It’s your eighth Father’s Day and we are closing in on our 16th year of life together.

(Photo courtesy of Eye For It Photography)

Funny thing when you get married when you are barely out of high school, you don’t talk too much about whether/when/how many kids you want. I wasn’t one of those women who always wanted to be a wife and mother and you weren’t one of those men who always wanted to be a husband and a father. Both of us were just barely out of our we never want to have kids cynical teen years so I guess we believed we would figure it out as we went along, if we thought about it at all. When I hear how people thought about what kind of a parent their partner would be as a part of the decision-making process before they joined their lives together, I can’t relate.

So all this to say, as I said when I hugged you this morning, I love our chaos Aaron and I love you even more than I did fifteen years ago - but I sure didn’t see it coming.

I didn’t think to think about whether you would be open to parenting much differently than I am sure either of us would have guessed. I didn’t imagine about whether you would watch me birth our babies in our own home. I didn’t wonder about whether you would support them in their own journey, not yours.

I didn’t ask whether you would take them on special outings and teach them how to cook and build things and how to climb mountains.

I wouldn’t have wanted to think about whether you would put down boundaries, boundaries you never would have imagined having to put down, because you put us first.

I didn’t know you would work this hard, at work and at home, yet still have time to be funny and play lego and coach soccer and make crafts at the kitchen table.

I didn’t worry if you would still love me as motherhood and life changed me and my beliefs. If I thought of anything it was that our love was strong and our desire to live out the journey of this life together was firm and that you believe in a God of love and grace and forgiveness. And darling, as far as you being a father is concerned, I was too young to know it - but that was all I needed to know.

Last year I wrote about Aaron on Father’s Day too

1. Reading Harry Potter with my oldest. I read and enjoyed these books on my own but am so enjoying rereading the adventures out loud and experiencing them alongside his wonder and excitement. Reading them out loud with the knowledge of the whole series plot is making me appreciate how Rowling weaved such beauty into the characters relationships from the very beginning. Also how creative she was to set the plan for the whole series from the very beginning. We finished the Philosopher’s Stone and are starting in on The Chamber of Secrets. We won’t read all the books yet as he just turned eight but I am thinking the first three are okay for his age.

2. Watching Call the Midwife. This is a BBC drama based on a book series by Jennifer Worth about midwifery care in London in the 1950′s. I watched season one when it aired on PBS last year and snuck ahead on season two when it aired in Britain. It is currently showing on PBS and was so good I’m watching again. The writing is wise, the dialogue has me writing down quotes and the characters are so real and relatable.

3. Expanding on my tea snobbery. This David’s Organic Breakfast has lifted me to a whole new level. A friend gifted me some for Christmas and it has been in my morning rotation ever since. It is the perfect black tea and it really makes the never-ending winter we are having here a bit more bearable in the mornings.

4. This recipe for roasted broccoli is so good. We have been eating it a lot.

5. I have started knitting after many years of wanting to learn and learning very little then quitting. My daughter should actually have a scarf by the end of the week!

6. I have stopped going on Facebook. I haven’t quit altogether as there are a few groups I volunteer with that manage things on there but unless I have to add something to those groups I haven’t logged on in over three weeks. I cannot express all the ways this has made my life better. Facebook when you quit logging in starts sending you e-mails (different from notifications, which I haven’t received any of for a long time.) They say things like you missed a top story: so and so commented on so and so’s status. I am sure this is to make me want to log in again but ironically every time I get one I just feel more happy I don’t actually know what so and so’s status says. The introvert in me feels so freed and peaceful I don’t know why it took me so long to cut back.

7. My baby is growing up. I have photo evidence. This day she fell down running to me in excitement in her rubber boots in a gravely area. She skinned her arms, elbows, knees, hands, one knee quite badly. A big kid injury.  See how big kid her face is looking? (List this under bittersweet.)

I’d love to hear some of your sweet things too.

