thank. you.

“When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; what is man that you are mindful of him? And the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.” ~ Psalm 8

It was a balmy October evening, little more than a year ago, and Dutch and I were standing in the middle of a teeming parking lot under a star-studded sky. We were in a part of town I had never visited … and I balked at what I saw: panoramic views of city and mountains lapped against us like waves. It was unlike anything I’d ever seen in the seven years I had lived in Tucson.

There, in the darkness, I felt chastened, as though God were hurling me a question: So this is the desert you so abhor? The barren wilderness, the stifling dead land, in which none of my wonders are made manifest?

Tears filled my eyes as I clasped Dutch’s hand and breathed a quiet prayer, “God, thank you for bringing me to a place so steeped in your grandeur, its beauty a testament to your glory.” Then, in a spasm of impetuosity, I added a postscript: “And Lord – if it’s necessary that we should remain in the desert, would you allow us to live in a place where we can better experience its beauty?”

Suddenly I felt childish, and stole a sly glance at Dutch. “Well,” I said, laughing, blushing, bashful, “the worst He can do is say no, right?”

I was aware that perhaps it was an indulgent thing to ask. But I was still thinking about the conversation I'd had with a wise old friend that very afternoon. I had expressed frustration with myself – wanting to be rid, once and for all, of the desires that caused me to battle with discontentment, but my friend reminded me that God is my Father. “It’s okay to ask Him for things,” she had said. “He wants you to ask – freely… but to accept His answer, whatever it is, trusting that He alone knows what is best for your soul.”

Days, weeks, months passed and I forgot all about the prayer. It wasn’t 'til last month, as Dutch drove me up for the second time to view the house that would become our home, that I chanced to remember it… Not five hundred yards away - whipping wildly in the wind - stands a flag, the flag that marks the very parking lot where we stood last fall, without the slightest inkling of what God had in store.

We have lived here only three weeks but still, each time I pass a window and look out upon the vast expanse of mountains, sky, and stars, an unspeakable mixture of disbelief, unworthiness, and overwhelming awe rise up together from the very depths of my soul.

To the north, the shadowy peaks of the Catalina mountains loom, dusted with saguaros like candles on a cake. To the south, straining far in the foggy distance, I can glimpse the violet hills of Mexico. Each evening the sun never fails to sink behind the blue-black mountains without putting up a fight – an extraordinary show of colors which no human language can adequately describe.

When at last the sky darkens, the city becomes a bed of glittering jewels, a black sea, churning with lights; and in the daytime, the view from high up on the hill betrays a landscape that is anything but withered. On the contrary, the city is blanketed in green: green trees, green brush, even a few brilliant patches of lime-colored grass.

In response to all these sights I cannot help but feel very small; and in this case, as in few others, I know my feelings are entirely justified: for I am small - but one body of swirling life and activity, absorbed in its own particular interests and concerns, in a great sea of other bodies, absorbed in other activities and plagued by other concerns.

It is impossible to conceive how the God of the Universe, whose attentions are at every moment turned to the great and important matters of the world, can also be so humbly and lovingly concerned with mine… And yet I am constantly confronted with evidence that He does; that He is.

It is an unaccountable blessing… a gift which, like salvation, I cannot take an ounce of credit for. So what must I do?

I think I'll start at the very beginning: by saying thank you.

"Bless the LORD, O my soul, And all that is within me, bless His holy name.Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget none of His benefits; who pardons all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases; who redeems your life from the pit, Who crowns you with lovingkindness and compassion; who satisfies your years with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle....The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness. He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His lovingkindness toward those who fear Him. Just as a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear Him." ~Psalm 103.1-5, 8-13

I remember it this way...

“I will give them singleness of heart and action...” ~Jeremiah 32.39

“Not by might or by power but by My Spirit, says the Lord.” ~Zephaniah 3.6

The sky was gray when we began the long drive west toward the Long Beach Peninsula. I remember our jubilance as we left the city and the suburban ugliness behind in favor of blue skies and rolling green hills dotted, now and then, with apple trees. We crossed the bridge and headed up the peninsular coastline, past Seaside and Oceanside into Klipsan Beach. We were getting nearer… Over Willapa Bay, flocks of seagulls swooped and sang, riding just above the surface of the water; and on the banks of the bay, in the fading sunlight, the tall grass glistened and swayed in the breeze.

