New Loves

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woollen mittens...
- The Sound of Music

J's new faves:

• Spelling! One of his favourite shows right now is Wordworld.
  
• Counting. Up to 100. And down to his birthday.
  
• Rockets, planets and outer space. J has gone through the whole gamut of boy things like trains, race cars, dinosaurs and has now entered outer space. Sample of recent questions and statements: How come Saturn has rings? Holes on the moons are craters (although he said something that sounded like kay-ers, which led to some confusion). Crayons and bottles turn into rocket ships that take off from Mars in his hands. Good thing he has a Dad who was just as fascinated by outer space as a kid.
  
• Cooking. J and E fight for the honour of pouring pasta into the pot. And few things make their day like baking and decorating cupcakes.

E's new faves:

• Dancing and singing. E breaks into song all the time, although right now she's usually the only one who understands what she's singing. Mom gets it once in a while.
  
• Being the centre of attention. E's class at school does this song where each child gets a chance to do a trick in front of everyone; she loves it so much we do re-enactments at home almost everyday. E's turning out to be a pretty good actress too. Her fake cry is worthy of an Oscar, we think.
• Going to sleep with her dolly. She comes out in the morning clutching her baby by its arm. And when she doesn't see it, she says, "Me baby?"
  
• Cooking. See above.

Improvisation

I gather from J's sudden bursts of song that the kiddies have been singing He's Got The Whole World In His Hands at church while I'm at bible study.

After singing through the first verse (complete with hand actions, of course!), J starts to improvise...

He's got all the kites in his hands...

He's got all the whales in his hands...

What a hoot.

I love you so much that my heart will explode like ice.
- JTK

Bounce Around

J has been pestering us for a trampoline for the longest time! We haven't gotten him one, but this is a close approximation.

Dreams

From his reading for one of his classes, K tells me that children around J's age start having nightmares because they are beginning to grasp the concept of mortality.

We are so living this right now.

J wakes up in the middle of the night from a nightmare with all too much regularity. He'll cry and scream, sometimes (not always) waking E up in the process too.

A couple of nights ago he gave me the most lucid explanation so far, even though he was crying and could only explain haltingly.

My best friend dropped into the water! My puppet, Tung (this was what it sounded like to me, I still have no idea what he was talking about), fell into water! Mom, how to get him back? He's my best friend, Mom! *followed by more wails*

For the record, we don't have a puppet named Tung at home.

Popsicle

Words of Wisdom from K:

Eating a popsicle is lots of fun.
Watching a child eat a popsicle is not so fun.

On The Seventh Day

The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.

Deuteronomy 31:8

Jesus Paid It All
Elvina M. Hall, 19th cent.
John T. Grape, 1835-1915

I hear the Savior say, "Thy strength indeed is small,
Child of weakness, watch and pray, Find in Me thine all in all."
Jesus paid it all, All to him I owe;
Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow.

Lord, now indeed I find Thy pow'r, and Thine alone,
Can change the leper's spots, and melt the heart of stone.
Jesus paid it all, All to him I owe;
Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow.

For nothing good have I whereby Thy grace to claim
I'll wash my garments white in the blood of Calv'ry's Lamb.
Jesus paid it all, All to him I owe;
Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow.

And when, before the throne, I stand in Him complete,
"Jesus died my soul to save," My lips shall still repeat.
Jesus paid it all, All to him I owe;
Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow.

See here for the music.

Snow Daze

After talking about this for a couple of months, we finally took the kids up to the ski resort at Mount Baldy (only about a half-hour drive away) this afternoon for some snow play.

As with everything that is new to him, J started out nervous. He took one look at the ski lift and declared that he wasn't going on it. But since it was the ONLY way up to the resort, he was left with no choice in the matter.

This is not a happy face. But to his credit, he settled down after a few minutes and began to enjoy the ride.

I, on the other hand, remained slightly nervous. First of all, this was my first time on the ski lift, and there is sort of a technique to hopping on and off. All this while, the ski lift never stops moving. Second of all, I had to do manage this while carrying E. Thirdly, there is only the skimpiest safety bar, and E can be a wriggly baby at times. Nevertheless, we survived, and I managed to hop off, E in my hands, with the help of the guys running the lift. Hopefully, without looking too ungraceful.

She only looks like she's grimacing. She loved the snow.

So once we got to the ski resort, we brought the kids to the tubing area. Basically, you get to slide down a slope, sitting in a rubber tube (which looks like a bigger version of those round swimming floats). You slide down to the bottom and then you get to pull your tube as you hike back up to the top. Of course, when I say you, I really mean K.


