Watch for the Stars

Van Gogh so often speaks to my heart.  I sense the majesty and wonder of God and all of creation in this masterpiece.  It is deeply encouraging to me.  Sometimes life feels full of chaos and energy beyond our control.  Watch for those constant stars in the sky watching down on us!

I am resting in this piece and taking a family break from blogging for some days.

Rest in quiet peace and love under those stars!

Victim No More

It is so easy for all of us to slip into being the victims of our circumstances.  Those attacking circumstances take varied shapes in our different lives.  Often for adoptive parents it is the children by adoption that take us to places of feeling like we are victims.  We try to justify that birth children also victimize us, but actually it is true that children from difficult places who have known trauma and abuse more naturally seem to bring chaos and pain and division oozing from their shattered souls.  It often does feel that the whole weight of generational pain and abuse bears down hard on any goodness that we try to give.  It can be an ongoing battle where often it feels like evil and pain triumph.  We repeatedly get blindsided by forces way beyond our control to change single-handedly.

Ultimately, regardless of the forces causing destruction in our children, that blackness does not need to triumph in our souls.  Although it is so easy to slip into the beleaguered position of the underdog, we are able to reach deep in ourselves to take hold and chose not to be victims.  Though others tell us that we have chosen this path, we have not.  We chose to try to help and to bring light.  We do not deserve the secondary trauma inflicted by the pain of our children.  We are worthy and have tried to take a risk for good.

Step out of the defeated skin of victimization.  Acknowledge your own gifts and love and use them in varied places.  Some of those places may bring forth more obvious fruit.  Take time away to get perspective.  Ask others for supportive hugs.  Share the pain.  Surround yourself with a warm and luminous shield of light that cannot let the darkness invade your own heart.  I start at my feet or head and feel the warm brightness fill me.  No one and no circumstance can stop that light in us.  We are not ultimately responsible for anyone else.  Our care for others is severely limited if we feel victimized by them or if they are too tightly wrapped around our hearts.  Let go.  Be full and free.  Even though it is not all perfect and sometimes tragedy abounds, still love, accept and forgive yourself.  Rest in God's support and trust His care and love  for all those others.

Let go victim self!  Be filled with the goodness of God.  Be still and content in the limits of being human and let God be God.  Pray constantly and let go.

Washing Feet

Mary Cassatt was an American artist who worked alongside the Impressionists and focused primarily on the intimate relationships between mothers and their children.  She was profoundly influenced and supported by her own mother.

This painting reminds me of the intimate and loving connection of Jesus washing his disciples' feet in John 13.  God is both mother and father to us.  We are encouraged to run to Him with all our concerns and needs.  Like a most loving mother He tenderly cares for us and washes our feet, encouraging us to do the same for others.  There is something very intimate and healing about having our feet held, massaged, and washed.  Run to God who will care for the whole of us, including our bodies, minds and spirits.  Care for our children and one another in the same way.

 All those who are weary and heavy laden,  come to the warm embrace of our mother God.

Hope

This famous Picasso painting of the bull skull, pitcher and fruit may at first glance seem somewhat gruesome, but to me it has always been a great encouragement of life emerging from dry bones!  Life is so multifaceted, full of death and new life with fruit and water sustaining.  Vibrant colours blend and give richness.

Sometimes we feel like "our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off" (Ezekiel 37:11)  God does give us hope, replying that,  "I will open your graves and bring you up from them.  I will put my Spirit in you and you will live and I will settle you in your own land!" (Ezekiel 37:13)

I am reminded that there is always hope as I lean on God!

Even Though

While treasuring the phrase that all will be well, I also hold the emotional freedom "even though..." in my heart these days.  "Even though I make mistakes,  even though things do not always work out like I would hope, even though I  fail...  I still love, accept and forgive myself."  In the actual emotional freedom technique, tapping various parts of the head, face and body accompanies this mantra.  I do find tapping especially over my heart helpful, while often looking deep into my eyes in the mirror.

As a Christian, I often add that "Even though I am not the person I would like to be, God still loves, accepts and forgives me."  Certainly that is the deepest truth in all of life, but somehow it has always been easier for me to grasp the fact that God loves me than to love, accept and forgive myself.  For others it may be harder to accept God's unconditional love.  Both are important and central to our well-being.  Both are part of our reality.  Objectively, God does love and forgive us.  Subjectively, we also need to really believe that for ourselves.  We certainly cannot externally enforce that on our hearts, but I have found that as I call out to God and repeat that phrase in my heart it has helped me.  Similarly, as I jump out of bed in the morning, I greet both God and myself with love and care.  "From the bottom of my heart I love you God!  I love you Anne, just as you are!"

I know that some may argue that I am placing myself in the place of God.  Certainly not.  I just am deeply aware that true acceptance of our real selves created tenderly and specially by God is important.  So is knowing that God created and loves us just as we are.  From these deep places of love we can go forward to love and care for God and others.  Without that, our foundation is shaky and we get caught in creating false selves that deny the reality of our essential humanness.  We cannot fool God, but certainly we can live lives that are not true to our essential being created by Him.  We then become emotionally tangled up, exhausted, and in fact more self-centred than if we can look forward with pure and uncomplicated love and appreciation of our unique selves.

God does love us even though we fail.  He created us specially to be the unique people we are.  Cultivate love for God, ourselves, and those around us.  That three pronged stool of love will be strong and enduring and will reflect most deeply of  God in this world.  Surrounding it all, the miracle of God's Spirit will fill us, enabling us to grow on this journey of love.

All shall be well.

Most of our children who have been adopted later in life have had experiences of feeling very vulnerable and out of control.  Over and over there have been circumstances in their lives where they have been blindsided and taken completely by surprise.  These surprises are usually not happy and pleasurable delights like those surprises that other children come to expect under Christmas trees and on birthdays.  Even the prospect of being adopted  can be yet one more experience of turmoil and loss of control lasting for decades.

