Living Worship

 

*This is a reflection on Luke's and my participation in the Midnight Run.

 

As I sit here, alternating between my laptop and my smart phone, following a morning of serving food, care products, simple clothes, compassion and humanity to the homeless and the hungry of NYC, I am reminded of all the things I take for granted. All of the ways, that in spite of a fairly simple life, me and my little family are so blessed and so rich in comparison to a large percentage of the world’s population.

 

To prepare for this trip Luke and I had to rise at 3:30 a.m. I didn’t get a great night’s sleep. Whenever I have to get up that early I always worry about sleeping too soundly and missing my alarm going off—quite a luxury. To make sure that didn’t happen I set an actual alarm clock, as well as the alarms on both Jim’s phone and my phone. I slept for a full six hours in a warm bed near an open window, with BOTH of my children snuggled up in between us. It didn’t make for the best night’s sleep, but I got to choose what time I went to sleep, what time I got up, where I would sleep and (sort of!) who my companions would be.

 

On our way to the church we went through the McDonald’s drive thru and picked up a couple of breakfast sandwiches, a chocolate milk and a small Coke. Again—all wants, certainly not needs. Throughout the day we had nearly 10 different opportunities to eat and/or drink—with great, vast choices of what we to consume. I thought about how often it would have been possible for us to feel “overly” full--as if we had too much to eat. 

 

Other options afforded to us during the day included the choice of who would drive to NYC and who would ride with us, when and where we would stop to eat, whether or not we wanted to go sightseeing and again, when/where to go to sleep when we safely returned home (EARLY!).

 

All of those excess of riches--how spoiled we are in every day life--made me reflect on the people we had met and served. I really enjoyed the simple fellowship among them. They looked out for each other, with some taking others under their wings and walking them through the process. Some said "Make sure to take care of him. He’s “really” homeless," as if to say, "He's worse off than us so take better care of him." They did the same when a much older gentleman found his way to the line.

I was surprised by a woman with an immense knowledge of movies and actors. I had such a good time talking to her and I wondered where did she watch her movies? I never asked...I was worried it might offend her, but we did spend some time talking about female friendships. She asked me what I thought was "normal," and pondered some of the same things we all ponder from time to time.

 

I thought about the man who only wanted a tiny screwdriver to fix his glasses, which had been broken for several months. As someone who can't find my glasses if they're not on my face and who gets uncomfortable without them in the small amount of time it takes to take a shower, I couldn't imagine walking around the streets of NYC without being able to see and not having any idea when I would be able to take comfort in having my sight restored to me.

  

I loved how excited they were about getting choices—what size t-shirt did they want? Did they want ankle or tube socks? Many, many people we served commented on not being used to having choices and left with big smiles on their faces because of the simple offering of choice.

 

I thought about what a great experience it would have been if we had a basketball or soccer ball with us. Our tables were parked right in front of a fenced in basketball/wall ball court. It would have been nice for the kids that went with us and the young men we were serving to play a game of pickup.

 

And that's what I love about Trinity. It is Living Faith. It's not just wondering what would Jesus do, but doing it. That morning, even though we were not in a church anywhere, we were worshipping--on the streets of NYC.

To Luke, on Your 10th Birthday

It’s hard for me to believe that tomorrow you will be ten. In less time than you have already been here with us, you will be preparing to leave home—to step out into the world and become a man—to make a difference and live a life you love. But for now, I am thrilled that you are still my little boy who loves his "stuffies" and sleeps with them covering his bed, that every once in awhile you still sneak up into our bed and that when you are sick or scared you still want your mom. I know though, that I will barely blink and you will be headed off to college, to make your mark on the world. So, just in case I forget to tell you or we run out of time, these are some of the things I want you to know.

 

            As you enter the tween, and then teen years, choices will become more difficult. What’s right and wrong will not always be black and white, but a murkier shade of gray. You will start to realize that your parents (me!) are human, fallible and even flawed. That makes me sad, but in the end, I know that’s what will make it OK for you to make your own mistakes, accept yourself, learn from them and move on.