Once again, J took a while to warm to this, but he really got into it, and was soon shrieking, screaming and laughing his way down. E took no time at all, she loved it from the get go; and it got to the point where I had to physically restrain her while we waited for K to pull the tube (sometimes with J in it) back up. She was so eager! At one point, K turned away to speak to J and in that few seconds, she managed to clamber into the tube herself. I was so worried though - I kept having visions of her slipping and rolling down the slopes like a ball. There'd be no way for me to chase her down short of sliding down the snow myself.

Anyway, she loved loved loved it. And thank God, we all emerged unscathed at the end of the day.

Oh, J eventually got up the nerve to try going down on a tube by himself (they had these kiddie-sized ones) and naturally, E decided that she wanted to too. There was no way I was going to let her. Again, I had visions - this time of her flying through the air. She got SO angry, she was crying and screaming. And since she couldn't have her way, she decided that she didn't want to go tubing anymore, despite K's repeated entreaties. If not her way, then no way at all.

Sigh. Does anyone else see a strong will?

***
Postscript: When J was saying his good-night prayers tonight, he said, "Thank you, God, for not making the mountain so steep."

Grin.

On losing and finding

I can almost predict, with an almost viral precision, when I will lose my voice. Every year, I encounter this situation at least once, sometimes during predictable periods of anxiety and stress (such as Christmas 2006, when I was slated to speak at our Christmas youth service) or, two weeks ago, when everyone else at home was sick.

I like to talk. I believe I am a fairly competent conversationalist. I have strong views, and I enjoy articulating them to the unconvinced. And so, I am a poor listener. I get impatient when people ramble. I get weary of trying to figure out what they're really trying to say, what they want to say but aren't saying. I interrupt, I cut in, I put words in their mouths, or I just don't listen.

And so, when I lose my voice, I lose one of the most potent and arresting pieces of my emotional and intellectual arsenal.

*

It is Lent now, the season of contemplation leading up to the days when we remember the death and resurrection of God. In 1930, T S Eliot published "Ash Wednesday", the first poem he wrote after his conversion to the Church of England. The fifth stanza of this poem contains these accusing lines:

"Where shall the word be found, where will the word
Resound? Not here, there is not enough silence
Not on the sea or on the islands, not
On the mainland, in the desert or the rain land,
For those walking in darkness
Both in the day time and in the night time
The right time and the right place are not here
No place of grace for those who avoid the face
No time to rejoice for those who walk among noise and deny the voice."

In our accustomed, onward rush towards achievements, goals, objectives and targets ("noise", as Eliot puts it), we have no time for silence. "The right time and the right place are not here". We lose our ability to listen, to turn inwards in rest. "Not here, there is not enough silence" -- what an accurate indictment of our world. And so, without silence, without the cultivated discipline of listening, our hold on the things of value, of meaning, of transcendence, slips away. We deny the voice. Why need ears at all?

*

We spent the weekend I lost my voice at Carlsbad, a nice seaside resort town about a 90 minute drive from here. On Monday, we drove to Sea World and spent several happy hours there. This was our fourth visit, so we were quite sure we would not watch the dolphin show. But on our way to lunch, we turned a corner and came across something we hadn't seen before. In a fairly large lagoon just off the main lagoon where the dolphin show takes place, a group of about 12 children were in the midst of Sea World's "Dolphin Interaction Program". They were dressed up in wet suits, in the pool with Sea World's dolphin trainers and several dolphins, and were playing with the dolphins. The dolphins did tricks, jumped out of the water several times, and swam along the delighted children. 10 feet away, we watched, transfixed. For me, the dolphins weren't the show. The children's laughter, joy and surprise with the opportunity to interact so closely with the dolphins drew my attention more. Listening to them, I felt infected with their joy, their delight.

Later that day, E fell asleep. But J, as usual, wanted to see the beluga whales, the penguins and the polar bears in Sea World's excellent penguin encounter and Wild Arctic experience. F took him to see the animals, while I sat outside to watch E in her stroller. In one of my classes, we've been learning a series of meditation exercises designed to strengthen attention and mindfulness, so I decided to use the opportunity to practice one of these exercises. As I deliberately quietened my mind, I had to wrestle my attention away from thoughts such as where we would go for dinner that night, whether I would need coffee for the drive back, the reading I had to do for class that week and so on. As I listened to myself, to the inner cacophony, the voices began to die down. And in those moments, I could hear the breeze rustling through my hair. I could hear Emma's gentle snoring. I could hear children more than 200 feet away asking their parents to buy a toy from a shop. I could hear my heartbeat, my breath. I could hear silence.

