be a mindful eater" or "pay off that line of credit" or "read 4 books a month".

Those are all things I want to do. Need to do, to be truthful. Pesky things.

But instead, I'm going to choose one word for my year ahead.

And that word is: MOMENTS.

Seems like an odd choice, I know. It might make more sense to choose something like COURAGE (after all, I'm potty training) or CONSISTENCY or TRUST or GRACE. All good words. Very good.

But my word will be MOMENTS.

Because this year, I want to be present in all of the moments of my life.

I don't want to be wishing away any of it. I want to be fully present in my life, living each moment. For me that connects to things like my health, my faith, my marriage, my children, my finances - all of it. Don't go for the quick fix or the immediate gratification or the lure of the busy. Instead, I need to remember and live like this moment is all that I have. Because it may be.

Instead of wanting to be somewhere else or talking on the phone while making dinner while holding Joseph or spending money to make myself feel better or eating more cookies for lunch (not that I did that today *cough*), I will be about making the moments count. Each one.

Because those moments add up to my life.

I'm about to turn thirty. (ME! THIRTY! *faint*) And sometimes I still feel like I'm fifteen. Fifteen can feel alarmingly close to be at times. So it occurred to me last week that I"m as close now to 45 as I am to 15. So if the next 15 years go half as fast as the previous, I'll be 45 before I know it.

2009 will be my year of MOMENTS. And making each of those moments count.


I got this idea from Ali Edwards.

In which these are my top 20 photos of 2008

  

In which these were my favourite books fo 2008

These weren't necessarily published in 2008.

But out of the many, many books I read, here are my Top 10.  

A Generous Orthodoxy: Why I am a missional, evangelical, post/protestant, liberal/conservative, mystical/poetic, biblical, charismatic/contemplative, fundamentalist/calvinist, anabaptist/anglican, methodist, catholic, green, incarnational, depressed-yet-hopeful, emergent, unfinished Christian.
By Brian D. McLaren

The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out
By Brennan Manning

Zora and Nicky: A Novel in Black and White
By Claudia Mair Burney

Grace-Based Parenting
By Tim Kimmel

Late Nights on Air: A Novel
By Elizabeth Hay

The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical
By Shane Claiborne

The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime
By Phyllis Tickle

The 100-Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating
By Alisa Smith, J.B. Mackinnon

Sex God: Exploring the Endless Connections between Sexuality and Spirituality
By Rob Bell

Buy, Buy Baby: How Consumer Culture Manipulates Parents and Harms Young Minds
By Susan Gregory Thomas

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The ones that almost made the cut:

An Emergent Manifesto of Hope

Justice in the Burbs: Being the Hands of Jesus Wherever You Live
By Will Samson, Lisa Samson

The Simple Living Guide: A Sourcebook for Less Stressful, More Joyful Living
By Janet Luhrs

The Way of the Heart
By Henri J. M. Nouwen

Embrace Me
By Lisa Samson

Dakota: A Spiritual Geography
By Kathleen Norris

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And the movie I watched this year that I would like to insist that every woman see at least once:

The Business of Being Born
By Ricki Lake, Dr. Michel Odent, Abby Epstein, Cara Muhlhahn, Dr. Marsden Wagner

 

In which these are my favourite posts of 2008

These aren't necessarily the most popular or the most commented or even the most eloquent - but they're the ones I loved and remember from this year....

In which we were wounded but we are being healed. I still don't know the end right now. We're still on the journey and I am full aware that the day we open the doors to the church or resume fulltime pastoring, that the journey won't end. We will just start a new leg. But I have become very thankful for the wounding, very thankful for the breaking, very thankful for our desert. We have become so much closer and, I feel, so much truer. I feel authentic for the first time in years.

In which I tell a poop story. The title about sums it up.

In which I can have it all...just not all at once. I am trying to recognise that the values matter, no matter where you are. Sometimes those are lived out in a different context. It's hard because we both grew up in churches and traditions that really valued the hero. So it's hard not to be drawn to the heroic. But it's very important that we are obedient first.

