Tag: Life

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Creating Memories, Scriptures

As we continue the conversation on creating memories for our children, (see the intro, part I, part II, and part III, as well as quotes on the matter & our sidebar on grace), we now pause to reflect on Scripture for a moment… and recall that our lives are but a breath, and that memory is a blessing.

Creating Memories, Scriptures
to remind myself what the Lord says in His Word

A quick bible study search shows the word “remember” 230 times in NKJV and 234 times in ESV. A search of “memory” shows 10 times in NKJV and 11 times in ESV.
Often, it seems that it is a negative comment, saying that memory of a person/place will be wiped out as a curse for disobedience. We can deduce from that that keeping memories alive are a blessing. So here are just a few little Scriptures referencing memories and remembering, as we continue contemplating the subject of creating memories even now. Psalm 90 is a recurring theme for me, as it reminds us of our frailty and God’s timelessness, and the psalmist encourages us to number our days…

 

Numbers 15:40
…remember and do all My commandments, and be holy for your God.

Proverbs 10:7
The memory of the righteous is a blessing…

Mark 14:9
…what she has done will be told in memory of her.

 

Psalm 119:52
I remembered Your judgments of old, O Lord,
And have comforted myself.

Numbers 10:9
…you will be remembered before the Lord your God, and you will be saved from your enemies.

Psalm 111:4
He has made His wonderful works to be remembered;
The Lord is gracious and full of compassion.

 

 

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Creating Memories, III

Another installment in the conversation on creating memories for our children, see the intro, part I, and part II, as well as memory quotes & a sidebar on grace. And now I will tell you briefly a little of some hows & whys behind a few of the overarching qualities that we seek to pursue in our family culture. A lot of them are interwoven, with joy and grace being the essential threads tying them all into one tapestry ~ the tapestry that we call our home & family life.
Don’t forget to share your own thoughts on the subject in the comments, so we can make it a real conversation!

CREATING MEMORIES, III
how we pursue creating a general family culture
of music, fun, joy, laughter, delight, grace & forgiveness

~music~
As a musical person myself, I have sought to teach my kids about music and singing from the womb. I have grand visions of incorporating music and singing into every meal, like a regular liturgy. 🙂 Not sure that is actually realistic, which is probably why I have only managed to accomplish such things in short spurting seasons thus far. I have dreams of our children all learning various instruments, and someday having a little family folk band together. They will all learn piano first (well, they learn singing first! then piano is their first non-organic instrument…), and then have access to our other stash of instruments (harps, Irish hand drum, guitar, handbells), and then eventually would be able to choose instruments of their own (once they are old enough to be diligent, and have a good foundation with piano and singing, we will love to hire teachers and rent instruments of each child’s choosing). Beginning this year, we get the pleasure of introducing our children to a week-long summer day camp of music camp, and we could not be more delighted at being able to give our kids this opportunity! (Only one is old enough so far to actually attend, but they’ll each get there with time…)
We always have music playing on the cd player throughout the day, and what we call our bedtime serenades is something I will share with you soon. We sing when we tuck the kids in, too, and I try to work with the kids on other songs during the days (when I remember to do it).
It would be an enormous blessing (and honestly a huge success in my eyes) if my children were to look back on their childhoods as being regularly seasoned with music.

 

The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located
will betray us if we trust to them;
it was not in them, it only came through them,
and what came through them was longing.
These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—
are good images of what we really desire;
but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols,
breaking the hearts of their worshipers.
For they are not the thing itself;
they are only the scent of a flower we have not found,
the echo of a tune we have not heard,
news from a country we have never yet visited.
~C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory~

 

~words~
Our children love singing, reading, writing, & of course (oh do they ever!) talking. I hope our children remember words in their childhoods being seasoned with grace. I long for them to remember our conversations being filled with kindness and humility (and yes, I hope they will forget the times when my words are flavored with harshness, cynicism, and selfishness). I want them to remember singing amazing songs and reading fantastic books and writing to wonderful people. One of my great desires for my little bibliophiles is that words would continue to grow them, shape them, mold them, give them delight, increase their wisdom, and create memories of stories—both their own and otherworldly. I want them to love words, understand words, and use words for building kingdoms and building up of souls.

 

I want my kids to learn firsthand and up close that different isn’t bad,
but instead that different is exciting and wonderful
and worth taking the time to understand.
I want them to see themselves as bit players,
in a huge, sweeping, beautiful play,
not as the main characters in the drama of our living room.
~Shauna Niequist, Bread & Wine, p98~

~laughter~
I want my children to remember their childhoods as filled with laughter. The carillon that comes from an absolute overflow of utter delight!
Our rooms are literally ringing with it throughout the day, and as the kids get older, I don’t want that evidence of joy to diminish but to grow and deepen. I would love for laughter to be a hallmark of our family’s love for one another and delight in being together. It doesn’t take much to get these little people rolling with chuckles on the floor, but I confess that I have a long way to go in growing in my own laughter. I am far too serious, and I hope that the Lord will have mercy upon me in giving me more laughter as time goes on—so that my children will see my wrinkles someday as laughter lines rather than stern lines. This is my hope, and I need to make it my prayer.

