Life is Sweet

I know it's sort of frowned upon these days to advocate the consumption of copious amounts of raw unprocessed sugar - especially if you're a mother - but really, what else are weekends for?

Many Things

“Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.’” ~ Luke 10.42

There is a long stanza in Wordsworth’s Ode about the many stages in a man’s life – stages of love and strife, of weddings and funerals, action and contemplation. Man moves, with a dissatisfied hunger, from one state to another - always, with "joy and pride," fitting himself to another new part, like an actor who is endlessly vying for a new role. By the time he arrives at “palsied Age” man has inhabited a great many persons and done a great many things - tempting the poet to wonder, with just a hint of lugubriousness in his tone, whether "[man's] whole vocation" is little more than "endless imitation.”

The rhapsodic line tripped about my mind all morning, as I was driven – not (quite) to drink, but to distraction.

I had been sitting at the table for approximately thirty-six uninterrupted seconds, attempting to read the gospel of Matthew, when Evangeline, in her high chair, her pink cheeks plastered with peanut butter, urgently signed for water. When I opened the refrigerator I saw the little puddle of spilled soda which had been firming itself into place for two days – Oh, I really must clean this! I thought, but when I reached for a rag I remembered the wash – the wash! I really must change it! But - wait, had I remembered to put that check in the mail? ...

I was just addressing the envelope when there came the slap, slap of bare feet behind me. There, like an apparition, stood Audrey in her fairy costume, waving a tattered pair of wings. “Mommy, can you put these on for me? So I can fly. So I can fly?”

"But dearest," I wanted to say, "it is Mommy who wants to fly... far and away!" I sighed; I smiled; I bent down to attach the wings. “Really, William," I muttered, talking aloud to Wordsworth - because there is nothing better, in harried moments, than to begin imaginary conversations with dead poets - "If you're going to speak of my experience, you should alter the last line: for the whole vocation of a mother is one of endless interruption.”

Anne Morrow Lindbergh articulates this problem with an amusing mixture of insight and wit in her book, Gift from the Sea, in which she writes, “I begin to understand why the saints were rarely married women. I am convinced it has nothing inherently to do, as I once supposed, with chastity or children. It has to do primarily with distractions. The bearing, rearing, feeding and educating of children; the running of a house with its thousand details; human relationships with their myriad pulls – woman’s normal occupations in general run counter to creative life, or contemplative life, or saintly life.”

I agree with Lindbergh. Whether or not we are mothers or managers of large households, I think most women live in a perpetual state of interruption – of negotiating how to respond to the shower of demands that rain upon us from all sides, at all times, and from all sorts of venues. If my own experience is any judge, it is all too easy to flutter about from one task to another without stopping to scrupulously, and prayerfully, consider which demands are to be submitted to, and which deferred or denied.

My impulse – admittedly very childish – is simply to run away from life's demands and distractions...to look for a loophole, a keyhole - even a rabbit hole - so long as I can escape.

But as so many children's stories deftly illustrate - it is one thing to want to run away; it is another thing entirely to have identified where, precisely, one wants to run to.

Upon careful reflection, I realize that I really long to go to that place where, in the words of GM Hopkins, "no storms come;" "where the green swell is in the havens dumb / and out of the swing of the sea."

In short, I long for heaven, and the beauty, tranquility, and unhurried fellowship with Christ - and with other people - which are its hallmarks.

However this realization comes as both liberation and limitation - for I cannot fly to Heaven any more than Audrey can flit through the looking glass to Wonderland. For now God has planted my two feet on the earth - wriggling amongst its mud and flowers.

Because I cannot escape life's storms, I must learn to live amidst them - recognizing that the peace I long for is only found in Christ, who "Himself is our peace" (Ephesians 2.14).

