blessed are we who have sat down

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

today i am waiting. today i am weary. 

it is raining. the world here is wet, a brown and leafless wet, a maybe 40 degrees stark tree, white winter sky wet.

zoe had a seizure on monday. she was at school, i was at work, we drove 2 hours, thankful that it wasn't 2 long plane flights anymore. i witnessed again, the world trying to interact with her challenges- the ways they get it right and the ways they don't.  sweet zoe, another thing to add to her list.

rose is in a season. adoption is always complicated. and my boys, bless them, strung between, still finding their way as third culture kids in the overly busy american life when they would rather be in uganda.

mike is upstairs, quarantined away with covid, mild thankfully because he's vaccinated, but as i work with the elderly, he's keeping his distance.

all of it feels heavy. like i'm constantly checking in on 5 other people's emotions and physical well being. and i wonder where i am? i wonder whether in this season i will have time to breathe. what is normal? our new normal seems to keep expanding to add more stressors, my muscles feel continually tighter.

today's advent reading ended with something that resonated- (thank you Kate Bowler)

"blessed are we who wait for You in the desert of our longing and isolation, in the wilderness that is this our present struggle. 

blessed are we who have sat down."

the desert of our longing and isolation 

yes. despite how wet it is outside, i feel inside a desert of longing and isolation.

the wilderness that is this our present struggle.  

yes. at times i feel lost in this wilderness of present struggle. 

but unlike past seasons where i may have sprinted through, or treated it like an escape room, a puzzle to solve my way out of, somehow in this season, by God's grace, i have sat down.

sat down in solidarity. 

sat down in surrender.

but not in hopelessness. 

i have sat down to join my life, my people, where we are, hard as this season is, and this is the awe of advent.

God sat down too.

we are all seen in our longing, our isolation, and our wildernesses and God sits down in it with us. just like He sat with me in the basement of the hospital waiting for jude to get out of the MRI as an infant. just like She speaks in the tree tops when the wind whips. just like in the silence of this moment. 

Christmas is about when the divine sat down with us in solidarity and in Love. 

today i wait in remembrance, seated in my life.

advent time

 

 

 

 

this may be the longest time i've gone with out posting.  i started to write in september again, then in october and then november but always interrupted, never finished and here we are now in december. coming on Christmas. advent. favorite time. 

i still feel a bit like i'm living in two places, heart split. uganda creeps up on me in the strangest of places. standing in line to checkout at a store, i'll flashback to the TMT market-images fire before me, the faces, the products, the light coming in through the door, the sound of tape strapping the boxes together to put groceries in. or i'll open my mouth to speak spanish to a patient and luganda will fall out instead. or i will long for tea time to happen at work. for prolonged eye contact when people greet and sincerity in the "how are you?" and i find myself missing the follow up "and how is the family?" but i no longer feel the need to tell everyone i've just moved from uganda, or to bring out my ugandan drivers license as my id. my identity is not wrapped up there- but my heart still is. always will be. 

i'm here now. for now. for a long while.

my sister just bought a farm. it looks amazing. 18+ acres in north carolina with an old farm house and out buildings. there are ponds, raised beds, fenced areas and wild.

there is something about connecting to the earth, getting grounded, planting oneself that calls to some part of me, a part that must be central to being human. like we are meant to til soil, nurture seedlings, watch things grow and then harvest. the cycle of the seasons, of life. 

a part of me wants that. i see the beautiful pictures of the house and all that land and the dogs running freely and i can hear the peace and quiet. i can hear the call to be still. the invitation to experience what can grow inside of you when you tether. 

but.

i have come to know myself and i am not one to be tethered. i roam. 

the only place i ever wanted to tether myself was to east africa and even there i wanted a long lead so i could travel all around and then return. 

now we have entered the season of anticipation again. expectant waiting. of longing. of hope. of light. this crazy world, madly spinning, so much, too much, all the time. 

we are invited to pause now. darkness comes earlier. lights in windows. candles on tables. 

a month of preparation for Christmas. to remember the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless Love of God. joining us. knowing us. sharing in the spinning chaos. not to condemn the world but to reconcile, to mend. to heal. to unite. to Love.

we sit in the darkness of december with our little lights.  

we wait expectantly for Love.

