Ezra, Strong and Sure

I had all sorts of ideas of writing something to celebrate you, to celebrate 6 years of you with me. To celebrate 6 years of Ezra, strong and sure.

And then, last night, this tiny little thing happened, and for about 15 minutes, your whole world felt like it was shattering and I felt broken myself, holding you. For about 15 minutes, you weren’t Ezra, strong and sure. You were small, and fragile, and uncertain. And it was a small thing, just a small thing, but I knew that many such small things will happen, where the bottom falls out and you’ll be unsure how to put the next foot forward. And I also knew that big things will also happen, where the air will be sucked out from a room and you’ll feel like you’re walking in a world upside down.

And I knew–I know–I can’t stop these things. I can’t stop small things, I can’t stop big things. I can’t even be sure that I will be able to guide you through these small things, these big things. Heaven knows I need help myself, to walk through an unsteady world without tripping, without falling flat.

So on this day, this day of 6 years of you with me, 6 years of Ezra, strong and sure, I ended up just wanting to tell you one thing. I wanted to tell you that I can’t keep you safe. I can’t keep you whole, and unbroken. I can’t keep your world from shattering, for 15 minutes or for 15 years.

But an aunt of yours, an aunt who knows you to be strong and sure, who loves you as strong and sure, she showed me something. And I want you to know it, too. So as you turn 6, even though you won’t get this yet, I’ll keep it safe for you. And I’ll read it to you, through the small things, through the big things, so you can know:

 “The grace of God means something like: Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are because the party wouldn’t have been complete without you. Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can ever separate us…” (Frederick Buechner)

 Don’t be afraid, Ezra, strong and sure. I’ll keep this safe for you. 

See How It’s Made

I told him ‘no’ probably 15 times.

No, Ezra, no. I don’t have the right materials. I don’t know how. I can’t! No, Ez. Sorry.

It’s to his credit that he, of course, wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. Of course, at the time, I wasn’t exactly applauding his persistence. I had other words for it.

Mom. We can. We can do it. We can totally make a guitar. Look, it’s right here in this book and all we gotta do is see how they did it and we can, too.

Make a guitar? Sorry, dude, you are talking to the wrong Mama. This Mama is not crafty, is not handy, is quite lazy–basically, you need an upgrade-Mama.

I think I even (forgive my homeschooling-soul) told him that he couldn’t do it. As in, ‘No, Ezra, you can’t make a guitar; guitar-making is for, like, professionals.’ Which, of course, is a load because ask his auntie and she’ll tell you that Ezra can pretty much do anything at all.

Which, of course, she’s right.

And so he kept at it. He scrounged for materials and came up with popsicle sticks and string that pinged and tacks and a stick to add strength. And, by golly, he made a guitar. And all three munchkins take turns being little punk rockers and jam out with this totally legit guitar made by my 5-almost-6 year old.

You’d think I would have learned my lesson when he next came to me with a rectangular piece of wood and said he was going to build a skateboard because he’s dying for a skateboard and all he needs is four wheels–do you have four wheels, Mama?

Ez! A skateboard! I can’t build a skateboard! That’s for professional skateboard-makers! We’re amateurs! I can barely keep our life together and you want me to build a skateboard! Ez!

Seriously. I was that emphatic.

I hadn’t learned my lesson so I did the next best thing to brushing him off completely and told him that skateboard-building belonged in the realm of Daddy’s expertise and he had to go ask him.

He came back. With a skateboard. That he’d practically whittled out of beach wood (sorry, I couldn’t resist) and actually had four little log wheels that truly rolled and he said, ‘Mom. Look!’ And I watched as he tried out his skateboard and attempted to pull an ollie and he was in heaven.

I told you I quit homeschooling him.

I guess I just forgot to tell him. Good thing, because as it turns out, he sure has a lot to teach me.

Communion

I have to confess that there is much I’ve never understood about Communion.

 

I think my confusion goes back many years, to sitting in a hushed sanctuary, watching as trays of minuscule wafers and miniature cups of grape juice were passed overhead. I remember experiencing Communion as a major downer. Communion meant 15 extra minutes of church–15 more squirmy minutes of sitting silent. Knowing I was meant to be thinking some sort of Deep Thought, falling short, falling short. And yet. Somehow, feeling strangely guilty.

 

Communion was quiet. Formal.

 

Boring–save for the momentary adrenaline rush of being passed the tray of full-to-the-brim grape juice cups, knowing that any second all could come crashing down in a shower of plastic and purple. Don’t breathe, steady, pass it to your sister, quickly now, before it’s all your fault and not hers. And of course, there was the time where she was the one bathed in Welch’s Grape Juice and the white skirt was never, never the same.