In which we have abandoned the TV. We made the decision to get rid of our television this year - here's why.

In which I don't want to join a denomination but I don't know why. I'm still working through this one.

In which I ask you to decide which one is more embarrassing. I have two "most embarrassing moments" and could never decide which one was the worst. So I put it to a vote. And they tied.

In which I am quieted. One of my lunch breaks at Christ Church Cathedral.

In which Anne turns two and I turn reflective. A collective of photos of Anne and what I've learned from being her Mummy.

In which we are in week 34 - Circumcision, to snip or not to snip? It's crazy the amount of opinions people have about foreskin.

In which I am my beloved's...and vice versa AKA My thoughts on mutual submission. The idea of submission has been used for centuries to subjugate women, to justify abuses and generally rip the heart out of half the globe while crippling the other half that uses the word "submit" like a bat. But there is value and goodness in the word and in the concept in a marriage. It's just that we don't think "submission" only lines up with our gender.

In which I am refocused. Somehow I can develop the expectation that I'm not allowed to have bad days or struggles or even take the time to really heal from them. Like somehow I've arrived?

In which I give birth to my son standing up in a parkade. You knew this one would be in here!

In which cleaning and scrubbing can wait. This afternoon and evening, I was going to be productive. You know those kind of days....you've got eight times more on your "to-do" list than you could possibly accomplish even if you didn't have two tinies, one of whom is potty training and the other, just 11 days old. But, full of good intentions and a little self-delusion, you decide to embark on it anyway. And your tiny children simply can't allow it.

In which even the Cabbage Patch doll didn't emerge unscathed. One of the favourite Not-Me Mondays.

In which we make recommendations for new mums. A collaborative advice post - good stuff!

In which there is a practical side to this. I'm not completely esoteric and cerebral about this simplicity thing. A couple of people have asked what I am actually doing to reflect a simpler way of life. Here are a few off the top of my head (while the tinies snore....time is limited!).

In which this is how Anne adjusted to Joseph. This happened when Joseph was about one week old. I have been thinking about it ever since and finally want to write about it without crying. This has deeply affected me and reminded me again that I have a deep, soulful daughter even at just two years old.

In which I had one perfect moment today. I felt rather frazzled. And tired. And pretty darn sure that two kids were enough for anyone, thankyouverymuch.

In which it is the fourth MONDAY of Advent. It's amazing to me how this simple act - lighting candles, reading from the Bible, praying together - can transform.

In which Brian's hands have changed. This one has gone further than others I've written. It generated the most 'off line' emails as well.

In which these are 2008's top five moments

This post's idea came from the blog "On Simplicity".

A year isn’t made of seconds, minutes, and hours, or at least not in the rear view mirror. In retrospect, a year is made of moments: sparkling moments that light up the corners of your memory for years to come, chilly moments that you try to shake off as quickly as possible, and shadow moments—the ones you know are there yet can never quite put your fingers on.

Here’s my list of 2008’s top five moments:

1.  Giving birth to Joseph. Not only was it everything I wanted (drug-free, natural, mother-led, vertical, home etc.), it was also rich with the unexpected! It was surprising, hilarious, ridiculous and beautiful. It may actually be the greatest experience of my life.

2.  The day that Anne grieved for what had passed and decided to embrace her new life with Joseph. This will stay with me until I die.

3. The American election night, listening to Barack Obama's speech. So inspiring! Made more poignant by my American husband and his "I'm so proud to be American" moment.

4.  Spending my lunch breaks at Christ Church Cathedral. 

5. Realising that Anne thinks Creflo A. Dollar is her Papa. Or her Papa is Creflo A. Dollar. And realising that kids really are colour-blind. Cracked me up.

It’s your turn! Take a moment to reflect on what made 2008 a pleasure for you, and if you’re up for it, share them with us.  Either way, I hope we all find ways to make 2009 memorable in all the right ways.

In which Brian's hands have changed

Last night, in the dark, Brian reached out for me. I was awake as I'd just finished nursing Joseph. Brian's hand slid across my stomach and rested there. He whispered hello. We lay there for a while, both of us awake in the dark, just silent. He was tracing circles on my stomach.

