An Offering

IMG_1467I am walking along roads I know well — well enough to anticipate dips and turns without thinking. I am walking in the slanted light of morning, and the air smells like spring.

I pass an older woman in purple slacks. She carries a purse, so I know she isn’t out on a leisurely stroll like I am. She has a purpose, a place. I have a purpose, too, but it’s not quite so tangible.

There aren’t many places I feel closer to God than when I am walking. Walks are my response to uncertainty, to fear, to wrestling. I walked around and around on 9/11, and again the day of the Boston Marathon bombing. I walked as graduation approached and I mourned the loss of my little life at college, and I walked the day I realized I would not be able to take that job with AmeriCorps back in 2012.

As I go, I talk to God. I slip in and out of actual conversation with him and conversations with others in my life. I shape thoughts and how I feel and how best to convey these things to other people. But God listens the whole time, and I feel his shaping of my words, too.

I stop by the stream and sit on the crooked cement slab, watching the water flow from under the road. It foams and swirls and swirls together, one floating foam into another, until they converge and slip over the rocks and down the stream.

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I think about how we are all “others” and how this is scary.

That seeing and accepting another’s otherness is what community is about.

No one drives by to see me in my striped hoody by the stream, and I know what waits for me on my return home: Bonhoeffer and YA literature, a couch made soft with blankets and the sound of the neighbor children racing their bikes in the street.

I sit for a moment longer, and I want to sing to the Lord. I want to sing a song of trust and faith, a faith that covers and holds up all the brokenness and sadness I sometimes feel.

I want to sing, but no song comes. I wait. I am open.

I want to sing.

But there, by the stream on that quiet road, with birds chirping in the weeping willow, no song comes.

At first, I am concerned. Where is my song? I want to have an offering, but my hand — my throat — are empty.

And then I think that maybe my offering is too much me and not enough listening.

Too much sound and not enough quiet.

Too much struggling for answers and not enough allowance of questions.

And so I sit a moment longer, get up, walk home.

An offering of listening.

Good Things #38: Chicks and All That Jazz

It’s that time of year again – the time to buy chicks. I stopped by the co-op on my way home from school Monday with the intention to buy six adorable soon-to-be-less adorable chicks.

I came home with eight, so not that bad.

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[Look at that cocked head. They don’t trust me yet.]

They currently reside in my bedroom, and their incessant cheeping keeps me up at night (good practice for baby season?). We got four golden comets, two barred rocks, and two golden-laced wyandottes.

I can feel the restlessness in the flock outside: who’s gonna go? who’s not gonna make the cut?

We’ll deal with that when the time comes.

There’s an informational session at the co-op this Saturday, and I think I’ll go. Since I’m teaching that chicken class again in May, it might be good to do a little networking, a little hen-schmoozing. I need to brush up on my bird diseases and prevention… 🙂

In other news, I wore flats and didn’t feel like my feet were going to freeze off. April’s turning out pretty well so far.

P.S. Friday, I’ll be having my first guest-post. I thought it was about time to have a voice other than mine on this blog; my friend Bryn will be talking about fiction and its role in our lives, so stay tuned!

Good Things #34

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In February, I woke up every morning thinking: Maybe it’s warmer today.

In March, I wake up every morning not believing that it will ever. be. spring. again.

[This place exists, right now as I sit in a snow flurry. It’s called Capri. And it’s way warmer.]

Dad planted some seeds Sunday and we have plans for flowers this weekend. There’s the skeleton of a greenhouse in the backyard, but it’s crooked because it’s sitting on top of a foot of snow.

I got a phone call asking if I’d teach the chicken class again this spring. I was shocked because a class of two doesn’t sound like a success to me, but why not? I had fun, and I liked showing off our “big red barn” of a chicken house. It’ll give me a reason to keep wanting to have chickens because there’s something about a long winter that removes every desire to keep having them. By May I plan to have a new brood of chicks, anyway, so that’ll be another addition to show whoever might sign up. Last year, we ended up talking about writing as much as we talked about chickens – seems the same kinds of people are interested in the same kinds of things.

I am 3/4 of the way done with my second grad school class and I’m close to rejoicing.

This is a song I loved my junior year of college. Justin McRoberts came to our school and for months I made fun of his silly poster that hung in the dining hall: eyes down, shaggy hair, he looked like the quintessential too-serious musician. We went to his coffee-house-style concert and my opinion completely changed. He made us laugh. He joked about being Mexican and Irish and how short he was. I love this song because it is despair and hope all rolled into one.

The excitement of my grammar school Latin students to see my Italy and Greece slide show is overwhelming. Of course, I’m not dumb, and I know that at least part of them is just excited to get out of some translating. But still. I’m terrible with technology so all I can do now is cross my fingers and hope the slide show works…

Read A Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp if you need some encouragement in gratitude. Her style can be a little distracting at times, but it’s beautiful and thought-provoking.

[thoughts on february]

February is one of my least favorite months (March taking first, I think). I know I can join the club on this one – there’s just something about the post-Christmas-ness of February, the bleariness, the seeming-longness. One of my coworkers has been trying to convince me that in fact, February has a lot to offer. Her biggest argument is a little subjective, though: “Well, my birthday is in March, so February’s great cause it’s right before March.”

Hmmmm….

The days are, indeed, getting longer, as another coworker reminded us via a mass email. There was math involved, and the math seems to show that the sun is with us a full hour more than in December. I am trying to believe it and rejoice accordingly.

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I was asked to babysit on Valentine’s Day. It was innocent, a quick text sent: “I’m sure you already have plans, but…” She doesn’t know that I promised myself last year: Never babysit on Valentine’s Day AGAIN. I love children. I love these particular children, especially. But there is something oddly demoralizing about watching someone else’s offspring while they do such enjoyable things as eat at a fancy restaurant, coo at each other, and makeout. This happens on a regular babysitting evening, too, but it is inexcusable on Valentine’s Day.

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It doesn’t help that when I look in the mirror, I wonder if my skin could get any more translucent.

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When I went out to do the chickens this morning, my fingers stuck to the metal waterer. Just for a moment (not quite the drama of A Christmas Story), but just enough that I got a little jolt of “oh!” and realized that I am entirely and completely and unapologetically ready for spring.

That being said, a huge snowstorm is on its way. I love snow. I love storms. I love being cooped up in my house with a hot drink, a good book, and good company.

But after this one? Bring on spring.

IMG_0501Please and thank you.