Easter Sunday I walked barefoot on the beach. I thought I might miss my own church, my family there; and I did on Good Friday. But Easter Sunday we woke up early and drove to the beach for worship just after sunrise. The girls were wearing sundresses and I sat on a picnic blanket and listened to my dad preach. The sun shone on the water and the air was crisp. It was quiet and it was holy and it was just the celebration I needed.

Cousins

I thought about all the time Jesus spent by the water. I felt the hope he brings, I felt him right there with us, in the midst of all of this life. The hardness, the joy, the sadness, the wonder, the darkness. How he lived it all.

I watched as my dad graced lake water onto my nephews forehead and marked him with the sign of the cross. I confess I usually tear up during baptisms, the holy mystery of it thrills me to the core and the beauty of it shakes me. But on this Easter, watching my nephew I laughed.

Because what Easter showed me this year is love does win. It reminded me that how that happens can be messy and sad and unpredictable along the way. Most certainly the journey will involve broken, flawed, needy people. Most certainly it will involve the same people who also are loving and caring and growing. People who are both. Reminded me of just how crazy and surprising it was that God come down to live among all of us – dying and rising to love us all. And I felt that love and laughed.

Occasionally waterfalls travel down the grey rock, melding with the ice and dirt. I want to stop and rinse my face in one, feel the water coat my hands, cup them, fill them. Lift it to my face. I want to stand under the water until I am saturated.

Saturday I plant vines. Dirt cakes my nails and I think of water turned to wine and words written in earth and how these hundreds of brown sticks we are planting look dead.

With my toddlers hand on my thigh and dirt under her nails too, I think about the mystery of shoots unfurling, green leaves filling out and the thousands of pounds of grapes that will be harvested from this barren looking field.

I think about a lot of mysteries. I think about how beautiful things come from dust.

It’s true she has the softest skin of any grownup I’ve known, it rivals my own babies when they were brand new. I’m sitting beside her on the other side, just like my son, feeling her soft skin caress mine. This is the first visit I see she is getting really old. She is stunning and always has been, her amber brown eyes the same colour as my Raine’s still sparkle, and her clothes fashionable for her age, but her walk is unsteady, we’ve only been here an hour and I can see the fatigue already setting in; she is too thin.

I love my grandmother with a blind passion. Perhaps it’s because she is fiercely loyal and unbelievably strong. It’s obvious she is from a different generation, she holds a quiet, almost regal determination and confidence that is rarely seen anymore. She has been through tragedies more than enough for several lifetimes. Her stories are the kind that are worth telling and worth hearing. Her stories are the kind that break your soul with one breath and heal it with the next. She radiates joy, she loves God and her faith. She has taught me much and only rarely did she need to use words. She is a wise woman.

I long to tell many of her stories. Her stories could fill a book.

Today I’m telling a rather simple story from this hot summer day. This day, when Liam was on her one side and I was on the other. When we were soaking her in, not knowing when we would see her next. And she was talking about God, because of course she was. A psalm was coming from her mouth, I wish I could remember which one. But it was a lament and she was speaking of comfort. She was speaking of how many laments there are in the psalms. Then she changed her topic and my life abruptly by saying ‘But look at King David and all the terrible things he did. Yet God loved him. Sometimes I think Leah, all those terrible things people did are in the bible, not because God wanted them to but because God will stop at nothing to show us that he loves us even though we do terrible things.’

How could she know her granddaughter’s faith was broken, waiting to be either discarded or made new? How could she know I needed to hear confirmation of a loving God and how parts of the bible were not confirming that for me? How could she know she had just given me a priceless gift, one that meant so much coming from her, who loves her traditional theology, yet harbored endless grace in her words. This is a woman whose soft skin reflects her callous free heart.

My grandmother, one of my spiritual matriarchs, she helped birthed newness in me through the gift of her wisdom that day.