Heaps of oyster shells – heaps, as big as elephants! – announced that we we had reached the outskirts of our destination: Oysterville – the town that had beckoned to me since the day I’d gotten lost there several years before; the town where we would be married three days hence, in the little village church, at one o’clock in the afternoon.

Founded in 1854 by two men who were told by an Indian chief of tidelands covered in succulent oysters, Oysterville had once been a booming metropolis, exporting bivalves up and down the western coast. Local historians say that when oyster schooners arrived to pick up their cargo, they often paid in gold; and because the village could not boast of a bank there was often more gold in Oysterville than in any other town on the West Coast, save San Francisco.

But I didn't know these stories then; all I knew was the way the sky looked as we drove down the deserted highway leading through the middle of town, past the General Store and the cluster of houses whose faces looked wistfully out at the bay as if waiting expectantly for something extraodinary to appear on the horizon. The town itself seemed like something from another world, let alone another century – as if it had washed up out of the mind of God and fallen instantly out of memory, like a sea glass bottle swept onto an undiscovered shore – and I knew that I wanted to be swept up with it, woven into its history and hidden behind its weathered doors.

This is how I remember it on July 3rd, 2002 when a dark-haired girl, riding in the passenger seat of an old Volvo four-door, began waving excitedly to the boy behind the wheel, directing him to turn off the small main road onto an even smaller one, called “School Street,” that was canopied in trees.

I remember how the colors glided by my window – streaks of green and gold – until my attention settled, finally, on the weathered gray slats of the schoolhouse, nestled shyly at the end of a long wooden fence, like an actor standing on an empty stage.

And beyond it, behind a square picket fence, stood the church, standing like a secret that had just been breathed, upon a quiet stretch of lawn. At the sight of it, we held our breaths as we crunched slowly down the gravel road. It was an effort to get out of the car, windblown as we were, from driving four hours with the windows down. But we were too full of excitement to let anything like exhaustion register its presence in our bones. It was our wedding weekend! And here we were, at last, standing humbly in front of the very church where our futures would be fused into one future, our separate lives into one life.

We rapped on the door of the ramshackle residence across the street and Sydney Stevens, the silver-haired woman whose great-grandfather founded the town and built the church, led us on a haphazard tour of the tiny, one-room sanctuary.

We don’t allow much in terms of outside decoration, she said.

Oh, but that’s fine! we replied. It’s lovely, just the way it is.

Sydney shrugged. Some folks, you know, want to bring in a lot of other stuff.

Well, we said, but we aren’t like other folks!

Yes, she said, I can see that. And we hoped it was a compliment.

We followed her down the wooden steps to the lawn, turning to examine the brass bell that hung inside the faded red steeple. Sydney loosed her glittering gray eyes upon us and apologized profusely that summer plans had prevented her husband from applying a fresh coat of paint.

We don’t mind, we said. In fact, we rather liked its look of age. The chipping paint and weathered siding says it has been through things; it has endured.

In fact, she said, it has. There was a storm way back that knocked it to the ground but my father, he rebuilt it, slat by slat. Gave it a better foundation; and it has stood solid ever since.

There, we said. That is just what we mean! But though we joked and laughed about the metaphoric significance of getting married in a church that had once been bowled over and rebuilt, we remained naively confident that our foundation was secure.

Indeed, where our future marriage was concerned, we had the highest of expectations; our hopes were brighter than the brightest fireworks which we watched explode, the following evening, in multi-colored fragments above the frothy ocean waves.

On the morning of July the sixth the sky was clear and blue above the softly murmuring ocean waters. Fears of rain and clouds were all dispelled: the sun shone, but not too brightly. The breeze blew, but not too strongly. And on the little knoll outside the schoolhouse, clusters of wildflowers bloomed in shades of yellow gold and tangerine.

Creation itself seemed to be rejoicing with us! The clouds had parted; the flowers bloomed! And we took it as a sign that God’s hand of favor had descended upon us…

In his wedding sermon, looking down at us with shining eyes, our brother seemed to share our joy: “I have huge expectations for your life together,” he said. “And I want to be able to say that I was there when it started. I was part of it right from the beginning, standing next to them when they said, ‘I do.’” His words gave a certain simultaneous affirmation of our hopes while at the same time suggesting that God's definition of greatness would inevitably bear little resemblance to our own.

And indeed, if our story were mine to write, I would have set us soaring on a perpetually upward scale. Bigger, better, and more beautiful - these would have been the words to mark the movements that we made.

