Unconformed

I hope I never have to live without the children close by. The transparency, the affection so freely given, the delight in simple things, the unconformed view of the world. I am so shaped by culture and convention; they are so not.

This week in Stehekin, visiting deep with dear friends, I got to spend some time with their grandchildren.

While we were eating meatloaf for dinner one night, Ray said, "Puh-uh [his name for his grandpa], is this Bobthebull? Did you shoot this bull?"

Getting ready to visit his other grandparents for Easter weekend, Ray said, "I am going to Eastertime! I am going to wear my tie-shirt."

As Ray doctored his grandpa with the stethoscope for the seventeenth or twenty-seventh time that afternoon, Mark said, "You are a good doctor, Ray." "Yes, I am," Ray replied. "Not everyone is a good doctor."

Checking his pockets one morning, Ray pulled out a dried up wad. "Oh, this is a blue tissue." Then, holding it out to me, "It doesn't have any snot on it."


Ray loves to pretend that he is Babar the elephant from the children's picture book series. He even has a special straight-legged stomping elephant walk when he is Babar. And his daddy is Pogular, Ray's variation on the name "Podular" in the Babar books. We were all on the boat together on Friday, and an acquaintance of Jake's was making conversation with him and then bent to Ray's level to address him. "And what is your name?" he asked.
"I am Babar," Ray answered.
The man straightened, obviously not quite sure what to think of the things people are naming their children these days. Jake read his face. "What name did he tell you?" Jake asked.
Ray cut into the conversation, sweeping his arm towards his dad. "And this is Pogular," he added.

McKenna is popping out with new words and delighting in the ability to interact. She loves to read books, make animal sounds, and eat anything within reach.

Ellie, only five weeks, sleeps. She's still short enough and oblivious enough to sleep lying on Mama's legs during meals, conversations, travels. When she is awake her eyes struggle to focus, and her needs are simple and urgent.

Ray came to give me a hug goodbye in the Field's Point parking lot. His parents, carrying his sisters, also bid me farewell and as I looked into their eyes, I delighted to see their joy in the crazy, wonderful stage of life they are in.

He will keep your life

The call to worship on Sunday was Psalm 34, and as we all read the words aloud together, I was taken back to a bottom bunk bed late on a Tuesday night in Berlin, just two nights before I left. Claire could not go to sleep, and when she appeared in my doorway again at 10:15, I went in to lay with her for a while. Instead of snuggling in, she rolled over on her tummy and propped up her chin in her hands, smiling at me in the dark. Then her face sobered. "Why do you have to leave?" she asked. "I wish you could just stay here." So we made imaginary plans to fly back and forth to visit each other every day, and she was happy again. We were quiet for a while, and I asked if she'd like to say Psalm 34 together, a Psalm we'd both learned in the months I'd been in Berlin.

I will extol the Lord at all times, his praise will always be on my lips.
My soul will boast in the Lord; let the afflicted hear and rejoice.
Glorify the Lord with me; let us exalt his name together.
I sought the Lord and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears.
Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame.
This poor man called and the Lord heard him; he saved him out of all his troubles.
The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and he delivers them.

Sometimes I knew the next verse and prompted her; other times I paused to search for the next phrase and Claire barreled ahead, jogging my memory. The whispered words slipped off our tongues into the dark room, Lilah sleep-breathing above us. "Did you learn this when you were a kid too?" Claire asked, assuming that surely at twenty-eight I wouldn't still be memorizing the same Psalms she was learning at five.

And at the close of our service this past Sunday, Luke blessed us with a benediction from Psalm 121, a psalm Lilah and I had memorized together.

The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life.
The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forever more. 

I could see Lilah's little hands, cupping to copy the picture that went with the verse, and hear her interrupting our recitation to say, "God's doing this, Julie, God's doing this to us!"

And I had a sense that God was, indeed, doing this to me, bookending the church service with these rich Psalms, surrounding me with love from one side of the world to the other, keeping watch over my comings and goings, encamping around me from the beginning to the very end.

Home

The soaking, nourishing, greening rain has hardly let up since my plane landed in Seattle late last Thursday night. There have been a few pale sunbreaks, but last night the rain transitioned to snow, icing trees and rooflines with a wet inch or two of wintery white. It's a noticeable shift from the almost constant sunshine in Berlin the past few weeks.

Thursday nine hours were added to my day by virtue of my long trek west, and they were not easy hours. They were preceded by a shallow night of sleep, a last farewell text from a Berlin friend waking me at 10:40 and the girls up and playing at 5:00. Heather and I were sober as we got ourselves and the children ready for the day, the moment of goodbye overshadowing the routine duties. My composure broke as I knelt in the hall to receive a fierce hug from Claire, who hadn't wanted to say goodbye (perhaps thinking we could thus avoid the parting). Lilah petted us as we hugged, and then gave me a merry squeeze before dashing back to the playroom. Cole sucked his fingers complacently, taking them out only to say, "Toyer [cereal], toyer, eat, eat!" I hugged Mark on the sidewalk outside their house after he loaded my suitcases into the trunk, and Heather on the busy curb at the Tegel airport, the last in a long string of goodbyes. I felt both that my cup was overflowing (how to begin naming all that I have to be grateful for?) and that I was being emptied, a part of me left behind.

The demands of travel soon distracted me from lofty thoughts on life and love and the nature of home: from the agent at the check-in desk who greeted me with, "You don't have a ticket on this flight!" to my rolling suitcase handle which broke as I pushed away from the check-in counter to stand in line at the ticket counter; from the border police in Zurich who informed me I had overstayed my allotment of days in the European Union to the agent in Chicago who told me that although my plane was still sitting at the gate it was too late for me to board; from the $12 pay phone call to let Mom and Dad know I'd be arriving in Seattle four hours late to my checked suitcase taking a detour through San Fransisco, it was not a day that went according to my plans.

I won't say I was without disappointment and frustration, but with each layer of the day that unfolded, God gently asked me if I could also trust him with this. If I believed that I had a right to ease and convenience, or if I could be grateful, humble, content with a broken suitcase, a large penalty fee, four extra hours in the airport.  If I could have eyes to see and be grateful for kind airport employees, an empty seat beside me on all three legs of my journey, blank paper and ink to help me process the day and the transition, and a welcome home crew of three, eager and waiting at Seatac at ten past midnight when my travels finally ended.

The days since then, shadowed as they are by goodbyes and transition, offer much to delight in: eager chats with my family to share the details of the lives we've been living and fresh insights from God; impromptu juggling performances by John; kitchen camaraderie with Mom; Lucy's "Mama, I find Aunt Jewey!" and her whole-body squiggly hugs; Peter's glowing eyes and conspiratorial smile as he asks, "Should we read this book, Aunt Julie?"; a phone call offering me a place as an intern with Sacred Road Ministries on the Yakama Indian Reservation this summer.

Where is home? Where God abides, from Berlin to Fall City to White Swan, there is the rest and familiarity and comfort, the beauty, the intimate relationship that define a home. A routine of praying without ceasing and living a life of love knows no upset with the crossing of time zones or the changing of jobs. Goodbyes between those who love the Father become Auf Wiedersehen -- until we see each other again.

Peter watching the landscapers work in Papa and Nana's yard

Lucy, pleased with Nana's glasses and her own fashion sense

 

If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. 

My Father will love him, 

and we will come to him and make our 

home

with him.

John 15:23