Letting Go

Jan 6th, 2012 by

In the Epiphany chapter of my book, I wrote, “My teddy bear still sits on my bed during the day.”

I told how I had gotten Teddy when I was two, how I had slept with this patchily fuzzy bear nearly every night of my life.

I told how Teddy came to grade-school sleepovers with me and to summer camp all the way through high school, how I took him with me to college and how, on my quarter abroad, he traveled around the British Isles crammed into my backpack.

I told how in my horrible first year out of college, Teddy was one of the few stable things in my life.

And I told how one day in April of that year, I sat in the lunchroom at one of the many offices at which I temped during those months. As I ate my soup and read from Richard Foster’s book Freedom of Simplicity, I came upon his suggestion that I, the reader, let go of the possession I held most dear. Not consider letting it go, but actually let it go.

Like a knife plunging down from Heaven, I suddenly had a terrifying sense that God was asking me to let go of Teddy. My stomach clenched into a knot. I burst into tears. I quickly gathered my things and fled the lunchroom in fear and humiliation.

I could not give Teddy up. I would not give Teddy up.

The thought of him sitting for months on a dusty shelf in a thrift shop with a bunch of cheap plastic toys and then being thrown in the garbage made me physically ill. And no one I knew had a child young enough to want a patchy old bear. I wasn’t sure such a child existed anyway — who besides me would love this tattered stuffed animal?

In the end, I gave him to my dear friend who was moving to Spain for a year. She understood what a huge gift he was. I couldn’t have given him to anyone who didn’t.

She brought him safely home, and for years – until this year, actually – he sat on my bed during the day.

He no longer sits there.

I’m not sure when or how it happened. All I know is that Jane began to play with him when we’d sit on my bed, me nursing a baby (sometimes two), her chattering to me, dancing Teddy around as she talked and sang.

She kept circling back to him, playing with him, cuddling him while I nursed the babies. One night, in February or maybe March, she asked me. “Mama, may I sleep with Teddy tonight? Please?”

I thought of those months of anxiety when I was 22, when I feared Teddy would languish in a thrift shop because no child would love him, patchy and falling-apart and slightly sad-looking, and I smiled at Jane, my heart brimming in my eyes. “Of course, sweetheart. I’d love for you to sleep with Teddy.”

She took him with her to bed that night, and every night since, her body curled over him and her tiger, Jojo.  She chose Teddy and Jojo as the “friends” she would take with her on our road trip. When she left Teddy in the car one night, she cried until Doug took her outside to get him.

“Mama,” Jane says when I’ve kissed her good night. “You can’t leave yet. Teddy wants to give you a hug.” She fumbles under her covers, untucking the blankets I’ve just tucked in, extricating Teddy from Jojo, who both lie squashed beneath her chest.

She holds him up to me. She moves his arms to squeeze my neck. “He loves you, Mama,” she says. “I love you, too.”

She pulls Teddy back to her chest, tucks him under the covers beside her, wraps her arm around him. “I love Teddy, Mama. I love him so much.”

I nod in the dark. I know. I know.

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A Parent Who Prays

Jan 3rd, 2012 by

A few months ago, after we’d gone to hear Eugene Peterson speak, my friend Susan posted her weekly quote from an author she’s been reading and pondering. Since we’d just heard Peterson speak, that week she posted a quote from his book, The Contemplative Pastor.

As I read the words on her blog, I thought of two things at once.

I thought of the domestic church, a phrase coined (I think) by the Catholics to point up the essential role of the family in the spiritual formation of children.

And I thought, Oh dear God, I’m the flipping pastor around here!

For better or for worse, Doug and I are our children’s pastors: we are to shepherd them, caring for their souls as well as their bodies; we are to point them toward Christ; and we are to guide their spiritual growth.

We can only do that if we are caring for our own souls, if we are pointed toward Christ ourselves, if we are growing in hope and faith and love.

Peterson’s words sparked my imagination and my desire. As I read him, my heart cried, yes!

Here are his words, with the word pastor replaced by the word parent, the word others replaced by the words my children:

What does it mean to be a parent? If no one asked me to do anything, what would I do?…

I can be a parent who prays.

I want to cultivate my relationship with God. I want all of life to be intimate – sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously – with the God who made, directs, and loves me. And I want to waken my children to the nature and centrality of prayer.

I want to be a parent… to whom my children can come without hesitation, without wondering if it is appropriate, to get direction in prayer and praying.

