Trusting Soul

My fantastic friend Ruth has loaned me yet another fine book (she's the one who loaned my the Anne Lamott book). This one is by an Iowan named Brian Andreas. The book is Trusting Soul and is filled with drawings and poetry. I want to share a few of my favorites.


Listening for the Future

I'm on my way to the
future, she said & I
said, But you're just
sitting there listening
& she smiled & said,
It's harder than you'd
think with all the noise
everyone else is making


Before Dawn

I've always liked
the time before
dawn because there's
no one around to
remind me who I'm
supposed to be so it's
easier to remember
who I am.


Magic

this is a magical beast
that holds the secret of
lights & shadow in a
safe place in her heart
& when it has been too
long grey, she starts to
dance & laugh & cry & sing
& the sunlight fills her
up & spills in wild abandon
back into the world again


Soccer

What are the rules?
I said & he said you
run & you run & you
run until you fall
over. There's a couple
others in there for
variety, he added, but
that's the main one.

I think that I would rename this last one Life. At least that is the way I've lived it... up till now.

If you want more info their web address is www.storypeople.com

Family

Monday evening was the Spiritual Direction summer potluck. We met to reconnect, review Ester de Waal's book "Pause at the Threshold", seek God together, be alone together. For me it was a family reunion. One that I wanted to go to. One that I was glad I had gone to.

Right now relations with my biological family are... (hmm, can't think of just the right word). Disconnected. Painful. Messed up. Unhealthy. Broken. Not there.

You see, I've been reading this subversive book by Cloud and Townsend called "Boundaries". I asked my family to have direct relationship with me, instead of "kind of" having relationship with me by finding out about me from another family member. I asked them not to talk about me with each other. These are not the only treasonous things I have done but these are the ones that have of late sealed my exclusion. They believe my requests to be unthinkable, unloving, un-Christ-like, selfish and hurtful. I believe my request to be reasonable, healthy, personally needed. We're at a bit of an impasse. They are hurting. So am I. Right now it is hard to see how this will get better.

So Monday's family reunion was a gift. I am not alone. I am provided for. I have family that loves and accepts me. I have family that allows me to take my own journey - wherever that may lead me. We together and alone seek God and celebrate that pursuit. Our time together was beautiful.

There was one sad note - two of my brothers were missing. Jeff O. and Dave S. - we missed you, you are a part of us.

Brain Freeze

Sometimes we use the phrase "brain freeze" to refer to the sharp headache we get when we eat our ice cream too quickly. For me it has a second meaning.

You see, these Minnesota winters are so long and cold that I believe that small parts of my brain actually freeze over. One frozen part of my brain is the part that should remember what a sunburn feels like and how to actually avoid that feeling. But, alas, the injury is part of the cure. All that sweet hotness has scorched my fair skin but has also melted my frozen brain.

Here's to ice cream, popsicles, swimming pools, hot sun, and cool breezes. Oh yes, and a big spray can of Solarcaine. Happy summer to you!

New friends

An ache of homesickness came over me, for our old life before Sam's
blood got funky, for the sweet functional surface of that life, for the stuff
and routine that hold me together, or at least that I believe hold me together.
That's the place I like to think of as reality. Maybe it's full of lusts and
hormones and yearnings for more, more, more, and maybe it is all about clutching
and holding and tightness, but I just love it to pieces and it was where I
wanted to be.

From Anne Lamott's book Traveling Mercies

They are the songs of a people who were moving away from a known situation
into the unknown, and they were often angry with a God who removed all those
certainties, who instead seemed to be leading them along an apparently
precarious path. They did not sit down for long beside gently flowing
streams or
linger in lush meadows. When we pray the psalms as they did, we,
too, are
compelled to stay "at the raw edge," in the words of Walter
Brueggemann.
There comes a time when the things that were undoubtedly good
and right in
the past must be left behind, for these is always the danger
that they might
hinder us from moving forward and connecting with the
one necessary thing,
Christ himself.
Insecurity makes certitude
attractive, and it is in times like these that I
want to harness God to my
preferred scheme of things, for it is risky to be so
vulnerable.

From Esther de Waal's book To Pause at the Threshold.

Esther and Anne are my new best friends. Esther lives on the border land between England and Wales - I'm moving there next week. (not really). Anne is naughty and funny and honest in all the best ways. Funny how God provides people and encouragement at just the right time, and these people don't always show up in the flesh. Some day I will meet these women - that will be sweet!

Junior

We got to have an ultrasound for baby today. How wonderful. Pete was there and so where Livy and Gunnar. We had it done at the Northside Life Center in Minneapolis, the clinic that I have just now begun to go to for prenatal care. It was sort of like ultrasound lite. The technician is just learning the ropes and they don't get real technical - sort of just for funsies. And it was fun. It's nice to see that the baby has arms, legs, hands, feet, a little heart that beats, ... all the necessary equipment for life. It was punching around, moving those little tiny arms and legs. We got to bring some strange non-baby looking photos home. We were sooooo hoping to find out the sex but junior wouldn't cooperate, plus junior's a bit young for the exam anyway. We found out that according to the baby's size I'm probably almost 17 weeks instead of almost 18 weeks - I had guessed that was the case. So now we can expect to meet junior close to Thanksgiving Day.
I did find out that we will get the real ultrasound down at Fairview Riverside around 20 weeks. Hurrah! We would still love to find out the sex of the baby!

Baby Talk

I promised to blind you with baby blather. I have not delivered! (tee hee) Let me rectify my gross negligence.

Seriously now. I am full of ambivalence about this baby experience. I have already had two babies yet as I look at a pregnant woman I am disconnected with her experience. Sometimes I see a pregnant woman and think, "Dang! She looks so uncomfortable!" Other times seeing a pregnant woman stirs up desire to experience that new life growing in me again. But now I am pregnant and I realize that I have forgotten so much.

1. My whole body is changing, not just my belly. (I could go into great detail here but will spare you that.)
2. I live with the wonder of new life growing in me - a real person being created in me - and the real possibility that this life won't make it - that this life might (and will, at some point) die. I am now bound to this life. I watch with amazement and fear. Who will this unique new person be? Will there be ten little fingers and ten little toes? Will the brain work well? Will I recognize the finger prints of God?
3. Maternity clothes stink. They are big and small in all the wrong places. Maternity bodies change weekly, so even if you manage to find a pair of pants that fit well, by next Thursday they won't. I think that maternity style should consist of large, hawaiian print moo-moos. At this moment I am wearing an old pair of shorts I use when I'm painting. It was all I could find that wasn't in the laundry, wasn't pajamas, wasn't too hot, and fit. Aaaarrrrgggh!
4. When Gunnar was born Olivia was nearly two. We loved her so much and couldn't imagine loving another little person as much as we loved her. But then Gunnar showed up and we did love him. It wasn't one bit hard. Olivia used to stand at my knees crying whenever I nursed Gunnar. It was difficult for her to understand what this new person was doing in her place, with her mommy. This time Olivia and Gunnar are aware and excited. They are constantly coming up with the most endearing and surprising thoughts about the baby. It's wonderful to share this experience with them. And yet... I find that I am grieving the loss of the four of us. Sometimes this new life is like a foreign invader, wrecking our nice little family, home and life. This summer is for me a celebration of the four of us - enjoying what we can do together and what we mean to each other. Sometimes I feel so sad about this change. But I'm guessing that once jr. shows up it won't be long before we won't be able to imagine life without him/her.

Thanks for listening. Your comments and experiences are welcome.