home, expanded

Corn rustling in the wind makes me feel at home now.

Yet this flavor of home began in my late 20s in Indiana.
It crowded into my heart right next to Lake Michigan and the smell of pine trees.

In our new house that has never been her home, as her first year of college ended,  I happy-cleaned her space, got out some of her old things, and tried to create a sense of “home;” to make her brother’s room look a little more girly, a little more like she might make it.  (Happy cleaning before the grown kids come is one of my new favorite things. It gives direction to my excited anticipatory energy, and then I get to follow it up with sappy cleaning after they leave.) She has no memories of this place, she has not been with us much as we have begun to set down roots here.  Is there a way to make an arrangement of a space say the things I want to say? 

I see you.

We are so happy you are here.

We hope you feel at home here. 

Remember our connections in other spaces? 

There is more for you, here, with us. 

Still, I feel the air shift; she is coming “home to mom and dads” for the summer and then returning “home” to college.  Her sense of “home” includes mountains now. 

There is room in the human heart for corn and mountains together, 

for new people, churches, spouses, families.
My heart includes a daughter-in-law and a son-in-law now,

a whole new church family, and a porch where I watch the sunrise,

and none of this has replaced the old loves. 

How many variations are there on this theme, Lord?
How many gifts have you hidden in the midst of your painful rearranging?

Are you just going to keep expanding and expanding our hearts?

It is the Lord who prepares a place, creates a home, expands a heart
He knows how to arrange the room,

Curate the smells and arrange the flowers

And tune our senses so we can hear His loving welcome:

I see you.

You are welcome here.

There is more for you, here, with me.

 

Summer 2026 These are the days

These are the days when the porch is open again, when I get up eager for the sunrise, sipping my coffee and watching the beauty while the birds sing and the leaves open slowly. I still marvel: do we really get to live here? My potted flowers seem as happy as I am every morning, and I love checking on all the veggies growing in the raised beds we installed this year.

I am glad we have a huge driveway at this house. Current vehicle count-8! The van, BZ, and Nana’s old Lexus for us, Agnes’s Fit, Marcus’s Saturn and Audi TT (Purchased from Seth), Eldon’s 4Runner, Peter’s Rav4. These are the days when everyone needs Josh for something. He comes home from work to a slew of projects related to all the cars and the house, too. “Dad, can we order parts?” “Dad, can you listen to my car?” “Dad, can you help me with taxes?”

Campfire season, Eldon pulls his car around so he can sit in the back, with his best dog or his best girl, depending on who is here. Peter brings his guitar out and he’s easing into his voice; sometimes the girls sing with him. “The girls” have become a regular part of our lives; who would have thought my youngest two would find lovely Lutheran sisters, and fall in love, in our very first year here!

These are the days of night walks; teens opening up in the safety of darkness and the gentle embrace of the fields at night. We can see so many stars here, and it’s magical how the lightning bugs look like ascending sparks over the grass.

Marcus comes home looking like he’s been sweeping chimneys, but he’s been changing tires instead. He’s getting fit, confident, and finding his people. Some days he runs out of patience with people, and when I see him filthy and bedraggled with that look on his face, I know he’ll be hiding for the rest of the night. I love our coffee dates to Scooters and Silver Lake.

These are the days when my college girl is home; there are more blankets and craft supplies hanging around, the milk disappears much faster! I love to watch her pull into the driveway, rocking out to her loud music after a long day of babysitting. She comes home full of stories, and she loves the challenge of not only watching 4 kids all summer but also teaching them things along the way. She misses her college friends; she has long evening phone calls and I hear her laughing on the porch! She is motivated to work hard all summer so she can go back to Wyoming in August. She sometimes asks us, “So what are we doing tonight?” as we finish dinner at 7:30pm.. apparently for a college kid the night is just starting, but I’m ready to put on my PJs by then!

These are the days of technology boundaries, and enough open time where boredom can happen. (You’re welcome, boys.) We’ve enjoyed puzzles, blitz, cribbage, rummy, and just sitting around in the quiet. Peter is reading “Surprised by Joy” by CS Lewis and I love talking to him about it. Big conversations about all the Big Things in life are pretty normal around here, and it just my favorite.

These are the days of heart-filling visits and long phone calls with my married kids. Seth and Ava visited last weekend, and it seems like we spent almost the whole time belly laughing on the porch. Yesterday, Lorraine and I broke our phone call record (3 hours!) chatting while I swung in my hammock, cleaned my house, and watched the rain fall from my porch.

These are the days of margin, open spaces, and watching the kids spread their wings. On Monday I drank my coffee and watched the sunrise while every one of my kids got themselves ready and drove off to work, all before 7:30am. Then I got in the passenger seat while Peter drove to his landscaping job- legally he needs me by his side for now.

