In which I am taking a week off

It's nothing big and I doubt most will notice. But just thought I'd let you know that I'm going to take a week off from blogging.

See you back here, next Monday, I hope.

In which I review The Justice Project

The Justice Project, edited by Brian McLaren, is a collection of essays by some of the most well-known thinkers in the justice conversation currently occuring in the church, including:

• Will and Lisa Samson
• Rene Padilla
• Peggy Campolo
• Lynne Hybels
• Tony Jones
• and many others.

The conversation about justice has been growing over the years within the Christian church. In just a few years, I've personally seen it become the focus or language of many more churches and believers. It's been a wonderful thing to see evangelicals, in particular, who historically have taken the position of spiritual justice before social justice, embrace Micah 6:8 and begin to take to heart much of Christ's teachings on the poor and marginalised.

It's not simply within the Christian church either. As Jim Wallis wrote in the Foreward, "The two greatest hungers in our country and our world today: the hunger for spiritual fulfillment and the hunger for social justice." I see this in my city and in my community; we are all trying, albeit imperfectly, to render justice. I see small girls with lemonade stands, now festooned with signs that read "Help 4 Haiti" and their tupperware is filled, not with 25 cent coincs, but $5 and $10 bills. Everyone, it seems, is aware that there is inequity and, inherent to our God-image, is the desire to see God's kingdom of justice reign.

There were many passages that I underlined, many voices that resonated. I particularly enjoyed meeting Sarah Dylan Breuer through her essay about God's Justice: A Biblical View.

"God made the earth abundantly fruitful with more than enough resources to give every child a chance - that is, if humanity exercises stewardship of God's gifts, as does the God who "makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous" (Matt. 5:45). That abundance is God's intent for creation and for all people. When human systems distribute God-given resources in a way that places a small fraction of humanity in luxury while a billion people live - or die - on less than a dollar a day, can that be anything other than sin?"

I respect and read many of the writers of these essays. But for some reason, I found this a hard book to read and to relate with in a real way.

I am left wondering if this was a book that needed to be written, an anthology that needed to be published?

I read it, I agree with much of it, but it didn't inspire me or excite me. So maybe it's overstimulation? Over saturation with the message? Another book published to capitalise on a trend? More proof of the western need to profit and commodify, creating products out of truth?

That sounds rather harsh. I don't mean it quite that way.

But the truth remains - it's a fine book about a current topic. The people reading it are the ones who already get it though. But ultimately, I doubt that it will affect any real change or bring anything to the already occuring conversation that wasn't already being said.

(This is not a compensated review. I received a free review copy through The Ooze but was not obligated to post a review, favourable or otherwise.)

In which Anne comforts Joseph

Joseph has been sick. So he's been weepy, grumpy and tired. He was sitting in the middle of the floor, crying, snot flying while I, exhausted, finally got in the shower.

I came out of the shower to find Anne sitting on the floor next to him. He had his head in her lap and her arms were around him.

"It's okay, Joe," she was cooing. "Jesus loves you. So you can be happy. Jesus-God loves you."

You know, at times like that, when my heart is overflowing with their love for each other, I am so thankful I have this small space to write it down and that you, somehow, are here, too, with us.

You always swear you're never going to forget. But you do.

So thanks for being here, bearing witness to our moments.

In which it's quieting me down these days

You can see what else I'm working on with Ravelry.

In which this is what church was like for me as a kid

We sing "As the deer panteth for the water

so my soul longeth after you"

and mean it.

We play drums and electric guitars.

Our hands are flung towards heaven.

Our arms are wide, our chests open.

We bang tambourines when things really get going.

We dance and we sway

when the horse and the rider are thrown into the sea.

We don't play notes, but we do play chords.

Our pastor has a Monday to Friday job, too,

and his wife plays the piano.

He'll baptise you in cold lake water

or a hotel swimming pool if you need it to be warm,

fully dunking you under the water,

while you pinch your nose shut,

pulling you up with his wiry arms.

You'll be shouting with joy

and everyone will clap and cry.

There is a projector with the words for the songs

lit up on the blank wall of the gymnasium.

It is the greatest honour of the preteen set

to be the Projector Girl,

slowly moving the transparency across the lit screen.