But God, whose story we are in, spun it differently. In His words, "...[T]he vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter's hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do" (Jeremiah 18.2).

In the last eight years He has shown us what, on that glittering July day, we thought we already knew: that His ways are not our ways; neither are his thoughts our thoughts. Instead, they are higher and better, if, at times, from our extraordinarily limited vantage point, more humiliatingly painful.

"The vision is not a castle in the air, but a vision of what God wants you to be," says Oswald Chambers. "Let Him put you on His wheel and whirl you as He likes, and as sure as God is God and you are you, you will turn out exactly in accordance with the vision."

It is a messy business, but if we trust Him to do the reshaping, we will, like the bud that bursts forth from the ugly brown bulb, come up ever fresh and green and new.

MFEO

I never imagined I would wind up with someone whose qualities stand out in such stark contrast to my own ... but God did (Isaiah 55.8). So we did. Eight years ago today.

Dear Dutch,

Romans 11.29 says, “God's gifts and his call are irrevocable.” The word irrevocable in Greek means “without repentance” or “not to be repented of,” implying that when God chooses to bestow His favor and calling on someone, He never regrets it.

He’s never sorry. And I can’t help but think that this is because salvation and sanctification depend entirely upon Him. He doesn’t doubt Himself. He knows He can finish the work He began in us because the work is His to do – and He has done it!

He knows our end from our beginning. He sees the verdant silhouette of the sprawling tree inside the acorn long before it has begun to sprout. Its telos – or completion – is inevitable because the process of teleological evolution, once begun, cannot be rescinded.

I wholeheartedly believe that God has placed an irrevocable call on your life. My heart is with you just as Deborah’s heart was with Israel’s princes who rode into battle, “with the willing volunteers among the people” (Judges 5.9).

I am so proud to be your wife and I cannot wait to see what He accomplishes in and through you.

Happy, happy, happy birthday,

Love, Your Dutch-ess

Color Him Love

Dear Dutch,

I heard this song, "Color Him Father," by a little known but very talented woman, Linda Martell, and it reminded me of you. In particular the opening lines:

"There's a man at my house he's so big and strong;
He goes to work each day, and he stays all day long.
He comes home each night looking tired and beat;
He sits down at the dinner table and has a bite to eat.
Never a frown, always a smile,
When he says to me, "How's my child?"

Think I'll color him father;
I think I'll color him love.
Said I'm gonna color him father;
I think I'll color him love..."


Thank you for working so hard to provide for us. You color my world with so much love... xoxo, HMB

What I am Grateful For

Dear Dutch,

Remember this picture?

I don't recall taking it - but I must have - for I remember the moment well. We had been married two weeks; we were on our way to North Carolina; and the car had run out of gas in New Mexico, underneath a silver, cloud-patched sky. It truly was the best of times and the worst of times... as you and I know better than anyone. But I love this picture, I treasure it in fact, because it typifies the kind of person you are - the kind of person you will always be, I wager, if, as your father would say, "history is any indicator"... You are not, as you said when you saw it lying on the counter, "the kind of guy who would run out of gas," but one who perseveres when presented with an obstacle - one who will apply his energy and intellect toward solving the problem; and persisting even when it seems the problem cannot and will not be solved...

One thing you have taught me in the seven years since we married is that the obstacles in themselves are unimportant; or rather that they are important only so far as they teach us to depend on God. It truly isn't success or failure that matters; it is trust in Him. A very hard lesson for someone like me, who was always accustomed to measuring her value based on the perceived outcome she was able to achieve...

"Consider it all joy, my brothers," says James, "when you face trials of many kinds for the testing of your faith produces endurance...And let endurance have its perfect result that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing." To be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. Now if that isn't a description of everything I long for I don't know what is... and contrary to my intuition, James tells me that I will gain perfection by first gaining endurance; and that I gain endurance by having my faith tested through various trials...

I have watched you in the face of trials, one after another, for years; we continue daily to face our own trials, jointly and separately. You are always telling me to swing for the fence. No matter what the stakes are, no matter how bad the odds, just keep showing up at the plate and giving it my best, paradoxically trusting that God will get me where He wants me to go no matter how hard or short I fall. And that is what I have watched you do, morning to night, every day since the day we wed. In the early years, just getting through the day was tough. But you did. And I can't help but think of Revelation when it says: "to him who overcomes will receive the crown of life."

We have been blessed far beyond what we deserve. And yet I know that we have many more trials to face together... but I am so grateful, on this Thanksgiving, that God given me you to face them with.