Unconsciously, our children from these difficult places often attempt to replay those periods of vulnerability and being blindsided.  They often manufacture circumstances where the end result is yet more loss of control.  Without actually meaning it, they also bring turmoil to their families.  When life gets too pleasant and predictable it is almost like they feel they do not deserve such happiness and they find some way to bring back the familiar chaos.  This often plunges whole families into chaos.  It takes significant energy and skill for beleaguered parents to keep the capsizing family boat level and functioning while other members of the family are sneakily drilling holes in the hull.

In times of chaos I turn to some of the seasoned passages in the Bible and the saints of old who themselves lived in tumultuous times.  Julian of Norwich is a woman of much encouragement for me.  She lived in the calamitous 14th century at a time when the Black Death plague swept through Europe, killing over a third of the people.  Life was not secure or predictable.   Julian was an anchorite, living in a cell where she prayed and gave counsel to others.  Her focus was always on God's love and gentle care at a time when usually God was portrayed as terrifying and angry.  Her common refrain was,

                      All shall be well,
                      and all shall be
                      well, and all manner
                      of thing shall be well.

Who knows what it really means that all shall be well?  It may not ever be the external circumstances this side of heaven, but I often find myself dwelling on this refrain in the chaos that is sometimes life for me.  Truly, no matter what the circumstances, in God who so tenderly loves us, all shall be well.  We can rest in that truth through any valley or danger that comes our way.  I only hope that my children  will somehow be able to rest in God's security one day.  Regardless, God who knows all will care for them through it all.  Even though it may not seem to be well from our earthly perspective, all shall be well.  Stay rooted in God, my fellow adventurers on this journey.  Stay rooted.  All shall be well.

Creation

Sometimes we get pretty focused ironing down the details in one corner of our lives!  That is all part of the process.  I am holding my daughter and her whole creation in my heart tonight with great hope and joy in the patterns and colours of life created.  Thanks for so faithfully and diligently labouring to bring forth such beauty my darling!

Foggy Daze

Writing about fog feels somewhat cliche, but these foggy days are truly a good picture of much of my life!   I get a sense of comfort in the knowing that if fog is good enough for the weather, it must be good enough for me!

Fog is a good way to understand how life feels for many of our kids and those of us who have gone through times of darkness.  Life looms up in front of us quickly and surprisingly out of the deep grey, over and over.  There are many surprises and no sense of  direction.  Life is a dull haze of trying to somehow make our way with very few landmarks and little control.
We are groping to find the road ahead.  Even others helping to shine light sometimes just makes it all the more confusing as the light bounces this way and that and only seems to diffuse and deepen the darkness.  There is an almost sick sense of floating in a daze without control.   Sometimes we try to speed up to get out of the heaviness of it all, but that usually only adds to the difficulty.

It does help to have others beside us in the fog who can help guide and slow us down.  Those others sometimes have a bigger perspective and can remind us that there is sun and freshness and beauty out there somewhere.  It is comforting to know that they are there beside us in the grey and that they too are with us in the unknowing.  When the fog lifts even for a little while, they help us recognize those familiar signs and realize that it will not go on for ever.

Today there were more breaks in the heavy fog than there were yesterday.  The white covered mountains were still there, standing bright and firm.  For part of the day the sun sparkled the frost-laced trees and colours were radiant all around.  I will save those pictures in my heart for those inevitable mornings ahead when the grey descends again.  Maybe this time I will even grow in appreciation of the hopeful silence and varied depths of beautiful textured hues within the grey as inspired in this painting by Yuko Shiraishi.  May I feel the fresh and deep wetness of the moisture laden air and may my eyes be open to see and rest in the unique beauty and quiet space within those foggy days.

Teamwork

One of the greatest challenges in adoption is the need for a team of people to help support both the parents and children.  At a time when we most need support during adoption we are often the most stressed out and busy and in the most strange and alien world for others to comprehend.  We are not able to manufacture our own support team in ways that are usual for us.  Our support team frequently shifts and in those changes there are many wonderful surprises and hidden joys of relationships.

We have been surprised at the amazing team that has been given to us over the years.  Those who have come to help have not always been the people we have sought after or the ones we thought would be there.  What a most wonderful gift are those who have come to help.  Help has come in both big and little ways, but all with thoughtful and kind care that has been our greatest joy.  Some relationships have been fleeting and others enduring.  All are part of the team.  We have actually adopted more than our four children in this process.  Others have come alongside and been equally as adopted in our family and we in theirs.

As we pulled together our family team to wash and dry dishes together this Christmas, a significant part of our support team was secretly investigating dishwashers for us.  This part of the team is skilled at finding the best and most solid deals.  With consumer report in hand, they were determined that the new dishwasher would be able to stand up to our family needs.  After Christmas they arranged it all.  Another unrelated part of the team offered to install it!   What a most thoughtful gift of love!  These kind people are deeply related to us and are a significant and lasting part of our adopted family.  They give of themselves in countless ways to care for us and others.

Thank you to all our amazing team of all family and friends on this journey of adventure!  We love you and need you so much.  The treasures of your love are like surprise packages of supplies discovered along the route to give joy and sustenance.

Washing Dishes

Just before Christmas our dishwasher made some clunking sounds and ground to a halt.  It was hard to find a dishwasher repairman who could come before Christmas, but finally a kind man did agree to check it out.  Within a couple of minutes he turned to me and said that we should probably pretend that he had never come because he did not think that it would be worth repairing.  He didn't want to charge me for the service call.  The cost of repairs would be almost the same as a new dishwasher.   The dishwasher was only a couple of years old, but runs frequently each day and has not always been stacked as it should with several broken dishes and glass circulating at times that has probably contributed to the problems. All part of the cost of trying to include kids and teach life skills! The  predecessor of this dishwasher did not last long either.  It seems that either we are not careful enough or have had a run of bad luck in dishwashers.  We decided to give the idea of using a dishwasher a break.