 

pay attention to your tears

 i'm sitting out on my back porch, like i used to do over a decade ago when i started writing in atlanta. back then i looked out over tall water oaks in the heat of georgia with 2 little blonde boys at my feet and zoe somewhere near and yet also far, which is why i started writing. i think i was trying to find her. trying to find myself. trying to figure out how to do a life that felt so out of the ordinary. actually i came here to write out what was happening on the outside and the inside so i could try to make sense of it, to squeeze out the meaning. 

"Whenever you find tears in your eyes, especially unexpected tears, it is well to pay the closest attention. They are not only telling you something about the secret of who you are, but more often than not God is speaking to you through them of the mystery of where you have come from and is summoning you to where, if your soul is to be saved, you should go next.” says Buechner.

and there were so many tears. so i was trying to listen. to attend. to discover, who we were, this mystery of us and where we should go next.

i have sat on many porches over the past decade with zoe and those boys and then another girl, looking out over many types of trees.  and i have shed many tears because the discovery has been rich, the lessons needed and the growth has come.

this past weekend zoe turned 22. we picked her up on friday from the school she had just graduated from - she said good by to her favorite friend joey and we drove away with a car full of all her possessions. it felt like the chapter of her childhood had closed. 

on saturday we celebrated her 22nd birthday with our family, grandparents and her best and oldest friend lily. then on sunday we drove her to her new program and place of residence - a music school for like-minded students a few hours away. she will learn voice and piano and band and chorus and have social groups and life skills and the things she needs with people who get her.

this all feels very significant to me. like i should plant a tree. it is to be marked. yes, celebrated, but somehow more than that. is there a word for a poignant, bittersweet- 80% cacao, thrilled but acknowledge that this- this has been arrived at through such narrow passage that all involved are scarred, kind of celebrate? it feels bigger and deeper that my girl has arrived here! AMEN!

could i have seen this when she was decompensating in uganda at the market? 

no.

could i have seen this when i flew her home the next year emergently and she landed in the hospital?

no.

could i have seen this day in and day out in the moments when life is actually lived, in what feels like slow motion, please God give us our daily absence of sticky thoughts, so many silent prayers for her and me, prayers of Help! slapped on top of fear. 

could i have seen this when she ate those earth worms (but don't worry she didn't chew :)? 

no. 

back then, where i stand now would have broken my heart i'm sad to say. i wouldn't have wanted this outcome. but that is where Jesus is gentle with me. tears speak of a journey, He knew who i was and where i needed to go and i was at the beginning. i wasn't ready to see her future in the light i see it in now. i don't know what i thought, but when i started writing here if  asked if i would be excited that my daughter qualified for group home living?  i would have said a firm no.  

and this is the mystery. God who made zoe, see's her even when she feels most unseen. this place was made for her. she gets to be near music and play music which speaks to her when other things and people can't, while getting the support she still needs. 

so my tears today are tears of memory and marking, of thanksgiving and pride. of expectancy and joy.

what a journey we are on!

22

 

this is zoe's tribe. her people. 

we gathered last week to celebrate her graduation. she is finishing school as she is about to turn 22- that magical age when high school finishes for kids in the special education world who need to stay longer than the typical age of 18. and it was a magical day. 

it was a graduation day just for zoe. zoe's day to shine. she dawned her cap and gown and paraded in to Madonna's "Hung up".

time goes by so slowly

i knew zoe had been working hard on this ceremony and that this was a big deal. i also know that sometimes big deals unravel her, so i was praying that all would go smoothly for her, especially on her insides. so far so good. she had a slideshow of her life, her years, her memories, it was lovely. then people got up and spoke about her growth, her progress, what they love about her, what they will miss.  her teachers, her classmates, friends, support staff. i was a mess. but then it was zoe's "time to shine" she took the mic, she said a few quick thank yous and then she sang. i had no idea she was going to sing but she did. she sang nancy griffiths, flyer. 

