Strangeness

I am still surprised sometimes by my children. I mean, of course, they do and say surprising and wonderful things. But I mean surprised by their presence, their existence. I am amazed that they are here. Sometimes I wonder how the stars all aligned to put us together in this place. I look at Mane and wonder how she ever came from my body, how our DNA tangled up to make her. Intellectually, of course, I know. But, somehow, that doesn't really explain it. Not really. And Vespera? How did our life stumble into hers? Is it really divine appointment? Does that really happen? How did we ever end up adopting her? How did some come to really belong to us? How did this life become so familiar? What was life like without these two girls? What would it be like? I cannot even wrap my brain around the possibility. Their presence is something I take for granted, yet, when I really begin to think, I can hardly believe how they came to be here.

And when I stop and think like this, I have a look at what my children really are, apart from their role in the family, in my life. And, in this indescribable way, they are strange to me. They are so utterly "other." They are familiar, yet unfamiliar. I know them, but I don't. They are wholly their own people, with their own private thoughts and feelings, their own expressions and ideas. I can never know fully what makes them tick. Maybe even I understand Mango better than I understand my own children. It is so amazing. And so alarming. Wonderful and humbling.

Oh, and I forgot to mention....

The tough also eat chocolate. Not just me, Mango eats chocolate, too.

When the going gets tough...

The tough take hot showers and call their friends.

Try combining teenage development, dreary MN winter weather, two completely different families (culturally and otherwise), immigration politics, grief, and PMS and see what kind of chemical reaction YOU get.

Life is tough over here. And we're counting on the attachment we've built so far to carry us through. Thanks be to God for hot showers and good friends.

Jesus be with us.

I Am Bound For the Promised Land

I was listening to Jars of Clay the other day. They have a song on their Redemption Songs album that goes like this:

On Jordan's stormy banks I stand
And cast a wishful eye
To Canaan's fair and happy land
Where my possessions lie

All o'er those wide extended plains
Shines one eternal day
There God, the Son forever reigns
And scatters night away.

I am bound, I am bound, I am bound for the Promised Land
I am bound, I am bound, I am bound for the Promised Land

No chilling wind nor poisonous breath
Can reach that healthful shore
Where sickness, sorrow, pain and death
Are felt and feared no more

I am bound, I am bound, I am bound for the Promised Land
I am bound, I am bound, I am bound for the Promised Land

When shall I see that happy place
And be forever blessed
When shall I see my Father's face
And in His bosom rest

I am bound, I am bound, I am bound for the Promised Land
I am bound, I am bound, I am bound for the Promised Land

And every time I hear the chorus, I get all choked up, tears spring to my eyes, I get chills. And I've been completely puzzled by my own emotional response. What is it that gets me about this song? So, it's about heaven, the promised land. It's just a regular song. Not even any especially provoking lyrics. (Though the musical artistry is amazing.)

I was pondering this in the car the other day. And I had this instant of clarity. The promise of heaven means that I can spend my life on this earth to the very last breath following God on every scary, dangerous, wreckless, extravagant path, and I don't have to be afraid or anxious. Let's see if I can say this right. I can do that, not because life here doesn't matter, but BECAUSE life here really matters. It matters too much to sit around on my hands and do nothing. And since I have the promise of eternal life with Jesus, I can spend this life, I mean SPEND it, use it up, squeeze it out and it's ok because the end is not the end. Then I'll go be with Jesus. God arranged it so that we can live our whole lives here for things that really matter, and, if we have to, even sacrifice our lives, and it's not over. Hmmm... I've no idea if this is coming out right. But there's something about being bound for the promised land that means I can live this life without fear. In fact, it means I can put away the anxiety I keep struggling with. It isn't relevant.

None of this is to say that life here doesn't matter, that the small things are irrelevant. Maybe it's an oxymoron. Maybe it makes no sense. Yet, somehow, the relationships we have here, the community we build, the way we treat people, the things we fight for, the way we live our lives...those things really matter. I believe that. I don't believe that God has us all here on earth living pointless lives. God is a God of relationship, and each one of us is an infinitely valuable image-bearer. In some way, for those who choose God, the relationships we have here will exist for eternity. Though we have no idea what that means or what form they will take.

What we do here is valuable, it's meaningful, perhaps eternally meaningful. And yet, the hope of heaven, the promise of eternal life, the Promised Land that lies before us means that this life here, this human life does not have to be handled with kid gloves. As much as it matters, we can still dive in, drink deeply, live freely, and TAKE RISKS because when it's over, it's not over.

I am not a risk-taker by nature. God has led me into some of the most serious risks of my life recently, and I can only hope that somehow it's because God believes that I am ready for this stretch. I cannot begin to think that somehow I've earned this, nor am I willing to believe that this is God's way of teaching me a lesson. I only know that I am finally becoming ready to open my heart with faith and really and truly live fearlessly.

Simile & Onomatopoeia

Today Mane & I talked about simile & onomatopoeia. I know this is boring for everybody else out there, but I we're having fun.