Linking up with Sarah Bessey for a Syncroblog on Spiritual Midwives and Patron Saints (and I’m humbly adding my own title of Spiritual Matriarchs) for International Women’s Day. And while I have many women in my life who deserve recognition this day, for just this year I am choosing to honour my grandmother and her small but fiercely loyal ways and how they have impacted. Perhaps because she is so traditional and does not call out to be noticed, but loves in the small, faithful ways. I’m celebrating the gift of seeing pure grace, strength and wisdom. All found in someone with the softest skin.

Soulbreak – it happens all the time – really it’s practically as commonplace as it is life shattering – through parents fighting or leaving or worse as children, through peers laughing or ignoring as teens.  Through the first boy or girl who we gave a little bit more of ourselves to, then we ended up having to dumpster dive that precious piece  from the garbage, stinky and bruised.  Through loss of a loved one (through death or sometimes worse they aren’t physically dead but they are lost to you anyway).  Through addiction, selfishness, ignorance, greed, pride and many, many other ways we break our souls and our souls are broken.

My soul is what gets angry and asks God lots of hard questions because so much of this life  just – does – not – make – any – sense. My soul wants the freedom to wail and rock my body with abandon. To clothe myself in dirty rags and feel the gritty, greasy ashes I’ve scattered over myself coat my palms as I tear at my hair. Worship through my wordless broken lament.

Souls are strong.  It takes a lot to break one all the way through.  Despite all odds we get up in the morning and just – keep – on – going.  To have souls like this shows we are made in His image because we long for meaning in life, even when we should feel too crushed to continue.

Souls can see glimpses of beauty and joy,  peace and wholeness on the most unsuspecting of days.

So here I am, as a Christian, a woman, reading about privilege and living as a part of the church.  I try to follow Jesus and sometimes even remember to pray that I don’t suck at it, and am thankful these conversations are happening.

The discussion of privilege is one the church needs to have. We need to keep on having it. We shouldn’t stop having it. We have come a way, but we still have a long way still to go in terms of equality. Not only for women, but for children, for the elderly, for single parents, for those who have mental illness, for people of different races and cultures, for people who live in different counties that we may never meet, for people of different economic standing than our own, for people of different sexual orientations, for people of different faiths, for people who have been abused, for people who have physical disabilities, for those I am overlooking including on this list due to my own privilege and bias. I still have a long way to go.

Oh glory would be the day when as a church that the church would be a consistent leader in recognizing our own privilege and working to end dehumanization in the world. Instead of the more common dragging our feet that we do treat people equally or even worse, arguing that we don’t have to treat people equally. Glory would be the day that the church would instead be a leader in seeking forgiveness and reconciliation for the past and current wrongs. I pray that day comes.

Are you a mama or a daddy? If so, there it is for you too, look for it, you’re growing, right in front of you. This parenting gig it shapes us, it molds us, it grows us. If we let it, I’m convinced it is one of the easiest ways to serve and love others and let those little scales of selfishness fall, one at a time. Parenting can help us burst into full bloom one day, even if right now we only see our little green buds starting to peek out among a whole bunch of winter bare branches.

Two nights ago my husband discovered watching home videos with the kids. (Why we haven’t done this before I’m not sure.) I came home and my two year old said ‘I saw me born in swimming pool mama, I saw you holding me in da kitchen.’ And thus they were hooked.

I promised them more tonight and it was Liam’s turn, my firstborn. I am there in very early labour sitting at the island in our Saskatchewan house, a whole lifetime and three houses ago, after my water had broken. Aaron and I are excited. There is hospital footage of early arrival, I’m still upbeat, then fast forward many, many hours and a swollen, tear-faced me trying to get some sleep post epidural. Then boom, I’m holding Liam all happy and we have a room full of family. They have driven from another province (and several different cities) once they heard I was at the hospital to get there, spent a night at our (empty) house and come the following evening to wait at the hospital for this new babe to be born.