If you have the gift to preach, then

get on up there and preach.

If you think you're hearing from God,

sister, don't hold back.

It'll be like a fire shut up in your bones.

Let the words, let your song, let your gift

come on out.

We are many races,

many misfits.

We are poor people and rich people,

social outcasts and charismatic leaders,

bright smiles and broken teeth.

We all love Jesus.

And we are all pretty new to this church thing.

We sit in metal folding chairs that start to ache

just under your shoulder blades

right around Hour 2.

When we pray, we touch you with our hands,

laying our palms on your back,

gently letting you know

that we are holding you up.

We pray together, all at once,

many voices muttering together,

consonants and vowels running together.

Behind you in the back row, there's an old man

with grizzled hair,

pacing across the back of the gym,

he's saying,

"Praise be to the Most High God.

Praise be to the Most High God."

In which this is part of growing up together

One of the things about getting married young is that you grow up together. Sometimes I'm surprised to look at Brian and see that he is, in fact, a grown up.

You see, when we started dating, he looked like this:

He was this tall, skinny teenager with a baby face.

(Oh, that boy could kiss. Mercy.)

We used to sit outside and dream of the days that we are living right now.

We would park on the backroads of Tulsa and lay on the hood of his car to stare at the stars. We'd talk about our dreams. We'd wonder what life would be like when we were old ... like thirty. I'd tell him of wanting to be a writer. He'd tell me of wanting to help people. I'd rant about politics. He'd tell me about kids he knew in the dumps of Mexico. We'd quote Thoreau to each other.

Then we'd make out.

Now, 12 years later, the baby face is gone. The acne is gone. The plaid shirts are (thank you, Jesus) gone. The skinny punk is gone. I noticed a few grey hairs at his temples the other day. I am clearly not the same (as the number on my scale attests) - my long hair is gone, I have a decided line to the left corner of my mouth, probably as a result of too much smirking, and my hair is quite grey underneath this red hair colour.

In some ways, we're the same. All of those things that I knew and loved about him as a skinny teenager are still there. His heart after God. His deep, abiding passion for others. His selflessness. His patience. His kind heart. His level head. His wisdom. His humour. His sexiness. His tenderness.

But other things, including our ideas, opinions and even our dreams, have changed so much. He is the same man but he isn't. This is likely something that longer-married-people already know but I am just realising.

I think that one of the most important things in marriage is allowing for change.

I imagine it's hard, devastating even, when one spouse changes significantly and the other is left behind.

Being in it for the long haul means allowing each other to stumble around, find your way, make mistakes, and journey together. I am not the same girl I was then. He is not the same boy. I have to admit to being pretty thankful for that. I look back on my younger self sometimes and positively cringe. Aren't you glad we aren't quite the same people we were at 21 or 25 or even last year? Can I get an "Amen!"?

We have changed significantly at certain points of our lives and likely will again. We look very different. We think differently. We believe different things. We have certainly done many things we planned. But we've also done a lot of things we never could have imagined.

But we are still us. Jobs and careers change. People come and go. We'll pack up and move (over and over and over evidently), leaving friends and the familiar behind. We'll wrinkle even further. We'll have our babies, raise them and then they will move into their own lives. Almost everything can and will change - including us and our relationship.

So we choose to be the constant for each other as long as we can. We will continue to walk every step of this journey together. Wherever that leads us.

In which I am learning to take and eat

Disgraceland

by Mary Karr

Before my first communion, I clung to doubt

as Satan spider-like stalked

the orb of dark surrounding Eden

for a wormhole into paradise.

God had formed me from gel in my mother’s womb,

injected by my dad’s smart shoot.

They swapped sighs until

I came, smaller than a bite of burger.

Quietly, I grew till my lungs were done

then the Lord sailed a soul

like a lit arrow to inhabit me.

Maybe that piercing

made me howl at birth,

or the masked creatures whose scalpel

cut a lightning bolt to free me.

I was hoisted by the heels and swatted, fed

and hauled around. Time-lapse photos show

my fingers grow past crayon outlines,

my feet come to fill spike heels.