Wish-fulfillment

The mother of all backhoes...

Approximately six weeks ago Dutch was up late, in bed, working on his laptop. When I look up from my book and sleepily peer over to see what he is doing, he closes the screen quickly, but not before I am able to read this snippet from an ebay advertisement:

“At 18 feet this mother of all backhoe loaders will get any job done…”

“Dutch," I say, suddenly wide awake, "Are you looking at buying a backhoe?”

“I might be.”

“What for?”

He is quiet for 45 long seconds. Then: “Wouldn’t it be cool if instead of entering our driveway in its current location we could enter it ten or fifteen feet due north?”

Now I am the one who is quiet. Finally I say, “That would make absolutely no difference."

Silence. (Since marrying into a Dutch family I have discovered that silences are most often pregnant with meaning and may be interpreted in a myriad of ways, depending on the context. In Dutch's case, silence usually means either: 1) the answer to my question is yes and/or 2)he has already made up his mind and there will be no further discussion.)

"Dutch," I say, "You just want an excuse to dig up the yard, don’t you?”

Silence.

"But what about Audrey? You know she's going to want to be out there with you?"

"That's the whole point. It will be good bonding for us..."

"Good bonding? Reading a book is good bonding. Or trimming the trees. Driving around in a backhoe is dangerous! What if she were to fall under the wheel?"

"You're so dramatic."

"Dramatic is one word. Seasoned is another."

Silence.

Subject closed.

…

Several nights later I awake in the middle of the night to find Dutch sitting up in bed again, his laptop open. He is chewing his bottom lip the way he always does when he is concentrating… when he sees me he quickly closes his computer…

“Babe,” I say, “What are you looking at?”

“Nothing.”

“Show me.”

He sheepishly flips open his laptop and I am shocked to discover that he has been looking at… pictures… on the internet... from a website called: Italian Villas dot com.

“Are you looking at property in Italy?”

“No,” he says. “I want to build a house.”

“A house? Where?”

“In our back lot.”

“But I like the house in our front lot. We haven’t even lived here a year.”

“I know. But I want to build a house. I want to tinker.”

“If you want to tinker why don’t you build a tree-house?”

Silence.

…

Fast forward several weeks. We are lying in bed... it is late… and when I say late I mean it is 9:30.

We don’t normally go to bed this early but tonight we are extra tired because Dutch has been in Los Angeles doing business… and I have been home helping Audrey do her business.

If you know what I mean.

I say, “Dutch, you don’t really want to build an Italian villa on our back lot, do you?”

Silence.

I stare at the ceiling and imagine what it will be like to live ten feet from a construction zone. (We renovated our last house while we were living in it and swore afterward we would never do it again.) The sounds of a grinding machine, a nail gun, a chop saw, and a back hoe beep-beep-beeping in reverse all coarse through my brain like pebbles through a vacuum cleaner.

“Dutch,"I say, suddenly frantic. "Think about it. That would be so stupid.”

Silence. Then, “You’re mean.”

It’s then I realize how attached he is to the idea. I am suddenly remorseful.

“Oh,” I say, reaching for him beneath the covers, “come over here…”

“No.”

“But Dutch. Just tell me why you want to do it so I can understand?”

“I have four letters for you. In no particular order: E-R-E-F. You figure it out.”

“Hmmmmm,” I say. “REEF? FEER?”

“No. Keep guessing.”

“EFER?”

“FERE?”

“EEFR?”

"EERF?”

“There are only 16 possible combinations. Are you really going to go through them all?”

“I’m tired, okay? I give. What is it?”

“F-R-E-E!"

"And you call yourself a literary genius.”

…

Then several nights ago Dutch and I were sitting around a dinner table at a nearby restaurant… It was a business dinner and there were four other couples present. One of the wives, a good friend of mine, leaned over the table and said to me, “Sooo…I heard about Dutch’s latest purchase…”

My eyes widened to the size of saucers. “Dutch!” I said, loud enough for everyone at the table to hear. “You didn’t!?”

Silence. A wry smile.

“The mother of all backhoes???”

“…is ours.”

*And on its way here from Illinois this very moment on a flatbed truck.*

Dear Dutch,

It is morning, the morning after you have gone – back to work, to ‘real life,’ as they say, while we, your women, remain behind for a spell, to enjoy the ocean airs.