At first, I was just focused on myself - could he feel the stretch marks? wishing I could lose the baby-baby weight...wishing I would have done more sit-ups and less sugar cookies - but then I suddenly realised something.

It almost hurt. Brian's fingers were so rough and his palms so calloused that it was like being touched by sandpaper.

Brian is a pastor by trade. A scholar even. He wrestles with the deeper questions of life on a daily basis.  And he is also a carpenter, a labourer and a "certified flood tech". He will spend the day with men that don't have a high school education, whose favourite adjective is an expletive, drinking Tim Horton's coffee while driving a large white work van with a phone number on the side.  In the past three years, there has been much about him that has changed. We've become parents together, for starters. But last night, it occurred to me just how much his hands had changed.

His previously uncalloused hands had become hardened. They are the hands of a labourer. Nothing soft or dainty or unmarked. He has scars on his fingers, stains in his knuckles that won't be lifted, callouses on his palms and his finger tips are a mess of rough skin.

He's more than a scholar. More than a pastor. More than a carpenter. More than a labourer. He's walking between two worlds.

And he's been better for it.

I wonder sometimes if it isn't better for those men and women that feel called to this - pastoring - to work in the real world for a while.

Instead of going from their Christian schools to their Christian colleges to their seminaries to their churches, that they instead spend years with people, working regular and irregular jobs. To see what "real life" looks like for the vast majority of us. To hang out with people that think very differently than you.

It's gotten to the point that we prefer this life. We prefer this life outside of the "church-y bubble". We prefer being salt in a tasteless world. We prefer being a light in the darkness than one more candle in a brightly lit room. We prefer people that are different than us. We like to think that, if nothing else, we are making a bit of space for God.

And plus, we just plain like people. And they have become our true friends.

I know pastors that haven't ever had a job outside of ministry. They can be hard on people. "Why aren't you at everything the church does? Why aren't you doing more here? What do you mean you want to skip the retreat to be with your wife and kids?" Sometimes, they seem to have a real sense of entitlement. Almost like the people in their church owe them a living. I remember wanting to shake them on occasion: didn't they realise what a privilege it is to do what you love to do? What a privilege it is to pastor and get paid to do it? Didn't they realise how hard people work? And so I would get angry when I would see them slack off or become lazy or entitled. Didn't they realise that someone's husband was out at two in the morning working as a flood tech so that they could give their money to the church so that they could have a salary? Didn't they realise that there were mothers who worked in jobs without much thanks so that they could contribute?

I've realised I'm not angry about that anymore. It's understandable.

Because how could they know?

Their hands are still soft.

Meanwhile, Brian has a whole new perspective. He has a deep compassion for working families. For making ends meet. For the demands of work and labour and family and balance.

Our life has changed how we plan on pastoring and the expectations we have on people. We have grown to understand that the greatest ministry -the greatest work - is for us all. Pastoring is no more holy than carpentry. Singing worship songs is no more holy than cleaning up after toddlers. Work is sacred. Work is honourable. Work is holy. So how much more should our pastoring change from "trying to get people involved" to being a support to one another, an equipper for one another? And sometimes that means that the holiest thing of all is to tell folks to stop volunteering their face off at church and get home with their kids for supper.

Last night, I winced at one point when he inadvertently scratched me. He felt terrible and almost a bit embarrassed by his hands.

I lifted them and kissed each finger.

In which we wish you a Merry Christmas

In which it is the fourth MONDAY of Advent

Last night, Brian's phone didn't ring.

That is worth a post itself. Hallelujah and amen.

I know we're supposed to do the Advent candles on Sundays. So some poor Catholic is having a heart attack at our cavalier attitude. (Sorry, man.) But Brian was out working a flood until nearly 2 in the morning on Sunday night and I wanted to do it together. So we waited and did our fourth Sunday on Monday.

