Where you tend a rose …
Where you tend a rose, a thistle cannot grow.
-Frances Hodgson Burnett, Secret Garden
The yard surrounding our 109-year-old house reminds me of the secret garden: each summer I find something new hidden beneath tangles of weeds or overgrown grass.
The first year, in the midst of waist-high weeds I found raspberries, gooseberry, and blueberry bushes (hooray!). A week of back-breaking weeding was worth it–we now enjoy sweetness by the handful. Last year, I discovered dahlias and a stone-border deep beneath layers of dirt and grass along the house. Long ago, someone must have carefully placed each of those stones and planted the flowers, but over the years neglect crept in and crowded it out. I dug out the dirt and uncovered the stones, clearing out the weeds so the dahlias could live. The first bright-red one just spread wide this week and showed its vibrant face.
Each year my yard-work reminds me: There is already something lovely underneath, I just need to clear away all the ugliness to find that hidden beauty. My kids, my heart, my life, when neglected, become a tangled mess. The heart-weeding of discipline clears out the junk so virtue can thrive.
But this year, I tackled a particularly pitiful space: A (dead) honeysuckle plant withered away on a large (ugly) archway, in front of a stretch of weeds and waist-high concrete where the dryer vent in the basement spits lint onto the dirt beneath. This time, there was nothing lovely to unearth. No rock border. No plants. Just dirt and weeds, lots of weeds.
So, I weeded. Weeded and weeded and weeded, trying to keep that (ugly) space free of weeds.
Then, it dawned on me: The key to this space isn’t to pull, it’s to plant.
Sometimes my parenting–and living–is lopsided. I discipline. Them and me. Pull those weeds of selfishness and laziness and disobedience. Weed, weed, weed. Pull those weeds. Consequences, consequences, consequences.
Perhaps though, we might have better results, if we weeded less and planted more?
The Secret Garden lines ran through my mind:
Where you tend a rose, a thistle cannot grow.
Discipline is indeed important, but even more so is training. A wise woman’s words came back to me again. Her six kids all growing up and following Jesus. She’d said it so simply:
“Discipline less, train more.”
Discipline is important, of course. Negative behavior brings negative consequences. But training is preemptive, if we’re diligent to train, much of that discipline doesn’t even need to happen!
Training is planting. Discipline is weeding. So often I feel like I spend my days running around weeding, constantly weeding. Oops there’s another weed! What if I planned ahead a teeny bit more, and planted. Planted seeds of training in my kids, little by little, every single day. Although it takes investment, and it’s still back-breaking work, and it still means getting your hands dirty, I’ll tell you:
Planting is a whole lot more fun than weeding.
Resolved: Weed less, plant more.
{May you plant joy, kindness, and love this week. Thanks for reading.}
Heidi’s Gold Shoes
Her first pair came Christmas 2010: gold sparkling metallic ballet slippers. She was not yet 2, but they quickly became her prized possession. She wore them every day and even to bed at night until they literally fell apart. Heidi has another pair now, and yesterday I noticed they too have achieved the well-worn beauty of that first precious pair. It reminded me of this:
“Yesterday, I pulled the gold shoes out of the laundry, damp and smashed flat, and I shaped them and propped them, as I always do, on top of the heating vent to await their next wear. But as I held them, fingering the worn toe, no longer gold but worn brownish black, the soles thin as socks from frequent use, I thought of how beautiful they were just like that.
Worn out.
Beautiful because my beloved girl has worn the life out of those shoes. She has delighted in them. From the moment her not-yet-two-year-old eyes beheld them they were her favorite pair. Worn to bed, to church, to play. In the mud and in the sand, on the sidewalk and on the carpet. Even in her bed.
She wore them out with love.
And I thought of something my pastor said a few months ago, when he attended the funeral of his 100-year-old grandmother. He stood above her lifeless shell and said,
“She wore that body out.”
She used it up, he said. She used up every ounce of her strength and energy, every earthly breath, in loving and serving, ministering and sharing, spreading the message, joy, and hope of our Risen Lord.
She used that body up.
And that reminded me of a funny quirk of mine that just then began to make sense. I love using things up. I don’t know why it gives this odd thrill, but I do. I love using that last drop of milk and tossing the carton, or squeezing out the last bit of toothpaste, squeezing that tube with all I have, or scraping the last bit of peanut butter out of the jar.