 

Embarrassing, but I’ll admit that as I got older, I didn’t necessarily resolve my confusion, or my relative dissatisfaction, with Communion. Granted, I definitely got better at the motions–specifically, I no longer fell asleep while meant to be silently reflecting and I stopped collecting all of the empty cups and tipping all of them upside down to coax the last drops of grape juice from their tiny troves. But.

 

I can’t say I felt like I was communing.

 

Communion, despite it sharing the roots of its name with such delightful words like commune (so granola! so kibbutz!), and communal (so unhygienic! so messy!), was a solitary, sanitary, sterile experience. Don’t get me wrong. I could fully get behind 5 minutes of silence in my life right now. To sit and be still with my Jesus, to just. Be. Quiet.

 

Yes. Yes, please.

 

And I love the inherent beauty of the word, and I love the history and the richness of the tradition. To think that as I accept the bread, the cup, I am but one of many through centuries and centuries of heads bowing, eyes closing. There is–yes, there is–communion in this age-old ritual of remembrance.

 

It has now been a long time since I’ve formally taken Communion. It’s been just as long since I’ve sat in a church that you could call sanitary, or hushed. Last week, though. Last week, I took part in Communion. I sat in a Mursi church, on a cow dung floor. I sat with my baby on my lap, my child leaning against my shoulder. I sat with two other kids, adorned in beads and little else, laying on my legs. I was sweating. It was crowded, I couldn’t stretch my legs out fully to relieve the tingles in my falling-asleep backside. The wind barely blows in Mursiland, the air finds its place and settles in. It was hot, under a tin roof. The floor was itching the backs of my legs. I had a sticky fly landing on me repeatedly.

 

I was uncomfortable.

 

And then they started to pass the warm Pepsi that plays its part as an African sacrament. They passed it in a gourd, and everyone’s lips sipped the same blessing. I watched and my mind started calculating–do I, or do I not, take this oh so communal Communion? I’m half way around the room, and that was pretty good odds, and my husband was before me, so here’s how I decided–if he took it, then I would, too. Because chances are good that I’d kiss him before the day’s end and so what’s the difference, really? And as you can see, I wasn’t really thinking about my Lord and His sacrifice for me, but I was, at least, thinking communally. And then the gourd came to me and it was the same adrenaline rush I remembered because Dex reached up to grab the gourd’s edge and Daisy shifted position and I was off-balance with thoughts of saliva and Pepsi and would we all get more blessing than we bargained for?

 

I sipped. And passed.

 

And then the bread came around; it was a loaf of Mursi bread, shaped by a community of hands and baked over a commune of stones. Gritty and heavy in my hands and there were thirty hands on this loaf of bread before it came to rest in my hands.

 

I broke. And passed.

 

And then the last of the Pepsi was sipped from the gourd and the bread broken for the last time. Communion, for me, had never been more communal. We all stood, together, and prayed, in a language I don’t understand. There’s so much I do not understand. Voices murmured an amen together, and one old lady started to sing, in a language I don’t understand. And feet started to stomp, and arms rose. Faces turned toward heaven, and bodies started to sway. There is so much I do not understand–but this. This, I did. My own feet stomped and my own hands came together and my own face turned up. And then I felt it.

 

The wind. The wind was blowing.

 

Then I knew, and I did understand. There was Communion in this place. And the wind blew to remind me, to remind me not to forget. To not forget when I break, and when I drink. To not forget when the wind blows. To not forget that life is unhygienic, and messy, and smelly, and uncomfortable. Life is, in fact,

 

Communion.

 

When the Chicken Crosses the Road

Today I was walking down to the river with the kids. Elsa and Daisy running ahead, Ezra, lingering behind. Dex, of course, gleefully hopping a ride on my hip.

Two chickens ran in front of me, across the road. And I literally said, “Hey Ezra, did you see those two chickens cross the road?”. And that seemed absurd to me and I was laughing out loud and Ezra had no clue why I was laughing and I didn’t know how to explain it to him. Somehow he’s gotten to nearly six years old and never heard a “why did the chicken cross the road?” joke.

Somehow, somewhere, there might be a point to this.

Or not.

Life borders the absurd on pretty much a daily basis around here. We’re now living in Makki with the naked Mursi. But, as it turns out, it’s the level of nakedness we are completely acclimated to and there are no unexpected appendages swinging about except on isolated occasions. Phew, dodged a bullet on that one. So I think I’m actually the only grown-up hanging full moons around here because the toilet in the house we’re staying in, for some inexplicable reason, was moved out to the screened-in veranda. And I haven’t made the effort to fully dissect the angle at which people outside may or may not be able to see me as I go about my business.

I told you, a little absurd, right? To not know for sure if you are or are not mooning your neighbors on a daily basis. And to not really care quite enough to figure out for sure what the exact degree of exposure might be. I mean, if you knew. You’d have to do something. But I’m embracing the absurdity of my life these days, and so. There you have it.