 

Parenting in grace is not parenting on the basis
of your own consistent gospel-centeredness.
It is just the opposite.
Parenting in grace is parenting on the basis
of Christ’s consistent perfections alone.
~Elyse Fitzpatrick & Jessica Thompson, Give Them Grace, p163~

~forgiveness~
I suppose above all else, even above an atmosphere of utter joy itself, is that I want my children to remember their home as a place where forgiveness was both sought and given wholeheartedly. There is nothing that is too big for God’s grace and forgiveness, because as His children Jesus paid the ransom for it all. I want that to ultimately permeate and override everything else in our home, family, routine, desires. Only by God’s grace can that happen, so that is what I pray for, yearn for, endeavor to inculcate in our home & in our people. From the fount of forgiveness all other graces can then pour, for without the peace that flows from forgiveness, joy and laughter and music and grace-filled words would just be empty shells.

Only humility, only transparent confession of our great need,
will result in the grace we so desperately need
to parent the little fellow sinners in our home.
~Elyse Fitzpatrick & Jessica Thompson, Give Them Grace, p165~

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Creating Memories, II

Continuing in our conversation on creating memories… intro here, my own childhood memories here, fun quotes here… Now I will share with you some specific things (both activities/events and overall penetrating themes) which I hope, pray, endeavor, and work toward my own children embracing now and remembering as time goes on, and in a couple of days I will expand each of these areas to share about the hows (and maybe the whys) behind them. Remember to share in the comments (or link to your blog) if there are specifics that you want your own kids to remember as they someday look back upon their childhoods as well ~ I would love to exchange ideas with you!

CREATING MEMORIES, II
specifics I want my kids to remember

~bedtime serenades~
In the evenings, after tucking them in, kissing them, praying for them, and blessing them, I scoot myself over to the piano. I play for roughly thirty minutes, and the children love falling asleep in the midst of it.
Recently, they have begun requesting harp in addition to piano. Sometimes I play one instrument per night, other times I play a little of each.

~joy at the table~
We need to keep working on this one. 🙂 I long for my children to look back at mealtimes not just as opportunities to fill our mouths and bellies with food, but to love one another and spend time with one another… especially the dinner table where all of us sit down together.

~love of learning, delight in playing, embracing of all we call neighbor~
Especially as a homeschooling family, but regardless of it just the same, we seek to daily inculcate a love of curiosity and creativity and learning.
We encourage a delight in playing, especially playing together.
We also seek to embrace our neighbor in these things, especially as learning and playing coincide.

~Sabbath as a joy & monument, Christ everyday & in our everyday~
Have you ever read Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “Farmer Boy” and been taken aback at the description of Sundays? As I recall, it’s the same in “Little House in the Big Woods,” and I don’t think the legalism and harsh realities of what “Sabbath” meant to people is really very far-fetched for most of us. But my boys, who are old enough to pick up on the nuances of these details we read about, find it absolutely unimaginable. They love Sundays!

~weekly family fun night~
Part of our merrymaking on the Lord’s Day is how we wrap up the day with family fun night!

~music~
As a musical person myself, I have sought to teach my kids about music and singing from the womb. I have grand visions of incorporating music and singing into every meal, like a regular liturgy. 🙂
It would be an enormous blessing (and honestly a huge success in my eyes) if my children were to look back on their childhoods as being regularly seasoned with music.

~words~
Our children love singing, reading, writing, (oh do they ever!) talking. I hope our children remember words in their childhoods being seasoned with grace.

~laughter~
I want my children to remember their childhoods as filled with laughter.

~forgiveness~
I suppose above all else, even above joy itself, is that I want my children to remember their home as a place where forgiveness was both sought and given wholeheartedly.

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Creating Memories, I

A couple of days ago, I introduced a conversation to you. A conversation about memories ~ those from our own childhoods, and those that we desperately wish to inculcate into the lives of the children around us, in our homes, in our charge. As we jump into a few days’ meditation on this subject, please allow me to first share with you some of the hallmark memories from my own childhood, and the overarching theme which I remember permeating our family home & life. You are invited, and most welcome, to share your own experiences in the comments here or link over to your own blog if you have one. The intent is not to compare or even to contrast childhood memories, but to encourage one another as we see different beauties and varied glories in different homes among different families, to see with eyes of grace how the Lord has written different stories for each of us, to be lifted in spirit as we remember where we came from and look ahead in faith & hope to where He continues taking us.

