Pancakes, Baby Kindness, Cards Addressed, Mary ‘[curled] In A Brown Pod’

And the list goes on…

Listening to Chris Hohorst (Chris Hohorst!) making up a song with August at bedtime: “I’m in the nook! I’m in the reading nook!”

How my baby holds his blankey to my face or his pacifier to my mouth…sharing what he loves most with his mama. (Oh, and “MahMahMahMah,” he says.)
August putting baby Jesus to bed so sweetly.
A meaningful conversation with one of my college girls on my couch, 9 pm during finals week.
A kitchen table full of 18-year-old girls, eating pancakes at 11 pm on a Thursday. The miracle of watching them becoming friends, real friends, at an age when friendships are the most miraculous of all. Don’t we all remember the feeling when we found our friends freshman year? I’m honored to watch it unfold.
Presents waiting to be wrapped.
Three lit candles on the Advent wreath.
The waiting of Advent and the deep fullness that gathers the longer we wait, the more we expect Jesus.
Homemade macaroni and cheese with new friends and babies.
Friday afternoon playdates with Jamie and her two kids.
Antibiotics for my baby’s ear infection.
Watching Inception with my husband while addressing Christmas cards. How in the world did it take me this long to see that movie?
Seeing the physical stack of cards addressed to people we love. It’s wonderful to be reminded how far and wide our friends are, how sweet it is to know them.

And this:

Mosaic of the Nativity

Serbia, Winter 1993

On the domed ceiling God
is thinking:
I made them my joy,
and everything else I created
I made to bless them.
But see what they do!
I know their hearts
and arguments:

“We’re descended from
Cain. Evil is nothing new,
so what does it matter now
if we shell the infirmary,
and the well where the fearful
and rash alike must
come for water?”

God thinks Mary into being.
Suspended at the apogee
of the golden dome,
she curls in a brown pod,
and inside her the mind
of Christ, cloaked in blood,
lodges and begins to grow.

– Jane Kenyon*

It’s Thankful Tuesday. What are you thankful for?