Letters to Arden - May 16, 2012

Dear Arden,

Tomorrow is your second birthday! You will be two whole, wonderful years old, and your new baby brother Jack will be one month old. An amazing thing happened the day Jack was born. You came to visit us in the hospital, and suddenly you were no longer our little baby – you were our big little girl! When I hugged you, you were so much heavier than you were the day before. You have never grown so quickly as you did in that one day. It’s funny how things can change overnight, how time can push us forward, almost before we’re ready, into another world.

In this new world, your hands are chubbier, your expressions more grown up, your steps surer, and your will stronger. I see the signs of a little lady, flashes of who you will be in another year, another decade. The fire in your eyes is brighter as you take in these surroundings. You are wiser, even as there is more at which to wonder.

Something happened to me, too. They say that when another child comes along, a mother’s love multiplies. It does not divide to diminish the love for the first. And truly, my love for you has not diminished. Quite the opposite in fact! You see, my heart has become bigger. Loving Jack has made me love you even more. These changes have created a whole new space within me, a space where my love for you has expanded, even exploded. Though you are running with bigger steps each day, this love is always one step ahead.

This is one of those divine miracles of motherhood. This is the nature of love, because it is the nature of God. He is always bigger than we imagine Him to be. When the unknown comes upon us, He knows the way ahead. When we are tossed forward, it is never into a space where He is not. When we think we’ve reached the end of the rope, love uncoils a new beginning. The more we grow, the more of Him we see. The more we love, the more love there is.

 “Aslan, said Lucy, “you’re bigger.” 
“That is because you are older, little one,” answered he. 
“Not because you are?” 
“I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger.” 
(CS Lewis, Prince Caspian)

As you turn two, little one, know that I love you more each day, each year. As you grow, I too am growing into God’s infinite love. There will always be room for you. There will always be more love.

love Mommy

Letters to Arden - March 29, 2012

Dear Arden,

You are no longer our little baby, but our growing bigger girl. Soon you will be a big sister! So many changes are on the way . . . you too are changing every day. You are growing into the life God has given you, growing into your fiery personality, your independence, your identity as a daughter, a sister, but most of all your very own identity as you, just you. And that is how I love you. I love just you.

I am still learning who you are! Still discovering all the little things that make you sweet and hilarious and mischievous and marvelous. You are free to be just you! And though you are not like me in many ways, I will love you even when I don’t understand you. I will embrace the way God has shaped you. I will encourage you to make your own path, even when I cannot follow.

And when your new brother or sister arrives (any day now!), you will not lose your place in our love, in our lives. You will continue to be our Arden, our firstborn, our daughter, the spark of joy that first set us alight as parents.

Just you. And that will always be enough.

love Mommy


~lg

On waiting. . .

"All our action ends in passion because the response to our action is out of our hands. That is the mystery of work, the mystery of love, the mystery of friendship, the mystery of community - they always involve waiting. And that is the mystery of Jesus' love. God reveals himself in Jesus as the one that waits for our response. Precisely in that waiting the intensity of God's love is revealed to us. If God forced us to love, we would not really be lovers. ... [I]t is in the passion that the fullness of God's love shines through. It is supremely a waiting love, a love that does not seek control."

~ Hernri Nouwen
"From Action to Passion"
Bread and Wine: Readings for Lent and Easter


~lg

Imagine a Space

They say that in space the disorientation returns you to that giddy state of childhood. When reality is turned upside-down and sideways, your imagination awakes once more in a world without limits, and kool-aid bubbles can be slurped out of the air with a straw. You decide what is floor, what is ceiling. You can sleep like a bat with your toes hooked under a ledge, or just let the air carry you to slumber on its faint currents.

In what is perhaps most magical, you are capable of surprise. You are capable of wonder, and things too undignified for highly trained astronauts. You are a child again, the world is a giant blue-green marble in your hands, and reality reforms to the power of imagination.

