We just returned from a week at the beach. The vacation (though anyone who has or has ever had nineteen month old children knows that a “vacation” at this stage of the game is really more like a “relocation”) started with food poisoning, which I think we’ve traced back to a suspect caprese. Who knew tomatoes could make you that violently ill. Nasty.

I rallied in time to throw some things in a suitcase, pack up the car with far too many baby-necessities, and head west until we hit water.

Of course, the first night Lane barfed in her pack n play at 3am and all the commotion finally woke Luke up. Lane settled back down, but Luke never did go back to bed. Not the most amazing way to start off a vacation.

The next day, after naps, we headed down to the water. I was tired, worn out, cranky, and generally overwhelmed. But the glittering afternoon waves began wooing me, and I grabbed Lane and headed into the water.

It was ice cold at first (as the Pacific often is), but I swirled my feet around long enough that my skin finally got used to the chill, and it suddenly felt refreshing instead of hypothermic.

I inched out, a tiny bit at a time, so that my skin would adjust. And when I got about knee deep, Lane wrapped her arms around my neck and put her head down on my shoulder, and put her belly right up against my chest. At first I thought she might be scared, but she wasn’t holding on in that nervous, don’t-drop-me sort of way. She was just draped across me, like a scarf, like she was part of me. I kept walking out until I was up to my waist, singing in her ear, letting the current sway us both.

I love that line from cummings, “i who have died am alive again today.” How perfectly it describes that moment for me.

The dying of food poisoning and packing and pushing pushing pushing to get ourselves out the door and on vacation. The dying of relocating two toddlers. The temptation to begrudge it all, to wish it all away.

And then to walk out into the water with my baby girl pressed right up against me as though we were dancing together, as though we were one . . . “i who have died am alive again today, and this is the sun’s birthday . . .”

Ahhhh, the rebirthing of the water and the waves and the sun and the sand. And my little Lane kicking her dangling toes in the salt water as I sang in her ear.

Holy, holy, holy.

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Yesterday I attended Beau and Sarah’s wedding. I cried when my friend Linsey sang, “Praise to the Lord,” replete with key change (always gets me).

Not only is her voice incredibly beautiful, but when Lins sings—especially when she sang yesterday—you know you are sitting in a place that is both earth and heaven. You are experiencing God-breathed magic emerging from someone’s deeply human soul. How overwhelming it is to be confronted with such great beauty.

The moment was like awakening to a new level of living, the kind of living you crave.

When Lins was done singing, a man behind me whispered, “Amen.” The perfect sentiment . . . as if the entire song had been a prayer. And that made the whole wedding feel like a prayer—a worshipful, celebratory, earnest, pure prayer. A gift to all who attended, I have no doubt.

Weddings have the power to reunite us with possibility, hope, steadfastness, sacrifice, commitment. I was reminded of the essence of love, and how petty I can be when it comes to loving Steve. How much I want to rip into him sometimes. How much I unfairly expect of him. How much I try to change him sometimes.

I was reminded yesterday that love is about something far bigger than a feeling. It’s not a new thought, but it’s a profound one. In fact, the pastor who married Beau and Sarah (Sarah’s father) said something I’ll remember . . . “Love actually has nothing to do with what you’re feeling in this moment today.” He went on to talk about what love really is—how love is what manifests itself when, and only when, things have gone south and sideways and there’s nothing else that would keep the wheels on the track except love.

I have this great book I’ve been reading—Emotional Sobriety—by Tian Dayton. It’s a little heady at points, but absorbing nonetheless. I’ve been doing a lot of reading and thinking about recovery lately, and this book has been helpful. She says, “When our hearts are wounded through disappointment or loss, love restores us to comfort and balance. Fear triggers us into self-protective responses like fight (anger, rage), flight (taking off, dissociating), or freeze (shutting down, withdrawing), while love and caring soothes us and brings us back to a state of equilibrium.”

In other words, love has such great power to heal us . . . if we will let it. Why is it often so hard to let ourselves be loved and to love well in return?

The wedding helped me to remember what love is (and what it isn’t).

I’m going to carry around a line of “Praise to the Lord” with me, a prayer of my own . . .

Ponder anew what the Almighty can do.

May we all remain open to healing love.

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When I read, I always have a pencil shoved into my book. For some reason, I can’t help but underline sentences and passages that speak to me. Sometimes I just like the way an author puts words together. Sometimes the truth contained is pivotal and new.

So I thought it would be fun to share some of these tidbits periodically. Enjoy!