For the last month we have been washing dishes by hand.  Over Christmas with many visitors and lots of big meals that was quite a feat, but also a time for great community building dish washing among us all.   I have had lots of quiet time by the sink by myself as well.  With my hands in the warm water, I look out over our garden with several bare trees reaching up to the sky.   Lately their shapes have been highlighted with a beautiful white outline of frost.  Some days they barely emerge from the fog and others they form stark shapes with a background of blue, pink and purples as the sun rises and sets.  I am gaining a new appreciation for the stark and pared down simplicity of winter.  The trees unadorned  have a unique dignity and grace that fills my often barren soul with hope.

In these days my mind often wanders to the solid wisdom of the saints of old.   One of the people who has been very  influential in my life spent most of  his life washing dishes.  Brother Lawrence was an obscure lay monk in France in the 1600's.  He wrote of his love for God in his writings now titled, "Practice of the Presence of God."  For Lawrence, the most simple and ordinary acts of service were opportunities to worship and praise God and to bask in His love.  He continually turned his attention to God, aware of God's tender care and loving attention in all things.  He abandoned himself to God, knowing God's delight in treasuring him and filling him with Himself.  While doing simple and mundane tasks, he practiced simply resting in God and presenting himself to God to be shaped more and more in His image.  While there were initially times of deep struggle for Lawrence, he came to the place where his life was simply filled with God. Faith in God was all that he needed to live a life full of love, joy and rest.  He was deeply at peace in the love and care of God.

In the simple slowness of washing dishes and doing ordinary tasks I am learning from Lawrence to appreciate the stark simplicity of these winter trees outside my window that remind me of the foundational truths of my faith in God.  In the cycles of all the stages of life, leaves and flowers come and go, but God is constant.  I am practicing His presence,  turning my thoughts inwardly to Him in secret conversation of the soul, joyfully resting in His love and care and  delighting in being with Him.  It is not always easy or natural to turn my thoughts to God, but it is making all the difference in my life and is bringing much  sincere joy and peace that is not dependent on all the changing externals of my days.

And then there was Rest

Although my last post about bedtime focused on the kids getting to bed, I am the hardest to settle at night!  Some of my intentional desire to make bedtime a happy occasion for the kids has come out of my own wanting to calm down and prepare for sleep.  For years I have been full of restless energy which has not always served me well.  I have started my own bedtime rituals that include a leisurely bath and quiet reflective and encouraging reading in the Psalms or the books of Philippians and Ephesians.  Visual images are significant for me so I also turn to Sister Wendy, the art historian nun who has many lovely picture books that are full of rich and beautiful images and meaning.  I intentionally ground myself and pray, feeling God's love and light flow through me as I drift off to sleep.  For years I  did not allow myself much sleep, so  getting to bed  is still a work in progress as I love my late night time alone.

As I do desire a restful and calm heart of peace in God for myself and my family, I have been reflecting on the concept of rest for quite some time.  Each week holds Sunday, a special holy day set apart by God for rest.  For many that day of rest may not actually be Sunday, but Sundays do remind me of our human need for Sabbath rest and encourage me to cultivate rest in the midst of my striving and busyness.

Certainly as a culture, particularly here on the West Coast,  we pride ourselves on our attempts at balancing healthy leisure with our work.  We actually work hard at our play and leisure!  I am wondering these days if God's encouragement for rest is less about a legalistic declaration to refrain from work or even an attempt to bring balance in our lives, and more about a letting go of our deep rooted beliefs that our lives are all in our control to mold and shape as we see fit.  As I look at the creation story, certainly God is an amazingly creative and intentional creator.  Made in His image, we too are invited to be co-creators in the whole scheme of life.  We are able to make decisions, be creators, and contribute significantly to the shape of  our lives that in turn ripple to profoundly influence others around us both now and in the future.   We often get so caught up in our own driven decisions and actions that we start to believe that everything in our lives is really up to us.  That belief can subtly take over the direction of our lives, bringing anxiety and stress.  I believe that God gave us the day of rest to help us recharge physically, emotionally and spiritually.  God Himself took rest as a part of the created order, resting for a full day as part of His creation.  I think of the field left fallow and empty for a time in order to be replenished.  Pride and greed sometimes push us to ignore the wisdom of the fallow time in all parts of our lives.    We are so often programmed to want bigger, better, faster and more, more, more.   Our eager ambition leads to so much destruction.  Living by the ocean, I often grieve over  the over-fishing that stripped our oceans of so much life, some never to return.

We are given a wise command to preserve ourselves and to prevent the loss of self and God's perspective that inevitably comes when we do not take time to rest.  Rest also keeps our overactive egos in check, again for our own mental health.  It is so important that we know our place as persons living among other persons as human beings.  Everything is not up to us.  In the mystery that is life there are forces that are beyond our control.  We are created beings and not the ultimate creator.  I am wanting to increasingly let go of the puffed up balloon of my own ego and importance, allowing myself to be and to live fully, enjoying each step of the way. Taking time and space to rest in being is an important first step on that journey.

I have really not been good at taking a day to relax and rest.  I have not modeled that concept for my children, often pushing them to work just that little bit harder.  I am realizing that the idea of a day of rest or Sabbath is an attitude of mind where for one day we cease our striving and allow our egos to relax and deflate so that our quieter and more authentic selves can emerge.  We are to consciously set apart this day to worship and love God from whom all things have come.  For our family it is our commitment to worship God in church on Sundays; I want to start letting go of the never-ending push of activity as well.  That will have a different shape for each of us.   I will go for a leisurely walk with the family, read and have a nap, and cook a simple supper.  Others that I know extend this concept to include a weekend a month and a week every 4 months to cultivate that internal stillness and to let go of driven purpose and activity.  For some with small children or those with family who demand full-time care it takes more creativity to build in rest to our days.  It is then perhaps even more important to be aware of the need for rest!  Step by step, it is my goal to cultivate a heart that is content and at rest and which can truly lie fallow and be creatively restored in the gift of God's Sabbath.