 

CREATING MEMORIES, I
what I remember from my own childhood

~bedtime—singing, Daddy on guitar, Mama’s fingers running through my hair~
I remember bedtime like no other time of the day. Some of my very earliest memories (coming from someone who has a notoriously bad memory…) are of bedtime. Perhaps because it was the one predictable time of the day when all four of us were together, doing the same thing at the same time. I don’t remember how we got from the dinner table to our beds; I don’t recall if we had dinner, evening, or playtime routines; I don’t even honestly remember if my super-busy pediatrician father who was incessantly in high demand was with us every night for dinner or not (although I know for certain he was there often, and I imagine he did absolutely everything he could to be there every night).
But I remember being tucked in. I remember my dog either curling up on her pillow at the foot of my bed or scurrying underneath my bed to sleep. I remember my parents taking turns saying goodnight to my brother and me, singing to each of us separately, sometimes my dad settling himself with his guitar in between our bedroom doors to sing to us both at the same time. I remember my favorite “song” to request was “make-up, Daddy! make-up!” and he would make something up on the fly. I loved that! I remember my mother kneeling at the side of my bed, combing my hair with her fingers, sometimes just while she said goodnight and sang me a lullaby (which words she crafted when I was a wee thing), sometimes continuing until I had fully fallen asleep. I remember falling asleep with the most peaceful feeling that this was home, this was peace, this was comfort, this was love.

I remember how well they loved us without actually using words.
Because sometimes words are too difficult to hear.
Sometimes you’re just not ready to dissect what you’ve been through.
Sometimes you need both more and less than the words.
~Lisa-Jo Baker, Surprised By Motherhood, p98~

~freedom in playing & schedules & schooling—the comfort of balancing freedom with boundaries~
I remember feeling so free in my childhood. We were not married to schedules although we definitely kept to routines (don’t you kind of have to, in order to all function together smoothly, and to interact with the community around you?). I remember routines like “Thursday School” and going with my mom to her ladies’ Bible studies. I remember going to “the club” with my mom, coloring in Disney books (Ariel might have been my favorite… and one of my friends may have taught me to draw mermaids freehand, although I always ended up with the shells near the belly button somehow…), while my mom did aerobics. I loved watching her, tapping my toes to the rhythmic music. Sometimes we got to go swimming, play tennis, or play on the playground at the club. I remember the routine of Friday mornings, where my dad would take my brother and me on rounds with him at the hospitals. I remember hanging out in nursing stations while he donned yellow gowns and examined sweet tiny babies in nurseries. I remember the smell of the hospitals. I remember he would take us out for breakfast too: Jack In The Box was our agreed upon favorite at the time. Colin ordered things without eggs, I ordered things without sausage. We loved the delightful spoiling of getting to have a treat like Sprite or orange juice on a weekday morning. I remember getting to bring my schoolwork to my dad’s office, to sit at the little fold-up desk he had built right there into his own workplace. Sometimes I got to interact with patients, or hang out with his staff (including my grandma, who was the financial guru), but mostly I think I did try to focus on math and reading and writing. I remember doing schoolwork at home, and watching Little House on the Prairie on channel 36 when I was done with my lessons… although I tended to do more lessons in one day than I was technically supposed to. I remember my parents encouraging fieldtrips and experiences and reading for hours on end. I remember hanging out at the Saratoga library. I remember learning and growing and my curiosity expanding. I remember having time to create things, to play music or read books for hours on end, to run free and wild in our acre-wide backyard, to gather wild blackberries or catch tadpoles in the creek or hike through backyards to say hello to a horse a few homes down (I called her Sweet Pea, but I never actually found out her real name). I remember my friends all being tied to schedules and having very little downtime. I remember wishing my friends wouldn’t be grounded so often, because it always seemed to hurt my heart more than it hurt theirs when our precious playdates got canceled (perhaps that’s because my friends all had sisters, and I was the only one who didn’t). I remember feeling so beautifully free, but I remember the comfort of knowing my boundaries and of resting in the knowledge that breaking boundaries would result in the bittersweet blessing of discipline. I remember feeling loved and safe in the freedom of those boundaries.

~being my mama’s shadow and being allowed in my daddy’s world~
I remember following my mother everywhere. From the moment I was born, I think I somehow knew she was going to be my lifelong best friend and forever mentor. Church events, errands, hospitality, visiting those in need, catering monthly office lunches at my dad’s office, Sunday night family dinners at my grandma’s house, hosting tea parties, doing housework, cooking meals, folding laundry, adding chemicals to the swimming pool, sewing clothes and curtains and gifts, reorganizing cupboards and redecorating rooms. I loved shadowing my mother, learning from  her, watching her, coming alongside her to groom my clumsy hands slowly into shadows of her skilled ones. I hardly ever remember being without her. When I did find myself without her (at piano lessons, ballet, or even if I waited in the car while she ran in to the bank or Safeway), I do recall a feeling of painful separation. I didn’t like being without the one whom I shadowed. I embraced it and loved it and was blessed by it. Thankfully, I think she did & was too!
I remember being allowed in my daddy’s world. From the weekly trips to breakfast and on hospital rounds, to the times (was it weekly also?) when I would spend mornings doing schoolwork in his office, to playing tennis, to learning different swimming strokes, to watching him woodwork in his shop, to singing alongside him while he strummed his guitar, to recording music together on cassette tapes, to driving around buckled into the back left seat of our minivan and shopping at Home Depot for wood or Fry’s Electronics for techy stuff I really didn’t understand ~ I loved being allowed in his world. I followed him like a little duckling, not always shaping my hands to imitate his, but always watching and gleaning and loving and respecting what his hands were doing… and his hands were always doing.