---

It's amazing to me how this simple act - lighting candles, reading from the Bible, praying together - can transform. I feel quieter, more peaceful, more open, more generous. In our tiny apartment with its filthy carpet now covered in Christmas cookie sprinkles, we light our candles on our daughter's high chair. Anne is finally asleep after Great Bargaining and Pleading to stay up late or "at least have Daddy stay in room?" while Joseph is wrapped up snug as a bug, sleeping in my arms as we rock slowly. I know I should put him down to "teach him how to sleep" but sometimes, after a busy day, I just need to hold him close to my heart, gaze at his beautiful face, trace the lines in his paper-thin eyelids and count his blonde eyelashes. By the glow of the Christmas tree and the candles, my beloved does the readings and the prayers as my hands are full (so very full, so blessed - thank you, Jesus).

We prayed each candle's prayer, pausing to light the next, going from Hope to Peace to Joy. When we reached this Sunday - the Love candle - Brian read from the book of Revelation, twenty-first chapter. When he reached these lines:

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."

...he paused. My eyes welled up with tears. He read it again, slowly. We sat in the silence, just contemplating that together - God moving into the neighbourhood. Wiping away every tear. No more death. No more mourning. No more pain. God's way of doing things becomes the new normal.

How I long for this. My heart reaches toward Jesus, not just for myself and my family, but for all of us. All of humanity. For the tears, the pain, the death that we endure. I long to see the redemption; to see us - the entire world and creation - becoming who we truly were meant to be all along.

What love.

There is always a core of our heart that knows, isn't there? A corner of our soul that whispers "It's real."

"This embrace is real. These lovely things in your life - your beautiful marriage, your healthy babies, the transcendant love you carry, the beauty of the world, the compassion of people towards each other, the great friendships and community, any time you stop and say "God, aren't we lucky?" - these are all just a foretaste or a glimpse of what God intends. And the evil? This will be redeemed. But those lovely parts? They are a gift and a glimpse of the future."

In which my soul waits, in silence

Advent is teaching me more about waiting. After all, that's been the theme lately. If I could sum up the season that I have been in for the past three years, it would be the phrase "waiting on the Lord". In short, I've learned/am learning patience.

It feels like an ongoing dichotomy: I am content and yet still waiting. I am joyful and yet aching. When I read the news, when I hear from friends that are struggling, when the economy is taking its toll on us all, when my extended family fractures and splinters, when tragedies near and far occur, when small children are dying in war zones, when there is hunger, disease, war -  when I take into my heart the sorrows of a broken world, I ache - with all of creation - for a deliverer.

Our soul - as humanity - waits for the Lord. We stand and wait in remembrance of his arrival in a manger. And we stand, expectant together, for another return, when all tears will be wiped away and God's dreams for humanity and creation are realised.

---

More brilliance from Ann at Holy Experience:

In the waiting weeks of Advent, we too rustle in the winds of this world, quiet cries for SomeOne to finally enter our frozen hearts, break us free, gather us Home. The anticipation and expectation that sings on every street corner, on every tongue, through the weeks of December is the hope, the refrain, of freedom coming. Freedom coming down.

“Do you want to be delivered? That is the one great question Advent puts to us,” writes Dietrich Bonhoeffer. “Does even a vestige of longing burn in us? If not, what do we want from Advent, what do we want from Christmas?”

"Look up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near." (Lk. 21:28)

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It’s drawing near and I long to be delivered. My anticipation has been building in a way I can't explain as I've followed Advent with the rest of the Church.

Advent reminds me that it is for God alone that my soul, in silence, waits. Truly my hope is in him.  He alone is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold, so that I shall not be shaken.

In the midst of my life - privileged, beautiful, joyous and full of love even during bouts of children's diarrhea(!) - I can't forget that my trust is always in him, that I pour my heart out before him for God is my refuge. We are all like a fleeting breath but steadfast, unfailing love is only in God.

No wonder the cry of the church during this season is "Even so, come, Lord Jesus!"

This is a season of watchfulness
We watch and wait for the One who heard our cries and entered the suffering of our world
We expect new light to shine as the season of joy approaches.

