Staying Afloat

On Monday morning at 9:00, we began our second session of swimming lessons for the summer. I've been pleased to see how the boys have cheerfully braved the cold mornings (48° and drizzle on the first day) and pushed themselves to do what, just two weeks ago, seemed impossible. Watching them, I can feel butterflies in my own stomach as I remember what it was like to take that first frightening plunge into the deep end, and to make that first nerve-wracking trip down the big slide through blind curves and slippery darkness. We all know what it's like to be pushed in over heads.

As the instructors carry the Pre-Tadpole students, who cling fiercely to their necks, to the "deep" end of the kiddie pool, one child's panicked shrieks suddenly fly across the bright surface of the water: "Don't let go! Don't let go! It's too deep! I! Caaan't! Swiiiiim!" From our deck chairs we parents watch these frequent displays of childish terror with mild amusement. We know they'll be safe, but they, out there where their feet dangle uselessly above the bottom of the pool, are far from convinced.

The swim teacher repeats what has become a mantra during the last ten days: "I've got you. You'll be all right. You're not gonna sink."  But the wildly kicking legs, the rapid gasps for air and the expression of wide-eyed dread prove that this kid is momentarily deaf to all attempts at persuasion. Until his feet can touch the bottom, he will trust no one and nothing but his gut instincts—which are clearly telling him that he is going to die out here in this 4-foot-deep chlorinated abyss. And while I may chuckle at his frantic behavior, this terrified child is certainly not the only one overcome at times by panic and a sensation of drowning.

Water is a scary substance. It's no wonder that so many of the great stories of deliverance involve escape through and from water: Noah waiting to rise above the deluge; Jonah plunging to certain death and being saved in the nick of time; Moses holding out his staff to allow the children of Israel to pass through the water to safety; the disciples frantically waking Jesus to rescue them from drowning at sea; and, of course, Peter growing afraid and beginning to sink, calling out, "Lord, save me!" (Who of us, if called, would have stepped out of that boat in the first place?)

Water is a blessing that can kill. Is it any wonder that being "in over your head" and being "overwhelmed" are now clichés for that feeling of bewilderment—of being required to do the impossible?

These last several months, my husband and I have both felt ourselves drifting away from the shallow end, nearing the deep water where it looks like we're certain to drown. Each time I feel the water rising, I catch my breath and wonder if I can do this. Can we really stay afloat with so much to weigh us down? Can we keep our heads above water while balancing four kids, a marriage, friendships, work, heaps of little projects, church responsibilities, community responsibilities, a pregnancy, a sick grandmother, and a dissertation? Can't we just stay in the shallow end for a while and let the water splash around our ankles? Half the time I feel like flailing and hyperventilating like that kid in the swim class. Well intentioned people may be telling me, "You'll be all right. You're not gonna sink," but all I know is that the bottom is a long way down, and I am anything but buoyant.

Keeping our heads above water. That's what we're trying to do this summer. And, as my boys and I can attest, it doesn't always seem possible. When all the evidence appears to point to the contrary, it's hard to believe that we all won't go under. After all, our feet can't touch the bottom.

I've heard that youth group leaders and marriage counselors use "trust games" as a method for strengthening relationships between individuals. One person must fall backwards, arms folded, into the waiting arms of another, trusting that those arms will be there to break the fall—strong enough to save and protect from harm. I admit that I've always found the idea of these games pretty ridiculous. I mean, isn't there a less childish and contrived way to build trust?

Well, maybe there is. But watching my kids floundering helplessly in water over their heads has given me a new appreciation for these "trust games." It's easy to laugh at my boys' nervousness—and even at their terror. We know that they have nothing to fear, but they know nothing of the kind. All that stands between them and death is that pair of waiting arms, ready to catch them when they fall, to pull them up when they're sinking.

I know exactly how they feel. While I may, like them, be tempted to doubt and to start pleading, "Don't let go! Don't let go!" there are others—many others—who have already been out here before me and survived. Through the years, they've successfully maintained their marriages, finished their projects, raised their families, completed their dissertations. They are expert swimmers, and I'm sure that they are watching me amusedly from their deck chairs as I learn to swim. They are perfectly certain that I am not going to drown. I, while I was back in the shallows of the kiddie pool, found it easy to believe that, too. It's only now, when I'm being called to venture out into these unfamiliar depths, that I grow afraid and begin to sink.