My house. My house is more than a little absurd. I don’t really see it anymore, a particular grace, I suppose. But I remember that the house is downright crazy every time someone new enters it and their eyes are drawn to the paintings blessing the walls of the house, left by the last occupants…an owl keeping watch over the living area, a colobus monkey sipping tea above the table. A giant chameleon rolling his eyes over the window box. A company of scorpions and beetles and snakes less expertly applied down low by small hands. The kids say, “Mom! There’s a monkey in the house!” And I cop a panic for a second and then smile at them and say, “No worries, guys, he brought his own tea,” and it’s our own little daily joke and we laugh and we giggle and we’re happy and we like our crazy house. We’re adding our own bits as well–remodeling, if you will, compliments of Ezra tossing balls at the ceiling and creating perfectly round holes in the termite-eaten ceiling, and whole wall panels falling apart to make an opening between the living area and the bedroom (again, thanks for that, Ez).

And then we step outside the crazy house and are dwarfed by trees towering overhead and monkeys leaping from branch to branch and stop for a second to listen to a forest alive. It hums and buzzes and whistles and sings. And bites and stings and swarms and itches. I’m quite sure that not only do I perceive our life as a little absurd, but we ourselves are seen as fully absurd as we dance and dodge the forest that comes after us and leaves her mark in multiple places.

It’s not long before we pass a group of ladies and girls, ear lobes stretched long with wooden discs, lower lips trailing down their chins. And they love Dex and scoop him up into their roughened hands, their arms molded strong by years of hauling and fetching and planting and gathering. They hold him high and look him over and chatter amongst themselves, poking at his diaper, stretching out his long, pale fingers. And suddenly, absurdly, I’m the object of their attention and they can’t be certain that I am the mother of this child because where are her breasts?! To be sure I can feed my baby every lady must check for herself and I’ve never been so on display and absurdly, it’s no big deal.

Absurdity. It’s no big deal.

I might be showing my palest side every morning and the house is falling down and downright ugly and the forest ravages us with all of her beauty and I’m getting groped by little old ladies looking out for Dex’s best interests. Absurd. It’s no big deal.

It’s just life. It’s just chickens, crossing the road.

Seven

Seven is so beautiful. Seven has eyes of green, of blue, of gray. Seven is stretched-out long.

Seven tries so hard to be brave. Seven worries that some times, brave might not be brave enough.

Seven thinks.

Seven talks. Seven talks and talks and talks.

Seven frets. Seven feels remorse. Seven knows how to say, “I’m sorry.” Seven needs to hear,”It’s okay.”

Seven longs to be old. Seven wants to stay young.

Seven never lies. Seven sometimes tells too much truth.

Seven knows that zero, three, and five all come before seven.

Seven hangs her heart on every smile. Seven grows with every ‘I love you.’

Seven needs. So much. Seven gives. So much.

Seven is loud. Seven is joy. Seven is energy and movement and falling and getting up again. Seven is grace.

Seven is good. Seven is happy.

Happy birthday, Seven. Happy birthday.

Broken and Heavy

I thought I’d try to be funny when I wrote about Daisy breaking her arm yesterday. You know–getting a broken arm set in Africa…it takes 11 hours, there are roaches on the medical equipment in the ER, the stretcher is missing a wheel.

 

But yesterday just wasn’t funny. It wasn’t. And as I laid down last night at 11:30 pm, Daisy finally in bed after nearly 12 hours of waiting with her radius cracked, her ulna fractured, I didn’t end up at a funny place. Thankful, yes–thankful that we were in Addis and not at Omo, thankful that I could get her to a doctor and I didn’t have to face a two day trip just to be able to do that. But I didn’t feel funny. Instead, I ended up feeling broken. And heavy.

 

I sat in that ER and I looked around and wanted to shake someone and scream, “Fix this! Fix her! You’re moving too slowly!”. And then they said we had to wait and so. We waited. And they moved us from the room to make space for a man being brought in who wouldn’t be brought out again. And the room was too small to hold all the sadness and the air wouldn’t move for all of the pain. And I sat in that ER and looked up and wanted to shake Someone and scream, “Fix it! Fix this! You’re moving too slowly!”.

 

Her little arm is broken and it will heal. But a room full of people’s whole world is broken and that. That will never heal. There’s no way, there’s no Earthly way. For the bottom to fall out and to still get up off the hard plastic chair and to walk out into the night. To get into the car and drive home to a house no longer so full, no longer so alive.

 

I woke up this morning and my arm is sore. And I know why it hurts and it is because I held my little girl most of yesterday. And then I was ashamed that I noticed my arm was sore because I have a friend whose calling in life has been to carry her little girl almost since the day she was born. She’s carried her from doctor to doctor and through hospital emergency rooms and operating rooms and therapy rooms. She’s carried her because her legs don’t work right and her eyes don’t see they way they were designed to see. And the other day, my friend, she just said simply, “She’s getting heavy.” And she’s not feeling sorry for herself, but just stating a fact. Her little girl is getting heavy.