Where can we, earthbound, find this space? Where can we wake to a world redefined?

I’ve seen the door.

It’s small. To enter you must become the child wriggling through. You must allow yourself to be swept off your feet, upside down by a smiling Daddy swinging you by your ankles till dizzy with delight. That’s the only way to enter the Land of Upside-Down, where the king is the servant scrubbing the mud off your toes. This is where imagination runs wild on the ceiling. In this space, gravity has been defeated and new reality is an unending universe to be explored.


~lg

Single-handed Theology: The beginning of wisdom

“But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him.”
James 1:5

“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom,
And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.”
Proverbs 9:10

“Charm is deceptive and beauty is in vain,
But a woman who fears the LORD, she shall be praised.”
Proverbs 31:30

Fear is the humility to place oneself before God, acknowledging ignorance. Fear is the tears of frustration that turn to God in prayer, asking for guidance. Fear is knowing Whom to ask when wisdom is lacking.

Fear is the awe of the mystery that is both God’s otherness and nearness, His infinity and His intimacy.

Fear is the heart that trembles at the life given to my care, the heart that must love even while learning love, the heart that lives only because of love that has been poured in by the Holy One.

We know because He loves.

And this love casts out the shadow-fear, the faltering-fear of darkness and doubt.

Fear is knowing I am loved.

This Fear is the beginning of my wisdom.


~lg

Single-handed Theology - And a little child shall lead them

Maybe being a parent means being less of a grown-up.

Her dependence on me, the me who lacks so much wisdom and experience, is humbling.

It is this humility that gives me the heart of a child, breaks me open enough that I must run to my Father and say “help please!” because I cannot put the pieces together the way they should go.

She looks up with so much eager wonder, with outstretched arms and pleading eyes, with total reliance, and I see myself in her.

She is the little child leading me back to God.

(Isaiah 11:6)


~lg

Epiphany Playlist

I had so much fun with my Advent playlist that I decided to create one for Epiphany! Epiphany (meaning manifestation, appearance, revelation) is January 6th (after the 12 Days of Christmas), and celebrates the visit of the Magi to the infant Jesus, as well as the Incarnation, the revelation of God's Son in human form.

This playlist is quite short, but I like having a few songs on hand in one place that celebrate the Wise Men, the Star, and Light.


Light of the World - Chris Tomlin feat. Matt Redman (Glory in the Highest)
Good King Wenceslas* - David Francey (Carols for a Christmas Eve)
The Wassail Song/All Through the Night - Yo-Yo Ma (Songs of Joy & Peace)
We Three Kings - David Francey (Carols for a Christmas Eve)
Beautiful Star of Bethlehem - (Stuart McLean The Christmas Concert)
Do You Hear What I Hear? - Connie Scott (25 Songs of Christmas Vol. 2)
Glory in the Highest - Chris Tomlin (Glory in the Highest)


*Good King Wenceslas isn't exactly an Epiphany song, as the Feast of Stephen is celebrated December 26th in the Western church, but I thought it was a nice place to highlight Wenceslas.


~lg

What could have been a dark day

Today, when the last thing I wanted to do was open up the curtains to the world outside, you gave me light.

Sunrise, another bright and brilliant Christmas morning with the arrival of a package from the north.
Then a little golden glimmer, with the relief of a responsibility shifted off my shoulders.
And a long, warm afternoon sunbeam – a little one napping for over two hours.

Finally, I was ready to pull back the heavy material and acknowledge grace, to understand the revealing of light on a winter’s day.

Epiphany.


~lg

A new year's thought from CS Lewis

“Aslan,” said Lucy, “you’re bigger.”
“That is because you are older, little one,” answered he.
“Not because you are?”
“I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger.”

(CS Lewis, from Prince Caspian)


A good thought for a new year.