I'm not walking on water. I'm not even treading water. I'm with Peter, about to go under and crying, "Lord, save me!"

Last week, even with his life jacket firmly secured around his chest and his teacher's arms waiting just below to catch him, Paul was terrified to jump. "Thirteen feet deep. This water is thirteen feet deep," he was thinking. The measurements may have had only vague meaning to his four-year-old mind, but even a four-year-old can see that the water below is a darker, deeper shade of blue than the kiddie pool will allow. All our cheery assurances could not convince him of safe passage through that cobalt expanse, and simply seeing others survive the leap was not proof enough that survival was possible for him. My little Paul could no more save himself from thirteen feet of water than fly, and yet his teacher was calling to him to jump.

Shivering with both fear and chill, Paul could not bring himself to step off the end of the diving board. So with a nod from his dad, the instructor dropped him in. And, wonder of wonders, Paul survived. But even his own escape from a watery grave will not convince him to take that fateful step a second time. This, for him, was a true trust game—and not one that, at this point in the season, he was willing to play again.

We all know that it's more comfortable back in the shallows. It's easier to believe that we're going to survive when we're sitting on the solid planks of the boat. But if we're called to step away from the edge, to walk out where the blue below us is darker, out where the wind is rising, trust becomes a more difficult matter. We may grow fearful. We may begin to sink. But if we have been called to do the impossible, to jump into the deep end, to step out of the boat in the midst of the sea, go we must.


He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, “Lord, save me.” Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?”  

—Matthew 14:29-31

'Til Death Do Us Part

Ten years ago today, as I slipped into my new white shoes, I already knew that I was about to take the most important walk of my life. It was not the longest walk. It wasn't the most strenuous. It wasn't even the most scenic. It was, to put it bluntly, a walk into certain death.  Before I took my first nervous step through those double doors, I knew that this short stroll would be the end of me. When it was all over, I would be somebody new. I would have a new name. I would have a new identity, a new title, a new head, a new walking companion. That brief trip from the church foyer to the end of the aisle is the walk that overthrew my existence without even causing me to break a sweat—twelve deceptively easy steps to a total transformation. With the mere exchange of hands, of words, of rings, my life as I had known it was ending. Before God and hundreds of witnesses we made those solemn vows—'til death do us part.

Death? Must we bring up that subject at such a happy occasion? As it turns out, we must. Weak vows bring weak joy. Ours is a bond that only death may sever.

Nevertheless, we had anything but death on our minds as we drove off into the sunset after the reception, and death seemed a lifetime away as we set up house in the afterglow of our honeymoon. But at some point during the weeks and months that followed, "married life" began. In the midst of our newlywed euphoria, it was a shock to wake up one morning and realize how human the two of us still were. While so much changes—truly changes—in the course of a half-hour wedding, a good deal remains unchanged. We are new people now, right? So why do all our old sins and habits and selfish desires keep resurfacing? Although I knew that we were giving up our former lives to begin our new life together, it had not fully sunk in that I would have to die to myself again and again and again in everyday life once the ceremony had ended. Giving up our lives for one another did not end at the altar.

I had never fully considered how much of me was going to carry over into this new life. And nobody told me what a self-centered little pig I had always been. I didn't like letting go of my comfortable little routines. I was irritated that my plans might have to take a back seat to his plans. I wanted to make the decisions about how we spent my paycheck. This marriage business was not as blissfully painless as I had expected, and we weren't even talking about the big decisions yet—changing jobs, having kids, moving across the country. Living with roommates had been a cakewalk compared to this. I didn't make any 'til-death-do-us-part promises to them.

And that's precisely the point. Death alone may part us. But death, paradoxically, is also required to bind us together. It's death that makes all the difference.  