Here’s just one oddity about being people:
I don’t remember anything about showing up on this planet (and neither do you).
I am here. You are here.
Others have to explain it to me.
I take it on faith.
Everything that I believe about my own origin and the early years of being me,
I have heard secondhand.
I was clearly a free agent (based on the stories).
I was assessing things and making decisions and taking action (with an emphasis on self-interest).
I was living life to the fullest.
And all of it is gone, at least from my memory.
But humans are not intended for data storage (though we have that capacity).
We are intended for living, for moving through a story.
~N.D. Wilson, Death by Living, p96~

~my brother as my constant and best friend~
I remember how people would comment about our brother-sister relationship, how we never argued (let alone fought), how we were sometimes mistaken for twins (red head blue eyed freckled waifs!), how we had vastly different hobbies & interests but always found middle ground to love spending time together. I remember always looking up to him, and wanting to be like him in any ways that I could. I remember how he shadowed our father like I shadowed our mother. I remember knowing early on that he was basically a genius, and I tried hard to keep pace with him until we were teenagers when I realized calculus and computer languages just were not going to be my thing at all. I remember playing with him in the creek, watching him practice archery on the woodshed, how he helped my dad build me “a prairie house” playhouse, how I learned to type by watching him type, how he helped teach me to drive, how we did music together, how we did Scottish Highland dancing together, how we shared friends, how we shared love of being country kids (he with his cows, me with my horse) and he built me a chicken coop for my fifteenth birthday present because I was given nine little chicks that year. I remember being told that it would change when we grew up, that boys grow into men who necessarily have to love wives so intensely that sisters will have to grow into the background. I remember not believing what I was told. But even though our friendship is not the same depth because we do not have the unique time alone together for days on end anymore, our friendship is still present and unique. He is always there for me. He always answers the phone when I call him, whether with good news or bad. We pray for one another. We embrace one another’s kids with abandon. I see us in our children… and I see the beauty of my lifelong friendship with my beloved big brother reflected in the loving friendship our children now share. He is the only other person who shared my childhood, who has common memories with me, who gets the inside jokes or secret looks across the dining table at my parents’ house. Age and distance will never change that. And the things I remember from childhood, growing up with him as my only sibling and only real bosom friend, haven’t begun to fade yet, and I seriously pray they never will.

Because [he] is my only sibling, and I am his,
there’s something completely singular about our relationship.
There’s no one on earth who has shared our history,
no one on earth who can see the world from the corner that we alone inhabit.
… Now we are grown. And he is still one of my best friends…
There is a whole world, a whole history between us that no one else knows,
that no one else understands, and there are times when my brother and I catch eyes
in a room, across the dinner table, or across the yacht club,
understanding each other perfectly, wordlessly.
What a gift it is to share this town, this history, this family,
this corner of the world with someone like him.
~Shauna Niequist, Bread & Wine, p238~

~truth, beauty, and goodness as overarching themes that penetrated our everyday~
I remember the gospel glories of truth, beauty, and goodness penetrating every aspect of our family life. Home, church, homeschooling, hospitality, Daddy’s work, Mama’s work, our relationships. There was never any doubt Who ruled our home and family. There was never any doubt that the only things truly worth pursuing (individually and corporately) were those which held truth, beauty, and goodness ~ or at least the seeds or seedlings of them. Woodworking, home decorating, feeding bellies, lavish tables, huge Christmas trees, clothing, speaking, writing, singing, fellowshipping, exercising, serving at the City Team homeless shelter, leading Bible studies and craft nights, science projects with the J girls, hiking through the hills, finishing math pages, playing dressup… there was no aspect of my childhood where truth, beauty, and goodness did not permeate and saturate. Even (perhaps especially) when I sinned, and was disciplined, those three glorious themes were huge and everpresent. The forgiveness of my father was something I craved and loved and clung to… and it taught me about the forgiveness of my Heavenly Father as well.
While my parents may not have verbally used the tri fecta of truth, beauty, and goodness in so many words all the time, as I reflect upon my childhood, that is what I remember. It is what I knew, and what I know, and what I pray to continue knowing.

