Moments of Wonder

A few nights ago I was giving Baby Girl a bath. I do it every night before reading to her and rocking her to sleep. And although sometimes I can’t help but view bathtime as a chore, every night I’m more keenly aware that these moments are fleeting. I already have phenomenally fewer of them with Little Drummer Boy and Bug. There was nothing particularly special about this night, a Tuesday like any other one. But somehow, this bathtime inspired all-too-common questions. As I sat beside the tub, responding to her squeals, I could feel it rising.

Baby Girl is most often filled with giggles and energy for her bath. When I’m not distracted by the rush of the day and the task list of bedtime routines, I watch her. I see her carefree little body standing there too busy to sit in the bath water. Her pudgy tummy and pudgy cheeks, her hands all in motion and eyes full of light, she laughingly fills a cup with the water’s flow and pours it back into the tub for the simple pleasure of seeing the bubbles. I can’t help but enjoy the simple pleasure of her wonderment myself.

On this Tuesday, she accompanied her water play with talk of Frosty the Snowman. I guess she’s been reading (or singing) about him at daycare and her new snowman washcloth inspired the recollection. For Baby Girl, all snowmen are Frosty. All baths are for bubbling water. In these moments, I’m amazed at the simplicity life boils down to in a two-year-old world.  Her splashing and squeals pierced the sounds of brother car chases and computer clicks just a room away. Their own imaginations hard at work awaiting their turn with the suds. Sitting on my heels beside the tub, I matched her height, and I could look straight into her uncontained eyes. They were completely oblivious to me, and yet they gripped me. With a soapy washcloth in hand I could feel the pull of that required moment of whisking her away from her water experiment and on to more practical cleanliness. But even though the night was getting away from me, I just sat and watched her.

In that tug between my own time constraints and her wonder-full display, that’s when I felt it rising. That’s when the tears began to well. I felt it overtaking me. That odd mixture of overwhelming love and wonder mixed with second-guessing and fear. This little child before me in her innocent playfulness. This precious one who without even realizing it had placed her whole world on my shoulders. And thereby captured my lifelong gaze.

And so the fear and self-doubt rise in proportion to the love.
Can I do it? I ask myself.
Can I give them what they need? What they deserve?
Can I hold their hearts? Until they grow the passion to do it themselves.
Can I mold their whims and nurture their gifts?
Can I provide for them?
Will I be able to fund their warmth and their table and their opportunity?
What if I can’t?
What if I mess up?
What if I get side-tracked and miss something?
Something important?
Can I really do this?

I sat beside the tub and watched her. And cried. I can do that with Baby Girl. She’s so young that my tears are blissfully invisible to her, unlike the array of questions they would produce with her brothers. I took it all in. The carefree spirit. The joyful eyes. The concentrated movements. Filling the cup. Pouring it out. Squealing. Giggling.

The more I sat, the more I wondered. How can I shield them from the worries of living and providing? How do I keep it from creeping in when their only concerns are whose turn it is to choose a movie and how long they get to make bubbles in the bath water? How can I give them that privilege of childhood and ignorance? That sweet and oblivious face standing there by the faucet where the whole world is filling the cup and pouring it out. How can I give them everything I want them to have? How can I make their worlds safe and full and at peace all at the same time?

It’s in moments like this one that I realize what she’s teaching me. That moments of wondering find their rest in moments of wonder. The carefree attention that simplicity provides. The place of wonder she shows me in filling the cup and pouring it out. The sheer amazement of something as basic as a bathtub full of water seen through the clear blue depth of a two-year-old’s eyes. When I stop myself and my rampant thinking–when I let go–in that place of wonder, I am master rather than slave to the onslaught of worry and concern and self-doubt.

So, I look at her. I look at them. Their beauty. Their exuberance. Their joy. Their wonder. And I know.

If I can just keep my eyes here.
If I can just focus here.
And see.
We’ll be ok.

