In Every Little Thing Give Thanks

It's a small thing, really. The way the smile curves into a happy grin, the uplifted spirit, gratitude for a husband who gives extra sugar to these delightful creatures. The hummingbird, it springs fresh life into the tired bones, a gentle caress into the constant pain, a whisper into the faintest of heart, thrum thrum thrum the diminutive wings, they signal the presence of heaven, right at your doorstep.

Recently, our grandson reached for a book on our Bible stand, asking in his seven-year-old curious voice, "What's this book about?" He peruses the inside, flipping pages at random, seems a bit confused with the words that don't quite add up to sentences, all the hashtags and numbers and his eyebrows scrunch together like twins doing homework. I smile and lift the book from his small hands. I lift the cover, inhaling the scent of surprising, joyful remembrance. I scan the writing and the breath, it reaches right down into the sacred place of snapshot memories. The kind that says, oh yeah, I forgot all about that.The snippets of our lives during that year that I inked into paper, hunting for everything and anything that meant I am alive and I am grateful for it all. Regardless. 

Henry Nouwen wrote, "Because every gift I acknowledge reveals another and another until finally, even the most normal, obvious and seemingly mundane event or encounter proves to be filled with grace." Truth right there in the obvious, and I find grace overflowing in the affirmations penned, the unexceptional moments and amazingly beautiful scrapbooking a story only He and I would understand. 

The hummingbird returns, takes a swift dive into the feeder, its razor-thin wings whirring and I can feel it all over again, this ordinary moment morphing into the extraordinary, and for the thousandth time I whisper, thank you, thank you, thank you.

Ordinary Holy Good Things

I feel a rainbow coming. One with seven bright colors splashing beauty across the sky, surprising those who can see it, eyes all lit up and sparkly. A rainbow appears after it rains and the sunlight can pass through the droplets at just the right angle. Adults aim their smartphones toward the colorful arc, gasp and grin at the spectacle, at the spectrum of light after those pesky drops of rain flatten the hair, soak the freshly washed car. Little children, they might notice the pretty, try to guess the color scheme, go back to playing, innocent and free. They don't yet understand the soul need for rainbows.

A rainbow will come. I feel it deep down in these achy bones, this unshakable hope in goodness, in the part of me that knows God loves to help fix things. Like people's wayward hearts, minds, injustice and the occasional vote. The world is tilting, divided and chaotic, and I cling to hope like a child's favorite blanket, the kind with the super-soft satin edges. Hope is what keeps us going when the blanket has mud stains, it no longer provides that cozy warm comfort, turn to hope. Wash the blanket clean, take an elderly neighbor shopping, smile all day just because, pray, visit a sick friend, say thank you, pray again. Do ordinary glory things.

We went to a wedding recently and during the ceremony billowy gray clouds gathered in the sky, dusted our shoulders with damp drops from their bellies. It didn't last long and the celebration continued beautifully, joyfully. Later on us adults, we noticed the rainbow, mouths forming the O-shape of elated wonder, my daughter, she swiftly captured the gift.  Light spilled over the gathering like angel's breath, soft, graceful.

Rainbows. It's God's light steadily passing through the droplets of chaos, of confusion and hate, pain and suffering, it points the gaze upward and beyond the now, flooding the atmosphere with life-pumping hope. Embrace the gift and carry it around in the midst all the craziness, finger the soothing edges of grace, go out and do crazy good things.

And if a rainbow is delayed and the soul is parched, begging for light-filled droplets, gather up buckets of paint and a child or two. Tell them the secret of rainbows. Create your own canvas of pretty on the ceiling, and make pinkie-swears to never ever forget, that the light shines brighter when you do those ordinary, holy, good things, especially in the rain.

Right Around the Corner

Edging closer to my favorite time of year it is, when trees dress up fancy, cool air kisses the face all crisp with promise. Summer collapsing into fall. I promised myself to wait patiently this year, like a child peeking expectantly out the front window for birthday guests to arrive, word balloons hovering above the head, I can't wait! I can't wait!  And after a record-breaking elongated hot summer, the kind you tried super hard not to lament over, the soul, it needs to cool down a bit, to rest from simmering heat of the day, of the chaos assaulting our peace, of lingering unasked-for circumstances.