I’ll happily claim my seat there, while I can.

growing

1 Forget what is past, they say,

but why should I forget 

how it felt to have a baby cheek pressed up against mine
and barefoot walking through the green yard, pointing and naming, 

signs of spring, signs of life,

when everything was new and young and delightful?

2 My hands remember.
As a child I had my own patch of garden in the back yard

These hands planted dusty millers, marigolds and petunias

Was there blooming or neglect; 

did it get mowed over?

If there was much blooming, my mom must have helped

while I was busy climbing trees

or drinking from the hot, plastic hose.

3 My hands, with over 40 years of memory now,
still love the feel of freeing flowers from crunchy plastic containers
making room for cramped roots to expand
settling them home.

4 Amidst the vibrant green and bright colors,

the dusty miller spreads its delicate branches

receiving its water in the cool of the morning

like a snowflake that doesn’t melt,

reaching quietly upward in gray-white aliveness.

5 I walk barefoot through the dew

to cut lettuce from my garden

The skies open up and I run to the porch laughing, soaked

I don’t melt.

I wipe my face with a gritty towel that feels like decades of summers.

Dave's invitation

 He gave me the warmest smile when he saw me on the dance floor

like he was proud of me for doing the electric slide

like he was glad I had accepted the invitation

--the invitation to fun, delight, and joy--

the one that he was constantly offering

with his trumpet and his jokes

I remember watching him

singing German hymns he didn’t really know, 

there in front of everyone,

getting the words wrong, laughing

“You don’t care if I make a mistake! Why should I?” 

and his wrinkly smile spread to all our faces

He walked through life with a grateful smile

as if he felt the very air he walked through as a gift,

surrounded by grace, and delighted;

he made me want to join him there

Sometimes he slept through my husband’s sermons;

the Word just echoed around him

and he rested inside of it

he was held by it

and I think he’s resting there now.

I will look for him hereafter

on God’s dance floor

and he will give me that smile again 

when I join him there.

In loving memory of my friend, Dave

On going back to the Old Church on Mother’s Day

How many times were we nourished here,

form this altar, with this church family,

abundant mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers,

shoulder to shoulder around the communion rail in this place? 

With my babies in arms or underfoot,
or with my teenagers looming over me, 

showing up hungry, being fed,
sent away with blessings, 

because that's what Mothers do 

I’m not the only one embracing my kids these days.

Was I ever really?

Even on the hospital day of their birth, other arms received them, too
Is this just how it goes?
Will our families just keep expanding and expanding?

With my grown children I realize

this has become a shared-custody situation

Mother Church has a bigger reach than I do--praise God--

She has better gifts, too.

I hope they received a foretaste at our table, 

and I hope they keep showing up at Hers

hungry and receptive

long after mine is out of operation.

-----

Good Shepherd, feed your sheep, tend your lambs

 When they were little I got to curate experiences of controlled risk, to gently nudge their growth, and to put them down for naps when it all became too much.

The world is not so kind as me, I think.

It doesn’t care so much about their limits.

It doesn’t care that one of them will forget to eat;

that one will have floods of deep cynicism that will blow over like a raincloud if you just wait a little;

that another simply can’t be asked to concentrate when there’s a mysterious ticking sound coming from a distant room.

It doesn’t care how desperately each one wants their dreams to come true.

The world is not afraid of breaking their hearts.

Was I hard enough on them, in my gentleness?

Was I gentle enough, when life was hard?

Today, if they need it, will someone else give them a snack or a nap?

-----

Jesus.. follow them out there, in the wild where I cannot go.

Know them better than this mama heart,

and love them better too,

and tend to them.

in this one...

 

In this one (snapshots)

In this one, his hair is longer than it’s been for years, and he’s talking to someone new: A giant of a man, holding a tiny baby while he rocks in a camp chair under the pavilion. These men are both vets, both fathers, making connections over family, faith, and war.  If they have similar scars, you can’t tell from the picture. Today, they are both smiling. There is gray in his dark curls. There is tentative courage in his voice. 

In this one, he sits across the picnic table from her, swinging his keys on his finger. He looks out over the water; she looks at his face. She grips her contigo in her hand, trying to hold on to more than just the coffee. She studies his face, she sees the insecurity in his smile as his words come out joking-but-earnest. Heavy motorcycle boots stabilize him as he tries to gather a few thoughts from the chaotic swarm flying all over the lake. She loves having a front seat to his process. 

In this one, she is sitting on the cement front porch steps. Her eyes are closed and head is back against the white siding on the house. She’s not aware of the sun on her face but the sounds from indoors: singing lessons. She can hear the piano, the pauses, the instructions “stand up straight! Hands out of your pockets!” She knows she may not sit nearby and gawk so she has found a nearby space, giving them a respectable distance, where she can smile and listen and pray in the sunshine, while teenagers step out into love and risk, with singing.