Bedtime

Although  the end of the day when everyone is tired  and wound up can be a challenging time, bedtime is nevertheless a highlight of my days.  One of my favorite memories as a child was of my parents reading to me and then sitting by my bed singing "Golden Slumbers" and caressing my forehead, gently touching my hair.  One of my girls who was initially frightened of bedtime and would stay awake in fear and anxiety for hours each night told me recently that bedtime is now her favourite time of the day. For both myself and my children I have been trying to make this ending of the day a time of loving ritual and care.  Several children have a warm bath after supper to help them settle and unwind after a long day.  As each child settles in bed I try to spend quiet time with them.  Sometimes several of us meet together on one bed. We usually read a carefully chosen age appropriate story and then lie together, talking and praying.  I sing to them and quietly tell them how wonderful they are.  Even though my younger children range in age from ten to fifteen, after reading a book for older kids I  follow that up by reading simple and loving board books that affirm my love for them and their own unique specialness.  I allow them to acknowledge and for a time be the small child in each of them that was never treasured and read a bedtime story.   They love a selection of books like Margaret Wise Brown's "Runaway Bunny" and "Goodnight Moon" and  Nancy Tafuri's "You are Special, Little One" and "I Love you, Little One."   I must say that I have been surprised that they still love me reading these simple expressions of love and care over and over.  They have parts that they repeat and I answer.   We then read a short story from a children's bible and are trying to memorize Psalm 23 together.  Usually at night they ask me repeatedly if I love them.  I always reply with quiet enthusiasm about how much I love them and how special they are.   I am so aware that often the messages firmly etched in the unconscious of my children have not been loving and positive.  In the slowed down state just before bed I think that the fertile ground of the unconscious is more receptive to starting to accept some new messages of love and attention.  It can be the beginning of helping our children come to be able to love and accept themselves and be able to receive  love.     I have always known how important healthy closure is in our lives.  Each day is truly a gift, no matter how well or poorly the day has gone.  I try to leave all the details behind at bedtime.  Of course we do not always take the time for this special ritual, but I have intentionally been trying to make the final moments of each day a sacred expression of love for each unique child, imprinting thoughts of those things that are lovely and good as a habit learned to last a lifetime.

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

The Bible is full of paradoxes.  Often we read one passage and then make decisions based on that one passage, forgetting that there are other passages that may give a rounder and more complete understanding of God.  One area of paradox is the understanding of loving ourselves and yet also denying ourselves.  The Bible makes it very clear that we are lovingly created and that God knows us through and through. (Psalm 139).  We are to love others as we love ourselves.  Implicit in that statement is that we are to love ourselves.   Christians often focus on the fact that we are full of sin and are to deny ourselves.  There is evidence for both approaches in the Bible.  I believe that both ends of this paradox can be embraced.  We are to love ourselves.  I think that deep dislike of ourselves and lack of self-acceptance is much more common than we realize in our culture.  We carefully mask our insecurities and confuse pure love for ourselves with the tendency to treat ourselves too softly and to amass material things.  Over and over in the Bible and in experience God expresses His love for all of us.  He created us just as we are and cradles us in His hands like this sculpture by Dorothea Steigerwald.  In response to his wonderful creation of us,  we are to cultivate a healthy love and acceptance for ourselves.  For many years I have believed in God's love and forgiveness, but have had a hard time loving and accepting and forgiving myself.  I have prided myself on loving others, but deep down I have really not loved myself.  We can often hide our struggles with self-acceptance, but sooner or later our frustration with ourselves rears up in anger, anxiety, addictions and jealousy or depression and lethargy.  I was aware of a hard edge and flares of temper in myself that were directly related to my own frustrations.  I found it difficult to know how to soften that edge and tendency to anger and sought help to understand the root of my own propensities.
While we are to love ourselves, that does not give us licence to over-indulge ourselves or to have an attitude of entitlement.  A good parent loves their child from the bottom of their heart, but does not let them be selfish or do whatever they desire.  Similarly, while loving ourselves we are commanded to care for others.  That will often mean that we consciously deny ourselves indulgences that restrict our servant and caring hearts for others.  Similarly, we all make mistakes and often have a propensity for selfishness and for "doing those things that we ought not to do, while leaving undone those things which we ought to do."  We are proud and want to be our own gods.  I think those are the attitudes and propensities that are often called sin.   Often I have a nagging awareness of all those things that I have done wrong.  God clearly releases us from those burdens in His forgiveness and love.  Though he creates us fearfully with great serious care and attention, the Bible is full of His clear expressions that we "do not be afraid!"  Just as God clearly forgives us in love, we are to in turn forgive ourselves and others in love.

So, as God has lovingly made us, we too are to cultivate a healthy and deep self love.  We can be our own best friend, waking up in the morning to greet God and ourselves with loving care and attention.  Out of that love we are then able to freely care for others.  Often the degree of gentle compassion that we have for ourselves is expressed in our love and gentle acceptance of others.  At the same time, we cannot use our self-love as a license to indulge our every whim and to make us self-centered.  While loving ourselves purely, we are then free to deny ourselves those things that are not helpful or expressing of care for God or others.   God loves us and forgives us.  Our response is healthy love and respect for ourselves and others.  Love does truly begin at home in the depths of our souls and hearts and minds with God.  Let's let love shine in our hearts.  Allow it to radiate with joy and freedom and without fear to love God, ourselves and others with gentle kindness and acceptance!

Heights and Depths

Life is a journey that involves scaling towering mountains and crossing deep lakes.   I recently enjoyed reading the story of a woman's journey over part of the Pacific Crest Trail, extending from Mexico to Washington.  Cheryl Strayed wrote of her adventures in her book, "Wild."  Her internal journey  mirrors and is impacted by the rigors and joys of her challenging and demanding travels.  She shares one particular image that has been a wonderful encouragement to me.  As she is looking over the deep blue waters of Crater Lake in Oregon she is struck that this extraordinary body of water was created by the eruption of Mount Mazama.  The heart of the mountain exploded, leaving bleak destruction in its wake.  Many years later, that same mountain destroyed became the vessel for what is now one of the deepest and most beautiful lakes in the world.  It's unique and pure blue waters are a feast for the eye and a source of great wonder and refreshment.