it was a song that we had listened to often with zoe when she was a girl. there wasn't anything particularly touching in the lyrics, but it is a beautiful song, sung by a her beautiful self so confidently, so boldly that i cried through it all. to see her singing, smiling, proud of herself, to see all those years, all those struggles and memories and seasons and questions and times i cried out to God wondering if we'd get to this moment- none of it was lost on me. from kindergarden bullying to fourth grade desk hiding, to homeschool necessity, to topping out at 8th grade math, to flying home from uganda urgently for a hospitalization, to this moment. 

time goes by so slowly

and yet. not. 

in a flash - here were are. my baby. little starfish hands. standing before us all singing in a cap and gown.

one day i watched my little blonde girl with her giant pink hello kitty backpack being swallowed by the clarendon JBBP elementary school front doors as she set off to start her life apart from us. and now years later, lifetimes later, on the other coast, after a decade abroad, she's grown and gowned and off again to start another chapter of life apart from us. what are these years? these days? these times that seem like forever but are gone in a moment really. this life really moves so fast. 

next week she will finish up at school and transition to a music program for young adults where she will continue to work on independence and self care and singing and piano and musical performance. she is so excited to start this new chapter and we couldn't be prouder of all her work and accomplishments.

Zoe you are our sunshine, you are finding your way!

back and holding

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

it happened while i was painting the walls in the hallway. i was sitting on the tarp on the floor painting the new house and feeling, as i have every morning for the past 5 weeks since we moved in, pretty blessed. 

i like it here. i like the house, old and quirky and crooked and needing some work in time, but livable. it has character, history. i even like the town- the one i swore i would never live in. i like that i can walk to the post office, the drug store, the train station and restaurants, and a stream and fields and a farm. my yard is full of trees and a barn and our dogs are here (from uganda!) and family. mikes parents are a mile away and i got to spend three weeks with zoe which was wonderful. 

truth be told, i've been surprised by my reaction. i've been surprised by how happy i am. i've been almost waiting for myself to get totally overwhelmed, or to freak out over the choices at the stores, (i did pause at the sharpie aisle in target last week because there was an entire aisle for sharpies. i waited just to give myself a moment, but i was fine, even there). 

what happened yesterday was out of left field, totally unexpected and it caught me by surprise. i was painting and listening to music - just playing what is in my phone- and on came 'Africa' by Toto. i was singing along, until  

It's gonna take a lot to drag me away from you  

at which point i started bawling. full on ugly crying.

There's nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do
I bless the rains down in Africa  

i had to put down the brush. i couldn't see. tears were pouring. the flood gates opened - my memories opened and all the images came, flashes of home- like a slideshow.

Gonna take some time to do the things we never had 

i let the song play and the pictures in my mind carry me home. i let myself cry and grieve and feel that sadness that is real. just as real as that surprising joy and blessing that i feel about being here.

i think what got me were the words themselves and the truth and exhaustion of them. 

it's gonna take a lot to drag me away from you (africa)

even thought it was absolutely the right thing and the right time for us to go, i really hadn't planned on us ever leaving uganda.  it did take a lot to drag us away. 

life is hard. things don't go as planned (for most of us). and yet it's rich and full and beautiful in spite of our plans and ideas. 

i loved that moment in the stairwell messy crying yesterday. it reminded me of all of me. it balanced off the happiness of here with the appropriate sorrow of leaving my deeply loved home that i still think of every morning when i wake to the sounds of birds and even my neighbors rooster. it reminded me to think of my kids and how they  must be feeling a lot of the time. it also made space and gave permission for me to feel sad, to hold both, to love two things, to make room for all of it. 

for a lot of my life i have struggled with holding the tension of the opposites, so to avoid the tension, i've dropped one end and clung to the other. but this place of tension, this holding of opposites is where balance and harmony and all the good things are found. it's where God lives and where we connect with each other and where we find understanding and truth. life is a blend, it's gray, it's all the colors, it's both and, not either or.

today it's beautiful. there is heat and sun and i'm so thankful. 

but i also bless the rains down in africa.

what i'm afraid of and the everlasting arrms

 do you ever feel like you are watching your life? or maybe it's that i am watching time as it drips through my fingers. two weeks from the day after tomorrow. i know how fast that will go because i've been watching it go by. 

