the bird

 If his eye is really on the sparrow, why is this bird dying on my porch?

this bird that woke his nurturing side, that seemed to be calling him out of his depression into service and joy

for like five minutes

and now he’s in his room not responding

and I’m crying on the porch with a little bird’s failing heartbeat in my hands.

Do we ever get over things, or do we just get through?
And how does a soft heart avoid growing bitter?
How can we resist turning into a concrete tower or a phoney or a total cynic or just a weeping puddle on the floor surrounded by losses?

Not a bird falls without his knowledge

but many do fall with his knowledge 

and somehow we have to live here

and try to keep loving fragile things

and try to keep trusting Him who gives and takes away.

I have never been able to resign myself to this

and maybe I’m not supposed to.

I live defiantly

making lunch for the living boys in my home

and I don’t want to pet the smiling dog as he comes wagging up to me

but I stretch out my hand and do it anyway

and I refuse to close my heart. 

And what of the children?
Will they find a way to hold hope?  It is not in the bird; it is not in wise parental words; it is not in mindset shifts; it is not in denial or hardness or hiding in bedrooms. If they are to find hope and strength to keep loving what can be lost they will have to find it in Jesus. May His love strengthen and fill our hearts. 

Jesus, receive this little bird into your ground- dust to dust- along with all of our questions and struggles about life in this broken place. We commend to you every loose end, every sad part. Help us, as we live in this fragile place, to love what we cannot keep, and wait with hope in Your redemption. Help us remember your heart, Your longing for the New Creation, Your whole-bodied commitment to making all things new.  Amen

A sonnet about sons

My darling’s smell is nothing like a rose

A squirrel is far more soft than he is soft

His bedroom air is painful to my nose

I hold my breath as through the hall it wafts

I've seen some jocks inspire and reach great heights

But no such skills are in those with my genes

And in some banquets there is more delight

Than in the treats created by my teen

I love to hear him speak and pick a fight

Imagination, snark, and wit collide

I grant I never saw a manly knight

He’ll sidle in a room with awkward stride 

And yet, by heaven, I think my son more fine

Than any other son that isn’t mine.

Inspired by Shakespeare's Sonnet 130

on coming back home to White Creek for the 185th anniversary celebration…

The family is shrinking these days; we came back with only our youngest two of six; the two who were born and baptized in this place; they tower over me now. 

I wonder if they have a sense of coming home in their bones, like I do:

“The very spot where grew the bread that formed my bones, I see. How strange, old field, on thee to tread, and feel I’m part of thee.” Abraham Lincoln

but mostly they are thinking “who are all these people that know my name and keep talking about me as if I were just a baby yesterday?”

This is where it all started, for them

Where they were fearfully wonderfully made

nourished by Indiana harvest,

carried helpless to the the font and bathed in the Word

called by name and welcomed into the Family

These two boys would move three times, live in three more states before they graduated high school. 

And yet they would hear these same words, this same gospel

spoken over them and to them in each place. 

God’s faithfulness holds.

and today, they are still standing in it

back here, where it all started.

------

I see us, fresh out of seminary

when it was still weird to hear him called “Pastor Cook.”

with no idea how much we didnt know

scanning the playground while talking, counting children,
hoping they wouldn’t break anything or knock anyone over

I see my boys in their small bodies running laps around the parsonage

and my little girls playing volleyball, swinging on monkey bars, hosting sleepovers

it is good to visit where others remember that, too, and marvel with me at how they all have grown

I didnt know how quickly we would all grow, how many paths would part

and how much everything would get rearranged

I can still feel the feel of my face in the carpet

on a weekday alone in the sanctuary, sobbing over her seizures

I didn't know God would heal her (eventually) and take care of us so specifically along the way, through His people 

and that time our dog got into the school and my face burned with embarrassment

as it would every time my mask of “I have it together” slipped
which turned out to be often.

(i wish i had let it slip sooner and more completely

I was trying to act like such a big girl;
with the grace of God around above under and before me

I didn't know how safe I really was.)

and really, I didn’t know

how to serve well without playing God

how to accept my own limits

how to love well and receive well

and I didn’t know what to do with the hard parts,

the rifts and the wounds
and now God has now healed many of them
May He keep going, and heal all the rest. (I think He will.)

the best part is; God knew

all the things I didn’t know

and He took our stumbling efforts and added His touch 

and He worked for good even when it felt bad
and I can see that a little better now

and this week He let me see my husband as just one pastor in a long train

and the church as she has been there, 

solid, imperfect, alive,

roots planted by the River of Life for 185 years
and the grace of God before and above and around and after 

the Word of God as the lifeblood flowing through.

And even as I have a sense of our family shrinking 

as we launch children left and right;

it is true at the same time that our family is enormous,

and growing.

“How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of Hosts!” Ps 84:1