~lg

Book List 2011

Here is my completed book list for this past year! My count is actually up from last year. (I must have taken advantage of Arden's excellent napping routine!) The list includes many "children's" books (some read aloud to Arden), but I happen to think they are written just as much for adults and make up an essential part of any serious reader's library. :)

The tally:
20 fiction
10 theology/Christian life nonfiction
3 general nonfiction
33 Total


Anne of Windy Poplars (LM Montgomery)
Anne’s House of Dreams (LM Montgomery)
The Great Dance (C. Baxter Kruger)
Love the One You’re With (Emily Giffin)
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (Barbara Kingsolver)
Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
Church, World and the Christian Life (Nicholas Healy)
The Abolition of Man (CS Lewis)
The Challenge of Easter (NT Wright)
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (CS Lewis)
The Silver Chair (CS Lewis)
Now We Are Six (AA Milne)- read aloud to Arden
Little House in the Big Woods (Laura Ingalls Wilder)
Little House on the Prairie (Laura Ingalls Wilder)
Farmer Boy (Laura Ingalls Wilder)
Winnie-the-Pooh (AA Milne)- read aloud to Arden
The House at Pooh Corner (AA Milne)- read aloud to Arden
On the Banks of Plum Creek (Laura Ingalls Wilder)
Cinderella Ate My Daughter (Peggy Orenstein)
By the Shores of Silver Lake (Laura Ingalls Wilder)
The Long Winter (Laura Ingalls Wilder)
After You Believe (NT Wright)
One Thousand Gifts (Ann Voskamp)
Little Town on the Prairie (Laura Ingalls Wilder)
These Happy Golden Years (Laura Ingalls Wilder)
The First Four Years (Laura Ingalls Wilder)
Habits of a Child’s Heart(Valerie E. Hess & Marti Watson Garlett)
Faith Begins at Home (Mark Holmen)
The Eagle of the Ninth (Rosemary Sutcliff)
Room (Emma Donoghue)
The Wilder Life (Wendy McClure)
On the Incarnation (St. Athanasius)
At the Heart of the Gospel: Suffering in the Earliest Christian Message (L. Ann Jervis)

Various Fairy Tales including:
East O’ the Sun and West O’ the Moon (George Webbe Dasent, illustrated by PJ Lynch)
The Snow Queen (Hans Christian Andersen)
The Twelve Dancing Princesses (illustrated by Kinuko Y. Craft)

And of course countless board books and picture books!

~lg

The Coming Again

This is miracle – that he comes again.

Now, even while I am running, he comes out of the warm house,
door flung open, running after me,
bare feet, short sleeves in the cold night.
He is smiling, white teeth flashing in the dark, eyes sparkling,
lit up with a strange joy,
all the more shocking when I realize it is joy to see me.

But how can this be?
How can he come again even when the No has just escaped my lips, and I am still escaping him?
How can he be standing here on the icy ground with that grin, stopping me in my tracks with that light in his eyes?
How can grace be so ridiculous?

His feet must be freezing. And the cold squeezing my chest begins to melt.
He is here – no matter where I run, he just keeps running too.
He just keeps coming.
Here, to me, with me.

This is the miracle of Christmas. That he comes again and again.


~lg

The Coming

You came, and I ran away.
I tried, I tried to say yes, but I’m no Mary.
I don’t know how to make room when everything else is crowding in.

All this waiting, and I was not ready.

And now what?
Will you come again?
And if you do,
will you create the space that can open up to let you in?
Will you make me Mary?


~lg

a time for longing

Advent.

I put myself in the place of longing. Back to a time before God pulled on the clothes of earth, back to our own nakedness. I remember the cries of a people enslaved – how long, oh Lord? I imagine the dark of the silent shadow, empty ears, blind eyes. I turn back the pages and enter the story that began before my own. I do this to remember where we came from, who we were without Him. I do this so joy will be all the sweeter in the morning.