“Rae was Rosie’s authority on all things spiritual, because her beliefs were so simple and kind. You were loved because God loves, period. God loved you, and everyone, not because you believed certain things, but because you were a mess, and lonely, and His or Her child. God loved you no matter how crazy you felt on the inside, no matter what a fake you were; always, even in your current condition, even before coffee. God loves you crazily, like I love you, Rae said, like a slightly overweight auntie, who sees only your marvelousness and need.” –Anne Lamott, Imperfect Birds

“Where you are is who you are. The further inside you the place moves, the more your identity is intertwined with is. Never casual, the choice of place is the choice of something you crave.” –Frances Mayes, Under the Tuscan Sun

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” –Maya Angelou

“It was when I was happiest that I longed most. The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing, to find the place where all the beauty came from.” –C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces

“I hope I’m wrong, but I imagine that about 90 percent of the human race is snoozing along, just going through the motions. And 100 percent of us dull out some of the time. It takes miracles, white magic, wonders, to jog us from our slumber. What if we really were masters of our mind and life? What if we were God-in-action? What would we do then?”  –Carolyn See, Making a Literary Life

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After having breakfast with some of our very favorite people yesterday morning – the Jungs, who went and moved away on us and left us all high and dry – I thought I might write a post about things that are good for my soul because seeing the Jungs is always good for my soul.

Last night, I began to make a good-for-my-soul short list: Basil plant. Family time by the pool. Husband home for now. Mix CDs from Jamie. Etc. I also added yoga to the list because it has become a recent obsession of mine.

Until I went this morning.

For the second time in very recent history, Lane literally decomposed in the “Child Watch” program and the childcare worker had to come up to the studio and yank me out of deep meditation to retrieve my wailing daughter.

While yoga is good for my soul, practicing yoga while anxiously watching the door, wondering when the “Child Watch” people are going to barge in and pull me out . . . that is not so good for my soul.

So I’m at a bit of an impasse.

How does one balance the need for holistic peace with the agony of one’s daughter? Apparently, she wins.

Perhaps she is getting back at me for “Operation Iron Fist” (sounds far more punitive than it really is thanks to my Navy SEAL husband’s creative with naming missions), a little tough love Steve and I instituted recently to get everyone back sleeping through the night after a rough patch. I sat outside her door praying that she wouldn’t hold it against me. But now I’m wondering if she is. Maybe she should. The fact that we named it “Operation Iron Fist” was really overkill. (But it did work beautifully).

All of that to say, I will be drowning my yoga-grief in some basil-infused peach iced tea, courtesy of a friend’s suggestion on facebook. Thank you, Melissa. And I will be giving Lane an extra dose of love today because she needs it. After all, I know what it’s like to be in a dither, and sometimes you just need someone you trust to scoop you up and hold onto you for awhile.

Namaste.

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I spoke at my home church, Flood, this Sunday, July 4th. My church is in the middle of a series on grace, and I spoke on the story of Joseph and the theme of God’s grace in the midst of injustice. I talked about the unjust things that happen in our lives—the things that come and find us through no fault of our own—and the injustices of our world that are difficult to reconcile with the presence and provision of a loving God.

Of course, since it was July 4^th, I also brought in the war, and the great confliction I feel around the realities of war. I am so proud of the work my husband and his teammates have accomplished overseas—the work of freedom and justice—and yet I am also deeply saddened by the lives lost, the families separated, the cost of having such a cause.

I read an excerpt from a chapter in Found Art that really highlights my difficulty reconciling a loving God with the state of our world. I wanted to share that chapter because it honestly relates my struggle, and yet I feel like it is hopeful. We must hate the injustices instead of hating God. We must keep looking for God in the tiniest cracks and the smallest crevices of our world because he is there.

After church, we had a handful of friends over. Steve grilled and we all took turns chasing kids. Steve and I put the kids down and fell asleep even before the first fireworks went off. He’s just returned from a two and a half week trip with four stops, literally flying around the world. We are both tired.

I spent the day thankful to have him home, thankful for the squeals of delight our babies let out when they saw him walk through the doors at the commuter terminal, thankful for our friends who tirelessly support and encourage us, and thankful for freedom . . . the kind of freedom that we long for every day, the kind of freedom that directs us to God.

As the introduction to my message, I shared Maya Angelou’s poem, “Caged Bird” that speaks to the injustice of slavery and the longing song of freedom.

A free bird leaps on the back of the wind

and floats downstream till the current ends

and dips his wing in the orange sun’s rays

and dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks down his narrow cage

can seldom see through his bars of rage

his wings are clipped and his feet are tied

so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings with a fearful trill

of things unknown but longed for still

and his tune is heard on the distant hill

for the caged bird sings of freedom.

The free bird thinks of another breeze

and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees

and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn

and he names the sky his own.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams

his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream

his wings are clipped and his feet are tied

so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings with a fearful trill

of things unknown but longed for still

and his tune is heard on the distant hill

for the caged bird sings of freedom.

Many of us feel as though we’re caged, clipped, kept, suffering from something we didn’t choose. My exhortation on Sunday and my exhortation today is to, keep singing.

We long for a world free of suffering, sadness, loss, disappointment, addiction, abuse, poverty, homelessness, war. Though our world is broken, even our very lives broken, we must keep singing.

For we know, deep down on the soul level, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free.

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