Death. It's a dark little word. But over the past ten years, we've grown to see more clearly how essential to a happy marriage death truly is. Many deaths. Daily death. Death in the little things. As my children have memorized, "Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." Love means a willingness to die. And die, am I thankful to say, we frequently did.

But if I was tempted to think I'd really died quite enough (thank you very much) for the sake of our happy marriage, I had no idea how much more I would be required to die to myself when the kids came along. The first weeks home with a newborn were, to put it mildly, a misery. If somebody had walked into my home and offered to take my firstborn child off my hands for the rest of my life, I would gladly have handed him over (and good riddance.) My busy job with regular hours, regular paychecks, plenty of positive feedback, and a fair dose of almost-instant gratification was hardly the best preparation for the full-time care of a newborn. Everything I'd enjoyed about my previous job was missing from this new one. The hours were wretched, the pay was nil, the feedback came in the form of screaming and disgusting messes, and I felt like I had nothing whatsoever to show for my hours of thankless toil at the end of each lonely day. I cried everyday for two weeks. And almost daily for some time after that. I'd never died like this before, and I couldn't imagine ever willingly doing it again.

But I was forgetting the end of the story: death is never the final sum in God's economy. When I lay down my desires, my needs, my hopes, my habits, my life for someone else, resurrection follows. And the resurrected life is, without fail, more glorious than the life that was laid down.

"Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." It's so simple that even my children understand the concept after a season of backyard gardening. And yet, how many times have I buried a seed in the ground only to stand there staring at the lifeless dirt and thinking, "Well, that was a waste!" The first show of green always seems to appear at exactly the moment when I've given up checking for signs of new life.

Those women who hurried to the tomb in the early morning were not marching triumphantly with "Welcome Back" banners. They were quietly bearing spices to anoint the dead.

Resurrection is a simple truth I still don't always easily grasp. But in sacrificing so much that is valuable to me—my time, my sleep, my comfort, my career goals, my belongings—to my husband or my children (or anyone else, for that matter) I will and do receive far more than I have given. Every sacrifice is like a seed planted; in laying each one down, in every little death I die, I am declaring my belief in resurrection. In the Resurrection. And after each burial, while I may be staring blankly at what looks uncannily like mud—like dust and ashes—the eyes of faith can see the trees that will spring from that earth, their branches weighed down by the fruit they will bear. Tending a household is very much like tending a garden.

And now, as I wait for the birth of our fifth child, I am, once again, waiting for resurrection. (Is it merely coincidence that the words tomb and womb are so similar?) In times past, bearing children could literally have meant laying down my earthly life. But even today, there is no escaping the lesser sacrifices involved: health, comfort, sleep, looks, strength are given over for the sake of my children. This is my body broken, this is my blood shed for the life of another. The suffering of childbirth is a small reflection of the cross itself. But, as Christ on the cross, we endure it not for its own sake, but for the joy set before us. In laying down our lives, we take them up again, more blessed than ever before. Greater love has no man than this.

In taking that walk down the aisle ten years ago in my new white shoes, I was approaching the altar to lay down my life. But that life was raised up new and glorified. It was a death and resurrection that would begin a lifetime of deaths and resurrections. All that I gave up "before God and these witnesses" has been replaced by greater and richer gifts. Beauty for ashes. And so it has been with every death that my husband and I have died for each other, and then for our children, throughout the past ten years. And so it will be in the years to come—'til death do us part.

Jackson Pollock, Eat Your Heart Out

Update: We found something to do on a rainy day!

My parents were cleaning out the garage this afternoon, and they sent me home with a big box of cans of tempera paint. But this was not just any tempera paint. This paint belonged to my father when he was a child. I guess that makes it sort of antique. Now, maybe that means I should have doled it out in minute amounts to keep it around for another 50 years. But, as you can see, I didn't.

I have no idea whether powdered Crayola paint from the 1950s is washable, but here's hoping. My boys discovered very quickly that they didn't need to mix the paint with water if they poured it onto pre-moistened sidewalks (courtesy of a week of rain). Ingenious, wouldn't you say? Surely there must be NEA grant money available for projects such as this. All I have to do now if figure out a way to transport these colorful children from the sidewalk to the bathtub without ruining the floors or my own clothes in the process!