You’re Mine

I promised Little Drummer Boy something the other night that I really can’t promise him. At least not honestly. I promised that Mama would never let anyone take him from me. Who knows exactly where these thoughts come from? Since I usually can’t trace my own thoughts with complete accuracy, those of my 4 year old are even more elusive. But, this train started with a discussion of how he and his favorite lamb had been separated while we were in our living room reading bedtime stories.

LDB: I don’t like it when my lamb is separated from me.

Mama: I understand. I don’t ever like it when you and Squiggle and Baby Girl are separated from me. I always want you with me.

LDB: Well, we would be separated if a policeman came and took me away. [puzzled about where that came from]

Mama: Sweetie, a policeman will never come and take you from Mommy. You belong with Mommy.

LDB: If someone took me away from you, would you tell them “no?”

Mama: Yes, sweetie. Mama would never let anyone take you from me.

LDB: Not even a mean man. [puzzled about that too]

Mama: No, darlin.’ Nobody is going to take you away from me.

LDB: Well, good. Because I want to be with you.

Mama: You will be, because you belong with Mommy.

LDB: Because I’m yours.

Mama: That’s right. You’re mine. God gave you–and Squiggle and Baby Girl–to Mommy and Daddy. Noone will take you away from me.

There it is. “Noone will take you away from me.” That’s the promise I can’t keep. I’m sometimes haunted by the fact that there is always the possibility that something or someone–some circumstance–could rob me of seeing and knowing and experiencing his blessedness.

I could write this post 6000 times and never feel I’ve actually said it. I can never adequately express just how much the existence of this one human being has changed my life forever. It’s Little Drummer Boy only by virtue of the fact that I was a half a miniscule more accustomed to being turned inside out with Bug and Baby Girl, since they don’t bear the burden of being first. It’s true. Having children rocked my world.

Listening to Little Drummer Boy, it’s amazing to me how even being so brief in this world, he can recognize and sense a place of belonging–and that he wants it. The concern of separation from that place somehow made it’s way into his thoughts from who knows where. And, I must acknowledge that it makes its way into mine more often that I care to admit. When I look into their eyes, I realize without a hint of doubt that all three of my gifts scare me to death. And, in seeing them, I realize the strength of the white-knuckle grip I’ve had on my soul since their birth–frozen in fear that I would have to see them suffer and thus witness my own heart shredded beyond repair.

There. I said it. Out loud (virtually, speaking).

Though I’m not one to give in to fear, in the unflenching grip of the last four years, I’ve also realized that sometimes God scares me to death too. His power is too great to comprehend, and his giving and taking is too complex to predict. I’ve always had a strong sense of confidence in God’s purpose and plans, an ability to believe and trust His actions. But, in the last years of watching the most precious beings I’ve known walk around before me, I have found myself shying away from Him. Afraid that He might take them from me, as if they were mine to lose. I’ve gently shielded my heart from Him, as if that were possible. In that doomed shielding, I’ve resisted the rest found in knowing Him more intimately each day, the joy of yielding to the insistence of His presence. And, though I know in my mind that His love is pure and wise and good, releasing my soul to His full molding has been difficult.

With my Baby Girl now a one-year-old and the prospect of Little Drummer Boy going to “big school” a year from now, the last few weeks have been emotional. I’m realizing more and more each day the brevity of that time when they are so dependent on me. And with the shift to their own independence comes an ever-increasing confrontation with things beyond my control, things outside the walls forming my comfort level. I’ve been slowly, but surely, allowing my spirit to catch up with all the changes, the joys, and yes, the fears of the last four years. Little by little, I’m letting go of the strangle hold I’ve had on my own ability to take an unencumbered deep breath, and relinquishing my spirit again to the wooing of my Creator.  And my children’s Creator.

“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are Mine.” (isaiah 43:1)

I’m learning again that those words, “you’re mine” are the solution, not the source of fear. Just as saying “you’re mine” to Little Drummer Boy carries with it the full weight of everything I have to give, everything I am willing to give up, everything I would move, everything I would hold fast in order to ensure his abundance; so it is with God. In hearing the words “you’re Mine,” I can also hear “they’re Mine.” I am released to the blessed rest of His kind intention, the rest of His unfailing, unending and ever-active love.