Notice that autumn is more the season of the soul, than of nature. 

~Friedrich Nietzsche~

Autumn has such a lovely smile, and I see glimmers of its face around the corner. In the crisp morning air. In the first maple leaves showing off already out in the yard, a matinee for the eager. In advertisements for pumpkin spice everything. I won't beg God for fall's early arrival this year, for waiting in hopeful expectation means there is always a promise of something sublimely beautiful up ahead, you just can't see it yet. Like the birthday guests who are buckled tight in the back seat of various cars on the way to the party, just a block away, coming closer, right around the corner.

Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns. 

~George Eliot~

The Queen Of Everything

We call her the Queen of Everything. We don't curtsy or walk behind her, she doesn't live in a grand castle or palace, have a chauffeur or even a bedazzling crown. Her personal wealth and position are derived from the ability to take care of the needs of others on her path, like children, family, friends, sick people, holiday dinners and really everything in life that truly matters. This Queen is my sister, and for many of my living days her outstretched arms have winged me close, enfolding me by her side, as only a sister can do.

A sister is a keeper of your secrets, tucks them carefully inside that place only a sister can see.

Growing up in a large family, six kids and not a bedroom to spare, we shared a double bed together, sounds of the high school football practice drifting through the open window on a warm August morning, a shrill whistle ushering in the next school year. We shared clothes too, but I never dared to don her bright white blouse from Charles F. Berg, the one with her name stitched in black right on the lip of the collar. It just didn't seem fitting that I should borrow that item, what with her name and all. However, I might have kidnapped it from our closet had it read, Queen instead.

She introduced me to the Beatles, her good and bad boyfriends, what kindness, generosity and justice looks like. And how acceptance paves a gentler and anchored road through life. She showed me how to raise children and grandchildren lovingly, fiercely. And how to take the next faltering step when life goes sideways, when loss follows you like a dark shadow.

A sister hears you cry, even before the tears begin to gather at the edges of your sorrow.

Her birthday is today, seventy years young, older than our mother when she passed away. Neither of us knew how to help her to heaven back then, saying our goodbyes with bleeding hearts, doing our best, wearing our brave together in the gathering dusk of grief.

A sister knows the beginning of your story and helps you finish writing the end.


When you have a sister like mine, you feel the brush of heaven most days of your life. I think God quite generous in letting me borrow her for my time here, grace upon grace it is. And I pray for more chapters in our story, the ones we've yet to pen together, yet to bookmark in memory for future moments shared, my beautiful sister and me.

What A Morning Glory Has To Say

Sometimes it comes in a surprise gift from a stranger. At times it arrives bottled in laughter, the kind that makes the belly all tight, the eyes water with glee. Or it might be in the form of a neighbor offering to help fix your flat tire. Last week my husband beckoned me outside in the wee hours of dawn, urging me to join him. Taking a quick sip of coffee, aiming to pry the eyes open a bit further, I walked out onto our driveway. 

And I stepped right out into His morning glory. Flashes of living color stretched across the eastern sky.

 And in those moments the blazing color bled all over my husband and me, covering us with promise, with hope and beauty. All day long I thought about our morning blessing, it made me smile, caused me to whisper thank you as the clock ticked the hours away, easing into the evening.

When these unexpected gifts come, and they do, I think He talks without words, stunning us into obedient silence. Only the heartbeat understands what the morning glory has to say. The spine, it straightens and the eyes open wide, all awake now shivering with awestruck wonder. Sparks of understanding illumine the mind, as if the horizon had a voice, and the ears strain hard to catch it.

There there now, be still, I am alive and watching, let the worries fade away. Let me cup the political climate, the body pain, fear and uncertainty in My outstretched hands. Be still, watch the sunrise, everything is going to work out just fine. 