School's out for...

"Summer" has officially begun at our house. We ended the school year well, with a sweet kindergarten graduation ceremony and the celebration of terrific report cards for both my big boys. We had a fantastic 9 months, and now summer lies before us—vast, uncharted, and as inviting as a mile of blank sidewalk to a kid with a bucket of colorful chalk. Or at least it seemed that inviting a couple of days ago. School was dismissed on Wednesday morning, and the boys are now spending their time at home. With me. All. Day. Long.

I really do love having all my kids together again, and their brotherly interaction is something I really miss during the rest of the year. But yesterday, on the first glorious day of our summer vacation, unbroken gray skies drained chilly rain onto our muddy yard. All. Day. Long. That's right. Summer's here! Pull out the sweaters and raincoats! As one of our local store's jingles puts it, "We live in North Idaho...and it shows." School's out for summer. Which, if this weather lasts long, just might make it seem like school's out forever.

So what's a mom to do with four busy-busy, high-energy boys who are stuck indoors with nowhere to go and nothing planned? Well, let me tell you about all my great ideas for how we're going to spend those rainy days during the next three months:


And there you have it. I'm at a loss.

O.K. I may not be quite that helpless, but I confess that I am utterly terrible at coming up with rainy day activities. I've checked out a number of books with imaginative titles like Rainy Day Activities, and they are almost entirely filled with girly crafts. I'm sorry, but my kids do not want to make paper beads to string into colorful necklaces. They're not interested in assembling sweet little clothespin dolls. Tissue paper flowers stuck on green, sparkly pipe cleaner "stems" are not their cup of tea. And speaking of tea, tea parties—and all the lacy whatnots that they entail—are out. What we want around here is warcraft. And loud sound effects. And full contact sports. Sitting quietly around the table with markers and glue sticks does keep everyone occupied for a short while, but it often backfires by simply getting my children to hold in their excess energy for just that much longer. They build up pressure like a pack of agitated soda cans, and then when they are released, they explode.

So, I'm trying to get creative here in order to prevent Cat-In-The-Hat-style disaster. Thankfully, my kids are far more inventive than I am, and in the last three days, they have used up nearly an entire ream of scratch paper in the construction of all sorts of paper airplanes (some more air-worthy than others). They have made super hero masks. They have cut out paper money. They have hosted NBA-inspired bedroom-door-basketball games. I have even, in a moment of weakness, resorted to getting out the play dough for them. They have, of course, colored and colored and colored and colored until our crayons are mere shadows of their former selves.  They've built forts. They've played piano. They've read stories. They've sung songs. And yes, they have already watched more than the FDA's, the FBI's, the CIA's, the NSA's, and the Surgeon General's recommended daily allowance of DVD minutes for children ages 2-8. (I seem to remember that I was never going to allow that day to come.) And today's only the second day of vacation. Oh boy. Times four.

I'd be thrilled if Little Orphan Annie showed up on tonight's forecast, singing cheery reassurances that  "the sun'll come out tomorrow...".  But in case she doesn't, I'd be equally thrilled to collect some rainy-day ideas from all y'all. If you have thoughts on fun and profitable ways for my boys (keeping in mind that they are, in fact, boys) to spend their time indoors—as long as the activities are only mildly destructive to body and belongings—I'd love to hear them!

Oh, and since this is my blog, I reserve the right to end this post with a couple of proud mama photos:

Jonah receiving a medal for getting all A's all year

Jude with his Kindergarten diploma. Yea!

An Inconvenient Truth or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the "Nuke"

Our microwave died this weekend. And in the few days since its demise, I've already reached for it multiple times, only to realize—with a bit of frustration—that I must instead use the stove to reheat a bowl of soup or a plate of spaghetti. How truly inconvenient. And, as if the loss of the microwave weren't traumatic enough, last night's windstorm knocked out our power for almost an hour. Really now. What's a twenty-first century housewife to do? First leftovers on the stove and then dishes by candlelight? How positively medieval.