right now i'm here in my house in uganda which looks exactly as it always has, nothing is out of place, we haven't started packing and our things which are technically "sold" haven't been taken yet. nothing about the way our house looks says that we are moving away from here. it's weird. i hear the chanting from the mosque, the birds loudly conversing and edith sweeping. the wind is in the trees, moving the leaves in that way that reassures me that She is here and She will go with me. i find the Holy Spirit in the wind, reassuring, promising, ever present, often in stillness but sometimes forceful.

right now things seem normal. but nothing is normal. it's going to change and change fast.  i imagine myself standing in line  at t.j.maxx under the fluorescent lights with a cart full of random things i've picked up after debating way too long over each, listening to that mechanical overly loud voice, "CASHIER NUMBER 5 PLEASE" direct the next customer, wondering what the H-E-double hockey sticks we are all doing here buying all this stuff? and then i imagine myself excusing myself from the line, abandoning ship, aborting the mission and driving home in tears only to realize that i really did want at least the yoga mat. 

these are the things i'm afraid of. the very scene at target 10 years early that i feared leaving, i fear returning to. 

the wind She moved again, "Do not be afraid! I have rescued you, I have called you by name and you are mine. when you cross over that giant ocean, I will be with you. and when you feel like you are drowning in tj maxx or where ever, they will not overwhelm you, for I am the Lord your God." that is what i hear today.

in the wind, God speaks the ancient words. the eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.

called by name. rescued. caught by the everlasting arms. held. not overwhelmed. not consumed.  known. seen. 

and perhaps we are returning  for such a time as this. what ever it is. whatever awaits. the palm fronds wiggle in the wind at this. the tree next to her nods in approval and a new gust comes in from the door behind me. 

i am surrounded by the wind, the Spirit. those Everlasting Arms.

this is what is good. what i can trust and lean into and rely on and know will not fail. the truths that cross land and oceans and culture and time. Love. loving each other. care and concern. offering refuge where we can. seeing people. being those things for each other.

and that doesn't end two weeks from the day after tomorrow, it comes with us.

the threshold

writing it down makes it real. 

i'm at that point where things are so close that i begin to subconsciously on purpose never know what day it so that time seems to stretch out. it's protective. it happens. i've been here before. 

but even in my lack of date specific awareness, there has been a lot of looking back. a bit of looking forward. and then doing life everyday. 

we are standing in the threshold. 

a threshold is a piece of wood that marks an entrance. a place or point of new beginning or change. a magnitude or intensity that must be exceeded for a certain reaction to happen. a place between where you were and where you are going.

a threshold marks change. a passageway into what is next. you must go through it.

i am standing in the threshold of this season. i made myself count, in 18 days we fly away.

and it's beginning to sink in that when i return, i will not return to my life here. to my car and dogs and home and work. i will enter in as a visitor once again. i will stay with friends. it will feel different and people will say, "where do you stay?" and i will say words i never thought i would say, i will say, "wenham". 

as i've been standing in this threshold space for about a week now i have seen a few things happening. my skin is getting a bit tougher- i'm giving some distance- i'm pulling back a bit. noticing the potholes and the broken things and telling myself that i won't miss them, then thinking about family at home and looking forward to spending time with them after so many years spent so far away. 

and the other thing i've noticed is that when i look back with such deep love and nostalgia over these 10 years of raising little people with their grubby bare feet and skinny arms and home-style haircuts, is that so much of what i am grieving leaving is already gone. it's both taken by time and given back to me as memory. much of what i will miss i can't get back here anymore than i can get it back where i am going. my little children are big children but i am leaving the land where i raised them and that is sad and hard especially because it's sad and hard for them. 

so may we pass well through this threshold and on to the other side with joy for what is next knowing that the same God who went before us 10 years ago, is waiting on the other side again.

oh uganda, land of beauty

what will i miss most? will it be the rooster in the morning? or the constant bird chatter, echoing and layered even right in the city.  or maybe the scent of burning leaves and diesel with someone cooking meat on the roadside. will it be being called 'madame!' or buying potatoes and passion fruits from Sara, only Sara in the parking lot outside of the market with a host of boys selling bananas greeting with grins and saying "yes docta!" or maybe  i will miss the way they push for me to buy the oranges which are too sour and i don't like, "but what of oranges?" as if someday i will change my mind, but some days i do. maybe i will long for those sour oranges, and pot holes, and broken air-conditioning in 26 year old cars, and traffic where no one follows rules. i think all of these things i will miss. 