Ashamed as I am to say it, my predominant feeling is one of regret. The week went by too, too fast. It always, always does, particularly when I am with you. We had too much to say to one another and not enough moments in which to simply sit, enjoying each other's presence, not talking.

I know, I know, I am so greedy... a living testament to the truth that the eye is never satisfied. Whatever the size or quality of a gift (and oh, what a gift this week was!) – I cannot help, as a vile member of the human race, always wanting more. No wonder gluttony is a sin! It is satiation without satisfaction; (over)consumption without gratitude. No sooner have we feasted upon one perfect morsel than we are already thinking of the next…

All week long, I was unwilling to relinquish more than a few moments to the drudgery of housework. I’ve still hardly unpacked and my clothes are spilling out all sides of my suitcase in crumpled mounds. Silly, perhaps. But all those ordinary tasks seemed to crouch in the cobwebs, like thieves, waiting to rob me of my time with you!

I never quite figured out how to reconcile the simultaneous sense of awe and panic that each moment of beauty aroused: awe because, in it, I found myself risen to new heights; and panic because I knew it was bound, any second, to end…

But even the briefest moments will endure in the wellspring of my memory: like winding around Garibaldi Bay with you, on our way to Waldport, with the sunlight flashing on the water and the seagulls hovering, wings stretched, above the great black rocks; or stopping at the fresh fruit stand, with Audrey, to buy ‘apples’ (peaches, really) and survey the vast vats full of cherries.


I never, not even in Ireland, saw grass as lime green as that which stretched out across the low wetlands south of Tillamook; and there was something primordial - Eden-like - about the violet haze above the mountains as the sun set that evening.



I will on no account forget how astonished we were, hours earlier, after we finally arrived on the doorstep of that ancient, outworn house, to find ourselves enveloped by the sweeping views: the ocean in front and behind; the bay, alive with bobbing sailboats and arched by a steel bridge, beside; and sand, all the way round.

I wish you could have seen yourself, sprinting across the beach, with Audrey in your arms, to frighten that flock of seagulls. It was spectacular, watching them scatter and then swoop back over our heads in a perfect triangular formation.

And then - who could have guessed we would happen upon a harem of sea lions, sprawled out on the bay’s shore?! I must say, you were right at home amongst that gang of schoolboys, itching in their shorts, wanting so badly to ignore their nagging mothers, who shouted, “Not too close, Ollie!” and, “Put that stick down, Dylan!” and run up to give them a proper scaring yourself. “Blasted animal etiquette,” you said. “In the old days I could have walked right up and touched them!”

And though the way home – with a squealing, about-to-be-carsick 2-year-old – was anything but pleasant, you helped me find the joy in it, setting us on a search to find the perfect chowder.

There were, I must admit, incidents I hope to learn from: like the moment when, just after Audrey had finally gone to sleep, you slammed the door of our bedroom – loud! – so loud I jumped and hissed at you to shush. You hate being ‘shushed.’ It is your least favorite thing in the world. I know this. And still I shushed you. I am sorry!

I am even sorrier that I shushed you a second time when, several seconds later, you – quite accidentally, according to you – slammed the door again!

Finally, there are those things I wish to reinstate, such as poking fun at one another. It was easier to engage in this kind of jovial, lighthearted banter before we had children, when we had, seemingly, endless hours of recreational time together, wasn’t it? One tends not to poke fun when one is pressed for time. Instead, in the lone hour we usually have between Audrey’s bedtime and our own, I often feel we must be serious, must ‘get straight down to business.’

It’s natural, then, to wish this week in Manzanita – sweet land that I love – could have lasted forever; but I realize, now that it’s over, that I wouldn’t want to live in a state of suspended ‘sunset’ moments. After all, a good part of what makes the sunset so magnificent is that it is rare - the vast majority of one’s day is spent looking up at a gray, or, in our case, clear blue - sky.

But besides this, I recognize that it is only a matter of time before the Eden which this ocean ecstasy appears to be, gives way to reality. I must remind myself – you must remind me, when I am home – that until our hearts have been remade no place, no matter how beautiful, will ever be Paradise.

As Wordsworth says, "Though nothing can bring back the hour / Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower; / We will grieve not, rather find / Strength in what remains behind."

So here's to our very own, very ‘real’ life- and the context it provides for the perfecting of our souls.

I wouldn’t want to live it with anyone but you.

Love,

Your Wife

To Dutch: an account of your parting …

I woke up with a start to the sound of Audrey crying. It was just after 3 am and, when I stumbled into her room, you were there already, holding her in your arms. "A bad dream," you told me.