Actually, the medieval experience was kind of fun—in a historical theme-park sort of way. Candles and flashlights are exciting precisely because they are out of the ordinary. But every theme park vacation must come to an end, and I, for one, prefer having light and heat instantly available at the press of a button.  So I've been shopping around, hoping to find a reasonable price on an appliance that will adequately meet our microwave needs. Yes, our microwave needs.

Somehow, every convenient new gadget or service that begins as a luxury ends up, in a few short years, as a need.

I distinctly remember the day that my parents bought their first microwave. We were living in a rental house on Monroe St. in Spokane, Washington, when we welcomed into our home the boxy appliance that would take over our counter space and light up the kitchen at night with its glowing-blue digital clock. It had an attractive wood grain pattern printed on its sides. And it changed our lives. It changed American life.

With the advent of the microwave came a whole new array of convenience foods: bags of pre-buttered popcorn, single servings of soup and oatmeal, and complete four-course meals, to name a few. The microwave turned leftovers into a time-saving, eat-at-your desk lunch option. And what the microwave did for college cuisine is probably incalculable. There are apartment-dwelling undergrads who manage to complete a four-year degree without ever turning on a stove. True story. Why spend valuable hours slicing and dicing and boiling and sautéeing, when you can heat and ingest a tray of Lean Cuisine in less time than it takes to preheat an oven? And, as an added bonus, there are no dishes to contend with when you're done. It's truly a triumph of American efficiency. But it can, unfortunately, also be triumph of American insipidity and impatience.

The microwave seems to me to be the perfect metaphor for this American life: easy, high-tech instant gratification. We live in a microwave culture. Let's face it: deep down, every American is pro-nuke. We like everything to be cheap, simple, and immediate; we want everything to be microwavable: work, education, religion, politics, health care, entertainment, sex, and, of course, food. So naturally, when my microwave breaks, I'm off in search of a new one before the old one has cooled.

I guess I could be making an argument right now for how much richer life would be if I just went back to the days before microwaves entered my life. I could eschew the nuke-it culture by kissing my microwave goodbye for good, and I might even find my argument convincing. After all, I'm fully in favor of putting the brakes on in lots of areas of life. I don't expect a newly elected politician to press a button and eliminate all the nation's problems the day after he takes office. I don't want my kids to learn piano "in 5 easy lessons." I would rather not get a master's degree with a few clicks of the mouse. I believe that most of what's valuable comes through hard work, patience, and sacrifice, and that includes food.

I like to cook. Honestly, I do. And gardening is another wonderful way to learn delayed gratification when it comes to bringing dinner to the table. I'm a huge fan of homegrown tomatoes. I like a slow-roasted brisket as much as anyone. But at the same time, I miss my microwave. There does seem to be a legitimate place for time-saving devices, and reheating the leftovers, to my mind, is one of them. With a microwave, I've lost nothing but extra dishes to clean, and I've gained precious minutes at the table with my family. Sometimes, instant gratification is, well, gratifying. And, and as fun as cooking by candlelight can be, when it comes to yesterday's chicken soup, I still believe that the best option is to just "nuke" it.

The Gym of Eden

Whew! My muscles and my back are very sore as I write this. I wish I could say that it was because I performed some great athletic feat, but no. I merely spent a couple of hours digging in the flower beds yesterday. In my defense, I did go beyond the ordinary weeding and instead hauled out the big shovel to excavate an inexcusable amount of invasive grass that had woven itself underground into a dense tangle of roots, some of which were as thick as my thumb and wrapping their evil tentacles around my tulip bulbs. It was hard work. But still, I feel like a sissy being this wiped out by a little spring weeding. (Oh to be able to take ibuprofen again!) Nevertheless, this is the good kind of sore, and my hands are the good kind of dirty.

I suppose that, after my last post, I should mention that the sunshine is definitely back. I'm pleased to report that the thermometer has been peeking its little head above the 70° line for a few days now. It's been lovely. And getting my vitamin D from the sky instead of from a bottle is, quite literally, priceless. I love spring—almost as much as I love summer.

A day this fine should not be spent indoors. This is perfect gardening weather and park weather and strolling-around-the-neighborhood weather. I'd be crazy to sit at a computer typing a blog post right now. Heh.

