submission

another fall-ish day.  the cooing bird that called me here, is nearby cooing.  scout the dog is barking furiously in vain, in attempt to rid our yard of monkeys.  rose just came home from the neighbors to eat a hard boiled egg. bryn awoke with a fever, headache and dizziness. i pricked his finger and thankfully he tested negative for malaria.  jude left sadly for his first day back at school brotherless.  had coffee with a friend who gets it- who gets my days here- their brilliance and their challenge.

i've been thinking about submission.  maybe i've been thinking about it because i've been married now for 20 years and i am recalling a conversation i had with a wise aunt the spring before our wedding.  she asked me if i was prepared to submit to my husband.

submission: the action or fact of accepting or yielding to a superior force or to the will or authority of another person.

i obviously most certainly was not by my response, which was to describe that we were an enlightened generation and didn't believe in the 'wives submitting to husbands' thing. i remember being almost offended because here she was, a lawyer,  didn't she know how old school that was? but what i can now see, is really what a fool i was!  the problem was i didn't understand the question.  the problem was i couldn't even submit to what she was asking.  the problem was i didn't understand submission. 

i was reacting to words like superior force, and authority. 
i was missing the beauty of accepting and yielding. i was missing the beauty of giving forth as if by a natural process, of flexibility, of giving way, of receiving. 

i am a slow learner. it has taken me 20 years to begin to understand this.  20 years to see that not only is submission the right thing to do, submission works.  it's not dated, it's not un-enlightened, infact it's the opposite.  it's peace bringing, it's love.  and isn't that what marriage is or should be? the fact of accepting the will of another person, the action of yielding to that person? isn't it about being flexible for each other, of giving way, of receiving each other? isn't it bending to  make things work better for everyone?

and what is the opposite of submission? disagreement, rebellion, fight, resistance.  are any of those things good?

i was 22 and hung up on gender issues.  i was stuck on rights and fairness and equality and being assertive- but she never said that submission was one sided, and i was too busy arguing to hear her.  i know her, and i know her marriage and i know that it was full of mutual submission.  she was just ahead of me- how many times i've thought back to that and wished that i'd yielded to her authority. how many seasons would have been easier had i been willing to humble myself and really put mike first.  how many missed opportunities to show him the love and respect that he deserves.

the good news is it's never to late. our days are full of chances to give and bend and yield and accept.  our minutes are waiting for us to chose wisely. we are all full of broken bits, broken bits sticking together and making a beautiful mosaic.  i want that beauty.  i want that beauty to come out of my days. i want giving forth to become a natural process. i want to give way, and to receive.

so i go forth into this day.

beginnings

i am home now. really home.  home with my people, my little family, some of my friends.  home with the pebbly dusty roads, in a place where my face sticks out. it's so good to be back.

now it's the end of the dry season.   things are crisp and the leaves are less dense and some are crunching on the ground. there is wind and the sounds of dry thing moving together. the air is cooler than i remember, things are browner.  it's so beautiful, it looks like fall, one of the few times when the season here outside, matches my internal season. end of august, start of september- that time of change and newness and beginning.

and that is where we are. we are beginning again. 

i flew in the night of the two year anniversary of our landing. i remember all those bags and the tired but excited kids and wondering somewhere inside myself, what we had done.  but now, i was returning. i was alone.  i was in the 'residents' line, not the 'alien/visitors' line.  now i was home.

but i came home to people who had already been home.  to three kids still on summer break, one at a new school, and one husband tired of single parenting. but i was ready.....well, except for zoe.

zoe and i have had a challenging few months.  i think it's the parenting a teenage daughter thing, complicated by years of our challenging life with her and the fatigue that brings.  but the summer in america was pretty good.  she was able to reconnect (and pretty well) with her old friends.  she was doing sleepovers and playdates and enjoying being able to eat gluten-free food at most restaurants in  the US.  she was happy, but it's a lot.  it's a lot to process. going back to what was always 'home' after two years away is hard.  and so is leaving it again, to go back across the ocean, back to where your face sticks out, and at a new school. 

transitions are tough on all of us, but especially tough on zoe, especially tough when processing the new stuff takes so much more work.  when learning to filter out the new sounds is harder, when learning your way to the cafeteria is harder, when making new friends is harder, and learning what their tones of voices mean is harder, and so is trying to know what their faces are saying when there are no words.  i shouldn't ever blame her for these things.  i have no idea how taxing her life is.

she has been at the new school for just over a week.  today was my first day to drive, and my first day to meet her teachers and her one-one learning aide (a God-send we found via online social networking).  i have to admit, i was scared.  i was scared of all of it, for her, for me, for them.  i was afraid that things would be falling apart- that she'd come undone- that her teachers would be overwhelmed by her- that i would have to sit with a new reality of messy, or disaster, or re-inventing the plan...again.

but it wasn't that. it wasn't any of those things.  it wasn't dramatic in either direction- just like most of real life is, it just was. she was calm and showed me around and introduced me to people.  she lost her locker key and couldn't remember what subject came first and interrupted a few times, but she was happy and people were really nice to her, the kids and the teachers. 

no one seemed overwhelmed.  no one seemed undone. and after meeting her lovely assistant/ helper, i felt great.  i felt support and commitment and encouragement.  i felt she had a team and a place, and me too. it reminded me again of Gods goodness and grace, and my seemingly constant short-term memory loss about this- my grappling and worrying and frantic attempts to manage my own fears and anxieties- my need to buckle down and prepare for the worst instead of trusting in the provision.

i am always beginning.  beginning so often, to see again what i already know.  the grace is that it's okay.  it's okay to forget and start again. it's okay to be blown away by the goodness of God.  it's okay to be reminded. it's okay to begin again.

another poem- mary oliver (again!)

Mysteries, Yes

Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous
to be understood.

How grass can be nourishing in the
mouths of the lambs.
How rivers and stones are forever
in allegiance with gravity
while we ourselves dream of rising.
How two hands touch and the bonds will
never be broken.
How people come, from delight or the
scars of damage,
to the comfort of a poem.

Let me keep my distance, always, from those
who think they have the answers.

Let me keep company always with those who say
“Look!” and laugh in astonishment,
and bow their heads.

               - mary oliver