            Remember, as you face life’s struggles; know that God will always give you what you need. It may not be what you want. At times you may feel lower than low but, over time, you will be able to look back and see the things that were so hard for you and so hurtful to you may not even matter anymore. So remember—if it won’t matter five years (or five weeks!) from now it doesn’t matter now. If they do still matter, then that probably means you learned something from the situation. Think hard on what that is, consider what brought you to that place, apply what you learned and most important—MOVE ON!

            As you’re making your way in life, you will make mistakes, but none that are so big you can’t overcome them. A good rule of thumb is to never do something you wouldn’t want Grandma and Grandpa or your little sister to know about. If having them find out would be embarrassing, then you shouldn’t do it.

Most importantly, remember that Daddy and I will always be here for you, loving you, having your back. We are so blessed to have been chosen as your parents and so blessed for every single day and moment we get to spend with you. When you were a baby I used to sneak into your room every night after you went to sleep and watch you. When you were three I wondered if I would ever stop doing that, but I haven’t yet. You’ll never stop being my miracle.

            Know that you can do whatever you want—with determination and hard work, which you have never shied away from. Keep showing the world how amazing you are, and I will be more than happy to sit back and watch.

Romance is in the Heart of the Beholder

A friend of mine posed the question on Facebook, “What to get the hubby for Valentine’s Day?” My answer was somewhat less then romantic, but what passes for romantic these days is light years away from what it was when I met my husband sixteen years ago. We met cute at the hotel where he was working and I was staying (for weeks on end) as a business traveler. I thought he was too young for me (though he was actually four years older than me), we had an eight-hour long first date, we were engaged six weeks later and married two years later.

            Those two years were spent sending hundreds of e-mails over the distance that divided us while he finished college three hours away. I printed and saved every one of them, using some in a scrapbook I created for him as a wedding gift. We burned up the phone lines, visited as time and our school and work schedules allowed. Weekend visits found us spending whole days in bed, watching endless movies or taking day hikes and trips. I painstakingly drew a card for our one-year anniversary and spent an insane amount of time laboring over a hand-drawn replica of the first card he ever gave me to use as the cover of our wedding program. He was equally as adept at sweeping, romantic gestures—one time spending hours writing love notes on hundreds of mini Post-It notes and sticking them all over our obscenely-large entertainment center for me to find when I came home from work and having bouquets of flowers delivered to me at each of my wedding showers.

            Over the years some of those more obvious and elaborate gestures faded away, with barely a notice or a whimper. The occasional grand gesture, though fewer and farther between, seemed well worth the wait—especially while trying to wrangle with two little ones at home.

            Then, as the love affair of two settled into a family life of four, grand gestures were replaced by things that showed we were standing the test of time. He might spend a long, painful day rototilling the hardest ground ever to exist, so I could have the flower garden I wanted. I might spend hours scouring help wanted ads for him, trying to help him find a job he really loved after the school he was working at closed.

So when he jokes about the weird things I say I want for Valentine’s Day or Mother’s Day—like a stack full of magazines and the time to read them or a fountain soda brought home to surprise me after a really long and cranky day—I can only smile. To me that means he knows who I really am, what really makes me happy and what helps me get through the day. Romance evolves over time. I know he always has my back (and my favorite cupcakes) and that is the most romantic thing I can think of.

           

Overprotected

My parents always say that I complained a lot about how overprotective they were. I don't really remember this, but I suppose it's probably true. I remember one particular incident when I wanted to ride in car with a group of kids to visit my then-boyfriend at RIT—in a snowstorm. That discussion ended in a big argument and a big fat no. I also remember a particular evening, while home visiting from college, when I went out and drank way too much, arriving home after my curfew. I found my mother awake and hysterical. There had been an accident not far from our home and she thought it was me. I can't say I did a lot to cause them concern (that they knew about), but I did enough.


