When Kids Think You Aren't Listening...

Robbo and Austin are in the TV room playing XBox360 even as I type. They are playing the demo version of "The Bee Movie" game. Here's the conversation I just overheard:

Robbo: "Oh, so you've played this with Dad?"

Austin: "Yeah." (laughter)

Robbo: "What's wrong?"

Austin: "He always gets mashed in this part!"

Robbo: "So he's not very good?"

Austin: (more laughter) "Nope. He's terrible at this game!"

Good thing I haven't tried to play it... He'd laugh me off the couch!

Dora at Church?

I took Austin to the movies this morning. The local theater shows a Nick Jr. (Dora, Diego, Backyardigans, and the Wonder Pets) movie at 10am on Saturdays. So this morning, Austin and I went to see Dora. There were about 75 other preschoolers and parents there, too.

If you are not familiar with Dora and Diego episodes, they usually have some sort of mission/goal they are trying to accomplish. And along the way, they ask for your help... such as counting, finding objects, saying commands in Spanish, etc. After each request, there is a pause long enough to allow for a response.

Each time Dora would ask a question, several preschoolers would respond audibly. As the show went on, more and more joined in the chorus, until almost everyone was participating.

I couldn't help but wonder what church might be like if the congregation responded audibly to questions from the pastor or priest. Rather than just assuming the questions are rhetorical, individuals simply answered aloud. Something tells me it might be quite beneficial for all.

And definitely more interesting! ;-)

Sing with me now! "Doot doo doot, doot da Dora..."

After-Dark Conversation

After lights went out last night, Austin was lying in bed and I was lying on the floor in his room. Following a few moments of tossing and turning, Austin piped up:

"Mom, when is it going to be morning?"

"After our body has had a chance to get all the sleep it needs."

"Why did God make our bodies to sleep for so long?"

"I guess he knew that we needed lots of rest, so that we can have enough energy to play and have fun the next day."

"And run fast?"

"Yep. And to run fast."

"Mom?"

"Yes?"

"Then why are you so slow?"

The Chess Game of Politics

I came home after taking Austin to school today and crawled under the covers. Literally. Most of the time I sleep because I am exhausted from playing/chasing/correcting/teaching/holding/ feeding/entertaining Austin. Today I was hiding. I was excaping for just a little while.

It seems I am being played (albeit minor in the big scheme of things) as a pawn in the chess game known as youth sports politics. I won't go into details because in a while from now it won't matter much anyway. But the thought that hit me on the way home today was "Wow. I've been out of the politics game for a long time. I didn't realize how freeing that feels, how a definite lack of stress accompanies that privilege." I don't like being back.

Being in ministry for a lot of years, I've dealt with plenty of political situations. It's sad, but the church has more than it's share. Almost anyone who works outside the home, faces those situations in the workplace. What leads us to be less-than-honest with those whom we work, play, coach, live, and interact?

Sometimes, we tell ourselves it is in order to protect someone's feelings. But most of the time, politics enters the scene when there is something we want... power, position, prestige, etc. And the path of least resistence all-to-often leaves collateral damage in its wake.

I don't like being a pawn.

A Thankful Moments Weekend

It was a really fun weekend (even though my teams didn't win!). On Friday night, Robbo and I drove down to Hartford, CT, for the Baylor/UConn football game. We attended the Baylor pre-game buffet and rally, where I got to see several people I hadn't seen in probably 20 years! It was fun to reconnect.

At the game, we were among about 350 Baylor fans in the middle of a very large and very loud UConn crowd. It was a great game and lots of fun, even though the Bears came up short. Here's picture of Robbo with "Bruiser" - the Baylor mascot - during the game.

On Saturday, while the big boys were at flag football games, Austin and I went apple-picking up at Parlee Farms. We picked Honeycrisp, Fuji, and Gala... they are awesome! Austin loves the hayride that takes us out to the orchard.

Then on Sunday, everyone went to the Patriots game. We tailgated in the parking lot beforehand, then walked through Patriot Place on the way to the stadium. The best moment of the day was when Austin commented, "Man guys, this is so much fun!!" I'll post a family pic when I get it downloaded.

As you can imagine, the weekend was full of thankful moments for me...

That's the Deal

Austin and I were sitting on the couch one day last week. A thunderstorm - or "thunder-boomer," as Austin likes to call them - was beginning to roll through. We were playing a who-can-hear-the-thunder-first game. He was grinning and laughing, so I asked him, "You really like the thunder, don't you?"

"Yepper-doodle!" he exclaimed with excitement. The he became very serious. Lifting Blankie (his beloved blue flannel square) up, he announced, "Blankie likes only the lightning. He doesn't like the thunder. He gets really scared of the thunder."

We kept playing our game for a while, and before we new it, the storm had passed. But the Blankie comment reminded me of something. Some things just can't exist without the other. Thunder and lightning. Joy and pain. Mountaintops and valleys. Happiness and heartache.

I guess what I'm trying to say, is that I'm a lot like Blankie. I like being on the mountaintop. I like being happy. I don't like the valleys and the heartaches.

But life is like that, I guess.

The movie “Shadowlands” is about the life of C.S. Lewis. In the movie, Lewis falls in love with the American poet, Joy Gresham. Later they learn she has terminal cancer. There is scene where she and Lewis are talking her imminent death. C.S. Lewis says he can’t imagine life without her; he can’t imagine the pain of going on without her. She tells him, “The pain then (after she dies) is part of the happiness now... that's the deal.”