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I will live myself to death for them

As Nate Wilson said, I am thankful
“for the people I am meant to live myself to death for.
For bigness. For smallness.
For bread. For wine.
For all they represent”
(Death by Living, p188).
May I live accurately,
according to this thankfulness in my heart.

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May I live myself to death for the people God has given me.

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My Sweet Teen

Introducing my newest little covenantal creation, by the grace of the Holy Spirit & creative Word…

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This is our thirteenth child, the little guy I lovingly call Sweet Teen.
The beloved baby I hold now in the depths of my own body…
whose heart beats beneath my own…
whose precious limbs flail without me even feeling them yet…
this is the person I ache to look upon with my own eyes this autumn…
and until then, we pray and we hope and we rejoice…
I take medications and shots and adhere to dietary restrictions…
I rest and I puke and I ache…
and I give unabashed thanks every single day to the Author of life…
and it brings me such joy to share this glimpse with you
into the secret places where the Lord is secretly & miraculously weaving microscopic threads
into a little itty bitty person in His image
and in ours.

And I weep for joy
because the Lord has heard our cries
for life.

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Sex as an act of creation, of art, of life,
filled our thoughts and bed and intertwined the parts of us
we didn’t realize we’d still been living separate.
This righteous act of love that reminds human creatures
that there is a miracle wrapped in the gift of pleasure.
A miracle that points to a good Gift Giver outside ourselves,
outside our control, outside our timelines,
outside our attempts at  manipulation or desperate demands.
Galaxies must align and collide in the secret dark,
and all we can do is humble ourselves
to be available to something much bigger than our comprehension.
~Lisa-Jo Baker, Surprised By Motherhood, p184~

~*~*~

God knits babies together in the secret dark.
And we can plan all we like,
but we have no actual control over the outcomes.
We bear witness to the miracle, and we women—
we also bear it in our bodies.
But we certainly don’t dictate it.
~Lisa-Jo Baker, Surprised By Motherhood, p166~

 ~*~*~

God already knows
He already delights.
He has already been singing over them in the dark,
secret hours of spinning life out of strands of DNA—
an artist at work, creating and shaping another Adam-child in His image.
And the sonogram is desperate to catch up.
The black-and-white shifting dimensions on the screen only hint at His handiwork.
At the brilliance and the raw beauty beating
with the brand-new chambers of a heart there on the dim screen.
It is the shape the Father sculpted in the beginning
and the shape the Christ-Son took.
It is the ancient, familiar form
that is still somehow new every time we see it fitted over a new soul.
Upward and forward and deeper into the heart of God
with each new life He entrusts us with.
Parts of us crack wide open,
and we are vulnerable to a vast army of fears,
for to parent is to ache over the unknown.
~Lisa-Jo Baker, Surprised By Motherhood, p166~

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The Good Stuff

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Nothing comes easily.
You have to lose things you thought you loved,
give up things you thought you needed.
You have to get over yourself,
beyond your past,
out from under the weight of your future.
The good stuff never comes when things are easy.
It comes when things are all heavily weighted down like moving trucks.
~Shauna Niequist, Cold Tangerines, p179~

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Easter Lessons

This year, we went out of our way to do a few more hands-on lessons and Easter preparations with the children. The older they get, of course the more they grasp ~ and it is delightful to hear their own 6, 3, and 2 year old sized insights into why we do the things we do.

On Good Friday, rather than doing our normal homeschooling routine, while the little ones had individual room time (learning to play on their own for a solid hour is a good skill to learn), Gabriel helped me clean the house. We washed windows, cleaned bathrooms, swept floors, mopped floors, did laundry, washed dishes, wiped down cupboards. And while we worked together, we talked about why we were working so hard, and why is this what we chose to do on Good Friday. When I asked Gabriel what he thought, he paused in thought, then profoundly said, “Well, today is the day we remember the whole reason why Jesus came. He came to clean our hearts. So I guess that’s why we should clean our home.” I wanted to just stop the conversation right there, and leave it at that ~ because my kid gets SO much of the Gospel story, and I love hearing his perspective on it. It’s beautiful. But we went on to talk about how Jesus served others, even though He was King of all. We talked about “our people” ~ and who are our neighbors. Gabriel even asked if he could wash my feet when we were done cleaning, because he wanted to bless me and serve me like Jesus.

But I hate to admit, I forgot about the feet-washing, because by the time we were done cleaning the house, the little ones were ready to be done with solitary playtime, and we needed to move on to the phase of dirtying things back up again. Funny how we do that in my line of work: we clean things up so we can make them dirty again!

So after a little lunch, Evangeline was ready for a nap, and the boys & I got out supplies for some crafts that would hold more lessons.