Sometimes we go through volcanic times where it feels like our hearts are destroyed.  Those very places of pain and woundedness can become vessels filled with living water giving refreshment, encouragement and joy.  I pray that those areas of destruction in me may be transformed and filled by God so that I can be a vessel overflowing with the living water of love.  The prophet Isaiah encourages those who are suffering. "When you cry for help, God will say: Here am I.  He will guide you and strengthen you and you will be like a spring whose waters never fail" (Isaiah 58:9,11).  Later, Jesus specifically holds true to that promise, befriending a desolate and hurting woman and offering her living springs of life giving water. (John 4:10,13)

I cry out to God to fill me to overflowing with His refreshing springs of the waters of love.

Paradox

Today was my first day back at work in over a month.  I am still not completely over my bronchitis, and it was difficult for me to head out the door early this morning.  Once I got to work, it was great to be with my amazing team of colleagues and to reconnect with them.  I felt a fresh energy and joy.  Work is an important part of life, whatever its shape.  The play of these last weeks for me has also been wonderfully restoring.  Today was a day of playful work.

Paradox is for me an important part of life and gives a different flavour and understanding than the middle ground concept of balance.  I once heard it said that it is helpful to hold both extremes of paradox in creative tension in our lives.  Chagall's fiddler reminds me that  it is in the properly tuned string, held between two opposing ends,  that we can express our life music. In the holding together of dark and light, joy and sorrow, quiet and music and small and big there is a tree of life growing by the creative energy of paradox.  Work and play, give and receive, look inward and outward, reflect and express, pray and act, and be in solitude and community.  Hold these opposing truths together in the wholeness of our being.  Most of us have propensities for one of these extremes.  It is helpful to know our own leanings and to appreciate and cultivate the other half of the whole.  There are seasons of life where we often rest in one end of the paradox, but in those times I remember the firm hold on the other end that brings depth, colour and richness to the canvas of my life.

Happy Birthday Mum!

Today is my mother's 88th birthday!  May it be a very happy birthday dear Mum.

My mother loves the work of the artist Raphael.  His deep and rich colours and soft shapes are compelling, bringing fullness and life to his works.  As I consider the significant place of my mother in my life, I am drawn over and over to the images of mother and child in art.  These images capture the importance of these early experiences in our lives and I treasure them in my own soul.  In this painting Mary cradles baby Jesus close, skin to skin with firm support. It is a quiet and pensive moment as Jesus gains security and strength and gives comfort from his hand on his mother's heart.  He looks forward to His life ahead, eyes gazing downward in humble vulnerability, knowing the painful path for both ahead.  Mary is pondering all these things in her heart with some reflective sadness, but gentle acceptance and love.

I wonder if Raphael considers the embrace of his own mother as he paints.  Perhaps there was never the close caress in the childhood of his own life.  On the other hand, maybe he paints of his own rich security stemming from those early embraces.  I do not know about Raphael's early foundational experiences as a baby with his mother, but I do pray that this painting will bring joy and health to both those who have known deeply of a mother's love and to those who have not and can internalize this loving image for their own selves.

I am reminded of your love and care, Mum.  Thank you for the secure and supportive place in your arms that gave me foundational love and security to look forward and to walk my own path.  Like Raphael, you have brought rich depth of colour and shape to my life.  Thank you for that amazing gift that only deepens as the years go by.  May this next year for you be full of colour and rich depth and love.   With much thankfulness,  I give you my love and embrace on all that the journey of this next year holds.

Seven Wonder Full Years!

Seven years ago we brought our daughter home for good.  At that time our little eight year old referred to herself as being at the bottom of the family food chain.  Today she calls herself the oldest of the youngest four!

Being adopted by us was not our daughter's first choice at the time.  It all came as a huge shock as she had understood that she would always stay in foster care.  She was happy with the foster arrangement and felt an important part of that family, so coming to live with us involved many layers of deep grief for her.  At first she would not sleep in her bed, but chose to sleep in the clothes closet on a foamie.  She slept there for months, feeling secure in that closed in space and not attempting sleep until her door was firmly shut with no one around.    She ate nothing but bread and Chicken McNuggets  as her whole system was upset and in a jumble.  I could not hold her or read to her, and for over a year she would leave the room every time she was alone with my husband.  Her favorite pastime was playing for hours in her cupboard with her animal stuffies and she was not able to express her emotions or feelings.   She refused to wear anything but dark baggie track pants and a hoodie.  As long as we respected these elemental requests, in most ways she was very accomodating and friendly and presented as a "perfect" child.  Early on I was suspicious about what was going on.  She really was too perfect. I had been prepared for tears and rages.  There was none of that. She was a friendly socialite and was extremely skilled at ducking under the radar of both family and school.  She loved playing endless games of hide-and-go-seek and got great delight out of disappearing at various times during the day and hearing the panic in my voice as I went looking for her, fearful that she had somehow run away or been abducted.

Another struggling adoptive parent once told me that she was not sure she could walk the long road ahead with her child.  It is a long road, and requires much skill, patience, flexibility and humour.  Relationship is never something that can be expected or demanded.  It takes time and may not meet the expectations of either child or parents.  All these issues and more did not resolve in the first year, or the second.  As I look back over seven years, there has been very significant growth and much joy and love along the way.  We have needed support.  A couple of friends have worked hard with us to connect with our daughter and to be family for her with us.  In the first year my husband and I were coached by a psychologist who primarily supported us!  Our daughter was ready for weekly time with her after the second year, but certainly not before that time.  As she settled in those years, she often joked that she had crazy parents and a crazy psychologist!  She was right;  it has been a crazy journey of unconditional commitment and love!  We have certainly not been perfect parents.  We have yelled too much, said things we should not have said, and have not always been as supportive as we would have liked.  Our daughter remembers the time that she sat alone at school on an early dismissal day, feeling completely abandoned.  I had forgotten to pick her up.  It has not been easy for her as our family has grown.  Stress levels increased with each new adoption, and it has been difficult especially for our daughter to constantly readjust and accept change when her own foundation is fragile.  Essentially, over these years we have learned so much from each other and have grown in healing together.  Through all the ups and downs of these years it has been a most wonderful journey and we are all changed people.