(Much of this has come from Psalm 62, Psalm 65)

In which Anne has the reflexes of a cat

So we're driving across the Queensborough Bridge. I had just gone through one of only two Starbucks drive-thrus I've discovered in Metro Vancouver (I don't go every day or anything. Just every other day. Ahem. Anyway...that's not the point.) and I had indulgently bought Annie a kid's size of milk to accompany my grande-decaf-soy-no whip-pumpkin-spice-latte-extra-hot-please.

Now normally - normally! - I have our travel mugs with us which I hand over to be rinsed with hot water and refilled in an effort to save us 15 cents, save the planet and avoid spills. Because if there is one thing that our Earth Destroyer 2003 does NOT need it's more stains (remember that whole "having a baby and then hopping into the back seat thing"? Not good for your fabric seats. Just sayin'.) and if there is one thing that toddlers do VERY well, it is stain things.

Just ask my carpet.

But(!) on this day, I decide that she can handle it. After all, we'd just survived grocery shopping. Which is another post in itself. Oh, dear Lord. I'm signing back up for Spud and getting my groceries delivered all winter long, hallelujah and amen. So I was in dire need of a reward in a cup and she had earned a little something special as well.

We're driving along and all of a sudden she yells "UH OH!" and I say "What? What happened?"

Silence.

"Did you take your straw out?"

Silence.

"Did you ....DROP your milk!?"

"Mumma. HELP!"

(Pause here for me to mutter all kinds of unholy things about silly mothers that will give their two year olds cups with straws in cars.)

I can't turn around and help because, you know, I'm DRIVING. So I twist my head and sure enough, her hands are empty.

Great. There's a full cup of milk on my floor now. Just fab.

We drive the rest of the way home. Every so often, Anne shrieks "HELP!" from the backseat and I patiently reply that I'll clean it up when we get home ...or when Daddy gets home, lucky guy.

We park the Earth Destroyer 2003. I get out and open her door.

And she's got that cup of milk caught between her yellow rubber boots! It's balanced right between them, perfectly upright. Legs fully extended, she's holding that cup right between her Wellies and she has a very pained look on her face.  A look that says "MY THIGHS ARE KILLING ME!"

In which I share our tinies' Life Verse

When I was a teenager, my parents chose a passage of the Bible and christened it my 'life verse'. By "life verse", they meant that it was meant to be a blessing to me, to speak life over me and to help me. It was meant to be something I turn to, something that I memorize so that at least one Scripture would always be hidden in my heart whenever I needed encouragement and focus.

The verse they selected was Jeremiah 29:11 - "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord. "Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a future and a hope."

I just typed that out from memory. Evidently, it worked.

I've found over the years since then that it has indeed been my "life verse" in ways that they couldn't have foreseen. When I struggled with direction in my life, when I lost my babies, when I was confused, angry, lost or afraid, this verse would rise up out of the ashes of my heart and remind me that God had plans for me, good plans, and that I have hope. It amazes me how many times in my life I have turned to these thirty simple words for comfort and hope.

So when we discovered that I was pregnant with Anne, I informed Brian that we decided that our babies would each get a life verse. In the evenings, I would pour through the Bible, praying, and wait. Wait for that quickening in my spirit when I was reading, that jump in my heart as if to say, "Ah, yes. THIS is it." We did the same thing with Joseph. I always knew when I found the right verse...it just fit.

Then we would begin to pray this verse over our babies. I whisper it into their baby hair when we rock in the middle of the night.  I write it in their baby books. We put them on the walls in their rooms. We even put the references on their Christmas stockings, for heaven's sake. (Maybe we overdo it? Us? Overdo something? Never.)

Anne's life verse is from Ephesians 3:17-19 - Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.

And Joseph's life verse is from Colossians 1: 9-12 - So we have not stopped praying for you since we first heard about you. We ask God to give you complete knowledge of his will and to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding. Then the way you live will always honor and please the Lord, and your lives will produce every kind of good fruit. All the while, you will grow as you learn to know God better and better. We also pray that you will be strengthened with all his glorious power so you will have all the endurance and patience you need. May you be filled with joy, always thanking the Father. He has enabled you to share in the inheritance that belongs to his people, who live in the light.