Eventually, I lurched out

to kiss the wrong mouths, get stewed,

and sulk around. Christ always stood

to one side with a glass of water.

I swatted the sap away.

When my thirst got great enough to ask,

a clear stream welled up inside,

some jade wave buoyed me forward,

and I found myself upright

in the instant, with a garden

inside my own ribs aflourish.

There, the arbor leafs.

The vines push out plump grapes.

You are loved, someone said. Take that

and eat it.

(Via the always truthful Claudia Mair Burney, an author I quite love)

In which I came from pioneers

I can't help myself. I reach out to touch the wood, to feel the roughness beneath my fingers.

What's that old passage of Scripture? The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear with hearing.

Truth. To my bones, I feel it.

How can you not drink it in? How can you stand here and be unmoved?

I'm on a hill above the Fraser River. We can see in every direction. My feet are on the ruins of an old mission. The wind is whipping my hair, stinging through my sweater. My eyes are watering and my breath is caught.

I can hear my children, running in front of me, laughing. I close my eyes.

This is home.

I love to travel, to see old things, to spend my days in history and stories. I'm an unabashed history lover, craving abbeys and castles, museums and cobblestones. But this new country is where my soul finds home, rest.

I am the descendent of pioneers, the ones that came to the furthest points of the newest country. And then I came further west.

It must be their fault, these farmers and miners, these seekers of adventure, these horse riders and home builders, these writers and drunks, preachers and truck drivers. I can't seem to find my footing anywhere but Canada. The soil of heart is rich with the new world.

I was raised on the edges of wheat fields, in flat lands with enormous skies. Even now, twenty years since I left the prairie, I ache for it still.

Now I am here, next to the ocean, surrounded by mountains. It rains all winter long, the grass is always green, even under the snow, the air in springtime is perfume. There are trees that are pink, a heavy aromatic perfumed pink, lining every street.

It's the youth of it. It's the untouched, never ending glory of it. Even when I am in the midst of a metropolitan urban centre, I am less than a hour away from total isolation and quiet.

I can easily see the rising of the moon, the waning of it. The sun setting into long and low clouds, iridescent in pinks and oranges. I feel this ache, right under my ribs, clutching my lungs when the sun is setting behind pine trees, their inky black branches etched like lace against the sky.

I can't be anywhere else. I need this like breathing. I feel claustrophobic on islands. Sluggish and stupid in hot weather. I need space, I need wind, I need big sky. I need the west, I need Canada.

We have wilderness, real true wilderness. It satisfies some part of me that needs the space, needs the quiet, needs the cold, the bracing wind. The skies here are my cathedral, the place I can worship with freedom.

It feels like a glimpse of wisdom.

In which I am this type of mother

There are two types of mothers in the world.

The kind that lets her children play in the sandbox.

In wet sand.

With white pants on.

And the kind that doesn't.

Guess which one I am?

We were at Fraser Valley Heritage Park. They have a little sandbox filled with toys to play with and then leave for the next child. It was cold outside and the sand was very, very wet.

But in they went. Brian and I perched on the wood enclosure, Tim Horton's coffee in hand, watching them dig and work and plot and play. They could have stayed there all day. I could have watched them all day. It is days like this when I get a glimpse of life as they grow up. Just watching Joseph keeping pace with Anne, in his little 15 month old glory, when, to me, he is still just a baby, was a little humbling. He's growing up. And Anne? She was building a complete city.

Their joy, their industry, their sheer kid-ness almost made the sand in their shoes and pants and hair, which was then transferred to my Earth Destroyer of a Chevy, worth it.

Almost.

In which I think we may have a performer

Her performances are almost Oscar worthy. She can sit, a dejected hill of preschooler, shoulders slumped, eyes cast down, chin almost near her belly button at the slightest provocation. She can heave sighs from the depths.

Anne: Oh, Mummy. I don't feel so good. I think I need Tylenol.

Me: No, Annie. We took your temperature and it was fine. We don't just take Tylenol because it tastes good (Sidenote: Whose great idea was it to make medicine taste good now?)

Anne: Well, my back really hurts.

Me: Oh, really? What happened to it?

Anne: Well, a lion bit it.

Me: How unfortunate.