Today, seven years later, our daughter sleeps in a real bed.  She still has definite food preferences, but certainly eats most things with the family.  She has wide range of interests including dance, swimming, reading and playing the flute.  She has found a faithful niche of friends at her high school and through the church youth group and is able to sometimes advocate for herself as she needs help.  She expresses a wide range of emotions, loves hugs and snuggles, and adores her Dad, even going alone with him on a trip to visit with extended family in the East one year.  She still loves playing hide and seek and still enjoys hearing the panic in my voice if she is late or missing. She is a fine person of many gifts, hard work and deep character.  Her life is a testament to how people can survive through incredibly challenging times and grow in grace and love to live full and rich lives.

Mostly, I love my daughter more than words will ever express.  I so look forward to continuing on this long journey together;  it is a journey that is incredibly worth every step and I am thankful for each day with you.  Happy Gotchaday darling!  These days I don't really think much about you being adopted.  You are my daughter and  you bring great joy and thankfulness to us all.  We love you!

Unique Journeys

I want to live a life that matters, full of love, meaning and purpose.  Sometimes I get carried away thinking that I can somehow manufacture that kind of life in my own strength and vision.  When I get walking down that road, I fall into old "never enough" patterns that only destroy and eat away at the good that is.

My friend, Ann, died of cancer yesterday.  She was my age. Our lives have not intersected at all in the last few years, but still she has an important place in my own story and I am deeply grieving her loss.  There were many things in her life, including this incredibly sad and premature death, that were completely out of her control.  She suffered more than most in her life.  It did not all work out as she might have hoped.  Her life was more rich because of those disappointments and her ongoing faithful love.  Ann lived a most special and unique life that was full of meaning and purpose and love and all that it was meant to be.  Her life was its own  colourful tapestry that still brings much joy and thankfulness and meaning to all of us who knew and loved her.

Last night, before I knew that Ann had died, I went to the movie, "Les Miserables."  It is a most powerful and epic movie that was a strong encouragement from God for me on my own journey.  Each person portrayed in the movie had their own path and were central to the fabric of community and life.  I was particularly struck by some of the less central characters and the impact of their lives.  I fell in love with the little eight year old pick-a- pocket boy who played a heroic part in the early revolution and died for the cause.  I treasure Eponine and hold her particularly close to my heart.  There were no fulfilling moments in her life by the world's standards.  Her parents were crazy, self-centered crooks and she was never loved by the man she loved.  She died delivering him a message from his true love.  Her life still shone like a beacon to me.  Somehow against all odds, she had noble strength of character and kind and self sacrificing love.  She was fully human and lived her ordinary and complicated life with significant moments of pure light and love that without her knowing saved lives and brought fulfillment to others.

Most of us will live lives that are maybe not all that we would have hoped.  I am too often like my dog Daisy, pulling at my leash and running ahead in frustration after this and that on the road of life with God.  I want to slow down and walk contentedly beside God, listening and watching for the places that I am to be.    My journey will be unique and special  and all that is important in the big picture of life will be accomplished as I let go of fear and patiently walk at God's side with trust and love.

Ann walked faithfully with God.  It was all much more than enough and just right in God's plan.  You are in heaven now, Ann, waving your victory flag for a life well-lived.  Rest in peace my friend.  You have brought peace and love to my life and have made a meaningful difference in all our unique journeys.  Thank you for your faithful, persevering and loving walk of life.  You are an inspiration to me.

Gears Grinding!

There have been lots of harsh gears grinding this week as we attempt to pull ourselves back into the routine of life after our Christmas break.  Somehow those gear shifts are much more difficult for our children who have had to make so many major shifts in their lives before.  In this case, practice does not make perfect;  these kids have had too many changes and now change is much more difficult.  All our kids are tired and on edge this week.  With some I feel like we have taken ten steps backward after a lovely holiday time. Discombobulation is the mood of the week for us all!  I must say the shift has been most difficult for me, even without those previous traumatic childhood changes.  The change of pace made me vulnerable to a cough and I have had to be off work. I was so disappointed to miss a book club meeting where I was looking forward to discussing a fascinating book that I have enjoyed.  I have not been up to my normal organizational speed.  Today I misjudged and left an older child at the dentist for a half hour past closing time,  keeping one of the secretaries at her work after an already long day.  I am mortified and am busy trying to think about what I can do to make up for my mistake that cost her precious time!  My home, too, seems to move into chaos rapidly when I am not constantly on top of organizing and cleaning.  Masses of piles of paper are collecting all over the house, and I am feeling like I am getting more behind by the minute!   Today the children had a great time watching balls of dog hair rising over the heat register while my allergic husband sounds like he is coming down with my cough!

Life!  Often it does feel that things fall into confusion and chaos when we lose the timing of our shift changes. I am practicing letting go and relaxing, knowing that one of these days we will adjust and regain our energy and stride.  Meanwhile, what can we learn?  We will remember to breathe and get enough sleep.  We will pray and lean on God's love.  We will give each other just a little more love and leeway in all things.  We will smile and laugh at each other's jokes  We will remember that grinding gears is all part of learning to drive. Life is made up of both the chaos and the order and both are parts of  our being!  May all this keep us humble and teachable and all the more ready to forgive and understand others in these inevitable times of discombobulation.

Luminescence

I have always delighted in the magic of phosphorescent sparkles in late summer swims and boat rides.  I have been taken back into those memories of warm evenings with sea and dark sky meeting in the stars and lights in the deep water this last weekend at the Vancouver Aquarium.  Luminescence is being celebrated in these dark winter days there. Lovely displays of inner light shining from jelly fish to corals to anemones.  Light coming seemingly by surprise from nowhere, glowing in the deep!  In actuality, it is light from deep within many different forms of life.  Life energy peeking out and bringing beauty and a myriad of other useful physiological attributes!