She asked if she could snuggle in ‘Mommy’s bed’ and, knowing it would soon be empty, – you had an early flight to catch – I consented and we ambled back like two lost kittens, and huddled close together on your side.

“What’s that, Mom?” Audrey asked. She was pointing to the stationary green light attached to the smoke alarm, the only visible thing in the utter darkness.

“It’s to protect us in case of fire.”

“Oh," she said. "May I touch it?”

“No,” I mumbled, “it’s too high.”

“Oh. Can you touch it?”

I explained that only Daddy was tall enough to touch it.

She proceeded with a litany of declarations: “You can’t touch it. And I can’t touch it. And baby sister can’t touch it. And Katy Kat can’t touch it. And –

“Audrey,” your voice broke in. You stood in the open doorway, with – I recognized vaguely - your hat on backwards, in your red shirt, your arms at your sides. You seemed to fill the empty space completely, making everything – the bed, the house, even the street outside - feel weightier and more substantial.

“No more talking,” you went on firmly. “If you talk I’m going to put you back in your bed and you won’t be able to snuggle with Mommy anymore, okay?”

“O-kay, Dad.”

Silence followed and I knew the space you occupied had emptied. The room felt suddenly cold; the house, hollow. If a gust of wind had come at that moment I believe it would have blown us clean off of our foundation. “Mommy,” whispered Audrey. Her voice sounded tinny. “I not talking, Mom… I not talking, okay?”

“Good girl,” I said. “No more talking just like Daddy said. It’s nigh-nigh time.”

An earnest rumble emanated from the ground floor below.

“What’s that, Mom? What’s that noise?”

“It’s the garage door,” I sighed. “Daddy’s leaving.”

Those two words: ‘Daddy’ and ‘leaving’ – had never hit me with such a pang of melancholy, as though “the last lights off the black west went…” An apt description. For that is what the moment of your parting was like: the instant when the last sliver of sunlight falls below the horizon, blanketing everything in darkness.

I heard you back the car slowly out of the garage. The engine whined and grunted as the gears shifted. The tires pinched the gravel as you rambled down the hill. Just like that, you were gone.

My heart sank. Summer partings usually hold, for us, a kind of sweet sorrow: the difficulty of our being separated is eclipsed or, at least, muted by the fact that I am busy visiting family while you are busy working.

Circumstances this year are the same; but there is nothing of sweetness to it; only sorrow.

“Who’s coming, Mom?” Audrey asked.

“No one,” I said. “That was Daddy…going.” In the silence, half-sleeping, I blinked back tears.

“No one’s coming? No one’s coming a get me?”

“No, no one’s coming to get you,” I said.

"You – you staying here with me, Mom?”

“Yes. I’m staying here.”

“O-kay, Mom.”

We lay in bed together, fully awake, until after 5, when Audrey finally nodded off. I carried her noiselessly back to bed and we slept until almost 10, notwithstanding Evie's waking once or twice.

After she called to me, and I lifted her out of bed, Audrey said, “A big giant coming to get you!”

“Did you dream,” I asked, “that a big giant was coming to get me?”

“Yeesss,” said Audrey. “A big giant coming to get-a you! And – and – coming to get Daddy!”

“Well, you don’t have to worry about a big giant getting Daddy because Daddy is too big. And it won’t get me because Daddy would save me.”

“Yes,” agreed Audrey. “Daddy save you.”

And this week, my darling Dutch, you did.

"Once upon a summertime..."

"once upon a summertime, if you recall
we stopped beside a little flower stall
a bunch of bright forget-me-nots
was all I'd let you buy me

once upon a summertime, just like today
we laughed the happy afternoon away
and stole a kiss in every street café

you were sweeter than the blossoms on the tree
I was as proud as any girl could be
as if the mayor had offered me the key to paris..."

~ The Innocence Mission

Dutch

While visiting the Portland Zoo we saw:
lions and tigers and bears, oh my!
But this was by far my favorite sight:

I Like You Because I Don't Know Why

I purchased this book for Dutch on July the 6th 2005, our 3rd anniversary. Tonight - after tucking Audrey and Evie into bed - it was my choice of a bedtime story.

I'll admit, I was feeling a little sorry for myself.

Audrey didn't nap today; and is battling a cold. I can count on one hand the number of times I have slept more than 3 hours at a time in the last 9 weeks. And to top it all off, Dutch is at work... and has been, it seems to me, for days on end.