It’s the beautiful hour right after he has been born and his bottomless navy blue eyes that remind me of twilight are wide open and instead of holding him skin to skin, and staring in his beautiful face, or nursing him, I am busy with a room full of company. I don’t think of asking anyone to leave or of holding him closer, I’m so overwhelmed by labour and relieved it is over. Then next scene is several more hours later and he is getting his first bath before we are moved to our room as per hospital policy. I’m sitting in a wheelchair in the empty nursery while Liam screams his head off, arms in the full startle position shaking the whole time, while a nurse and Aaron try to gently bathe him, too woozy myself to stand.

(This picture makes me feel so sad.)

My kids are mortified. ‘Why he crying mama?’ Haven (two years old) repeatedly asks in a panicked voice. Raine who is five asks where I am (holding the camera) and why aren’t I stopping them. Liam says ‘Being born in a hospital is harder because they are rougher.’ I can hardly watch. I want to reach out through that screen and back in time and pick up my baby and say, no bath thank you, just take us to our room so we can snuggle.

But I can’t. I didn’t have it then, this compassion, this level of wanting wellbeing for babies and now other humans in general. It was being a mother that did it. Thank goodness it is slowly stripping my selfishness and starting to layer on the caring when someone is crying, the tenderness, the gentleness. The desire for wellbeing.

My kids are obviously worried (frankly my two year old is distressed) and sad about this frantic newborn and want to know ‘Why is no one helping?’ So I gather them on my lap and hold them close. I tell them. I tell them that no one told me that new babies aren’t supposed to cry. No one told me that new babies like to be held on their mama or daddies chests. No one told me that babies like it best quiet after they are born. No one told me I didn’t have to do what the nurses said. I tell Liam I am sorry and I wish I would have known. But you do know. So you don’t have to give your new babies baths. You can hold them close and quiet. You do know different.

And there it is – the green peeking through. Because just seven years ago I didn’t know. But they do, their little two and five and seven year old souls. Even though I just told them out loud with words, they already knew because this is how we try to love them.

The next scene shows Liam all swaddled, but he is snuggled in with Aaron. All the family has left and driven back to their own province and their own cities and we are blissfully alone. Finally I am holding Liam just in a diaper, on my chest covered by a blanket, all snuggled in bed. Still no one told me, but it just felt right. Raine says ‘That’s what babies like mama.’ Yes darling, that is what babies like.

Living and breathing right in front of me is the growth.

(Artwork by Katie Daisy available at her etsy store. A favourite sample from my present pinterest board.)

So I hugged and kissed my kiddos, I swam in the pool, I nursed my last baby and I swung under the stars and I tried to really be in the moment even when things felt overwhelming. I had dates with Aaron, we listened to each other, he rubbed my feet and we swung under the stars too. I went swimming and skiing and running. I grew a garden. I talked with kindred spirits and read books and made things and started this blog. Trying to appreciate just what I was doing at the time.

Present had a dual meaning for me from the beginning; to be more present myself yes, try to avoid being over cerebral and just dwelling instead in the joy of life. But also the idea of a gift, a present. I felt God holding 2012 out to me, not like something to be conquered or overdone but just to be unwrapped, discovered, enjoyed.

Near the end, I started to rediscover the present of God’s presence. Perhaps the most soul healing part of 2012 for me after a few years of faith changes. In 2013 I will continue to seek that out the presence. And I will carry forward being present, while moving forward and drawing in something else as well.

So I stole away to my quiet corner, and am writing some words here to say we did have a very ordinary Christmas. There was a house full, messes everywhere, kids fighting. We played games, pushed boundaries, made meals, offered and accepted forgiveness. We went skiing, swimming and sledding. There was little relaxation, but much worship, laughter and love.

Tomorrow all my family will leave. We won’t be refreshed or rejuvenated (in fact we are all quite tired and worn out). But I am thankful. For people who you want to be healthy and whole and in relationship with even when it isn’t always easy or convenient. For reconnection with family who lives too far away. For a Christmas that isn’t filled only with peace and feasting, but instead pushed me, grew me, yes, even inconvenienced me. Maybe just how Christmas should be.