But the time of longing is not only past. The earth groans still beneath my weary feet, aches with the weight of a laboring world. For glory shone around, but glory also resides in the hidden places – the crook of a musty manger, the splinters of a shameful cross. In this time, sorrow and singing mingle together, yet hope’s song can always be heard above the rest. We are still waiting for another advent, when heaven and earth will be united once and for all in the God-Man.

Oh Emmanuel! Come, come . . . 

~lg

The beginning of giving

No, I’m not against giving to the needy. But I struggle with my own motivations for giving at Christmas.

I know I’m selfish right to the core. I know that selfishness strips me of wealth in the end, till I am wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I know the only way out is to open my hands, to release even the little I am hoarding because I feel it is barely enough for me. Because held too close, gold turns to ashes and fine clothes to rags.

And sometimes Christmas is the thing that pries a few fingers open and lets in some light.

And sometimes Boxing Day is only the return to clenched fists for another year.

Why am I willing to give away Christmas cookies but not make my life bread for others year round? I don’t want to be a hypocrite.

I want to grasp the nature of a servant, the humility of the Incarnation.

I need to remember that I have been the one to say “no room,” to say “no womb,” to God.

But still he comes to closed doors, closed hearts, closed hands and offers himself.

I must be like Mary. How can this be? I do not have the capacity to give. But my yes to this mystery makes a space within, a space for a seed that will grow into a harvest that will become bread to be broken and given away.

So I say, “Behold, the handmaid of the Lord.” Christmas is only the beginning, and who knows how this life within will stretch and overtake me.

“Be it unto me according to Thy Word.”


~lg

Advent Playlist

Sometimes, I need to wait. I need the anticipation, the longing, the not-yet-here, so I can rejoice fully when fulfillment arrives.

I love Christmas music. Not Rudolph and Chestnuts Roasting so much as the sacred and celebratory songs of Christ. It's just the best music! I can't possibly wait till Christmas Day to turn on the tunes, like some people who celebrate Advent do. But this year I made an Advent playlist. It's for the beginning of Advent, and for the days I want to feel longing instead of celebration. I found it a bit challenging to find Advent specific songs, but here's what I've come up with from my music library.


Messiah: Overture - Handel
Come Thou Long Expected Jesus - Chris Tomlin (Glory In the Highest)
Veni Veni Emmanuel - Hayley Westenra (Winter Magic)
Mao Tzur (Rock of Ages) - Fred Penner (The Season)
Forever Will I Sing (Psalm 89) - John Michael Talbot (25 Songs of Christmas Vol 2)
Messiah: Comfort Ye My People - Handel
Messiah: Every Valley Shall Be Filled - Handel
Messiah: And the Glory of the Lord - Handel
When the Time is Right - Ginny Owens (One Silent Night)
You'll Come - Hillsong Chapel (Yahweh)
Messiah: Behold a Virgin Shall Conceive - Handel
Messiah: O Thou That Tellest Good Tidings to Zion - Handel
He Shall Be Born - Wendy & Mary (25 Songs of Christmas Vol 2)
I Choose You - Rachel Lampa (One Silent Night)
My Soul Magnifies the Lord - Chris Tomlin (Glory in the Highest)
The Magnificat - John Michael Talbot (25 Songs of Christmas Vol 2)
O Come O Come Emmanuel - Instrumental (One Silent Night)
Breath of Heaven - Point of Grace
Messiah: Come Unto Him - Handel, National Philharmonic Orchestra (25 Songs)
Liese Rieselt Der Schnee (Softly Falls the Snow) - Fred Penner (The Season)
Dona Nobis Pacem - Yo-Yo Ma (Songs of Joy and Peace)
Messiah: For Behold a Darkness Shall Cover the Earth - Handel
Messiah: The People That Walked in Darkness - Handel
Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence - Fernando Ortega (Storm)
Emmanuel (Hallowed Manger Ground) - Chris Tomlin (Glory In the Highest)

-Messiah selections recorded by the London Philharmonic Orchestra & Choir unless noted otherwise