In this one, he strums the acoustic guitar by the campfire, and even though others are present, he dares to sing. His eyes are closed- perhaps for courage? or to resist the temptation to look at her face to see what she thinks?  She is curled up in a bulky sweatshirt on the camp chair next to him; what will she do with her face? Does she know the power she holds? Before long, she joins her voice to his, and both get stronger. And the one who holds the camera finally exhales. 

In this one, she is standing with arms akimbo, knees bent, VR headset and a smile on her face; the garage floor is clean for once. Outside the dog barks at the Amazon delivery truck; a man with a giant box is just doing his job. She hears all this over the roar of the fan and the loud music; she considers pausing to avoid awkwardly being caught in exuberance. She imagines the quick glance and embarrassed smirk that might happen if she gets caught; she’s seen it a hundred times when she keeps dancing at a stoplight.  But the music is too fun and the virtual targets keep coming; why pause when you could be dancing?

In this one, she is wearing a messy bun and workout clothes, sitting on the driveway surrounded by parts of a wheelbarrow, scowling at the instructions. Yesterday she had to ask for help starting the powerwasher. She has wimpy grip strength, and it turns out, a flooding sense of overwhelm when she looks at diagrams with numbers and parts and measurements. She’ll probably decide to write about quitting instead. 

the "more" He has for me

     When the ground started to shift at the other place, I spent some time hunkered down in resistance, clawing at any root I could find. I set my jaw and crossed my arms and leaned against a rock of unwillingness. 

Slowly, the love of God soaked into the ground underneath that giant rock. It went all the way down to where the fears lived, like I Can’t Do This Again, It Won’t Be Ok, and What About the Children? 

The love of God soaked all the way down to the hard, brittle parts of me that think it’s their job to Make it Ok, Keep it Together, and Get it Under Control.

And the love of God seeped down deep, and like a holy acid, broke down all those strong supports that held up the rock of unwillingness. And one day there was a decisive storm, a flood and a great collapse. The rock of unwillingness fell down, over a cliff into a deep valley, against my will but also somehow freeing it.
I found myself on the edge overlooking a great expanse. I have more in store for you. 

“But what? and how will it be? and will it work out? and what about the children? 

No answers. Only Presence. 

And then, we just sat there. For a long time. Days, weeks, months of the tension: trying to live present in one place with awareness of shifting ground and things on the move. 

I remember the dizzying feeling, sitting on the heights with the Lord, trying to imagine what’s next for me in the valley.  We sat there as possibilities came and went, fog rolled in and out.

We’re approaching one year in this new house, in this new life. I am still unpacking all the “more” He has here for us. This week I had a wonderful sing-and-ride on my motorcycle: 80 degrees, open fields, spring bursting out all over Illinois. I sang through all the wrenching aching love I have for my people in other states; danced through the joy of being present here. I drove over a bridge and caught my breath at the beauty- St Pauls, from this angle! Our new church home, the most recent place where we have found extended family!  It took my breath away.

I stopped to take a picture, to help me hold on to God’s gracious “I told you so.”

Holy Week

 

Jesus said to Peter, “Put your sword into its sheath; shall I not drink the cup that the Father has given me?”
(See how he trusts God going into the darkness! Yet I have so many swords, so many ways I fight the cup God has prepared for me with teeth-gritting resistance.)

“We want Barabbas!”

(How humanity has always- how I have always- begged for that which would harm or kill me)

from the sermon: God works to END our own attempts to make things right in this world. Our best efforts come to nothing. Only God can make it all right.

And how Jesus sets his face towards suffering, towards pouring out

(while I squirm and flail and avoid my own crosses)

and He walks the path through hardship towards peace… for me

and pours Himself out still.. for me

may I be found with open hands, beneath his flood.

That boy with his back towards us,

he’s walking out into open spaces,

finding his own footing

we don't know where he is going

he’s getting smaller every minute

I’m getting smaller in his life

he’s getting bigger in his own

and this is as it should be

meanwhile I try to pretend I’m ok with this

with the sheer speed of it all

I grab the passenger door with the speed of it;

he laughs at me

and wishes it would all go even faster

I know how his heart lifts out there in the fields

I know how he breathes in the country air

he turns up the music and rolls down the windows

and he looks up at the stars when they are shining in their glory

He captures sunsets, lovesongs, and hymns

and pours them out again through his fingers at the piano

combining, embellishing, and leaving his own imprints of beauty

I don’t know where he is going

but I know Who is forming him

still wonderfully making him,

right before my eyes

for a little bit longer.