We had already dyed Easter eggs with Grandmama, Auntie, and cousins, complete with super sweet and thoughtful conversations about the metaphors, symbolism, and just plain fun of the tradition. My children and I have talked numerous times this week about the symbolism we can see in the eggs… how they symbolize the rock which closed the tomb, but new life can spring forth from it… how we can take plain eggs and give them new clothing, as we do when we take on new life in Christ… how the yolk in a cracked egg can symbolize the glorious light of Jesus’ resurrection from the dark tomb when He burst forth in glorious array…
Click here to read about Easter Egg traditions throughout the life of the Church, following the Lenten season. Even plain old Wikipedia had some great thought-provoking things about Easter Eggs, or Paschal Eggs. And for some fun nuances on Easter Egg traditions, click here and have some fun with the kids in your life.

Romans 6:4
We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death,
in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead
by the glory of the Father,
we too might walk in newness of life.

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Thanks to Ann Voskamp’s diligent sharing each and every year, I finally felt like my boys were old enough this year to really grasp & enjoy a couple more unique & detailed hands-on projects.

First we had a snack of nuts and figs, while we made a crown of thorns (using a small grapevine wreath and a few dozen coffee-stained toothpicks) and talked a lot about the events of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. Three year old Asher was nearly in tears (I love how his forehead crinkles and his chin quivers when he feels genuine sorrow), talking about Jesus being tortured, bleeding, and dying. He finally smiled again when I reminded Him that this was why Jesus came, and this is how He worked to save US from OUR sins. And in his sweet little voice, Asher proclaimed, “I sure love Jesus, Mommy.”

Matthew 27:29
…twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on His head…

Mark 15:17
…twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on Him.

John 19:2, 5
And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on His head and arrayed Him in a purple robe. So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe.

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Next we went out on to the back porch and put together our own little Gethsemane. Using a small moss planter (I used this, and don’t let the word “large” fool you!), we filled it with soil. Then we set our tomb carved in the rock in the corner of the garden (I found that aquarium accessories could offer some neat options, like this cichlid stone), before filling the rest of the garden with plants. We used some little succulents we got at a local store along with some pretty decorative moss, and then Gabriel used small smooth stones to make a little pathway through the garden to the tomb. Last of all, the boys went on a stone hunt outside to find something that would serve as a tomb cover.

John 19:41
Now in the place where He was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid.

Luke 23:55-56
The women who had come with Him from Galilee followed and saw the tomb and how His body was laid.Then they returned and prepared spices and ointments. On the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment.

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On Good Friday, we used last week’s palm branches and our homemade crown of thorns to decorate our dinner table, when we ate lamb and roasted vegetables and matzo ball soup, along with the Seder plate with all  its elements and plenty of wine.

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Our kitchen island was cleared of all other decorations, and that is where we laid our own little Gethsemane. On Friday evening we closed up the tomb. On Saturday morning we found a little soldier to keep guard outside the tomb. And the children looked forward to seeing what would come of it on Sunday morning.

Matthew 27:59-60, 66
And Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen shroud and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had cut in the rock. And he rolled a great stone to the entrance of the tomb and went away. … So they went and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone and setting a guard.

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Come Sunday morning, the children came downstairs to find the guard fallen down, the stone moved away, and a piece of linen folded inside the tomb.

Matthew 28:2-8
And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it.His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow.And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men.But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified.He is not here, for He has risen, as He said. Come, see the place where He lay.Then go quickly and tell His disciples that He has risen from the dead, and behold, He is going before you to Galilee; there you will see Him. See, I have told you.”So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to tell His disciples.

Luke 24:1-12
…On the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb,but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel.And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead?He is not here, but has risen. Remember how He told you, while He was still in Galilee,that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.”And they remembered His words,and returning from the tomb they told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest.Now it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles,but these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.But Peter rose and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; and he went home marveling at what had happened.

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They found a table set for a beautiful little breakfast. Fruit salad, hard boiled eggs with sea salt, mimosas, Easter story cookies, and Easter tomb rolls (the kids had helped me make those all on Saturday, which was really wonderful). Candles and music and the excited rush of gathering and eating and praising God together, singing Christ The Lord Is Risen Today. Gifts for each one at their place ~ books and chocolates.

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Once the morning feasting was done, it came time to don our Easter clothing (clothing is hugely metaphorical and meaningful in Scripture and the history of the Church) ~ even the Easter sermon mentioned this, because we had three baptisms during the service and these Scriptures were emphasized.

Ephesians 4:17-24
Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds.They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ!—assuming that you have heard about Him and were taught in Him, as the truth is in Jesus,to put off your old self,which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds,and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

Colossians 3:12-17
Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience,bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.

Galatians 3:27
 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.

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And so we got dressed in new matchy-matchy clothes (and my heart ached in all the heaviest and bestest of ways, because I have been given a family to clothe, and children who can wear sickeningly matchy outfits!), and talked about putting on Christ, putting off our old selves, putting on the new self in newness of life and the beauty of holiness, putting on love above all other things.