As I lie in bed at night I have lately been in the habit of relaxing by imagining light from deep within radiating through me.  Sometimes together with the children I stand and feel the light of God coming down from above, moving from the top of our heads, through our bodies, down through our feet and deep into the layers of ground beneath us to meet the light again in the core of the earth.  Light is such a rich and full concept of positive energy and life.  It is both grounding and expansive, inwardly illuminating and outwardly shining.

It is dark and rainy and cold in our part of the world these days.  I am delighting in imagining God's luminescent light shining in each of us with sparkles of radiant life like those phosphorescent summer evenings of my memory.  May life affirming luminescence come from within us and bring warmth and joy to each other on these rather dreary and ordinary days.

Separations

For the first time in many years my husband and I had a wonderful mini-holiday together last week.  We took our son back to university in Victoria and stayed overnight as a gift to ourselves.  It was a refreshing and delightful time.  We know that we should do this more often, but it has been very difficult to leave our youngest children before now.  One daughter in particular has a very challenging time when I am not at home.  She can barely tolerate an evening without me, and constantly asks when I will return.  She actually has quite a visceral gut reaction of abandonment when I am not home and becomes very moody and obstinate as well.  I am well aware that her reaction is often out of her control and it is all very scary for her. It is certainly not pleasant for those left behind with her!

My daughter has had some particularly difficult life experiences of painful abandonment and separation.  She never had a chance to be with her birth mother much when in foster care and had no goodbyes or closure later when her mom died.  She had disrupted adoptions early on with a couple of adoptive families and never had a chance to say goodbye to either of them.

I thought of her particularly in the "Life of Pi" movie.  There is a fascinating scene at the end when the lifeboat hits land and the rescue is immanent.  The tiger walks across the sand and into the jungle without any hesitation or turning to indicate goodbye to Pi.  Pi is completely beside himself in grief.  This scene expresses the pain of separation without goodbyes and is one of a long string of incomplete separations for Pi.  Earlier, he never actually said goodbye to his girlfriend when he left India or to his parents and brother who did not escape from the sinking ship.  He is inconsolable and yells out in agony at the final blow of the tiger's seeming indifference to their separation after such a journey together.  One day my daughter and I will watch this scene together.  She will deeply understand better than most the depth of Pi's pain.  Meanwhile, we continue to support and care for her, preparing her for each time we are apart, and giving her permission to express her feelings of abandonment and pain in ways that are helpful but also tolerable to those around her!  We all have those deeply held guttural cries of pain hidden in the edges of our souls.  Without expression those cries turn inward to our own destruction.  In this new year may we find ways to express those visceral feelings so that they do not fester and become sharp edges that only destroy ourselves and those closest to us.

Those Tigers

As I consider Pi and his tiger, I remember that last year I ironically had a realistic and life-changing dream about a tiger of my own.  He was there during one of the most challenging times of my life. Somehow the tiger ended up in my home, and out of fear I  kept him locked securely in a bedroom until one day he escaped.  He was the most beautiful, powerful and dangerous creature that I have ever faced and as much as I tried, I could not get rid of him.  The dream stayed with me so vividly that I sought the help of my counselor to assist me in getting this terrible creature out of the mind and heart of my home. She wisely suggested that perhaps I was not meant to get rid of the tiger.  She wondered if I could let him out of that caged bedroom for a while and wait to see what happened.

Letting that tiger out of captivity has been the beginning of an incredible journey for me and the tiger.  He probably has some multifaceted meanings in my life, but through him I have realized that for most of my life my conscious mind has tried hard to keep my life together through pure strength of will.  I was not always able to  control some painful feelings and emotions deeply buried in my unconscious.  Adoption brought some challenges that made it increasingly difficult for my strength of will to single-handedly control my feelings and actions.  Throughout my life in stressful times my cognitive intention to improve has not been enough to bring about sustainable change.  I am the kind of person that has tried star charts for my own behaviour in my heart for years and have never been successful in actually pulling off the good actions that I so desire!  In quietness and meditation and with the help of others, I have had to gradually acknowledge and feel those long buried emotions in my unconscious.  With the tiger, I have let them come out of captivity and have acknowledged and recognized them as important forces in my life.

I have been amazed at how life changing it has been to let the powerful hidden tiger feelings of my heart and soul coexist with all of my mind, soul and body in increasing conscious awareness.   That tiger has saved me and has taught me deeply about my children too.  So often we react to behaviour in our children that is just as powerful, mysterious and scary to them as it is to us.  There may not be easy solutions to these stray tigers, but understanding them for the wild and often uncontrollable beasts that they are does give us parents helpful perspectives and understanding as we navigate these chaotic waters.  They  are not easily tamed by yelling and star charts or by both parents and children trying harder.  We need to fully acknowledge their being and face them head on in the light of day.  There are no promises that these tigers will bring healing but it is important to acknowledge their powerful and possibly dangerous presence.  Some people do spend their lives on makeshift rafts pulled behind their life boats dominated by scary and destructive tigers.  At least for some there will be opportunities for healing and hope with skilled and wise intervention and approaches that are fitting for the fearsome beings that those tigers are.  For all of us, do not underestimate those tigers!  At the same time, let's not be captive to our own tigers as they rule the main lifeboat and we are dragged behind on the unstable rafts.  Come on into the main boat and with conscious wisdom and the help of tiger trainers, live together in the dangerous power of  love and hope and joy.

Our Stories

The last week has held lots of stories in my heart.  I have had a quiet hermit time and have read several wonderful stories and seen some impacting movies.  One of the books that I have been reading is about a boy who became a part of an action-packed adventurous bedtime story that creatively included the readers to navigate through the story layers.  Tonight as I watched the movie, "The Life of Pi,"  I thought about my book and the child who entered the story because I certainly became a part of  Pi's story in the movie!  I am still feeling somewhat seasick from those hours in the boat with him and the Tiger.  It actually was an important movie that has personally intertwined with my own life adventure.

