Hold on!

It is the season of mother and child.  I like this one by Picasso as the child is a bit older.  Holding our children  does not end when they are no longer babies.  The holding has only just begun at that stage.  We need to hold on to our children for many years.  As our hearts are raw with the untimely ripping away of young children from their parents, remember to hold one another close these days.  Continue to give your children the physical holding that they so need.  We all need to inhabit all of our being: body, mind and spirit.  It is in the physical contact and holding that we can fully inhabit our selves.  Holding can take different forms as our kids get older.  Try those nightly foot and back massages.  Securely place your hands on your kid's shoulders in affirmation.  Firmly but tenderly give holding touch.  Continue those surrounding hugs.  Confidence, love and security that will last forever are communicated as we hold on to our kids.  Hold on.

Jesus Wept.

Two of the most powerful words in the Bible are that Jesus wept when he heard of the death of his friend Lazarus.  Somehow in the mystery of life, the God of the universe enters fully into life with us.  He stands with us in the full depth of our being.  He feels our pain.  He weeps with us.  He certainly is weeping over the deaths of all those in Connecticut today.  Sometimes there are no words adequate.  Often our own wounds prevent even our tears from flowing  freely.  For God those tears flow.  Be still and weep and pray.  May God stand with those families and give His comfort to many today and in the painful days ahead.

Beloved

Emily Carr entitled this painting "Scorned as Timber, Beloved of the Sky."  Indeed often as people on this journey we feel scorned.  Scorned by ourselves, our friends and our families.  Often I  feel like this tree in the depths of my heart.  Empty and delimbed.  The vast expanse of the sky is surrounding my soul in warmth and beauty swirling.  God knows and understands.  We are His Beloved.

Still Empty

Ben Johnson's empty stillness beckons my heart in quiet waiting.  I stand looking in with holy reverence.
Some of you may be wondering if this blog has any inkling of adoption emphasis left in it.  It certainly does.  I am communicating how I am coping as a mother of many.  Increasingly I am learning to go within to these empty spaces in my soul where there is quiet peace and empty.  My soul is quiet and stilled in these inner chambers.

Waiting in Reflection

As we approach Christmas, I am going to share my soul in images more than words for a time.   Chagall always speaks deeply to my heart.  I feel this is a reflection of myself in this time of Advent.   Covered with God's fresh forgiveness of the white prayer shawl, I hold fast to the words of faith in the Scriptures, praying quietly and chewing with the close presence of the cow over the meaning of their Words. There is the deep vibrating resonance of music in my heart and  the ever-present angel hovers above.

Secure

Art and visual images are an important part of my soul.  Both learning and understanding are frequently communicated to me in images.  Last thing at night I often look at a couple of images in a book of  art to help settle my heart.  I reflect on those images at night and during the day.

One of my closest friends, Sharon Quirke, is an artist.  Images from her work are deeply ingrained in my heart.  She once did a northern arctic igloo series.  Light emanated through the igloos into the cold white darkness around them.  Those igloos were home.  Later she did a series focusing on the ropes or lines that attached boats to the dock.  Those lines linking us all are there in my soul.  She is now working on a boat series that includes mythical boats, dinghy boats, and boats in a marina.

One boat in particular resonated with my heart.  It was a little character-full tug boat securely moored in a marina in Egmont on the Sunshine Coast here in British Columbia.  Off in the distance are the coastal mountains, towering above Jervis Inlet.  Princess Louisa Inlet where I spent many summers as a mountain guide is just around the corner.  The tug is in the marina.  Somehow, the tug boat's presence there tied up in the marina has helped to settle me in my own present place in the marina of this time.  I am looking forward to my friend's next boats emerging as some of them venture out to sea.  Today though I understand my place to be securely tied in the marina. I am also like the marina itself.  Various boats come to tie up at my wharf.  Some of our family members have ventured out to sea on adventures of their own.  Others are still tied up and resting here at my side, preparing for future journeys.  There are times to be boats at sea, to be boats at mooring, and even to be the marina!  Each has its own secure place and  time.

Those Terrible Mistakes

I have been deeply impacted by the recent suicide of the nurse who mistakenly revealed a confidential medical report on Kate's condition for the whole world to hear.  She made a mistake.  Those trying-to-be-funny broadcasters made a mistake.  Probably the nurse's employers did not realize how deeply the nurse had taken her mistake and may have not supported her enough.  Even her suicide was a most terrible mistake.  A life taken for what was supposed to be a joke.

I have also made some terrible mistakes.  Said things that should not have been said.  Done things that should have been left undone.  There are many moments in my life that I wish I could undo.  While it is not possible to undo, there is hope for picking ourselves up and moving forward in the redo of new opportunities in the future.  One of my favorite parenting strategies is the immediate redo strategy.  When the kids do not listen or make an error, I point out the mistake and give them the opportunity to immediately redo their action right then and there. We need to give each other the grace and opportunities to try again.  Even in those tragic situations that seem beyond redemption, there is hope.  I  believe that even after death there is deep hope and grace abounding.  Nothing is beyond God's reach and love.  Even those ultimate mistakes in death are not outside the expanse of God's care.  In His love, He brings life and hope out of our worst and most tragic mistakes.

We need a big theology and a big God for those big mistakes.  Christ's birth starts out in the brokenness of the world.  Alone.  In a stable.  Certainly if others had known this was such an important birth, there may have been room in a place more suited to a birth than the barn.  Nevertheless, that birth in the barn in an alien world was not a mistake.  His death was seen by his disciples as a terrible mistake.  But it was not.  That death was redeemed and had purpose and plan that was actually all about our own forgiveness plan with hope for the future.

We have an expansive and abundant God who loves us.  Reach out to Him.  Come to Him with your broken and contrite heart.  Seek the forgiveness that He gives and then move forward to the redo.  Yes, we do need  to forgive ourselves and others, but God as seen in Christ and the Bible gives me comfort and strength to know an even greater forgiveness from God.  His Spirit gives me the power to pick myself up and keep on going with hope that there can even be purpose and beauty coming out of mistakes.  Go forward in the peace and grace of God to the hopeful and life-giving future today.