Trust Me.

Let It Move You

I hear it driving down the street,  pull into a parking lot, turn the volume knob to the right. Listening to the lyrics, I let them sink in deep, massage the uncertainty and fear over all the trouble in the world, all the unknown that I can't fix. My fingers, they drum the steering wheel, I lean into the beat of the message. And my thoughts, they drift like swirling snowflakes, back to my beloved neighbor, she who passed away in 2011. How my heart ached sad with the missing. How the priest stood in front of the mourners at her service holding a plastic bottle of liquid detergent, a knowing smile spread across his face as he spoke about my dear friend.

Joy. She had Joy. She was Joy.


What would she would say about the news, all the chaos and division in the country, all those children and oh, those dreaded weapons? And I see a smile washing over her face, trust sparks causing a glow across her countenance, a chuckle that would make your shoulders drop an inch or two, just because. She loved Jesus and Mary authentically, loved others on purpose, not just on Sundays. I think God quite clever to send her to earth on the fourth of July, what with all those celebrations and blazing light shows.

I download the tune at home, wonder what kind of music they play in Heaven. And I play it again and again, drowning out the buzzing noise of fear, letting joy steal the joy, letting it move me inch by inch closer to God.

"Find out where joy resides, and give it a voice far beyond singing, for to miss the joy, is to miss all."

~Robert Louis Stevenson~

Dear Younger Me

I love the ocean. The soothing sound of the rolling waves, how they still the tired soul, the various seashells resting on the shoreline, waiting to be inspected, tucked into a coat pocket, seagulls telling us how it really is. And the left-over granules of sand that follow you home, how they sift out of the shoe at unsuspecting moments, dust the floor, the carpet with tender memories. In my teen years, we lazed on a beach blanket for hours at a time, Baby Oil slathered all over our innocent bodies, flipping through a Seventeen magazine, gazing at Twiggy, at her hair-do, at the body we sighed over but now we'd rather wear elastic waistbands. The salty breeze fanned our sun-burned young bodies, unaware we were then of the importance of sunscreen. If the soul was on our minds at all, we thought it was on the bottom of our Capezio flats.

As the body ages limitations can at times set you on the sidelines, a humbled spectator, a grateful cheerleader. Possibly dabbing a bit of sunscreen on the face. It's during those moments that the teenager inside longs to be part of the action, screams at the injustice of the pain, but the older, wiser part understands that the soul can be fed holy peace in the stillness, in the quietude of the unrepeatable moments. It's in the brokenness, the pain and sorrow, the interruptions and uncertainties that He does His best work. So you lean a bit further into Grace, breathe deep, grateful breaths, wear comfortable clothes, steal every bit of joy you can, and then steal some more. This then, is blessed manna for the soul.

"The Past is frozen and no longer flows, and the Present is all lit up with eternal rays."

~C.S. Lewis~

The Day You Were Born

The birds are trilling, getting their fill at the feeder, the cherry blossoms dress up the deck and ground pretty, delicate pale pink petals brightening the landscape. A snow day in spring. The calendar on the wall marks the date right clear, and my mind, it spools backward to 1984. Back when Ronald Reagan was president, Ghostbusters opened in the theaters, and the clock ticked much slower without the humming of the Internet and the urgent need of cell phones. I see a ghost of a little boy out there on the deck, standing in a baseball batting pose, pretending to be Will Clark, and I recall that day in 1984 when the doctor first gave us the news. "It's a boy!" And my young mother's heart melted happy joy all over the hospital bed, that early morning hour in May.

With doctor's permission I ran all through my pregnancy and joined a prenatal aerobics class where I fell in love with Michael Jackson's "Thriller." I learned all the words to the songs, could sing them in my sleep. The labor went sideways that spring eve, shuffling through the chilly hallway with one arm attached to a liquid  I.V. and the noise from all the hospital construction drowned out all my brave, caused the lyrics to freeze in my throat.  Drugs please, give me drugs please.