Irony is a funny thing, since I've gone from being the one who is overprotected to being the overprotector. I believe there are many reasons for this, including the wake-up call delivered by the events of 9/11 (it may sound naive, but that was the first time I ever really realized that people would hurt innocent others). Those events rocked me to my core and made me a little afraid of everything. Then there was the time we were visiting Lake Placid and Luke, age 3, went missing for close to 10 minutes. I will never forget that particular feeling. I could also blame my own overprotected childhood, my anxiety or how different the world really is.


I believe every generation feels this way to some extent, but for this generation of parents I really believe it to be true. The rapid proliferation and advancement of media and technology has taken old fears (predators, child sexual abuse, availability and ease of getting drugs, etc.) to new levels of concern. The world IS very different than if was even five or ten years ago—many previous generations didn’t have to worry about sexting, crystal meth, ecstasy, AIDS, online predators or what their child is tweeting about or posting on Facebook.


The development of personal safety items also plays into it. Car seats, bicycle helmets, e-mail monitoring systems, parental controls and the locked containers sold at pharmacies to protect your prescription medications remind us of just how dangerous the world can be. Over availability of information through social media and 24-hour news outlets also factor in heavily—a quick Google search warned me of the toxicity of chemicals in car seats, how pesticides may cause cancer, how the medications meant to treat depression may actually cause suicidal tendencies, how getting hit in the chest by a baseball can cause cardiac arrest, how the concussions caused by playing football can be deadly and how all of our bottles should be BPA-free.


The thought of trying to keep our children safe can become overwhelming—which brings me to what I think may be the biggest issue—we can’t keep them safe. In the book, Beautiful Boy, author and father of a former addict, David Sheff says “My children will live with or without me. It is a staggering realization as a parent, but one that ultimately frees us to let our children grow up. [We live in] a world of contradictions, wherein everything is gray and almost nothing is black and white. There is much good, but to enjoy the beauty, the love, one must bear the painful.” How hard that is to accept. I just hope that all along the way our children know how much we love them and that when we aim to protect them, it really comes from that place. God willing, some day they will be 42, with families of their own. At that point, I hope they will barely be able to remember how overprotective we were, and just remember the love.

My Short-Lived Career as a Stalker

An akward silence came from the other side of the shower curtain. Jim, the husband, had just asked what the kids and I had going that had me up and in the shower at 7:15. Don’t get me wrong—I bathe—but as a work at home mom, it’s usually not that early in the morning. I tend to sort of roll out of bed, plop down at the computer in my jammies for a few hours and then, shower before the kids and I head out for the day.


“Well, a few of us are meeting at Mary’s* house and then we’re…”

“Going stalking?” he questioned.

Damn—pegged again. “Yes.”

The stalking in question is really just heading down to the main street in our village to watch film actor Ryan Gosling “rob” our local bank—over and over and over again—and maybe catch a glimpse of Bradley Cooper.

In my defense, I have been a fan of Bradley Cooper’s ever since he played a lovelorn journalist opposite Jennifer Garner on my still-favorite, though no longer on, kick ass show Alias. And while I’m not a big Nicholas Sparks fan, as a female with a pulse, if you have ever seen The Notebook and witnessed *THE* kiss, it’s impossible not to be a fan of Ryan Gosling.

The fact that these two actors are in my town, filming scenes moments from my home—at the local bank, and the place where I get my soft serve and on the cross road between my house and the highway—has made me a little crazy.

Define crazy? Crazy is trolling Facebook even more frequently than I normally do to see if I can get some scoop on when and where shooting will happen …IM’ing back and forth with other moms like a 15-year-old passing notes in study hall…and taking detours past the current “hot set,” to see what I can see, nearly every time I leave my home. I even “liked” Gosling on Facebook so I could find out what he thinks of our little town.

Every time I circle around the filming location, I vow I won’t do it again—it takes up too much time, it’s usually out of my way and it just doesn’t make sense. What am I really going to see? And regardless of what I see, will it have any impact on the larger picture of my life?

I can’t keep doing this. Filming is going to go on for at least another month and I can’t keep being distracted this way. I have articles to write and photos to edit and kids to feed.  So I’ve given up my short-lived career as a stalker. Sometimes you just have to go cold turkey, and that's what I plan on doing.…at least until shooting starts again on Monday.