I love using things up.
To me, the sight of an empty jar, a worn-out gold slipper, even a lifeless shell of a faithful saint–these things are beautiful.
Because they gave it their all. They were used to the full.
There’s profound beauty in emptiness when it means it was used-up well.
All spent.
And isn’t that the goal of our life? Isn’t it to spend every ounce of our being, to get all used up for the glory of God, storing up treasures in heaven that one day we can enter into that which is truly life, and say,
Yes. It was worth it.
Worth getting holes in the toe. Worth thin soles. Worth getting tired.
Worth wearing out.
May we enter heaven’s gates in glorious exhaustion and hear, just maybe hear, the sweetest words we’ll ever know,
“Well done, good and faithful servant …
enter in to the joy of your master.”
Then maybe cast a crown and join all creation in praise to His name.
Maybe trade in those worn gold slippers to walk barefoot …
… on streets of gold.”
{May we wear out for Jesus’ sake. Have a blessed week! Thanks for reading.}
On baking bread and slow days
On slow days I bake bread.
Sometimes three loaves, if I know the pace is about to pick up or the afternoons are about to get hot. I only use my oven on cool, slow days.
Wednesday was my slow day. The last cool day on the forecast, the kids were happy to be home, and when I returned from exercise they were nowhere to be seen–lost in imagination, hidden in large cardboard boxes turned to transmogifiers and time-machines and secret hide-outs and space ships. There are 12 of these giant boxes currently on my back porch: I long ago gave up on strict tidiness. My kids’ creative inventions aren’t always cute, in fact, most often they’re eye-sores.
But I figure I have decades ahead for a tidy, cute house.
No doubt then I’ll ache with missing these cardboard-box days.
So I let them make believe, and I make bread.
My mom was a bread baker. A legendary one. A paleo-dieter would not have lasted long in her kitchen. Her crescent rolls–buttery, perfectly-puffed-up, slightly golden brown on top–were a staple at every holiday. She taught me how to feel the dough, the right warmth and elasticity. She taught me how to knead with quarter turns, sweeping flour slightly underneath, pushing the heels of my hands down and pulling up gently with my fingers to pull the dough over on itself–rhythmic. She showed me perfect bread isn’t as much science as art, and her recipes included lines like, “Add flour until the dough feels right.”
At lunch time, I call the littles and slice a loaf into sandwiches, heavily-loaded with chicken-salad. Their eyes light up: It’s their favorite lunch. We sit on the steps of the back-porch, surrounded by boxes, and silently savor our simple feast.
Later, while I’m wiping up crumbs, Dutch calls: “Mommy, will you come sit with me?” He’s on the front porch, perched on the wooden railing, feet dangling over the edge, above the flowers far below. I join him, carefully perched on the railing, my legs dangling beside his.
He is my nature-boy. He once remarked that the ocean was his best friend. Today he points out colors–the purple japanese maple, the light-green new-growth, the dark cedar branches, the “sunset orange” (his words) zinnias and white-magenta striped pansies. He thinks the pansies look like purple tigers.
“I’m so happy, mommy. This is my favorite thing. If only people could just be happy with what they have, the trees and flowers and bugs. Then we wouldn’t have so many problems.”
I smile at his philosophizing.
We stay there, on the porch, dangling legs, and I think of kneading dough: Think of how often parenting baffles me, until I slow down and put my hands on it and feel–then I know when it’s right. I think of gently forming loaves and lives and letting them rise slowly, on their own. I think of watching and waiting to see these rounds turn golden, almost ready.
So often I think I need a trip to the store and a parenting book.
More often I need a slow day to bake bread and dangle legs.
{Here’s to slow days. Happy Weekend! Thanks for reading.}
Finding a rhythm of rest {7 ways}
The kids recited, swaying their little bodies with the beat:
ONE, no gods before me!
TWO, no idols!
THREE, don’t take God’s name in vain!
FOUR, remember the Sabbath…
I smiled, thinking:
What exactly does it mean to remember the Sabbath?
A few quick thoughts:
- Originally the Sabbath was Saturday (the 7th day).
- Jesus rose on a Sunday (1st day of the week).