Anne: He took a big bite out of it. Now there's a big hole. A HOLE! And then a rabbit got in my throat.

Me: Don't you mean a frog? You have a frog in your throat?

Anne: (with great dignity) No, this one is definitely a rabbit.

Me: Well, I don't think Tylenol will help you out. You need big help.

Anne: I think some dancing will help.

Me: All right. You go ahead and dance.

Anne: Okay but you have to stand up and clap the whole time. I need clapping to make it good.

(Stands and begins to flail about the living room.)

Anne: (singing) Oh! Jesus! Hallelujah! God! Loves! Us! Jesus! Hoky poky! Annie! Ballerina!

In which we had a prayer meeting in the portable

I came into the portable office on Monday afternoon, ducking in out of the cats and dogs pouring down around me. It was almost pitch black outside with low cloud cover. I stomped my feet and hollered something about the rain.

But it was dim inside, too. Not the usual laughter and chatting, working and phones ringing. After all, we are in a tiny portable, crammed together while the renovation goes on. We sit almost on top of each other, squeezed into this tin can that the rain drums on all day long.

No, there's no noise really. I turn my head to see them gathered in J's office. Their hands rest on her head and her back, their heads are bowed. J is quiet, her palms turned upwards, eyes closed.

They are praying.

I shake out my umbrella, wincing at my noise, hang up my coat and try to slip inside the room. As soon as I stand there, they say "Amen!" and look up at me. "Your turn!" Despite protestations (No, really! I'm fine! Let's pray for someone else!), I end up sitting in the office chair, four women gathered around me now. My boss places her hand on my hair. My coworkers lay their hands on my shoulders and my back.

And they start to pray.

I am trying to slow my mind down, pull it back from the long list of things to do, the phone calls to make, the lives to save, the work to do. Instead, I am centering it here, on the words they are speaking. I am simultaneously praying, turning over the soil of my heart, making it ready to receive these seeds of life.

Deep breath in. Exhale.

Yes. I feel every knot in my back unfurl. My facial muscles relax. My breathing slows down.

They pray for my family and for my work. They speak words of life, praying for balance and joy in my rising up and coming down. My eyes are swimming with tears behind my closed lids, listening to every word while marveling at the joy I feel that it is even happening.

Why do I fight so hard against asking others to pray for me? Why do I always act like it's all fine, really, it's fine, when this feeds my soul so well?

Even though I still am just getting to know them really, I love them. We share a passion for mercy, yes, but we're quite different. And I can see I have much to learn, much to receive and hopefully a small bit of something to give. We are a team, more than a staff for Mercy, but I see glimmers of us becoming a sisterhood.

We stand in silence, feeling the weight of prayer like a warm blanket. Standing there, in a new year, our year to open our doors, before we go back to work again, together.

In which I found this photo and just had to share

While we've been unpacking, I've found the box of my photo albums (which has lead to a very entertaining photo album on Facebook) and in that box, was this photo. It's my sister and me when we were just 2 and 4, respectively. We were and are best friends. I was never happier than with my sister and I couldn't tell you how much we delighted in each other, spending every moment together, whispering in our shared room and whooping it up outside. So this photo traces a line of time back for me, reminds me how entwined I am with my sister, how deeply we have always loved each other.

It also makes me wonder what happened to Sasha Marie, my cabbage patch doll.

Yay for the early 80s.

But it's also for the record that we are holding. It's actually not a book, it's a record album that opened up like a book, with cartoon pages inside to follow along with the record lyrics.

If you've been reading this blog for any amount of time, you know the significance of the Bullfrogs and Butterflies record in my family.

If not, you can read more about it here. And also here.

It's the little things, isn't it?

In which my heart is with Haiti today

Tequila Minsky / NYT via Redux Pictures via MSNBC.com

Maranatha, Lord Jesus.

Come and be near in this devastation and sorrow.

Wipe away our tears until sorrow is no more.

Haiti - we are standing with you, mourning with you and praying for you.

If you would like to support the people of Haiti, please consider donating through Compassion Canada.

EDITED to add:

Here are some incredible photographs of the past 24 hours or so from Haiti at The Big Picture.