Having a son is a blessedly true gift from God. So is labor amnesia. Once we started raising this cheerful, beautiful baby boy I understood God's cleverness in gracing us with our daughter first. Our beloved boy liked exercise too, movement of any kind, and my running shoes stayed on my feet most days. Maybe God was giving us a glimpse of our future early on, the years spent on hard bleachers and lawn chairs, watching our son practice his gifting in three different sports all through school and college too. I think his older son has the gifting too.

We chat on the phone every Friday, my son and me, about anything and everything. Elongated conversations about his three kids, work, Jesus, books, health, politics and more Jesus. He lets me vent about a certain president, he is most kind that way. Bursts of joy pulse through the cell towers all the way from Virginia. When in town we go to the gym together, he opens the car door for his mother, he doesn't slam it shut. His eyes are like my brother's and it catches my breath at times, this likeness that passes on through the generations, how can that be so? His son has those same deep-set piercing blue eyes and maybe that similarity will just keep repeating, like a glowing sunset you watch for every day.

Perhaps one day in the future I'll be sitting on those hard bleachers again, watching my grandson, the one with the same gifting, playing in a baseball game. Patches of blue peek between the clouds and I look hard out on the field. "Is that Will on first base?" He chuckles, his familiar eyes shining kind. "No, Mom, you're thinking of Will Clark." I blink the eyes a few times, they don't work so well now. A red cardinal sings sweet, all perched in a nearby cherry blossom tree. And I hear music coming from a car parked down the street. An unmistakable beat, a faded memory rekindled, filling my mind's eye. Oh what a thrill to come full circle. Drumming wrinkled hands on my thighs, keeping time with the music, I scan the field looking for my grandson. I turn then to my beloved son and say, "Did I ever tell you about the day you were born?"

A son who loves God wild and large, this then gives perfect rest to his mother all the days of their lives.

A Boy And His Country

I let him pick out a book to read, this first grader whose winsome smile sends little bursts of light down the hallway, across to the open doorway. We've read together before, he and I, and after he haltingly read his small book, his accented voice attempting to pronounce each word with careful precision, he asked if I was his classmate's grandmother. He knew this but I pretended that we hadn't already had this conversation. "My grandma died." His tender brown eyes conveyed a certain spark of understanding, of hindsight about her death. "I miss her, she died in the Phillistines." My eyebrows pinned the unspoken question. "That's where I was born, the Phillistines." Before I could correct his place of origin, before I could tell him we were out of time, before I could take another breath, he began to paint a brief snapshot of life in his home country, a harsh world he and his family escaped, the place where his grandmother is buried.

"My dad was fighting, he shot with guns." Earnestness washed over his face, leapt into his words. "He had to fight, they made him, they would have killed him if he didn't." A child's innocence stolen from the cradle. "My grandmother, she spoke Arabic, like all of us." I complimented his English, his sweet eyes shone, emitting radiant childlike innocence. He continued on, his arms stretched out wide in passionate emphasis, "We had nooooo electricity, none! No power, no refrigerator, nothing! No phones or cars." The filtered water fountain across from us made a humming noise. I forgot to thank the gas station attendant. I don't think I kissed my husband goodbye this morning. We threw away the left-over hummus yesterday. A throng of young students shuffled down the hallway, quiet so as not to cause disturbance, each one different from the other, freedom taking up rear guard. This young little man, he lived and breathed the foreign air of injustice, hatred and war. He made it to America and I was glad.

"Do you like America?" I asked him as he stood up from the tiny metal chair. "Oh yes! My dad has a cell phone now and he talks on it." The exuberant smile pasted on his face righted all the wrongs, all the evils, if only for those transient moments shared. My heart, it sang right happy.

My fellow Americans, we are and always will be a nation of immigrants.

 We were strangers once too.

~Barack Obama~

The Invisible Beautiful

Cold rain washed across the windshield as we drove home that day. The wipers working over time as a dark cloud passed over, releasing tiny pellets of hail. Our seven-year-old twin grandsons, seated in the back seat, their voices raised above the din of the wipers, the deluge of sleet. 