You'll understand, then, what joy it was, what timeliness, to revisit this familiar passage:

“I like you because because because
I forget why I like you
But I do

On the fourth of july I like you
Because it’s the fourth of july

On the fifth of july
I like you too
Even if it was the nine hundred and
ninety-ninth of july
even if it was august
…
I would go on choosing you
And you would go on choosing me
Over and over again

That’s how it would happen every time
I don’t know why

I guess I don’t know why I really like you
Why do I like you

I guess I just like you

Because I like you."











On that note I feel compelled to write Dutch a little 'goodnight' poem of my own:


Dear Dutch:

You have been working way too hard
Here at home, we’re feeling starved…
We’re missing your laughter, affection, and face
But we will survive because of God’s grace.
When you crawl into bed, don’t wake me up;
I’m tired, you see, and enough is enough!
I’ll cheer up tomorrow – I promise! You’ll see!
And then you’ll remember…why you like me!

Love, Your Wife

Her Father's Daughter

He is not afraid...

My love will sail this ship
through great storms and ice floes.
He is not afraid as I am,
he is not afraid.
And this is why he knows the way.
And this is why he knows the way.
He knows the way.
- “Migration,” The Innocence Mission

Dutch and I took the girls for a walk after dinner this evening.

The days are so hot that we waited until it was almost sunset before we put little Evie in the Baby Bjorn pressed up close against her Daddy’s chest. Audrey was given permission to select two babies – tonight it was Bella and Betsy – to stroll around in her little miniature stroller (thanks, Nanny!).

The sky was lit up in every possible color. Gold. Orange. Vermillion. Lavender. Violet. And (my favorite) flamingo pink! As we walked through our neighborhood we were dwarfed by a spectacular view of the Catalina mountains. Every second the light changed as another brilliant color cast itself across the wide expanse of sky, altering the look and texture of every cloud. Dark silhouettes of saguaros dotted the horizon… An occasional bird swooped and soared above our heads. Everything was still and glistening in the half-light.

In such moments of unspeakable beauty it is easy to see why countless poets and painters have tried and failed to capture the extraordinary and yet commonplace beauty of a sunset… “I have never seen a realistic painting that comes close to doing this justice,” I said. Dutch agreed. “There is just no way to capture it is there.”

… God truly is the Master Artist.

I looked down at my daughters. Beautiful little beings. At only five weeks old, Evangeline is already so full of whimsy: “Trailing clouds of glory did she come / From God, who is [her] home…” With her jet black hair, olive skin and dark blue eyes, she reminds me of a magic creature escaped from some nearby lily pond. Wordsworth was right: “Heaven truly lies about us in our infancy.”

And Audrey – precious Audrey – is so full of things to say. ‘Bella disobedient; Bella go time out!’ she exclaimed in that quintessential tone of a big sister. ‘Watch out, mommy; car coming! Go to the side!”

A twig cracked. Audrey started.‘What’s that noise, Mom? What’s that?’ she asked. We turned just in time to see the white cotton tail of a jack rabbit dart through the desert brush and disappear. ‘Where’d he go Mom? Where’d he go?’ I explained that even bunnies must go home for dinner. Audrey’s lower lip jutted out an acrobatic distance. “Oooooohh,” she moaned and her head began to wag. “He going home. Not… not stay here. He going home eating his dinner.”

My heart almost burst with joy - that deep down and welling over feeling of satisfaction and well-being. It was deeper than any I have experienced before. Here we were. A family. Together. Healthy. Loving each other…

Then in crept an unwanted voice of fear: It can’t last… said the voice.

My eyes welled with tears. "What if...something tragic happens," I told Dutch. "What if I lose one of you. Or we live to see a nuclear holocaust. Iran and North Korea would love to see us go up in smoke!"

Dutch laughed.

"Hey," I said and socked him in the arm. "I can't help but feel that moments like these are just too good. Somewhere an ax must be about to fall…”

He put his strong arm around me. “Woman,” he said, his voice full of affection. “You can’t think like that. You’re right, we don’t know the future. Anything can happen. But we do know that God is good. Just look at what incredible gifts He is allowing us to enjoy right now! He is in control and we have nothing to fear.”

(Or as Oogway the Turtle says in “Kung Fu Panda:” “You are too concerned with what was and what will be. Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift; that's why it's called the present.")

