A Still Life

Awe, gratitude, relief, joy, delight, exhaustion, amazement, bliss, privilege, done.

1. Our year began with excited anticipation, and our family’s life shifted about three weeks into 2009. January 20 was a momentous day for three reasons: George W. Bush left the White House, Barack Obama moved into the White House, and our daughter was born. Obama’s beautiful, historic inauguration narrated much of my labor, though his address coincided with a transition into harder labor, and I had to go back and read it later. Despite any frustrations with his administration almost one year later, that day was undeniably marked with great hope for our world, our nation, our family, and the sweet baby girl who was working hard with me to join us.

2. I put the old blog to sleep and began this new creative outlet for continued writing and retreat resources for churches. At times I have wondered if it was a waste of money or energy as the resource part of A Still Life has yet to leave my Idea stack. But the ideas are still simmering, and I feel certain that the discernment process which led me to this new site will hold a space for creativity I’ve not yet realized. I leave those empty links open because I trust they will be filled, and I will certainly celebrate and spread the word when their time comes.

3. I took on a freelance project that, for most working folks, should have been a nice challenge but not earth-shattering. Being the primary caregiver for our two children, however, made for major shifts in the way my husband and I prioritize time and share parenting duties. I have attempted to balance vocation and motherhood with one child, but this was my first real attempt with two. I think someone was sick in this house almost every week for over three months. A simple writing project brought up conversations about calling, balance, family size, and justice. It felt good to write and study and carve out space for my thoughts, and I want to do more of that. I want for my children to see me do more of that, too. Woefully unprepared was I for the reverberations of Isaiah’s words of justice and comfort for my present, mothering life.

4. I am well aware of my natural inclination toward anxious ways and worrying about the future, but those fears are well-tempered by an abiding hope for what the new year brings. I feel steady in our family life, excited to find a new balance with career and home, and remain unwavering in my hope that the One who calls and sends is also the One who sustains.

A dear friend is waiting for her first son, third child, to be born. A few of us gathered to bless this time in her life, and I was drawn to these words by Pat Kozak.

Rise up, child of earth
Let life rise up in you,
full-term, new born.
Time enough in wondrous darkness,
Echoed sounds of voices, stirrings,
splashings of new life.
Relinquish to memory this one mystery
we yearn to know and will again
in after-death.
So much latent
still to rise
Until our rising lifts us to a depth
that questions every truth
we’ve ever known.

Mud-stirred of first-clay
Plaything of a potter who fell in love
with her hands’ work.
Blessed be her handiwork.
Blessed be the work of her hands.
Blessed be.