Also, a friend of ours from ORU has family in Haiti. Their rescue mission has been impacted but they are okay and trying to post often to keep people informed. They are also posting very sobering pictures of what they are dealing with right now. They are raising money for the work that they are doing by selling t-shirts, if you are inclined.

In which someone has started preschool

I love my teachers! But Mum, they said it's NOT my birthday! Not my birthday today. *heavy sigh* Maybe another day.

But I jumped over the candle! And went down the slide!

And I cut with scissors! Here is the paper. I made a fence.

And we coloured. I coloured buttons on a snowman. And I made a mitten. Do you like my mitten?

I drew a picture of Daddy. These are his legs and this is his nose and this is his smile.

Maybe Joseph can be three? Then he can come too? I miss him. I miss my Blankie more though.

It was FANTASTIC.

I want to come again on Wednesday and Sunday. And Friday. And another Wednesday.

M'kay?

In which I am a tiny bit terrified

I have moved around a lot in my life. I was born in Regina with all of my grandparents, my aunts and uncles and cousins as a part of my daily life. We lived there until I was 9 and then we moved to Winnipeg. It was the first move, the biggest one, away from our family and the familiar.

After that, it got easier. We moved to Calgary when I was 12. Moved a couple times while there. Then I moved to Tulsa, in and out of dorms and apartments many times. Then I moved to New Braunfels, Texas and from apartment to house. Then we moved to a high rise in Burnaby. Then to a basement suite in Abbotsford. Then to the teeny-tiny condo in New Westminster. Now back to Abbotsford.

I've lived in big cities and small towns. I've gone to many schools. Started a lot of new jobs. Met many, many new and different people. I have moved to a different country with a VERY different culture.

Some people, the ones who have stayed in one spot their whole lives, think it's weird or sad or scary or glamorous.

Me? I like it.

I was very happy to leave Calgary when I was 18. I was ready for a new start, tired of feeling boxed in by expectations. Everyone thought I was one way, one person, when I knew in my heart I was ready to be someone different.

I love getting a fresh start.

Every four years or so, I get a little bit of an itch. It's an itch to move, to travel, to get out of here and go somewhere new.

Now that I am here in this house, now that I am putting down roots, I am just the tiniest bit, um, terrified about staying.

I am intimidated by the thought of living in a smallish city with people that will always know me.

It occured to me, when I dropped Anne off at preschool, that we will likely know these kids and their parents for a while. Their kids will go to the local school with my kids (likely the public French Immersion, the poor man's private school). We are likely to be here, in Abbotsford, for a while.

Which means that there is no escaping. When I screw up, I don't get to just move.

In a way, everywhere that I have been, I have felt a bit like a short-timer. As a teenager, I knew I was going out of province for university, one way or another. I knew I wasn't going to be in Tulsa forever. Even though I loved and felt committed to Texas, I knew we wouldn't be there forever either. Every place we've lived since leaving there have been short stays.

Now I am putting down roots. I have my family around me. I have enough space (at last!). We both have work. We have stopped moving for ministry opportunities.

So. Now here I am.

I have decided it takes guts to stay somewhere. It takes guts to raise your kids in the same community, to stay put and stay yourself.

You can't reform your grandfather. It must take more bravery, more courage to stay - through your changes, your awkward teenage years, your mistakes, your phases, your great victories and great failures - in the theatre of your community.

There are those who will never forget that time that you did that thing you did.

For better or for worse.

No burning bridges when you stay, I think.

In which I am experiencing a thousand gifts (224 -237

224. Little 15 month old boys that love to snuggle so much, they'll pause in the middle of the afternoon to lay their heads on their granny's chest and just stay there for a while.

225. Even though he weighs 30 lbs, Granny won't put him down until her arms are ready to fall out.

226. His mop of baby curls that I simply can't bring myself to cut, no matter how many times my sister tells me to cut that kid's hair and her husband refers to it as Hockey Hair.

227. The smell of him - that milky, sweet, sweaty, warm little boy smell right at the corner of his neck.

228. How he lifts his shirt to show you his belly because he knows it'll make you laugh.

229. His voice in the mornings, calling "Mumma mumma mumma" and then the lifting him up and how he burrows his face into me and sighs - really sighs - with contentment.