 

My arm is sore but it won’t be for long. But my friend will continue to carry her little girl and her arms will not be given respite. And I look up and want to shake Someone again and scream, “You said. You said that the burden would be light.”

 

And all things shall be made new and cast all your cares.

 

For He cares. He cares for you.

 

We’re not selling ideas, we are living Truth. We’re not peddling hope, we are Hope. We’re not accepting what we see, we are Seeing what we can’t. And that. That brings the air back in and the sadness start to swirl. That. That lessens the soreness and gives strength back to the arms.

 

Fix it. Carry her.

 

I know You do.

Three

As you turn three, you won’t read this. I write it, still, for me. I write because three so quickly becomes four. And four becomes five and five, six. Six, seven. You, who like to count and skip numbers ’4′ and ’9′, even you, know this fact of life. I write because I want to freeze 2-turning-3, if only for a moment.

So that I can remember.

As you turn three, you won’t read this. I write it, still, for you. I write because one day–10, or 15, or even 20 years from now–you might subscribe to the belief that nobody really knows you, or gets you, or understands you. And, to tell you the ugly truth, days like that might really be the reality. Because you, you in all of your glorious personhood, are a mystery only fully understood by your Maker. But. Don’t believe the lie that nobody knows you, sweet girl, because here I sit, to write it down for you.

So that you can remember.

You are known. You are loved. You are known. You are loved.

I know why your hair, at three, is orange. Would you believe that people actually think I tried to get your hair to blare that obnoxious hue? I smile and laugh politely, but really. You’re three. Who would I be if I was highlighting my three year old’s hair? And really. If I actually was highlighting it, surely I would have been a little more successful than turning you into a pumpkin. Your hair is orange because at three, you swim everyday in the pool. And the pool water has an unbelievably high iron content. Hence. Orange hair. I’m quite partial to your orange hair. Especially after someone told me that you looked like a mini-punk rocker.

You are known. You are loved.

I know why, at three, you say that you are a boy, not a girl. Your grandma came back from America with a black and white polka-dotted tutu and a purple flared skirt and a pink shirt with pictures of lollipops on it. You refused it all and instead dug deep into the bag of your cousin’s hand-me-downs and emerged with a pair of 18 month grey sweats. Those sweats–they’re too short and so resemble capris, they’re too big for your tiny waist and so continually fall down–they are your favorites. You argue with vehemence with anyone who dares to suggest that you are, in fact, a girl. I have no problem with you spending a season as a boy. Because I know why. I know you adore your brother and that he and you, well, there are really no words for he and you. He hunts and you hunt and he rides and you want to ride and he dives and you dive, too. So, if he is a boy, so goes you.

You are known. You are loved.

I know why, at three, you have a little scar in the middle of your lower lip. I know because I was there when you took a tumble before you even learned to walk. You hit the metal frame of the couch hard, so hard. And I was too scared to look so I just scooped you up and ran over to your Grandma’s house so that she could look first. And a tooth had gone right through your lip, those little teeth that had barely shown themselves yet. You might not even notice that scar when you are 10, 15, 18–it’s so small and it’ll fade even more by the time you reach those ages. So go find a mirror and look at that lip closely. The scar will still remain. It’ll stay because it’s a part of you now, as a part of you as all of the other times you will fall, and get back up again.

You are known. You are loved.

I know why, at three, you grit your teeth. The first time I saw you do it, the day I brought Dex home, it scared me. I didn’t know what was going to come out of all that pure emotion and energy. And then, I soon found out I had nothing to be afraid of. You, sweet girl, love your little brother. And all of that love, well, you just don’t know what to do with it. So you bend down over him and grit your teeth hard and squeeze your fists together. And smile. At 3, you’ve already realized that sometimes, you can love someone so much it hurts a little. And there’s nothing to do but grit your teeth and hold on for dear life.

You are known. You are loved.

I know you like ‘Twinkle Twinkle’ before you go to sleep. I know you love Weetabix cereal best of all. I know you like shoes, any shoes, but most of all, the shoes that don’t actually belong to you. I know you stopped eating the crust on your toast and that drives your dad crazy. I know you rarely let Elsa mother you, but when you do, you thrill her. I know you can swim like a fish. I know you are tall, and skinny, and have a little pixie-face. I know your aunt wants to hold you in her hands forever because she doesn’t want you to slip away. I know you bite your little nails and have no intention of stopping, regardless of what I say. I know. I know you are loved.

When three becomes four, and four becomes fourteen before I can even blink or catch my breath, this is the gift I can give to you. No matter how I forget, or you forget–this, this we both know.

You are known. And you are loved.