And then? Then the party really started. Gabriel pointed out, “there sure is a lot of joy around church and everywhere today!” and I couldn’t help but laugh. Because isn’t that just exactly, precisely the way it should be?! May the joy of the gospel, and of the Resurrected Christ, and of the hope He has given His people, shed forth from your homes, your families, your churches, and your wanderings until He comes again and everything is made new and all is set right.

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To the glory of the Father, amen. Allelulia!

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Break Bread

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The poor man may envy the rich their houses, their lands, and their cars; but given a good wife, he rarely envies them their table,
~Robert Farrar Capon, The Supper of the Lamb: a Culinary Reflection, p25~

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To be sure, food keeps us alive, but that is only its smallest and most temporary work. Its eternal purpose is to furnish our sensibilities against the day when we shall sit down at the heavenly banquet and see how gracious the Lord is. Nourishment is necessary only for a while; what we shall need forever is taste.
~Robert Farrar Capon, The Supper of the Lamb: a Culinary Reflection, p40~

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I do want you to love what you eat, and to share food with people you love, and to gather people together, for frozen pizza or filet mignon, because I think the gathering is of great significance.
~Shauna Niequist, Bread & Wine, p17~

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God never meant man to be a purely spiritual creature. That is why He uses material things like bread and wine to put the new life into us. We may think this rather crude and unspiritual. God does not: He invented eating. He likes matter. He invented it.
~C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity~

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Harping Anew

Why do we marry,
why take friends and lovers,
why give ourselves to music, painting, chemistry, or cooking?
Out of simple delight in the resident goodness of creation, of course;
but out of more than that, too.
Half of earth’s gorgeousness lies hidden
in the glimpsed city it longs to become.
For all its rooted loveliness, the world has no continuing city here;
it is an outlandish place, a foreign home, a session in via to a better version of itself—
and it is our glory to see it so and thirst until Jerusalem comes home at last.
We were given appetites,
not to consume the world and forget it,
but to taste its goodness and hunger to make it great.
~Robert Farrar Capon, The Supper of the Lamb: a Culinary Reflection, p189~

I love giving myself to music (among many things). Partly because music gives such joy and delight in temporal beauties, things that are here & now. Also partly because it serves a dimension that goes so far beyond that though, into the heavenly, the eternal, the glorious things that can not be touched. The way God created earth and matter and tangible things is so amazing ~ when it really comes down to it, isn’t it obvious that God did not create a veil of separation between the material and the spiritual, the temporal and the eternal? He has woven time and space, the seen and the unseen, the physical and the heavenly, in such a way that we can not grasp its dimension, we can not see its edges, we can only begin to imagine its overlaps.

When I was playing harp over the weekend, I was continually struck by this thought, and repeatedly returned to the thought that Robert Farrar Capon gives in the above quote: half of earth’s gorgeousness lies hidden in the glimpsed city it longs to become. The city that it WILL become. Music, and even particularly harp music at the moment, is one way I get to taste the goodness of the heavenly Jerusalem, glimpse the new heavens & new earth (where all my tears will be wiped away, by the way!), to taste goodness & hunger to make it great. Wonderful.

And of course this is not limited to music at all, but to other delights that the Lord gives. In what ways does God encourage YOU to thirst for heaven, and give you tastes to feed that appetite here on earth in the meanwhile?

Psalm 57:7-8
My heart is steadfast, O God,
my heart is steadfast!
I will sing and make melody!
Awake, my glory!
Awake, O harp and lyre!
I will awake the dawn!

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If you read my post about harping a few days ago, perhaps you wonder what ended up playing out. (Pun intended.)
I continued to pray about it the last few days, and eagerly looked forward to going to the home of Miss S to meet her and see her little lever harp. What’s funny is that this harp belonged to my own friend a couple years ago. My friend was the second owner of the harp, and sold it to Miss S, but has often told me over the last few months how she wished she still had it because it was such a sweet little harp with a pretty sound. And now, ironically, the harp is mine. 🙂 I am the fourth owner of this Allegro. My dad smilingly called it Ally yesterday. (As an aside, did you know that a lot of musicians name their instruments? And apparently it is an especially big thing in the harp world, from what I’ve heard. I am boring though, I call my instruments by their given names, their make! Athena and Allegro, then. But I thought my father was awfully cute for using a nickname, as though it were a pet or a child.)