I want to do the original work of being in deepening conversation with the God who reveals himself to me and addresses me by name. I don’t want to dispense mimeographed handouts that describe God’s business; I want to witness out of my own experience. I don’t want to live as a parasite on the first-hand spiritual life of others, but to be personally involved with all my senses, tasting and seeing that the Lord is good.

I know it takes time to develop a life of prayer; set-aside, disciplined, deliberate time. It isn’t accomplished on the run, nor by offering prayers from a pulpit or at a hospital bedside. I know I can’t be busy and pray at the same time. I can be active and pray; I can work and pray; but I cannot be busy and pray. I cannot be inwardly rushed, distracted or dispersed.

In order to pray I have to be paying more attention to God than to what people are saying to me; to God than to my clamoring ego. Usually, for that to happen there must be a deliberate withdrawal from the noise of the day, a disciplined detachment from the insatiable self.

His words are my heart’s cry: I want to be a parent who prays, who has first-hand experience of a deepening spiritual life, who tastes and sees that the Lord is good, who gets away from the noise of the day and detaches herself from the demands of the insatiable self.

And as Peterson points out, such a life takes time – and time apart.

So I have decided that 2012 will be my year of prayer. I have been slowly growing in prayer these past years, but I want to grow more. I want to pray more often and more deeply and more intentionally.

I am not altogether sure what such a life would look like, but I’ve already begun to take small steps forward: my prayer window, the Jesus Prayer, gratitude. Now I’d like to take those steps further, and deeper.

It’s one thing to make that resolution. It’s quite another to put feet on it and take the steps. But I want this, which is half the battle. And I want it not just for my own sake, but for my children’s.

They’re looking at me to see how they should live. If I could tell them just one thing, I’d want it to be this: Live prayerfully; live a life rooted and grounded in God.

Saying those words isn’t nearly enough, though. I have to live them.

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Posted in Raising kids, Spiritual Life | 1 Comment »

The Chunnel Train (part two)

Dec 30th, 2011 by

On Tuesday, I invited you to consider joining me in memorizing 1 John in 2012.

By way of helping you discern what this commitment might look like, here are three things I’ve learned as I’ve worked my way through Ephesians.

First, knowing the words of Scripture by heart is crazy helpful in a crazy life. I don’t often (often? try ever) have time to sit down with my Bible and a cup of tea and leisurely ponder the Word of God. But when I have that Word memorized, I don’t have to have time to sit quietly and ponder. I can ponder when I’m making my bed or driving or on my morning run (ahem, assuming I actually take my morning run, but that’s a different story).

Memorization allows me to embrace the centuries-old Christian practice of lectio divina in the midst of my noisy, chaotic, crazy, kid-centered life. All I have to do is pick a few verses that I already know and start saying them over and over, listening for how they might speak to me here, now, again.

Second, you don’t have to have a lot of time (or even a lot of active brain cells) to memorize Scripture (or anything else, for that matter). You just need to create a habit of practicing. The best way I found to do this was to tie my memory work to everyday routines.

For the first few months, when I was still breast-feeding two babies eight times a day each (and oh am I glad those days are over), I did a lot of my memory work while breast-feeding. Now, I memorize or practice my new verses while I’m making the bed in the morning and rehearse older verses while I’m rocking the babies before their nap. Total time added to my day? Zero minutes – because I’m already doing those things anyway.

Third, the first chapter is the hardest. I struggled with Ephesians 1. It took me well over a month to memorize its 24 verses. My tongue kept tripping over the syntax, and I kept having to re-memorize the words from one day to the next. But after that it got easier.

Learning some key memorization tricks helped tremendously. (And I’ll be sure to share those with you from the get-go.) But also, I think my brain just got in the habit of memorizing. With chapter one, it was building all the necessary tracks, but after those tracks were laid down, I could just cruise along them. Like that Chunnel train after all.

And now that the tracks are laid and the words of Ephesians laid over them, I’m so glad I signed up for this memory marathon last December, even gladder that I kept slogging away, verse by verse, till I’d run the whole course. It’s been a rewarding run.

Perhaps you’d like to run the next race with me?

 

 

In mid-January, I’ll post the weekly memorization template for 1 John along with instructions for using it and some memorization best-practices. At that time, I’ll ask folks who want to run (or, in my case, walk) this race to email me, so I can encourage you on your way. In the meantime, please think, pray, ponder whether you’d like to join me.

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Posted in Spiritual Life | 7 Comments »

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