And yet, as I wrestle through such things, I cannot help but feel a certain sympathy for Martha who, the Scriptures say, was "distracted" or "cumbered" by "much serving" (KJV). The Greek word merimnao, from which the word “worried” is translated, is defined as “to care for or look out for (a thing)" as well as “to take thought of [it].” The context of the passage, alongside Jesus's gentle rebuke, implies to me that Martha was not just being careful to attend to her guests - which is something any gracious hostess would do - but she was being too careful, allowing such concerns to inhibit her from spending time with Christ.

As a wife and mother, there are many days when I too am "cumbered about much serving." Administering meals and all the household concerns which accompany them are part of my daily life - and they will be for as long as God gives me these parts to play. But to accept such responsibilities should not be tantamount to allowing them to rule my life and consume all my energy. “Be carefully careless about everything except your relationship to Christ,” says Oswald Chambers.

If I was held at gunpoint, and absolutely forced to pick a life motto, this might very well be it.

Thankfully, no such dangers are upon me. Instead, I face the danger of neglecting the one thing that is most important - and this is what causes me to shudder. For in the end (which is really the beginning), when I meet my Savior face to face, I want Him to commend me for having chosen what was better - even if it means letting the spilled soda sit in the fridge a few days longer.

Car Shopping

Several weeks ago I was privileged to enjoy a few days with my nephew, Asher. One afternoon we let the children loose in (what is, to us) the infamous toy store, Mildred & Dildred. We were simply tickled (pink? blue? chrome?) when Asher shimmied his miniature shopping cart right up to this "car dispenser," giving us all a new and deeper appreciation for the term car shopping. It was a "Dutching" moment - which is to say, his Uncle (Dutch) would have been very proud.

Ryan + Carrie

Several years ago I was strolling through a Portland park with an infant-Audrey strapped to my chest in one of those ridiculously long fabric harnesses. Her great walnut eyes were peeking out from beneath the rim of her little white bonnet and her arms and legs dangled loosely like a stuffed monkey that has been put on display in the shop window of a toy store. Suddenly a woman came up to me and tsk-ed. Literally, tsk-ed as though I had done something wrong! I turned around to see if I had unknowingly dropped a bit of trash along the sidewalk. I looked at her with inquiring eyes, but she didn't crack a smile. Instead she gave a short, sharp little nod and said, "That is too cute. It should be illegal."

I feel the same sentiment wash over me every time I look at these pictures - and it is compounded by a cool rush of relief and sisterly pride that the man featured in them is now, officially, as of two o'clock in the afternoon on September the 24th, RJA, Esquire. Extraordinaire. And his bride-to-be? Well, she's just extraordinary. Purely and simply.

Seraphine

The film, “Seraphine,” chronicles the life of French painter Seraphine who grew up in the town of Senlis, about forty kilometers from Paris. Seraphine, who is brilliantly portrayed by the actress Yolande Moreau, was orphaned at seven, received no formal education, and spent most of her life working as a domestic servant or housemaid.

As a mother – (i.e. one to whom the term domestic servant may be just as easily applied) – I was immediately drawn into the life of this woman whose time is chiefly consumed with menial tasks: mopping floors, washing linens, scrubbing dishes, heating and preparing baths, and cleaning up after meals she did not have the privilege to enjoy.

In the afternoons, after her work is through, and particularly whenever she is sad or depressed, Seraphine takes long walks through the neighboring countryside. She limps down hillsides dappled with wild thistles, fingering the grass, and absorbing the sound of insect and bird. On warm days, she sometimes refreshes herself by bathing in the creek and listening to the wind as it rustles through the tingling branches of trees. Occasionally, she even climbs them, and one of the film’s most resounding images is of the forty-year-old woman perched on a limb, looking down on the rolling, wind-swept hills with an expression of childlike wonder.

But Seraphine can only absorb nature's glories for so long... at a certain point, she must find some way of expressing the beauty she has imbibed. In later years, Seraphine claimed that, as a young girl working in a French monastery, she had been visited by her guardian angel who commissioned her to paint.