Having never been a member of a gym, I may not be qualified to say this, but I honestly cannot understand how gyms stay in business during weather like this. Physical therapy, of course, makes sense to me. And winter gym time make a little bit of sense to me. But when it's 73°, the sun is shining, a light breeze is blowing, the yard needs attention, and the birds are singing, getting your exercise inside of a big, boxy room lit with fluorescent tubes while plugging yourself into a pair of earbuds makes absolutely no sense to me.

Yesterday, as I did my squats and lunges with the help of a shovel, my soundtrack was a chickadee and a woodpecker. My workout partner was an enthusiastic two-year-old who could hardly contain his joy as I unearthed two fat beetle larvae, a snail, a beetle, a handful of worms, and an army of ants.  I got to chat with my next door neighbor. I said hello to passersby who stopped to admire the tulips. I had the satisfaction of separating the weeds from the flowers and preparing the ground for planting.

I was dive bombed by a hummingbird. No really. I was.

Is there anything so metaphorically rich as gardening? Is there anything so unpoetic as a treadmill? Is there any air so invigorating as this lilac-scented breeze? Is there any air so uninviting as the sweaty aroma of the locker room? Will somebody please explain to me how anyone of sound body and mind could opt for the latter?

Even if you don't have a garden—which we didn't for years—just running around at the nearest park seems far superior to anything I could be doing with a gym membership. And if you've got kids, I guarantee that they are dying to run around outside anyway, so we might as well include them in the fun.

It's spring! So get some sun. Get some dirt under your fingernails. Get some fresh air. And get some exercise where the lilacs smell stronger than the gym socks.

Hey, ho, the wind and the rain

"It's snowing still," said Eeyore gloomily.
"So it is."
"And freezing."
"Is it?"
"Yes," said Eeyore. "However," he said, brightening up a little, "we haven't had an earthquake lately."

This year, winter and spring seem to have shaken hands and reached some sort of compromise, granting each other the authority to intermittently take charge over one another's appointed months. Winter was unusually mild and green, but this week, spring is doing its best to pose as winter.

Freezing temperatures and a forecast of "possible snow flurries" greeted us this morning as an unwelcome finale to yesterday's trunk-snapping, flower-stripping winds—winds that turned the sky a sickly brown for most of the afternoon. Our yard is littered with the debris of Monday's gales, and the tulips are staring pathetically up at me with a uniform expression of exhaustion and defeat. In the glass of the living room window, I can see that my own expression reflects theirs.

Only in recent years have I discovered how much the weather affects my mood. It's hard to put a spring in my step when there is no spring in the air. If I let them, these blustery days can turn me into a real Eeyore— Eeyore living in a house full of Tiggers.

Dreams of a green, sprouting vegetable garden are not going to be realized anytime this week. Or next, judging by the forecast. The seed packets sitting on my counter all say, in their matter-of-fact way, "Plant in the ground after all danger of frost is past." All danger? That would give us, let's see, the last two weeks in August. Maybe. If it's a good year. I've seen frost on the Fourth of July.

So here I sit near a bright window, warming my hands against a mug of very hot tea, letting the steam rise into my face to clear my stuffy head and ease the disappointment of hope deferred.

The truth is that, living in northern Idaho, gardening is really a matter of playing the odds. It takes a gaming spirit and a sense of humor. What are the chances of snow in May? Are you willing to bet your crop on it? Ante up. And keep a spare ace up your sleeve. Wear your poker face. Don't let the sunshine fool you.

Sunny skies may have replaced yesterday's brown, but the cheery blue, like a squirting trick corsage, is nothing but a cheap practical joke; it lures us with all the illusion of springtime friendliness and then douses the unsuspecting optimist with a blast of chilly reality. Haha. Very funny. Where's my coat?

Truthfully, I do know that spring is already here and that these cold days are nothing extraordinary. I have no doubt that warmer weather will be on its way here again soon. And in the meantime, I have a fire. And a warm mug. And guileless sunny faces all around me. The tulips are even beginning to look like they'll recover.

Oh, and we haven't had an earthquake lately.