*Name has been changed to protect the somewhat innocent;-)

Running Outside of my Comfort Zone

Today ended as a total success. I crossed the finish line of the Boilermaker 15K Race, having run the whole way. But the real end of the race for me was finding my 5 comrades—the ladies I had been training with for the last four months. They had seen every drop of sweat, fielded every TMI question and looped back countless times to make sure I was safe AND supported.

One year earlier all of that would have seemed inconceivable to me. See I’m sort of a loner and had always considered running the perfect sport for me—alone with my thoughts, my goals, my successes and failures. In the summer of 2010 I finished my first couch to 5K program and continued running steadily, by myself, for close to 6 months. I finished my first 5K and then stopped—completely stopped. A long winter, with very little exercise had left me right back where I had started.

But then came the simple invitation, from a mom I knew through my son’s kindergarten class. “I'm inviting you because I know you run already, or I think/know you are planning to take up running & train for a 5K. If you're ambitious, train for the 15K with me! There are 165+ days until the race... PLENTY of time to get ready!” Again, my tendency was to under commit—I could do the 5K. But on some level I knew I needed something more—both on the road and in my life.


I knew most of the women on some level, though some I didn’t know at all, but I felt like I needed to go “all in”—something of a risk for this risk-aversive person. I was committing to be part of a team, per se—running 3 times per week, for at least the next 7 or 8 months. But more important than that, I was agreeing to show up, physically and mentally, to push others and accept them pushing me. To “show up” even when I didn’t feel like it.


And I got so much more—women to inspire and motivate me—women to make me laugh and support me in my goals—both running and otherwise. I began to relax into the relationships and realize these were women I could see dancing with at our kids’ weddings, and laughing with throughout all of the ins and outs of parenting that would get us there.


So here I honor the ladies—I would have never gotten here without each of you: Megan—the person who motivated us all to take this journey. Molly and Lauren—our own personal speed demons who give us something to work towards. Ashley and Mia who “aren’t runners” but kill it every time. And Jaime, to me the most fearless of all, less than six months out from baby G—still in the throes of nursing and sleepless nights—but always willing to head out for a run.


In the course of training, I realized that my unwillingness to commit in the past was more about me. I didn’t want to fail in front of other people. I didn’t want to make a commitment to give of myself. I didn’t feel like I could keep up. But I realized that I could. And that is a very sweet feeling.

How Does My Garden Grow? Not At All Really...

For Jim

This is not my garden...Two summers ago my husband Jim spent a very long day with a tiller, cutting through the earth in the back corner of our yard to create space for the garden I said I wanted—something beautiful for me to look at as I gazed out over the kiddie pool, the lawn toys and the climbing set. I had visions of gorgeous flowers, mirror balls, wind chimes and Adirondack chairs—where me and my neighbor Barb could sit and watch the kids in the pool, from the shade and chit-chat over tea, wine or the occasional frozen beverage.

Two years later, the “garden” has become a bit of an eyesore—difficult to plant because of its location in almost total shade, it is a brick-lined array of weeds, a few floundering Japanese maple bushes and a post with wind chimes and a birdhouse. I think it bothers Jim more than it bothers me, because I know some day it will be a garden.

What I’ve realized in the past two years is that gardening just isn’t enough of a priority for me. With two small children, a hopeful and burgeoning business, a new found love of running and a great new fancy camera to explore, the same draw just isn’t there.

One of my favorite quotes is “You cannot make everything a priority and enjoy a fulfilling life. Pick and choose carefully!” I’m not always good at following it, but I’m trying to make more of an effort.

I’d rather have weeds in my “garden,” than withering relations with my kids, my spouse or my friends. Right now it’s more important for me to work on my health than the health of my plants. And while the idea of gardening *seems* very relaxing when I think about it, the reality of the work involved just isn’t appealing to me anymore at this point in my life.

When Luke and Olivia, my two beautiful blossoms, grow up and away from the roots we are tending in them I may try my hand at it again—and I bet my garden will be beautiful. I have a feeling I’ll be doing the tilling myself though.