In my fear I’ve come full circle, realizing that the only hope I have is to throw myself fully upon His love and mercy at each hour. And to throw myself fully into loving my gifts and experiencing them at every stage. To live each day, hour and moment without wishing I had.

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Programming note: Stay tuned on Tuesday, September 8th when I’m yielding the floor to a writer I’ve just begun to read, Masha Hamilton. I’ve had the opportunity to enjoy one of her essays in preparation for reviewing her next novel, which comes out on that day. Her publisher sent it to me as part of the promotion of the book launch, and I’m eager to oblige in posting it. Of course, it’s only a partial yielding, since you know I can’t resist a commentary. It further extends these thoughts to stages of parenthood I can hardly imagine in my current preschool world. I hope you’ll browse back and take a look.

1st Day of Thanksgiving: Lessons Revisited

In my quest for a renewed season of thanksgiving, I was looking again at an old journal (the actual pen to paper kind), and an entry from Thanksgiving Day, November 24, 2002.  For me, life, and intimate spiritual life in particular, seems to move in cycles where I experience and learn, re-experience and re-learn similar lessons.  Sometimes I have forgotten or been distracted from a truth and need a refresher course.  Sometimes God brings me full circle on an issue so that I can gain a deeper understanding that builds on past lessons.  I’m not sure which one this is, but I was contemplating the season then, too.  

I was going through a time of doubt and confusion, and maybe even a little fear of God.  I don’t mean the reverent, awe-inspiring kind of fear.  This was the scared, white-knuckle grip, hiding kind of fear of what He might expect of me.  I found myself actually afraid to draw near to God because I was afraid that he would take something precious from me.  I was persevering through struggles where answers and purpose were hard to find.  I had grown to doubt His character made so evident in the Bible.

This is starting to sound familiar!

In my journal, I was meditating on a few psalms and the idea of thanksgiving as a gateway.  Actually, just two phrases:

“…Come before His presence with thanksgiving.” (psalm 95:2)
“Enter His gates with thanksgiving…” (psalm 100:4)

My musings included a prayer in four parts that offers a refresher course for this season.  It’s still a worthy meditation, and a good starting point for my 12 Days of Thanksgiving experience.  Here’s what I wrote:

“Perhaps, this is the first step in getting rid of the doubt and fear that has taken over my relationship with God.

1.  I repent of a complaining and murmuring spirit, and ask God’s forgiveness for taking His character and blessings for granted.

2.  I ask Him to open my eyes to His goodness that is evident in my life, His faithfulness, His love and mercy.

3.  I choose the thank Him for what He shows me.  I thank Him for His works.  I thank Him for His character.

4.  I ask that this Thanksgiving season be a new turning point in my relationship with God.  Let me enter Your courts this season.”

Amen.

Nelson Mandela

“Our worst fear is not that we are inadequate.  Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.  It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.  We ask ourselves, ‘who am I to be brilliant gorgeous, talented and fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be?  You are a child of God.  Your playing small doesn’t save the world.”

may, august, november, may

though the air is chilly
and the wind is picking up,
as it blows, I hold on.

I am rustled and tossed,
beaten.
and still I hold on for my life;
for fear of blowing
away.

this was once so comforting.
my place of belonging,
of safety, growth.
but now
the hours of light are fewer
and the blowing
tears me.

it is here.
the coldness.

but, I will clothe myself in warmth.

I will be golden.
I will be rich and deep.
I will choose red and orange.
I will set the limbs
on fire.
I will ride the wind.
it rips my younger dreams
but I will use it.
I will fly.

I will gather up all that is in me,
and I will let go.
I will use every last strength,
every resolve.
I will let go.

the release.

and I soar
scattering my gold.
my brilliant fire
scorching the sky.
I am free.

and though I fall down for some dying,
I am driven by that moment
whey I fly.

and yet
I am the tree.
now laid bare and naked.
by the release
exposed
hybernating.

and then comes the spring.