i'm scared truth be told. scared of moving back. scared of the ease and the comforts and not being understood for missing broken things and ways of life that have become normal and comfortable for me and are my children's baseline. scared of easy purchases and new things and phone plans with years of commitment, and mortgages.  i don't want a new car or a new anything really. i want to buy used. i want to buy airtime when i need it. i want to pay with mobile money. i want it to be 80 degrees year round and hear the sound of sweeping rains at night and awake to the call of the dove and the monkey bird and always see green outside my screened windows.

i remember 10 years ago right as we were getting ready to leave, we were boarding a plane that night and needed one more suitcase and so i drove to target. i was in the luggage aisle and i had a mild panic attack. i was temporarily incapacitated by the choices but really i was incapacitated by the choice i was making- to get on an airplane in a few hours with zoe who was 10 and the boys who were 6 and 4 and move them to the heart of africa. i starred at those suitcases and thought, "what have we done?" a crate of our stuff was already on it's way, our supporters were already supporting us, we had our house on the market and an airport pick up plan on the other side. it was happening, and i was scared of the change.

mike and i have talked a lot about what we want to bring back with us, to carry with us in to this next season. what pieces of our life here can we hold and savor and reuse, replicate, share with our new england life and community. there are my large african drums and some baskets, but we are really taking about the things we have learned. priorities. slowing down. valuing people over productivity. relationships, even the little ones sprinkled through out the day, matter.  the boda driver delivering food and calling for directions, "good eve-a-ning madame. how are you? i myself am fine. now..... i am wondering....i am near...but  how can i find your place..? "   not. "where are you? i got your pizza" those things that used to drive me mad, now i cherish. 

so in 5 weeks i will fly away with the blue curtains i've looked out of for 10 years packed in my suitcase and my much bigger boys now 16 and 14 and my dogs and cat, red dirt on my shoes and know that hard as it is, it's time. and uganda with it's bird calls and smiles and warmth and time taking and traffic and potholes had grown me in ways i couldn't have imagined and taught me to slow down in ways i didn't know i needed to know. it has shown me our great need for community and given me a broader definition of what community can and should be. i have found friendship in the strangest of places and been welcomed in corners where i couldn't have dreamed of stepping. i have been blessed over and over again by the people of this place who have let me call their country home. 

oh uganda may God uphold thee, we lay our future in your hands

on leaving again, love and loss

 today i am deeply sad about leaving. i'm feeling that ache, that knowing of what i'm losing, what i'm leaving. i was in an uber on the way to the med school. i have a full day. it's monday and kampala was packed. boda's were everywhere, people everywhere, selling, noise, honking, yelling, street preaching. i looked around and realized how normal it all was, and how it looks nothing like the US and i wondered what i'm going to do with all the quiet? with all the whiteness? with all the tidy? and the tears started to come. i don't want to go! came welling up from deep within. 

learning to allow the sadness is very hard for me. to feel it. it's easier to be busy with all the things. selling shadow boxes and pasta spoons and the amazing pots that i've carried with me since my wedding and are just as good. once again making choices about what parts of my past to leave, to sell, to give, (to abandon?)knowing that i am not my things. 

when mike and i were young married people, before we had kids and started real jobs and before i went to med school, we traveled around europe for 5 weeks really cheaply. in the czech republic we found a hand painted pottery bowl that we really loved and we splurged and bought it and carefully brought it back in our hand luggage. we have carried that bowl around with us through our many cross country and international moves and it has broken many times and been glued back together just as many times. it used to be a serving dish for pasta, now it holds fruit or potatoes before washing. it's chipped and full of cracks filled with glue, but it still holds up and does its job and to me, it's still beautiful. 

part of what makes it so beautiful, is that it's still here. it has made it. like us. battered and worn as we are. chipped and cracked. broken and glued. faithfully holding things.. together. 

