When I packed for the cross country drive that would haul me from Texas, the only place I’d ever lived, to Syracuse, New York, my mother joked with me (a hint of begging in her voice), “Micha, please don’t date a northern boy.” My reply was in all seriousness, “Mom, why would I want to date a boy from New York?” I honestly couldn’t imagine that a boy who didn’t add ma’am or sir after his yeses or hadn’t been taught to hold open the door for every girl in the room or, horror … [Read more...]
Beatitudes
October 13, 2010 By 6 Comments
I’ve just finished preparation for leading my Mom’s Group discussion on Wednesday. We’ve been doing a study of the Gospel of Matthew and it just so happens that my day in charge has fallen on Chapter 5, the Sermon on the Mount. Seriously, we’re supposed to discuss Jesus’ most intense, beautiful and revolutionary sermon in one hour, while eating bagels? Shocking, I know. So, as much as I’m supposed to be ready to discuss the entire chapter tomorrow, I can’t get past the Beatitudes: … [Read more...]
“I feel grateful / For every pebble…”
October 12, 2010 By Leave a Comment
A poem for Thankful Tuesday, from the great Milosz... It Was Winter by Czeslaw Milosz Winter came as it does in this valley. After eight dry months rain fell And the mountains, straw-colored, turned green for a while. In the canyons where gray laurels Graft their stony roots to granite, Streams must have filled the dried-up creek beds. Ocean winds churned the eucalyptus trees, And under clouds torn by a crystal of towers Prickly lights were glowing on the docks. This is not a place … [Read more...]
St. Benedict and the Complainy Pregnant Lady.
October 8, 2010 By 2 Comments
This has not been an easy week for rest. Last weekend when we moved, all my crazies kicked and I unpacked like a maniac for three days straight. (My body forgot I was pregnant. Was I hungry? Sleepy? Noooooo. I just needed the towels folded and on the correct shelf.) I went from the realization that I was not, in fact, a superhero whose powers included not needing food or sleep, into a week of beginning my part time job with Young Life, babysitting another two year old for a couple of days, and … [Read more...]
A Moving Out Mix
October 4, 2010 By 4 Comments
Friday, after a morning of movers (having movers will be on my Thankful Tuesday list, by the way), I took my smelly rubber gloves and (by myself!) spent three and a half hours cleaning our old place. I was feeling emotional. Yes, we only lived there a year but it was the year when my baby turned into a boy. I’ve now moved eight times since I graduated from college nine years ago. And each place has looked just as lonely and just as brokenhearted each time I've left. I’ve always had a … [Read more...]
Moving
September 30, 2010 By 1 Comment
I wish I were super human and could possibly write something beautiful for you in the midst of my pregnant while packing state. But, my house is in boxes and I'm afraid my brain will be also until I can properly put every lovely thing in its new place on Friday. So, please have mercy on my quietness. I'll be back on Monday refreshed and all moved in. Until then, my friends! … [Read more...]
The Magical God
September 29, 2010 By 4 Comments
I’ve been thinking about magic lately. A month or so ago I read a post on Amy Henry’s blog “Whole Mama” (Worth checking out. She doesn’t post much, but what she writes is fantastic.) about how much she wants her kids to believe in magic because her insides know magic is real, even if her brain says it's not. That post made me think about what it means that magical stories might just open up our imaginations to the possibility of God’s work in the world. Really, isn't religion is the … [Read more...]
Theotokos of the Sign
September 24, 2010 By 6 Comments
When Pastor Beverly joined the clergy at our church in the Philadelphia suburbs, I happened to work down the hallway from her, in a donated office for Young Life. One afternoon, soon after she had arrived at our church, I was in the office preparing myself for a serious and difficult phone call with an angry father. I walked down the hallway in hopes of finding someone who’d pray for me (I was already near tears and hadn’t even made the call yet). Beverly was in her office. I hardly knew … [Read more...]
A Nighttime (Packing) Prayer
September 22, 2010 By 1 Comment
I love evenings. I love eating with my little family. I love reading or watching way too much TV (Last night? Guilty.). I love the freedom of rest after a day of completing tasks. But packing never feels completed. And I have a difficult time resting when I could be packing boxes. I’m not really sure why, but I have moving monster who takes over my body for the weeks prior and after a move. I can’t stop till its packed and/or put away in the new place. So, as I type this, I’m trying not … [Read more...]
This is how grateful I am.
September 21, 2010 By 11 Comments
Friends, consider this Part II of how I know God loves me. I’m going to share the three major ways in the past three weeks that prayers have been answered in my life over and above what I could have imagined. This is Thankful Tuesday at its most giddy. 1. Three (or was it four?) weeks ago in the midst of my most self-pitying weeks of pregnancy nausea, I had an in-bed tearfest to Chris about much I miss ministry. Though I always miss the high school kids I worked with, I most missed … [Read more...]
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