We chose verses that contain our hopes, prayers and dreams for their lives. We pray, hiding the Word in their heart - and our own, praying that we are setting them on a path so that when they are old, they will not depart from it.

In which these bring me joy in the midst of poo

I could sit down and write a post today entitled: "In which these are the things that are making me want to go back to work" today. At the top of that list would be the fact that I have had to scrub poo more than any self-respecting female not being paid to do so should. Yes, my two-tinies-with-a-cold has now morphed into one-tiny-one-with-a-cold and one-not-so-tiny-tiny-with-a-cold-and-diarrhea. Let's just say the washer and the bathtub have been in good use today.
But no one comes here to read about poo. I think.
So in an effort to cheer myself up, here are the things/moments/people that are bring me joy:
1. It's snowing. All morning long, we've had the closest thing to a blizzard that I've seen in Vancouver since moving here. The wind is howling, the temperature is low, there is snow swirling and everything is covered. It's just beautiful. Anne is very captivated. I have lifted all of the blinds and am enjoying the view immensely. Few things make you feel as warm and cozy as the lights of a Christmas tree, a snowy day and a fireplace.



2.  Even when the kids are sick, they're never whiny. (I wish I could say the same for myself...) Last night, Joseph woke himself up with a coughing fit. He could hardly breathe out of his nose, poor wee man. So Brian gets up and suctions his nose out and changes his diaper. Joseph starts cracking up and giving him these big toothless smiles. It's four in the morning. He's sick and snotty and tired. And happy as a clam. Even after The Great Poo Incident of the Morning, she managed to enjoy herself immensely, even playing in the "baff" for almost an hour.
3. Joe has started to laugh. And no one can get him going like Annie. When he laughs at her, she chuckles, shakes her head and says indulgently, "Oh, Baby Joe Brudder Boy" like she's about 80 years old. That just makes him (and me) laugh harder.
4. The way that my mother dances with Anne. She makes up songs and then she and Annie dance together. We stopped at their office this week for lunch (thanks for buying, Dad! Think I forgot to mention that...). Before we left, Anne wanted to dance. So they did.


5.  The Starbucks drive-thru. See? Me and Annie are so happy. (Joe just sleeps through it but he'll learn.)

6.  Joseph's personality. He's easily the most easygoing baby ever. We enjoy him so much. But man, he's got some funny expressions!




Hey, wait! That's not a nipple!

7.  With two sick kids (one of which as a tendency to poo a lot lately - have I mentioned that?) and a blizzard, we're housebound. I had some leftover pumpkin and was trying to figure out what to do with it. It wasn't enough for most of my recipes so I started looking around for something. I'm on a new kick called "Never throw it out" when it comes to food. Basically, I'm tired of buying food, eating half of it and throwing it away when it turns bad. Things like leftovers or remnants from sour cream to veggies. So I had to use this up before it turned. Well, lo and behold, this is the best pumpkin muffin recipe EVER. I did two cups of pumpkin puree (as IF I'm going to do pumpkin puree from scratch...come ON!) and added a cup of raisins to mine.  I got about 20 muffins out of this. And yes, I've already eaten two today. Did I mention I'm housebound with two sick kids? Let me self-medicate...
8. Good music. I've found some new tunes lately and as a result, I'm listening to my own blog page for music during the day. Which reminds me, I like how the page is coming together. Still not done designing it but I'm enjoying it. It's nice to learn something new.
9. The complete lack of consumerism that I'm experiencing this Christmas. I love that. We don't have a TV and so that means....no commercials! I don't have to deal with a whiny kid begging for this or that. Brian doesn't have to deal with me begging for this or that (of course, I'm usually begging for just another 500 square feet...)I've enjoyed this Christmas and Advent season so much - the baking, the writing, the cards, the phone calls, the occasional get-together with friends, the snow, the planning, even the gifts since we're not going into debt over them. I guess I feel like we've captured what the season is supposed to be like. And it's beautiful.
10. This outfit. My sister-in-law bought it for Joseph. And I couldn't wait to put him in it and take pictures. I know he'll hate me for this later. The expression on his face is one of patient resignation.