After church, and after a quick lunch, we headed off to meet Miss S. Steven graciously stayed in the car with Asher and Evangeline, because I didn’t quite know what to expect in  her home, even though she had told me on the phone that my children would be very welcome. Gabriel came in with me, and we were greeted by a lady of tall but slight stature. She oozed the essence of musician. Her home included a large area that was obviously crafted carefully into a studio. There was a place for shoes by a bench, right near a powder room, where we asked to wash our hands (I was teaching Gabriel that it is polite musicianship to wash hands prior to touching anyone’s instrument). There was a corner of the room that was filled with windows where the sunlight was streaming brightly in, with sofas. It was a lovely little sitting area, where I could easily imagine music students lining up, waiting their turn, nervously folding & unfolding hands like I used to do before my lessons. This waiting area was set apart by vertical screens of sorts that felt very Victorian in some sense. Beyond that were three baby grand pianos. Each had cushions stacked up to various heights on the benches, and little footstools to short legs to rest restless feet. There were a couple electric keyboards to one side, and more than one filing cabinet filled with music books. Oh! the organization was delightful! It made my tummy flip, it was so great. 🙂 I could see some plastic drawers that were filled with other various music teacher supplies: perhaps flash cards, theory helps, maybe even some metronomes, I don’t know. But even at first glance around when Miss S let us in, it was one of those moments where you feel like you have walked into an old fashioned music studio. I could sense Gabriel felt it too. He in his sweater vest, tie, and Irish cap ~ me in my pantyhose and high heels. It felt very… well… elegant.

As Miss S repeatedly encouraged her large black poodle to stay off to the side on a designated rug, Gabriel and I enjoyed fingering the harp. Two strings had snapped, so I pulled those out. Gabriel and I each took turns sitting, leaning the harp against our shoulder, running our fingers along the strings. I lifted each lever in turn. I felt around the column and the neck and the base for dings and dents and scratches ~ it was mostly very smooth. My friend who had previously owned this harp assured me that it had spent years being babied. 🙂 While I am not precisely sure what one does or doesn’t do in the babying of a harp, I could tell that it had not been thrown around or wildly abandoned. We played it with its four legs on (better for me), and without the legs as well (better for Gabriel). We figured out how to take it in and out of the padded carrying case ~ and, wonder of wonders, how wonderfully strange it felt to be able to pack up a harp and sling it across my shoulder! I don’t know if I have a picture anywhere from my various times carting my Athena around, but it is something of an ordeal. As tall as Steven, more than half my weight, fragile and delicate yet strong and unweildy… my father crafted and constructed a metal frame with casters, some padding and velcro straps, so that I (even when I was only 17 years old) could haul my big harp around by myself… as long as I had his Suburban, with all the rear seats out, to drive. I don’t think I have taken my harp anywhere since I played in a friend’s wedding two years ago. So the novelty of carrying a harp around, in a padded carrier, simply slung over my shoulder? It was kind of invigorating.

Gabriel handed Miss S an envelope with cash in it, and our contact information on the outside. She asked if he would come back to visit her, and bring the harp, to play her something once he has learned a song or two.
She gave us extra strings, the tuning key, and a small stack of harp music books to zip into the outer pocket of the harp carrier. It was shockingly easy to fit the harp in the back of the car: I simply set it in the back! And it fit with much room to spare, even with a large cooler, a basket full of Bibles & water bottles, and a small pile of other things that always live in the back of the vehicle (like a miniature potty, jumper cables, and a small plastic bin of emergency kid care like clothes, snacks, acetaminophen, and plenty of wipes). I couldn’t help but laugh. “Harp” and “portability” have never been simultaneous in my vocabulary or experience before, so this is a new delight.

Psalm 92:1-4
It is good to give thanks to the Lord,
to sing praises to Your name, O Most High;
to declare Your steadfast love in the morning,
and Your faithfulness by night,
to the music of the lute and the harp,
to the melody of the lyre.
For You, O Lord, have made me glad by Your work;
at the works of Your hands I sing for joy.

I made sure to ask more than once, if Miss S was certain she was ready to part with her little harp. She sounds very busy with teaching piano and developing a new instructional method for playing by ear, and said that something like playing harp with any diligence or frequency is a few years out for her, and in the meantime, a wide car + narrow garage has left her with a new purpose for the money we would give her.
And then she said that she just really felt a peace about our home being the right home for this Allegro.
She remarked numerous times how it matched us, our coloring and our hair. How perfectly it suited my Gabriel.
How it just seemed “like a God thing” for the timing to happen how it did.

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And I could not agree more.
I told her about how I took a little step of faith by saying no to a harp just like this one about forty-five minutes before she called me last week. How it might be a very small thing in the big scheme of life and holiness, but it was still waiting on the Lord for His direction and His provision. I told her what an encouragement it is in times like these, to have pictures and experiences of the Lord reminding us that He knows all our desires, He cares about our wants & needs, He holds even the smallest of details in His sovereign hands.

And whether He says yes or no (in big things as well as in little things), He is good and wise and altogether wonderful.

Psalm 71:22
I will also praise You with the harp
for Your faithfulness, O my God;
I will sing praises to You with the lyre,
O Holy One of Israel.

So the corner of our family room has a new little lever harp tucked into the corner with my piano and my faithful pedal harp. The children enjoyed playing it yesterday. And Gabriel and I played our first duets.

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The goodness of the Lord in the land of the living, as we look ahead through these little glimpses into the glories He has prepared for us in the heavenly kingdom, is sweet and lovely. And He is good.

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