- The early New Testament church gathered on a Sundays, which was a work day. (Presumably they did this after work.)
- Traditionally in America we have observed Sunday as a sort of Christian-Sabbath, when businesses closed and attending church was the respectable thing to do.
And so we have this mix of Saturday and Sunday and worship and rest and strong opinions about businesses being open or closed. We think everyone should observe Sunday as a rest day … except for pastors and mothers (smile).
So what do we do? Thankfully, since Jesus doesn’t make a hard and fast rule, we don’t have to either. He said Sabbath was created for man, not man for the Sabbath (Mark 2:27). The idea of resting one day a week is for our good! Paul makes it clear we’re not to judge (or let others judge us) with regards to Sabbath days (Col 2:16). But it is still one of the ten commandments, so we’re wise not to ignore it, yet also not to be legalistic about it. Jesus fulfilled the law and we enter in to His rest by faith. We’re wise to reflect this gospel-rest by physically observing rest.
We’re wise to live within a rhythm of rest. For us this means Sunday mornings are spent worshipping God and serving His people, and Sunday afternoons are purely restful, playful, relaxing. No electronics or projects or shopping. Books, naps, runs (Jeff thinks running is restful–go figure!), and lots of imagination. This means we carve out another night of the week for Family Night, a restful, playful, fun time to connect in intentional ways.
Again, this isn’t about rules. Usually, if we follow the 1st commandment, the 4th commandment will work itself out.
Here’s what I mean: Usually the reason we don’t rest is because something is tweaked with the first commandment. Something’s up there next to God. And whatever it is (pride, people-pleasing, ambition) it is driving us on and away from a peaceful rhythm of rest. It’s pushing us to a frantic pace and leaving us with a vague guilty feeling that we “should” be doing more. When our first aim and highest goal is ensuring that Jesus Christ is on the ONE and only throne of our life, then He can call the shots and order our days. All of our days, not just the one where we rest.
Here are a few ideas to practice establishing a rhythm of rest for your family (Quotes from Richard Swenson’s book, Margin–excellent read!)
- Turn off all electronic mediums, just for one day.
- Practice Simplicity and Contentment: Richard Swenson says, “With fewer possessions, we do not have as many things to take care of. With a simpler wardrobe, our choice of what to wear each morning becomes less time-consuming. With a smaller estate, there will be less debt bondage to our work schedule. Everything we own owns us. We must maintain it, paint it, play with it, build space in our house to put it, and then work to pay it off. Perhaps if we had fewer things we might have more time… the amount of genuine leisure available in a society is generally in inverse proportion to the amount of labor-saving machinery it employs.” We don’t need more “time-saving” devices! 🙂
- Be Unavailable. We must have margin and boundaries. Create some.
- Think Long-Term. Consider the Tyrrany of the Urgent. It drains us of energy, time, and resources. Think long term and plan your life thoughtfully, according to long term plans. Yes, chaos happens. But a clear long-term focus helps us make clearer, wiser decisions in the midst.
- Get Less Done but do the Right Things. “All activities need to be assessed as to their spiritual authenticity…we must have God-centered criteria with which to judge all activities … our modern view of time is to compress it and milk it for every nanosecond of productivity we can get.” I always remind myself, God will allot me time for all the activities which He has ordained for me to do. Productivity is not the goal–fruitfulness is. Consider and perhaps cut back.
- Be available. Pastor Bruce Larson says, “It is possible that the most important things God has for me on any given day is not even on my agenda.” Have I created enough of a margin, white space, in my life, that when Divine interruptions come I am able to embrace them as God’s scheduled work for me?
- Give your kids what they really want: Your time. The best gift you can give your kids is time. Many families schedule their lives FULL of activities for the kids–classes, lessons, parties, trips, vacations, but what the kids really want is for parents to sit down, get out the Legos and just play. Or read. Or talk. Or have a tea-party. Kids just want our time, unhurried, with no agenda. I really believe that kids in America are absolutely starving for unstructured time with their parents. And yet it’s so hard, as parents, to lay aside the busyness and the “to dos” and sit with our kids in the grass and watch bugs. To play dress-up and enter-in to their world. Lord help me do more of that.
{Time to go play… Thanks for reading.}
*Originally shared July 8, 2013.