Seriously. Dog ears on the hoodie! What's not to love about THAT?
Finally, I love that I have two kids that sleep well so that I get a break, every day, for at least an hour. An hour to eat another muffin (!), drink a pot of tea, read and blog.
And just enjoy the silence.

In which sometimes we all need a snuggle

We're all under the weather. Joe has a barking cough, Annie has a bad rash and runny nose and my throat is aching almost as bad as my ear. Joseph hardly slept all night because every time he'd fall asleep, his nose would get clogged up and he'd wake up crying in less than an hour, unable to breathe well. So I had one of my few sleepless nights last night. He's back in bed right now; best medicine is always mummy and warmth...and a nasal aspirator. 

Last night, Anne was so tired and unwell, she even curled up in my lap and slept for a while. She hardly does this anymore; she's just too busy. And if she's tired, she'd rather just go to her bed and crawl in. But yesterday, she crawled into my lap and we just rocked for a while. My heart was so happy. I miss these times with her.

So we're just inside relaxing today. It's cold but the wind is the worst. Fireplace is on, warm sweaters or jammies ...or in my case, an "Everybody is somebody in Lukenbach" t-shirt....are in order. We'll watch Dora the Explorer (aren't I being nice?), drink pots of tea and generally hibernate for the day.

In which I had one perfect moment today

It's midnight. Joseph had a wakeful night and I've just gotten him to sleep. To be honest, I'm exhausted. It was one of those days - Anne was rather miserable and whiny, quick to dissolve into tears, Brian got called out to a flood relief at nine in the morning and wasn't home until nearly twelve hours later and then my normally sweet, pliant wee babe was a bear at bedtime. I felt rather frazzled. And tired. And pretty darn sure that two kids were enough for anyone, thankyouverymuch.

I wandered through the house, turning off the lights. Aching for my bed. Frustrated about the day. Full of regrets about my own impatience. Unplugged the Christmas tree. And glanced out the window.

It's snowing.

Big, lazy, dreamy flakes, falling to the ground. I went out onto the balcony and breathed in. The crisp, clean smell of snow. I know that smell; I know it to my bones. When a book or poem uses the descriptor, "It smelled like snow" I know exactly what they mean. It's in my soul; the bright, fresh, wet, pregnant, heavy, expectant coldness.

I was cold but, come on, it's not Saskatchewan. It was just below freezing so I was quite comfortable to stay and just watch. The snow was falling lazily, reflected in the street lights. All the lights in the homes around us are out. The streets are quiet. Snow on the roofs. Branches laden with snowflakes. A beautiful, pure dusting over everything.

It's magic. Plain and simple, homely and daily magic.

My exhaustion lifted. My self-pity disappeared.

I breathed deeply again.

Beautiful.

My tinies sleeping (finally!). Anne in her big girl bed, tangled up in her sheets, eyes buttoned shut. Brian, home at last and exhausted from a day of heavy labour, curled around our two month old son in our big bed, snoring. 

The lights are out.

And I have just a moment to myself, one perfect moment, on the balcony, watching the snow fall in the darkness at midnight.