"The Easter bunny isn't real," blond-haired grandson stated matter-of-factly. 

"Yes he is!" Brown-haired grandson exclaimed.

"No, he isn't, everyone knows he's fiction."

"Then how do the eggs get in our room?" 

"I don't know, but the bunny isn't real. Just fiction. Everybody knows that."

Silence clung to the corners of the car. A question mark dangled from the ceiling.  Swish, swish, the wipers swept across the window. I inhaled deep, afraid to let go of the Easter bunny, sandwiched between truth and innocence, I kept silent, let them sit in the question. "He doesn't wear clothes, he can't be real, everyone knows he's fiction." I felt the fluffy tail slipping away. "Besides," blond-boy continued, "Jesus rose from the dead, the Easter bunny can't know about that!" I swallowed a slice of grace, gently entered the debate. And life-pumping words like a cross, empty grave, heaven, love, they spilled all over the car, tracing the seats, the hearts with non-fictional grace, the bunny left behind, at least for a moment. Releasing a cavernous, grateful, grandmotherly breath, we continued on home, the crunching sound of pretzels from the back seat drowning out the ebbing rain. 

Later, thoughts of that other grandson swirled in my mind, much like a pastel-colored Easter egg, the kind you decorate, make pretty so the Easter bunny can hide them for you outside.

I thought of that three-year-old grandson back in Virginia, back when we visited the Museum of the Bible last week. How he stepped into a room, took one look at the man up front, the one telling us about synagogues and life back when Jesus walked the town, and this boy, he exclaimed in his tiny wise voice: "That's Jesus! He knows me!" Picking my heart up from the cobbled floor, I ruffled his hair, then kissed the top of his head, letting him believe this man truly was Jesus, not a character named David. 

Today I drive past a local church, see a sign out front announcing an Easter egg hunt coming up this Saturday. And I get this sudden vision, clear and pristine it is, marinate in it until I reach home. I see a field under a canopy of azure blue sky, vivid blue bonnets cover patches of the ground. I see a plethora of assorted colored bunnies dressed in all sorts of fashion, some wearing bright pink tutus, others donning black bow-ties and elfin dinner jackets. Some wore no clothes at all and that seemed OK. Thousands of children raced around, appearing oblivious to all those cheering bunnies speaking hidden words, clapping happy for the kids. The children wore different colored skin, spoke varied languages, and that seemed OK too. They gleefully ran about the open field, behind a few trees, searching for hidden plastic eggs chock-full of surprises. That's when I notice Him. He is walking about the wide outdoor space, freely, joyfully, kindly, and nobody appears to see Him. He pats each child in turn on the head saying, I see you, I love you, I know you, I died for you. The beaming sun puts on a smiley face. He doesn't stop until each child is hugged by Grace.

I tuck this moment way deep inside, down in that soul place embracing radical mercy, the place that knows that in order to see the invisible Beautiful, you must humbly, joyfully, dare to believe in the wondrous impossible.

#Itisfinished #Hewonthebattle #Outrageouslove

Even The Birds Of The Air

I worry. This practice of worry travels along with me like an old school friend, chatting it up every so often, reminding me that I am still a worrier. Will the grandkids be safe in school? How many more people can move to Portland in one decade? What about gun control, please, please let's get this one right.

Look at the birds. They don't plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them.

 And aren't you far more valuable to Him than they are? Can all your worries add a single moment to your life?

 There is much to be afraid of lately, the anxious thoughts and what-if's swirl in the mind like an upside down snow globe. One missing the beautiful scene inside. The unthinkable becomes reality and you want it to change and your knees get bruised from the kneeling and can you really hear our cries?

And then He gets creative, sending you cryptic love letters, like a husband who buys extra bird food just in time for a February snow storm. A dream that sticks to your skin for days, you can't wash it off no matter how hard you scrub, leaving a lingering scent of hope. And like an unsolved jigsaw puzzle, the kind that cause tiny beads of sweat to pool at the brows, He gets kind of loud like and slips the remaining tiny puzzle pieces into position. I bet He is grinning.