230. Hand knit sweaters (by yours truly) that actually fit and look good for once.

231. His independent nature, his self-possessed personality.

232. His love language is the same as his Dad's - affection and touch. He craves physical contact, snuggles and being held.

233. Every time I sit on the floor, even just to help Anne put on her shoes, he runs over and immediately gets between us, clamouring into my lap, wrapping his pudgy arms around my neck.

234. His favourite place is still the ring sling. If he is tired or cranky or sick, he only wants to be in the sling. He goes to get it and pulls it out, dragging behind him and holds it up to us.

235. A husband that loves babywearing as much as I do, sees it as a normal part of our life, and carts the boy around in a ring sling while he works on our bills or makes phone calls or just hangs out watching football.

236. My baby, my boy, how completely I'm undone by him.

237. His 5 month baby pictures. I still go back and look at this picture below. He's a smiley boy, full of grins and laughter. But every once in a while, he still does this pouty, matinee idol stare and I think "Oh, we're in trouble."

In which we go to Traditional Service

We went to the Traditional Service (capitals required) today. We are usually at the later service, the one labeled "contemporary" (or we're at a church where that's the only option), the ones with drums and lots of young people, the one where everyone is in jeans and the pastor has removed his coat and tie. But since Joseph's napping has shifted, we have become, once again, early service people.

We are looking for a church here. Have I mentioned that? We are visiting a few, here and there. We keep coming back to a local Alliance church since Brian was just accredited in the Alliance church and, if he returns to full time vocational ministry again, it will likely be with that group. Me? I'm still a bit anti-denomination so I tend to find obscure churches that meet in school gyms or pubs more attractive. But Anne and Joseph love it there; Anne is already referring to it as "our church". So maybe the decision has been made but I just haven't given in yet.

The early service at this church is Traditional (with a capital T). It's rather foreign for me. The entire church is filled with - well, I'll just say it - OLD PEOPLE. There is hardly a soul in there under 65.

It's a sea of iron grey hair with new perms. It's men named Hank and ladies named Edna. It's wrinkles and soft hands, sandal-coloured pantyhose and sensible shoes. It's ties and shining bald heads. It's the smell of Jergens and warm smiles with false teeth.

I love it so much, it aches a bit.

Brian always seems to do well in new churches with new people, easily sliding into conversation with total strangers. I am feeling my "visitor" status acutely, missing feeling at home at church. But they are so kind, these old people. They usually always tell me that they have a grand daughter named Sarah, too. (Of course, if they were born in the 70s, it's a good likelihood that they are named Sarah, Jennifer or Stephanie. Or if they were really creative, Jessica.)

We sing hymns and, to show their heart for younger generations, they warble through "Be Glorified." There is just an older man at the grand piano. The lady that leads us in the singing has a pleasant low voice, very soothing, so it's a surprise when she suddenly busts out in this amazingly shrill soprano that is impossible to sing along with properly. Brian catches my eye and I'm pretty darn close to busting out laughing in Traditional Service.

During the announcements, we learn that there are two funerals coming up this week.

Then the pastor begins to preach. He is preaching about the new heaven and the new earth, the mission of God, his heart for humanity, the Why behind our What. He preaches about justice and compassion. I see these old saints, their heads nodding. Yes, they are saying. Yes, we know.

He takes the time to paint the picture of wiping every tear away, what that will mean for humanity to have every pain, every deep sorrow, every hurt just wiped clean. He tells stories of the intimacy of wiping tears, of holding his wife's face in his hands and wiping her tears with his thumbs. Of watching her hold their children when they were small, wiping their tears with the corner of her dress. There is something so intimate in the picture, of a Papa, holding you.

Brian is actually crying during the benediction, his arms outstretched, taking the Scriptures into an open chest. He is not the only one. I see these saints, long years behind them of sitting in church, still with soft hearts, yearning for Jesus. They are all a little weepy. They have voluminous handkerchiefs that get shook out before noisily blowing their noses.

After church, people come over to shake our hands, wanting to introduce themselves.