In which I have more to add to the missional debate

All right, I've been doing some more thinking since posting my original response to Dan Kimball' criticisms of missional church. I figured out why it bugs me even as I agree with much of what he said.
Here's the thing: All churches should be missional.
There, I said it.
Missional is not the latest "movement" or "method" or "structure". Missional churches are not necessarily small or organic or defined by an urban context or being a house church. It's not a matter of using a "model" like "seeker-sensitive" or "traditional". It's not defined by the kind of music you do or how much you care about your community or who you read or whether or not you care about social justice.
What does it mean to be missional? It means to be on mission. So what is the mission of the church? Quite simply, it is the mission of God (often referred to as the missio dei). Because the mission of God is about redemption and reconciliation, embrace and inclusion. Simply put, it's love.
Mission should not be reduced to an activity or function of the church (like when we send people to Mexico to help build orphanages - worthy work but just one facet of mission), but understood as something that constitutes its very nature. The church is sent, by the Father and the Son through the Spirit, as the continuation of Jesus’ ministry of the Kingdom. The church is not identical with the Kingdom of God, but rather, its “sign,” “sacrament,” and “foretaste” in anticipation for its full eschatological culmination.[1]God continues his mission with the church as the community, servant, and messenger of the Kingdom of God.[2]
Basically, being missional is not a movement or a method which is what Kimball and other critics reduce it towards. Rather, it is understanding that the true essence of the Church derives from the nature of God and His mission to the world rather than trying to define itself on its own terms or independent from that.
Missional churches and scholars therefore seek to see that the church reflects a theo-centric view rather than an ecclesial-centric view. Basically, is our church centered on the mission of God or is it centred on the church itself?
When a church is focused on the church and it's pet projects, it often degenerates into a self-propogating machine. Where the entire purpose of church is to keep the church going. We preach sermons, have programs and do light-shows or music because that is what will keep the budget and attendance up. The purpose of church becomes the church itself. This is rarely blatantly stated and is therefore a subtle trap that many churches fall into, not just big attractional churches. We say we are on the mission of God but everything - from our music to our staffing to how we allocate our budget - all say that our purpose is the church itself. Some people criticise attractional churches as being "more guilty" of this than the rest of us but they're simply a larger, easier target. We are all guilty of this.

Even though this theocentric view of mission is now predominant in the church,[3] it is nonetheless a recent and seismic paradigm shift: the mission derives from God, not the church. Mission is not the work of the church or any human agent.[4] It is, as Bosch states, “primarily and ultimately, the work of the Triune God, Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier, for the sake of the world, a ministry in which the church is privileged to participate.”[5] Thus, mission derives from the very heart of God. As Bosch correctly observes, “Mission has its origin in the heart of God. God is a fountain of sending love. This is the deepest source of mission. It is impossible to penetrate deeper still; there is mission because God loves people.”[6]

There is no exclusion in the mission of God. God, in his love, demonstrates towards humanity an "indisputable and indiscriminate will to embrace".  Missional ecclesiology seeks to continue that mission and representation, to act as a foretaste of the Kingdom of God by also demonstrating that mission towards humanity. After all, we've all heard the saying that the Christian church is one of the few institutions that exists partly for those that are not yet a part of it.
I think that what Kimball was trying to do (if I'm being generous) was to criticize a "type" of church - the small, organic, community driven groups that he anecdotally shares about in the article. I think that his biggest error is that he classifies them as "missional". They may or may not be (because my original comment stands - you can't judge success by budget or numbers or butts in the pew) but this is not missional as scholars and theologians understand the definition.
Missional churches cross all boundaries, denominations, sizes, contexts.
As a sidenote, I find Kimball's article surprisingly modernist. After all, the thrust of modernity is "What works?" And if it doesn't look like it's "working", then it must be wrong/bad. Postmodernity can embrace success beyond these tired definitions and restrictions.
As I've mentioned before, my husband has done most of his grad work on this subject. I uploaded one of his most recent papers, "The Deepest Source of Mission: God's Immutable and Indiscriminate Will to Embrace", on the subject if you'd like to read more about this, you can click here. He's rather modest but I'm convinced of its brilliance.

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[1] Jürgen Moltmann, The Church in the Power in the Spirit: A Contribution to Messianic Ecclesiology, trans. Margaret Kohl (New York: Harper & Row, 1977), 64. In this way the church is both an instrument of mission and the result of mission.

[2] Darrell L. Guder, ed., Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 102.

[3] Writing in 1991, Bosch states that this concept of mission as missio dei, since surfacing at the Willingen Conference of the International Missionary Council in 1952, has been “embraced by virtually all Christian persuasions” (Bosch, 392).

[4] Bosch, 392. As he states, the “missio dei notion has helped to articulate the conviction that neither the church nor any other human agent can ever be considered the author or bearer of mission.”

[5] Ibid. As Moltmann attests, “It is not the church that has a mission of salvation to fulfill to the world; it is the mission of the Son and the Spirit through the Father that includes the church, creating a church as it goes on its way” (Moltmann, Church, 64).

[6] Ibid.