Drawing from the ordinary venues of her common life, Seraphine teaches herself how to mix paint. The film depicts her quite literally filching supplies for this purpose: she bottles melted wax from the candles in the cathedral, and fills an old vial with bloody water when the butcher is busy helping other customers. In reality, Seraphine never revealed what ingredients she used to make her paint – but whatever they were, they stood the test of time.

During most of her “career,” she painted by candlelight, and in secret, singing hymns to God while using her fingertips to achieve effects which most artists can afford to accomplish with a brush.

It was not until 1914, when a famous German art collector and critic, Wilhelm Uhde, rented an apartment in the small town of Senlis, that Seraphine’s work was “discovered.” When his landlady invited him into her rooms, Uhde inquired about a still-life he saw leaning against a wall and was amazed to learn that it was painted by his housecleaner, Seraphine, a seemingly coarse woman who was frequently laughed at by others.

Uhde believed in Seraphine and it is largely due to his advocacy and patronage that she ultimately came to be recognized as a “legitimate” artist, classed among the “Modern Primitives,” or “Masters of Naïve Painting,” whose work is characterized by a childlike simplicity, or, naïve depiction of nature, which often belies the actual skill of the artist.

In externals, Seraphine was the kind of person any society would deem underprivileged or unfortunate. Like so many who are "afflicted" with an artistic temperament, she walked a fine line between visionary creation and mental illness thus she often acted in strangely unexpected and bizarre ways.

Yet history shows her to have been a great visionary artist with a rare ability to transcribe, in her paintings, the mystical beauty of the created world. "I have to raise my eyes," she said when posing for a photograph, "because my inspiration comes from above."

Lemon Lucky

The Wonder of Small Things

It's the little things that come back to me in quiet moments, filling my heart with joy and wonder. This image keeps recurring in my mind, of Evangeline standing before an old wooden ship which Dutch drug down from the attic of our rented beach house.

The ship's belly was filled with little wooden cannons and a gang of wooden sailors, whose black hair was made of yarn. They all wore white linen pants and gray jackets and their shoes were painted a glossy black. I'm not sure who was more enamored with them - the girls, or me!

I could have watched them for hours, filling the prow with Scrabble pieces and arranging the cannons into long straight lines beneath the black masts of the ship's extravagant sail.

To our amusement the cannons contained little wooden spools in place of cannon balls. To shoot the spools one had only to pull back and release a round knob at the back of the cannon - Audrey's sole preoccupation once she discovered it was possible. But it was Evie, Evie, looking on eagerly, and squealing, grunting, shrieking with anticipation, who really astounded me. For once she realized that the cannon was capable of such a mechanical feat, she would not rest until she could shoot it herself - a near impossible task for a one-year-old with chubby fingers! But Evangeline was persistent; she would make the thing shoot. She plied and plied... And then it happened - once, as if by accident, the spool went up, up over the sail, bounced onto the carpet, and glided cleanly across the wood floor.

Such a look of smiling satisfaction broke out across her face that we all erupted with smiles - smiles and whoops and cheers. And I wondered to myself how the world had ever grown tired of such old-fashioned games.

the beach dream

16
Even the reality of the six days we spent meandering up and down the beach and patronizing (in the old sense of the word) the donut shop, has a very hard time standing up to these photos...

Hat's Off

Laughter

We've been home more than a week but I am still wading through all the photographs... Watching both girls fall to pieces as their father's silliness reached new heights was only one of the many highlights.

Thank.You.

It was the moment before they ducked their glowing faces into the gleaming white car and waved goodbye. I stood barefoot on the paved road, my camera resting on some forgotten table or chair, just smiling and smiling. A thousand thanks go to Betsy, for her gorgeous touch!

Pocket Donut Umbrella

She has just begun assembling her own outfits... I think spots and stripes are always a winning combination, especially in Manzanita where, up and down Laneda Avendue, strangers stopped to look.