sadness is something i've spent years avoiding, maybe even fearing because it hangs dangerously close to depression which once, long ago, nearly ate me alive. so to sit with the uncomfortable feelings of grief, or unhappiness and just let them linger, to welcome them because they have a right to come, is new for me. 

today, i am resisting the urge to busy myself with item selling and list making, instead of writing this. rather, i am letting myself remember the oh so many things that i adore about uganda, the things that even the sprinkles of them make my eyes fill up again. and i'm then resisting the even stronger urge to try to fix it by conniving a way to stay- because i know that is not the right thing either. no. i just must sit in the mess of sorrow- which is after all- a part of love and loss. 

we grieve that which had meaning. that which we love.

the first, on leaving

 i remember it well. this time. 10 years ago. getting ready to move. beginning to to see my life in the US differently, beginning to let it go. there were complicated emotions. a grieving, a nostalgia, a curiosity, anticipation, excitement, some fear. my days felt split between carrying on my routine in atlanta with packing and prepping for a new life 8,000 miles away. newsletters, fundraising, medivac insurance, typhoid vaccines, finding new schools and what essential items couldn't be purchased there. 

i remember the loneliness of it. and that was strange. i suppose it shouldn't have been, no one else was selling their house and cars and getting on a plane for the heart of africa. no one else was leaving grandparents and good health care and 'normal' for an unknown life with 3 little people in tow. yet the loneliness surprised me. 

i'm here again on the other side of 8,000 miles packing up a life i have treasured for 10 years to return to my country of origin. i'm sorting into 'give away', 'sell', bring'. i'm beginning to see my life here differently, beginning to let it go (to loosen my grip). there are complicated emotions. i'm grieving, i'm nostalgic, i'm mostly those, with some fear thrown in. there is some curiosity, i'm trying to grow that, to let God grow it. 

i'm remembering the loneliness that is on this side, but i know will be even more on the other side.

moments

 sometimes i'm so struck by time that i wonder if i'm dying and part of my mind knows it - like a slow version of my life flashing before my eyes- playing back the memories. so vivid. so aware of it's passage. it's the feeling of wanting to grab onto something but it's water running through my hands and i have this helpless awareness that all those moments and milestones have come and gone. they only live there- somewhere in my mind. 

it's almost always related to my children. their little feet come to me when i see their giant ones on the couch now. their little rhymes when i hear deep voices- so deep i wonder who is in my living room? their toe-heads stretching for a taller pencil mark on the wall, now we need a stool to reach that 6 foot 5 1/4 mark. 

time.

life is so exquisitely beautiful. 

how does it just keep going like it does?

10 years ago we were striping down our lives in atlanta. selling the things we owned. ridding ourselves of excess clothes and books and toys, furniture and cars- but so much more than that. we said goodbye to a life and chose another one. we left 'normal' and known.

we entered an adventure. we became outsiders. we joined a community. we had many lessons to learn. little toes were covered in red dirt and callouses and squirrels were replaced by monkeys- OJ became passion juice and for the kids not much mattered other than running free with friends until the sun set at 7.  

the thing about time is in the present you aren't thinking about how it will become the past. we gave them diversity. eyes wide open. ears to hear others in another tongue. perspective. it came at a cost. the cost of knowledge. the cost of 'home' being a confusing word. the cost of belonging to more than one land, and yet nowhere at once. 

when the sky closes herself up like this, white and cloudy, huddled with blue and grey moments, my mind runs through the years. questions rise up. aching. a beautiful ache that i wouldn't change.

nothing has been easy- but it's been real. these 10 years have broken, bled and purified me. 

what crazy times these are- what memories will they become? 

cherish. (to protect and care for lovingly) (hold dear) (to keep in ones mind)

i must cherish this moment. now. this sky with it's creeping light. this song on the radio. the sandy headed boy playing with his dog outside the window forever barefoot. and the bright orange flowers and purple pedals on the creeping vines and the spikey zigzag plants. the lichen covered rocky ground. and yes even the screech of the ibis and the weedwacker. 

i will cherish those feet on the couch before they grow any bigger -

cherish it all because so quickly, it will go.