For some time, I have been wanting to explain a bit about the story of this blog.  Many years ago  I was deeply encouraged and helped by several women who shared their daily adoption stories in their blogs.  Their expression of many of my same struggles gave me a deep sense of companionship and hope for my own journey.  As I read their blogs late at night I  felt less alone and isolated in my rather different life choices.  I started writing this blog so that I, too, might be of help to others in the adoption world who are often struggling to keep their heads above the watery storms of life with children who come from challenging places.   In spite of this initial goal, a rather different kind of story has emerged from my blogs.  Partly because I am very sensitive about sharing personal stories other than my own and because all my children read my blog, I have tended to be much more general in my blogs.  Perhaps rather self-centeredly, I have also written the story of my days that is most encouraging and hopeful for me!  Most often I am writing words that help to keep me centered and on track and grounded in the challenging, uncertain, chaotic and rather messy walk of my life.  After several years of thinking that I could function by myself with my blog friend supports, I did realize that I actually needed a few skilled and experienced  face-to-face people in whom to confide the specifics of my walk! Often my blogs are a reflection of the general undercurrent of their words that I am trying to integrate into my own heart.  I also am realizing that though many challenging issues belong to those around me, the main person over whom I have control is myself.  Adoption and challenging parenting are just a couple of many varied adventures of life that people face that can be used to ultimately shape our characters and lives for both better and worse!

All of our life stories can be told and understood from different angles and perspectives.  The stories of several of my children can be seen from many angles on the whole spectrum between being  tragedies brimming with the results of the evil choices of others, or exciting adventures of perseverance that give testimony to the depth of human suffering and ability to keep on going.  My own responses as a parent on this journey can also be viewed as the pervasive power of evil to bring out the worst in me as a parent, or a most wonderful opportunity to accept my own self as a human being and to use the worst in myself as a place to grow and become a deeper and more understanding person.  Pi told us the story of his life that he liked the best.  In this blog, I too am telling the story that is most helpful for me.  Like Pi, I too echo, "So it is with God!"  I believe that ultimately God sees the best story within each of us.  There is the ugly and evil and terrible in our midst, but increasingly I am training my heart to lean toward God's best story of the unfolding redeeming of my life and yours too!  I delight in the intertwining of many stories in our hearts and lives, where so often those vicious and unpredictable Tigers in our midst are what ultimately save each of us in more ways than we will ever know.

The Exodus

After a full and somewhat intense Christmas holiday at home, our oldest four have again headed off to their various homes afar.  It has felt like an exodus of sorts.  Not that their time here was  one of restrictive slavery, but that each  has been lead forward to their own lives and callings elsewhere.   It has been an act of faith for each of these individuals to cross their own rivers of challenge, doubt and fear to move into the different lands where they are to be planted and grow.

I have always been a person who loves change and adventure myself!  In my earlier days I usually only worked in one place for a couple of years at a time.  I was always off on some new tangent or adventure and actually am trained in three different career options!  Ever since I was a little girl, I have always wanted to live and work with those in need in far flung places such as Africa and South America. Even adopting was for me part of my adventurous spirit.  Sometimes the very hardest thing for me is to stay put and get on with being faithful in the ordinary things of life here without a lot of external change.  I am always wondering about that next adventure and find it hard to not be looking across the fence where there might be greener and more exciting pastures.  As another new year unfolds, these feelings intensify for me and I am forever looking around the corner for new opportunities of living.  Today as we took one of our boys to his university in a neighbouring city I could not help but wonder if maybe we should consider a move there!  As we took a sightseeing drive on this gloriously sunny day of white mountains and blue sea, I knew in my heart that no matter how exciting a move to that beautiful town would be, it is not our calling for now.

Some of my external wandering has actually diverted my attention from the unrest in my heart and soul.  These days I am wanting my exodus journey to be a hidden journey of the heart where I learn to be more lovingly content and at peace no matter where I am or what I am doing.  We all do know that no matter where we live or what we are doing, it is the deep qualities of ourselves that we take with us and that are most important.  Sometimes it is just so easy to be diverted from growing in those more hidden, but centrally important wellspring journeys of peace and love deep in ourselves.  It is hard to know how to begin.  Of course sometimes we are called to more outward journeys of life, but usually most of our lives are spent being faithful in those daily ordinary steps of faithful love and care in the little things right there in front of us.  That is where I want to begin and end my journey this year.

The Tree Planted

I woke up this morning and there it was.  The Christmas tree that we planted yesterday in the front yard is tucked over in a beautifully vacant corner where it can be seen and enjoyed and remembered clearly from the perspective of our living room windows.  It is green and fresh and unique in its ragged and full shape and it looks like it belongs in that corner.

After a season that encompasses some of the extremes of life, highlighting both the abundance and the empty, that tree brings hope to me.  It seems fitting for this new year and it embraces many different strands of meaning.  From ancient times evergreen trees have been symbols of renewal and enduring life.  For early Christians they symbolized the reality of God's redeeming and ongoing faithful love to us.  Often we identify ourselves with trees, digging our roots deeply into the soil of life around us.  Our tree is a Noble Fir and brings added meaning of magnificence, integrity and courage.  This particular tree that we have affectionately called the Jon-a-gold tree speaks of our open embrace  to the newest family addition of another son-to-be.

As I consider our tree today I am encouraged.  Just as we carefully considered where to plant the tree, I am reminded that God has chosen just the right spot for me to be planted.  I am really just one tree among many, but still, like our tree, I am special and right for my unique spot.  As I begin a new year, I want to rest in my place, letting my roots settle and grow and allowing the richness of this place to give me life.  Growth takes time, but if I look carefully I will see new fronds of light green sprout over this next year.  I hope these will reflect noble qualities of the fruits of God's life-giving spirit in me:  love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, self control and gentleness.  The tree also reminds me that there is always room for another special person in our lives and inspires me to welcome and encourage those new trees growing, including others in our garden as they come our way.

I welcome the new year symbolized  by this new tree in our midst.  My prayer today is for the hope of green  life and newness growing in the hearts of all!  Happy New Year and much love to each special and unique person in this garden of life.