And in that silence, the Voice that we truly need to hear speaks to us. For only then do we avoid confusing the Voice with the chattering, brazen and venal voices in our heads, the voices that so often are the only ones we pay any attention to.

*

An act of rapt, meditative listening lies at the redemptive heart of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, which I just finished reading. In The Amber Spyglass, Lyra, the tenacious 12-year-old protagonist, listens to an older woman relate the experience of falling in love (note -- there are no spoilers here):

"As Mary said that, Lyra felt something strange happen to her body. She felt as if she had been handed the key to a great house she hadn't known was there, a house that was somehow inside her, and as she turned the key, she felt other doors opening deep in the darkness, and lights coming on."

I had many points of aesthetic and theological frustration with Pullman. But on this key point I would agree: those who have come to positions of authority do a terrible job of listening. And when any authority stops listening, Hell literally breaks loose. Wisdom dies. Insight fails. We must never stop listening, never stop seeking new stories, new paths, new views of the world. We may get tired of the dolphin show, but the dolphins will still surprise us, if we know where to look.

*

And those moments, those piercing moments of insight, come fleetingly. Blink an eye, take a breath, and we lose those moments, like water slipping through our fingers. Our fingers are wet, but our thirst remains unslaked.

Today, one of those moments visited me.

I was at the end of a long run at the gym. Those who know how I run will know that my mind switches off as I run -- a practice I've cultivated over 20 years of running to get my mind off the complaints of my body. I had my iPod plugged in, as usual, and had been listening to MercyMe's wonderful song, "Bring the Rain".

I can count a million times
People asking me how I can praise You
with all that I’ve gone through
The question just amazes me
Can circumstances possibly
Change who I forever am in You

Maybe since my life was changed
Long before these rainy days
It’s never really ever crossed my mind
To turn my back on you oh Lord
My only shelter from the storms
But instead I draw closer through these times

So I pray, Bring me joy, bring me peace
Bring the chance to be free
Bring me anything that brings You glory
And I know there’ll be days
When this life brings me pain
But if that’s what it takes to praise You,
Jesus, bring the rain

I am Yours regardless of
the dark clouds that may loom above
Because You are much greater than my pain
You who made a way for me
By suffering Your destiny
So tell me what’s a little rain

Holy, Holy, Holy
Is the Lord God Almighty

As the song came to its end ("Holy, Holy, Holy / Is the Lord God Almighty") and I started cooling down, an image floated into my mind: the people of my frail little church, singing those final lines in worship, in hope, in grace. And as they sang, the people of Heaven joined them. Sweaty, panting, my legs burning, I began to cry, my tears mingling with my sweat to run down my face. My heart felt close to bursting but I knew it was not from the running.

God visits us in our most naked moments, when we expect Him least. But what does it matter? We have nothing to offer him anyway, except our nakedness. And when He comes, when we get those fleeting glimpses of His will on earth as it is in Heaven, we'd better be listening with every atom of our being.

Getting Into Scrapes

He looks like he's having fun here, but he's actually calling out, "Help! Help me, Mom! Help!"
For the record, he's the one who wanted to climb the tree.

Yes, that is a bruise on his cheek.
He was fooling around, doing some funny march when he walked into a wall.

He wasn't laughing at the end of it, but K and I were in stitches.

Snapshot #2

Today's lesson for me: Never. Leave. Home. Without. My. Camera.

I walked out of bible study this morning, to see E racing with the other boys in the toddler class on the front lawn at church. How to put into words how cute this looked? She looked a little lost, like she didn't really get what the point of all this running around was, but she gamely joined in anyway, trailing after them on her two short little legs.

Sidenote: D, who takes care of E's class, told me today, "She's the bravest little girl." To which I reply, "That's because she thinks she's just like J!"

J joined in after I picked him up from his class. And started racing with the other boys from his class too. Just to see his face all lit up with unadulterated joy, laughing and tumbling around with the other kids - that was my moment of parental bliss today.

E was running around with another little girl, a few months younger than her. When those two hugged each other, cheek to cheek, that was precious. The other little girl tired of hugging after a while though. Her advances rejected, E burst into tears! She sulked all the way home and complained to her daddy the moment we stepped into the house: K___. Uh (shakes her head here). Hug. Me.