So, here's the simile exercise we did today. Mane's words are in bold:
The slipper was as soft as a sheep's wool.
The car crash was as loud as fireworks.
The cranberry bog was lonely like a sad person.
The fire seemed cheerful like mom.
The hotel was as homey as our house.

And Mane's onomatopoeia list (those are words that describe sounds, for those of you who aren't in the know):
crash
clumpity
moo
meow
bump
waaaaa
quack
click-clack
ding-ding-ding

Words are so fun!

A Christmas Carol, Timelines, and Continents

That's my week in a nutshell.

Mane & I did a marathon reading of A Christmas Carol. It took 3 days, and then we went to the performance of it at the Guthrie Theater on Thursday night. We placed Dickens on our LOOOOOOOOOOOOONG timeline today. The timeline stretches from the far wall in the kitchen to the opposite wall in the living room, from 0-2007AD. On Sunday we begin Advent and our Jesse Tree. I want to do a timeline with the Jesse Tree stories, but I don't know how long it's going to have to be! Ay-yi-yi.

Anyway, since we were talking about Dickens, we also found England on the map, placed a picture of Dickens on the page about England in Mane's binder about countries, and ended up talking about continents...which led to a discussion of the equator, latitude and longitude, temperature, directions, and the major oceans. I'm exhausted. Oh, and I almost forgot, we touched on the concept of Pangea, all of the continents being connected at one point in the earth's history...because Mane observed how they seemed to fit together.

Mane has also been reading her way steadily through the Bob Books, and is learning to make sense of numbers.

Our whole family (Me, Mango, Mane, Vespera, Novio, Mango's parents, and Mango's brother and sister-in-law) went to Festival of Christmas at Bethel University on Wednesday night, too. This is definitely going to become a Christmas tradition. We went last year. It's nice that it's so early in the season. It gets us looking ahead and anticipating Christmas, and it gets all of us together for something relaxed and beautiful.

Tonight is "date night," meaning Mango & I hang around chaperoning Vespera & Novio.

How time does fly.

Jesus Has Left the Building

So, I finally finished the book I've been reading for the last 9 months, Jesus has Left the Building. Perhaps it's meaningful that it took 9 months to read it, and I've been having dreams of birth lately. I didn't put it all together until I finished the book the other night and realized that it had, indeed, been 9 months since the time I started. A few weeks ago I dreamed that I was in a church with a mixed Hispanic/Euro-American congregation, and I was carrying around a baby that was clearly mine. Mango & I had leadership roles in the church. And the baby was a baby, but it could speak. And the baby was blond with that frizzy, fine hair of a mixed African-European child. Last week I had another dream of being in labor. The labor was long & drawn out, but it wasn't painful. The baby was in a bad position, but I was able to manually manipulate it's position, and I could clearly tell, from the outside, the baby's orientation. Then, suddenly, the baby just appeared in my arms, laughing and speaking. Just as suddenly, the baby was gone, and I was still in labor. The labor was still not painful, and I woke before it was over.

Dreams of birth are, I guess, supposed to be about ideas. They aren't typically about real human babies. Strangely, I hadn't even picked up the Jesus Has Left the Building book in several weeks, and I had both of those dreams before I picked it up to finally slog through the final chapters. If Mr. Vieira ever reads this, I do, indeed, mean that I slogged through the final chapters. That has it's own meaning for me, too. Whenever I've been reading the book (meaning, book in hand, actively reading), I've gotten so excited about the ideas. I've read chunks aloud to Mango. I've underlined and discussed. BUT, as soon as I put it down, I can't get back to it. It's like the book had some magnetic forcefield that repelled me from it. It wasn't that I didn't have time. I read plenty of books in between. I just didn't want to go back to it. I mean, I knew in my head that I wanted to go back to it, but I couldn't get myself to do it.

Yes, this all has meaning for me. Yes, the charismatic part of me reads into every single nuance of what I've said here. What I'm trying to say is that I think the book has some powerful, perhaps prophetic, meaning...for the church as a whole and for me. I see Mango & I somewhere in the front lines. Someday. It scares me, quite honestly. But I'm getting used to being scared. Being scared just means that I live more by faith and less by sight. It's exciting and horribly unnerving all at the same time.

In a nutshell, Mr. Vieira believes that the church, as a building, as a structured entity, is going to collapse. God is going to allow it to collapse. Because the church isn't doing or being what the church was intended to do or be. It isn't a light to the world. It has lost it's salt. And people are going to have to figure out how to BE the church, how to have real relationships and real community with each other. Christ-followers are going to have to figure out how to interact with the rest of society in a way that demonstrates that we are different and that makes all the rest of the world want what we have. The current church is so far from that. It's heart-breaking. Jesus must weep. People don't want want we have. They want to get as far away from Christians as possible.

God, make me a Christ-follower. Make me your instrument. I want to play your music. I want to be light and salt, love and compassion. I want to be authentic. No games, no facades, no lingo, no agenda.

Take my life, and let it be
Consecrated, Lord, to Thee.