Later in the movie after her death, he is grieving. A friend asks him why take one should take the risk love if it hurts so much. Lewis responds:

“Why love if losing hurts so much? I have no answers any more. Only the life I've lived. Twice in that life I have been given the choice - as a boy and as a man. The boy chose safety the man chooses suffering. The pain now is part of the happiness then.... that’s the deal."

Thunder and lightning. Joy and pain. That's the deal.

Put Your Feet Up

You kick and kick and kick.
Yourself, of course.
How could you make
such a decision?
Why didn't you choose
to go back and give it another shot,
to carry your riding-on-fumes existence
back into the danger zone?
Why couldn't you have played it safe?
Or maybe just safer.
But give yourself some credit.
You did as you were told.
You didn't hang around
to tempt the beast.
That should count for something
a lot, actually...
You are alive.

But now you are living in a far away land
in the neighborhood of self-kicking,
waiting for some kind of word.
Any kind of word.
For that would be far better
than the darkness of the unknown.
All the while, the surge of regret pounds away
at your worn out heart.

Take your boots off and rest.
You can only make choices
with the information you have at the time.
Do you think you can predict
which way the wind will blow?
Can you forecast the path of a storm?

Come on over.
Put your feet up on the coffee table
(where they really belong)
and hear these words:

It is not your fault.
It is not your fault.
It is not your fault.

The Day I Chose to Stay

I still can't wrap my mind around it. Seven years later, and it's still unthinkable to me.

It's something that ties us all together. No matter to what degree we were affected by it, I doubt there is one person over the age of 18 who can't tell you where they were that morning when they heard the news. It's indelibly marked for all of us.

I was teaching at Germaine Lawrence at the time. I vividly remember walking the girls to gym class and hearing that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. Thinking it was probably a single engine plane that lost control, I used the few minutes of free time that I had to call Jeanna and Paulette back at Riverbend to see what, if anything, they knew of this event. Details were still sketchy at the time, although minute-by-minute a clearer picture was developing. By the time we got back to the dorm, the enormity of it all begin to come into focus. We spent the remainder of the school day trying to focus on classroom tasks, but the girls knew something horrible had happened and needed to begin processing it all. So we gathered them in the TV room and sat down to watch some of the coverage. I spent so much energy trying to help them process something that I had yet to grasp.

As I walked to the bus stop, the world was unusually quiet. No airplanes were in the skies, except for the occasional flyover by the fighter jets that had been scrambled to patrol. My fellow commuters waited quietly on the platforms and then sat in stunned silence on the subway trains. The bus to my neighborhood was detoured around the Westin hotel, because a majority of the bomb units in Boston were parked outside, checking the building since that is where it was discovered that two of the terrorists had stayed the previous night.

By the time I walked into my apartment, I was numb. I grabbed a Coke, turned on the television, and sat on the corner of my bed. The sadness had yet to hit; mostly it was still anxiousness and fear. But I vividly remember the bottomless sense of loneliness that crashed into my chest while I was sitting there. I was six weeks and 2100 miles away from my closest friends.... the people who I would have found comfort with, who would have tried together with me to make sense of it all, who would have reminded me that in the middle of it all, God's love was still there. They were in Austin. And I was sitting alone in a shoebox apartment, less than three miles from the runways where Flight 11 and 175 took off, a block down the street from where one of the terrorists worked for a cab company, and that very moment the world had shut down. I was lonely and I was scared. And I wanted to go home.

I am one of the fortunate ones who was not directly impacted by the death of a loved one that day. But that day still left its mark on me. For in the moments of loneliness and fear on Queensberry Street, I chose to stay. Somehow, God's peace broke through enough each of the following days to remind me that I was here for a reason. And seven years and a wonderful husband and two incredible boys later, I am more thankful than ever... that I stayed.

The Optimist

So Patriot fans everywhere are in mourning today, since it appears that Tom Brady is now out for the season...

Rob is "depressed."

Robbo thinks "they're finished."

But Austin? Well, chalk it up to youth, or naivety, or whatever. But our conversation this morning was priceless.

"Austin, remember how Tom Brady got hurt playing in the game
yesterday?"

"Yeah."

"Well, he's not going to be able to play anymore this year. Do you
think the Patriots can still win?"

"Yeah. There ARE other people on the team, Mom."

Ok. There you have it!

Red Leaf Ramblings

Yesterday, while we were riding bikes, Austin brought me a red leaf he found on the bush next to our driveway. Ah... Fall will soon be upon us!

I never know quite how to feel about Fall. I mean, it's a great season; but it's also a reminder of what's ahead (which in New England means cold, cold, and more cold, and snow, snow, and more snow!). And that can be a lot of fun, too - sledding, skiing, etc. But Fall has always seemed to be a "dying" kind of season. People I dearly love and miss, died in October - Mother and Yac included. So it's tied to some painful anniversaries. I don't know... there's both a heaviness and a majestic sense at the same time.

But let's be thankful today! Fall in New England means...

football

insanely brilliant colors of leaves

apple-picking (complete with hayrides, cider, and friends)

school routines

cool nights and gorgeous days

cross country meets

playground playdates

geese flying South

open windows

scurrying chipmunks in the driveway

school buses

pumpkin-picking and decorating

creative costumes

parties

pennant races

bike rides and hikes through the woods

Okay, I'm off to enjoy the moments!