"Well, I'm so glad you're here," says one Little Old Lady frankly. "And I"ll tell you this, dear. If you come here, we'll love you. We'll love your children. We'll just flat out love you every day."

I can't help it. I feel like bursting into tears.

In which Anne and Papa take a walk

They walk along the path in the forest behind Papa's house. (Anne thinks she owns the place.) It's a small forest with a pond right in the centre, a glade of pine trees and birch surrounding a muddy bit of water, small. It's not much to most but it is their spot. They have spent many moments in this little forest, marching up and down hills, clamoring over logs, picking up leaves and remarking on the weather with every dog they pass.

They started walking here when her legs still wobbled and she needed to be carried down every hill. Now she runs and hops and skips, legs flying, beside him.

Papa always helps her choose just the right stick for the day and then they pretend to swing their sticks like fishing poles, arcing them high in the air, before they hold them, patiently, above the muddy water. Silence. Suddenly one of them yells out "I got a bite!" and there is much wrestling and hollering as they land their catch. Every time it's the biggest one they've ever landed.

He holds her small hand in his freckled and lined one. She listens to every word he says. His beloved's own blue eyes, once again in a small girl's face, are staring up at him. She talks, her tongue seemingly hinged in the middle these days, peppering him with questions and observations.

They round the hill, dipping down into the valley.

She stops and looks around her forest, at her Papa, up into the cold blue sky opening above the black pine silhouettes.

"Where is God, Papa?"

He tells her that He is everywhere. That He made everything and everyone she loves and He loves her very much. He tells her that Jesus lives in her heart, every day.

She accepts these fantastical things, easily pulling them into herself.

"I thought so," is all she says.

She is quiet now. Her Papa's heart is full to overflowing for this small pixie. He holds her hand a bit tighter as they start up the last hill, the one before the corner, the path headed towards home.

In which we are quality timing the day away

(Sidenote: I have discovered a great love of turning words into verbs. It's addicting. It starts with something socially acceptable like "Facebooking" and next thing you know, you've got "quality timing" as a verb in your titles.)

Brian has been off work for four days. It's been so nice to have him here all day, every day. The tinies and I all have very full love tanks; we all crave time above all else.

We have baked and cooked, dressed up, painted, coloured, done chores, balanced cheque books, set new budgets, plotted the year ahead and taught Anne how to play Candyland. We had friends round to the house. We took turns sleeping in. We listened to podcasts and watched football. We just generally quieted the heck down.

It's a good start to my new word of the year, I think.

And yes, we even dressed up. Anne was adamant that Joseph be the cheerleader. And he seems to have a deep love of the pink sunglasses as you can see by this post.

In which this is definitely going to be blackmail material

Sometimes it's hard being the little brother.

In which it time for the Saturday Evening Blog Post

Elizabeth Esther is hosting the usual Saturday Evening Blog Post with a twist. We're all linking up our best post of the year.

I chose this one, my stream of consciousness poem about a day of motherhood and hope. I chose it because it sums up much of my year in 2009.

You can head over to her place to read more "best of the year" posts or to link up your own.

In which our musicals tastes are about like this

I caved and bought a Taylor Swift song.

Don't judge me (said in my best Texas-twang).

I heard "Love Story" and, like the hormonal mess I can occasionally become, bawled when Romeo got down on one knee and said "Marry me, Juliet." I can't deny it, despite my embarrassment and the long list of reasons why I don't like the song. There were witnesses. It wasn't pretty. I actually cried.

Anne was present and decided she liked the song. So ever since, my sweet girl has asked to listen to the "girl song" (yes, that's what she calls it and Brian couldn't agree more).

We were at the grocery check-out and I noticed Taylor Swift was on the cover of a magazine. I pointed her out to Anne and said, "Look, Annie! That's Taylor Swift. She's the girl that sings that song you like so much!"

And, no lie, my daughter's face lit up and she shouted, "NO WAY! She sing the A-B-C's????"

Sometimes I forget that she's just 3.

In which I receive my first kick in the pants for 2010

"In a word, what I'm saying: Grow up.

You're kingdom subjects.

Now live like it.

Live out your God-created identity.

Live generously and graciously toward others,

the way God lives toward you."

~ Jesus, in Matthew 5:48