The Seven Year Itch

I realized something tonight – with a little help from Hessel (henceforth referred to as Dutch).

We were sitting beneath the misters at one of my favorite restaurants – a little Italian bistro that specializes in thin-crust pizza and scrumptious salads – enjoying the view of the mountains and watching Audrey cover herself in tomato grease. Evangeline slept soundly in her stroller.

Having celebrated our 7th anniversary on July the 6th, I had been reflecting all week on the “B.M.” (Before Marriage) Heather and the “A.M.” (After Marriage) Heather.

There have been some positive changes: Coming from a highly expressive Irish-Italian family and marrying into a reticent Dutch one has, for example, taught me that it is possible to exercise control over one’s emotions. Who knew?

But alongside the positive changes – or should I say, in their shadow – have crept some negative ones too: I don’t know whether it’s my willingness, courage, or capacity to be vulnerable that’s been damaged but… somehow, somewhere along the way, something has been lost.

How did this happen?

Dutch, describing our tumultuous first year of marriage, offered this explanation: “So much went so wrong - so fast and for so long – that I think a part of you still struggles to believe that God is really good; and that life, in spite of its pain, can be beautiful.”

Rifles raised. Ready, aim, fire – I had been hit right between the eyes.

Like all good stories, the story of our first year of marriage is a long one (if you are interested in reading a detailed account you can find it here).

The short version may be summed up in Yeats’s words: “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold… everywhere / The ceremony of innocence is drowned.” Or in the words of Jeremiah the prophet: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”

In one sense our wedding was, like all marriages, a ceremony of innocence – both of us passionately in love but completely naïve as to what our so-called “love” would reveal and require of us. Though we had each experienced some significant hardship, neither of us was convinced of the resident evil within our own hearts.

We also learned – after watching our dreams of conjugal life hopelessly dashed – that “things fall apart.” The center cannot hold. No matter how hard you work or how desperately you will yourself to move in one direction over another, man is not the ultimate master of his own fate.

It wasn’t always like this…

While we were dating friends gave us the nickname “H-bomb” because, in our early days as a couple, we sort of, well... exploded into rooms. We were filled with hopeful determination, the kind that often accompanies youth. We looked at the world – and, more importantly, each other – through rose-tinted glasses. In retrospect, I imagine we projected a certain kind of saccharine sweetness for life! For love! For raindrops on roses! And whiskers on kittens! And – well, you get the idea – being around us was probably, to some people, mildly nauseating.

After our first year of marriage, the nickname (now our initials) took on a more tragic – but no less accurate – meaning.

My cousin Jon described receiving our first Christmas card, in which we elected to publicly ‘rejoice in our sufferings’ by chronicling the series of unfortunate events we had encountered during our previous six months together, this way: “Most people just write to say, ‘Happy Holidays. I hope you had a good year.’ Reading your Christmas card was like having a bomb detonated in your living room. ‘Season’s Greetings,’ it seemed to say, ‘We hope your year was super! Ours made Dante’s journey through hell seem like a walk in the park.”

H-Bomb certainly did explode. Undoubtedly for our good; and hopefully for His glory.

“Life is 95% perspective,” Dutch told me as the last sliver of sunlight sunk behind the now violet mountains, “And 5% circumstances.”

Again, he was so right (boy, did I marry well!). Contentment in life has little or nothing to do with circumstances; and everything to do with how we view our circumstances.

I asked myself whether I was choosing to see my life - and our marriage - as a work of art that God, in His goodness, was in the process of perfecting? Or was I becoming a cynic, unwilling to believe that two hopelessly flawed people can, over the course of tentwentythirtyforty or fifty years, actually fall more in love with one another. Even more, that they can act as tools in the hands of God, helping to make the other one perfect?

I admit I often oscillate between these two opinions; and I realized that part of what helps me maintain the right perspective is... writing.

So I am giving myself a little summer challenge: write one entry a week and post it here. Don’t be afraid: of who is listening and, perhaps more importantly, who isn’t; of the person you are; or the person you are not. After all, none of us, this side of heaven, will ever be "perfect and complete." We are all in "process" - moving in one direction or another, either toward God or away from Him.

If Dutch was right - as he (seemingly) always is - and a part of me did die during those earliest, darkest days, all is not lost. For as is commonly held, death often precedes new life; though its subject matter is ominous, Yeats's poem even suggests this by its title, "The Second Coming." In order for something to be reborn, it first must die.

So here is to - not just small beginnings - but new ones.