 I hear your voice now, in the dream, in my Bible, those red letter words dancing a graceful waltz, those precious birds all stuffed and well fed. I hear your soft and gentle voice stilling those piercing worry thoughts, your wild and crazy heart beat thrumming against the cares of the world. I hear your voice now, gentling the tilting world with your radical, relentless grace.

Be still. I've got this.
~God~

And you start all over again

Kids, Stars And A Pocket Of Grace

The Beatles released the hit back in 1964. Back when Lyndon B. Johnson was president, the cost to mail a letter five cents, and Dr. Martin Luther King won the Nobel Peace Prize. In those years, us neighbor kids, we ran free under a security blanket of glistening stars playing hide-and-seek, naivete our truest strength.

Oh yeah I tell you somethin'

I think you'll understand

When I say that somethin'

I want to hold your hand

I want to hold your hand

I want to hold your hand

Touch, a universal language that caulks the bridge between fear and trust, love and hate. And eons have passed since I first heard that song ringing out on the radio, those simple lyrics, like unhurried walks we kids took to the local Dairy Queen to buy a chocolate-dipped vanilla ice cream cone for five cents. Unblemished joy.

Recently, when brown-haired grandson cried out in the backseat of our car with unrelenting ear pain, unblinkingly I turned and reached toward his hurt and simultaneously he grasped the tips of my fingers clingingly, hungry for grace. A few minutes passed, his tears unabated and I asked my husband to pull the car over. Settling myself in the back seat next to him, I stroked his head then gloved his small hand in mind. A pocket of comfort angled itself between the two of us, his cries for the moment blessedly stilled.

Often in life it's the small gifts, the authentic moments that trace the heart with God's presence. A hand held right tender and true, a child taking a gleeful, elongated lick of ice cream dripping down the side of a cone, a radiant starry night to illuminate the past with gentle mercy.

And even the toughest ones need a helping hand now and then, someone to step into that glimpse of weakness, stretch the fingers toward the need, crafting the moment into one more prize for peace. Telling each other in the darkest of moments, the light is shining above all of for you, all for you, olly olly oxen free.

When our eyes see our hands doing the work of our hearts, the circle of creation is completed inside us. The doors of our Souls fly open and Love steps forth to heal everything in sight.

~Michael Bridge~

A Scented Offering

My sister, she hands me a hostess gift, a glass jar housing a hyacinth bulb and I take her present into my hands, thank her. I tell her I think there is a story here as my gaze studies the cream-colored stringy roots visible through the clear glass. I snap a picture as a reminder, turn it just so, positioning it toward the bands of light slipping through the wood blinds in the kitchen. And I wait.

I walk by the budding flower like a child on a treasure hunt, searching for clues, looking for those creative hiding spots. For a number of days I examine the twisting, lengthening roots, marvel at the fragrant buds showing off their glorious aroma, spilling out like expensive perfume into the kitchen. 

As if waking up from an unsettling hazy dream, the kind you have trouble shaking off all day, I think about all the hate roaming this country. Like a slithering snake it is, invading our living rooms, our news feed, a child's tender ears. I inhale deep of that scented offering holding court right there on the counter. It isn't long before I understand the message this glass vase is speaking, and I ponder the simplicity, the veracity, it trickles down into the bones, ideal nourishment for all the doubt and fear. A healing balm for the discord and discontent threatening that still peace of the soul.

I think about Jack Nicholson, his face all fierce barking out that famous line, "You can't handle the truth!" And I say to myself oh yes, oh emphatically yes, we can!

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love...

Like the rich scent of my hyacinth bulb, we too can be fragrant offerings for one another, flooding the heavens with courageous acts of love, of kindness and acceptance. Tracing the stars with tenacious humility. And I can almost feel the vapor of God's radiant breath as He joyfully watches us put into effect that which He sent us here to do. 

A flower only truly fades once its spent itself, sharing its beautiful with the world.