Until further notice, I am reverting to Old Lore style posts. Partly because, as I mentioned, I'm obsessed with noticing the mundane recently. And partly because my life is mundane recently.

Yesterday a strawberry rhubarb pie with a lattice topped crust was made. It is yummy. Only, I think, too sweet. I'm going to try and find another recipe with less sugar. If anyone has any great recipes feel free to call this an opportunity to stop lurking and offer something in return for all your past lurking. You know who you are.

A conversation around the mid-afternoon mismash meal reminded me of another conversation that occurred yesterday morning, which reminded me of another conversation a few months ago: I am very good at encouraging other people to do things I myself won't do. In this afternoon's case, fifteen minutes of art a day. In yesterday morning's case, poetry writing. In February's case, the fact that I promised to write for 30 straight days and didn't make good on that promise (I plead the broken finger).

This reminded me of a prophetic word shouted over me a few months ago. It was given a few weeks before the big Doozie and, somehow, got a bit overlooked in the processing I did over the three page transcript I came away with from said Doozie. Here's a piece of the first one.

Everyone in the crowd laughed. I mean, people didn't even try to be discreet about how right on this guy was. It wasn't like they all sat there and said, "No, no, you've got it wrong. She's got plenty of wisdom concerning her own life." No! They laughed, which, in prophet-speak, means something's ringing true. And so it was. Is. Was. And is.

So my challenge this week? Getting prophetic insights into my own circumstances. Lord knows (and He does) they need some.

Tonight I snuggled with two friends, twins, and HGTV for a few hours. Call it a waste of time if you will, but the honest truth is that I'll gladly watch any amount of TV for a few hours if it means I get these bundles of boy in my arms. Sigh.

Then I drove home in the rain. It was 9:45pm and the horizon was still a brilliant orange. I love summer.

Isn't it easier just to talk to you and get the same reaction? he asks from his couch. The question I posed: you're funny, why don't you blog more often, you make me laugh?! Oh, he's right. No one makes me laugh quite as much as he does. As evidenced by this video, posted on his low-activity blog, a year ago. I am the first moron. The things he does to make us laugh, mostly at ourselves. In fact, the reason this blog post is going to be so disjointed is because he is running a commentary ten inches from my face and I just can't stop laughing at him.

I said to her today that I feel like I'm holding my breath. A Purgatory of the Living, I guess it could be called. Uncertain outcomes, waiting for notches on a wooden pole to add up in my favor, whatever that is. We've been transplanting plants recently, then retransplanting them, and I feel like that. Just waiting...waiting...for a place to put down roots. I'm not complaining. Honestly--I'm trusting, holding my breath waiting for the end of the tunnel when we collectively let our lungs exhale in laughter.

I am smiling and walking down the sidewalk, heading for the coffee shop on the corner. I see a face from the corner of my eye, not avoiding it on purpose, just not catching his eyes. He is all dark sweatshirt and pants. I am light, a white cardigan and green flowered smock. There is something about him that makes me finally look and when I find his eyes I try not to let my surprise show. I have to search for his eyes amid a maze of green tattoo ink. I smile, and his kind eyes smile back. I realize his clothes are not dark, his whole body is.

We et (don't challenge me, I am the reigning Scrabble champion in this household) black-eyed pea salad and salmon for dinner tonight, and just the lovely ladies of the household were home. I do not like most meats, I almost always prefer greens and rice, but salmon is one pink protein I'll gladly eat. Always.

Because we make plans but hope in God sometimes our plans fail and we are reminded of the hope. This past weekend I've had to remind myself of the hope, which is okay. I need a little reminder every once in a while. But in case any of you want to aid and abet my hope, I need to find an apartment in Madrid, or Potsdam, but I'd prefer Madrid. That's New York, not Europe. Thank you very much.

When I lived in Tennessee I always went to the same Full-Service Gentlemanly Service Station. Partly because as a Lee University student I got 15% off, partly because the Gentlemen there were always perfect Gentlemen, except one who always made comments about my "baby blues." Original buddy. Since coming home I've missed those Southern Bills and their chivalrous 25.99 service. Today I realized that the Monro Muffler sticker marking my mileage had fallen on the floor of my Little Green Honda, explaining why my Little Green Honda is 1000 miles overdue for an oil change. I was horrified! I don't miss oil changes. I am scrupulous about my oil changing. Only in Tennessee it's so much more of a pleasant thing. Here it's northeastern mechanics with a chip on their shoulder and a squeeze you for every penny you're worth attitude.

And they could care less about baby blues.

This post, in case you hadn't noticed, is my attempt to force myself to write about the mundane. I loathe the mundane. It bores me, as it should in its nature. So instead I am trying to make the mundane interesting, not to you, but to me. If I can get back a little of my fascination with it that was so prevalent a few years ago before it was thwarted by age and reality, I think I'll be on to something. But the jury's still out. Because you're the jury you see.

It's a trust sort of day. The sort where I lie in bed in early morning and wrestle with not seeing and still believing. I say to someone the other night that it's not faith if we can see where we're going.

This girl doesn't know where she's going.

Faith feels far away; I can make lists of pros and cons, fors and againsts, tallies marking the winner of the moment--it switches periodically: all it takes is one mark making the difference between winning and losing.

Call it cliche, but I've been meditating on what we Christians call the Hall of Faith, because we're lame like that, we need cliche sometimes when rote memorization lacks. I am stuck on verse one, because I'm lame like that, I need cliche when bulk lacks: Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things unseen.

I need a dose of assurance and a portion of conviction right now. Something, anything, to quell the feelings of doubt. It's not result that I'm looking for--honestly, I'm an adaptable sort of person. I hate change, but we're old friends and we meld quickly. It's just trust for today. By faith men of old gained approval. It was credited to Abraham that he believed, not that he always did the right thing, not that it always worked out for his or God's advantage, but that he believed.

I don't believe, but I want to believe. I want to want to believe. And I want, more than all of that, to believe just for today. Because today's faith builds my storehouse for tomorrow.

By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau, even regarding things to come.

Hebrews 11:20

We walked long today, past the maple trees and the home of the organic co-op manager, past the big green barn and little old men mowing their lawns. We did much, pulling the small weeds and chopping the lettuce, furrowing brows over scrabble tiles and shaking the dust out of rugs. We wore the internal on the external and we were so happy all day.

Talking about dynamics and correction, the Holy Spirit and where to plant the raspberry bushes. We are happy to be. There is angst and worry and joy and contentment, and, like she said, we see the cleaned-up side of one another--but that's not all.

Because last night I sat Indian style on my bedroom floor while she knelt like a child on my bed and scolded and encouraged me to tears. I folded cardigans, boxing them for an upcoming move, and unfolded my fears about so many things. The truth is that the cleaned-up side that we see, that we show, is actually the abundance of the heart--whether it feels like it or not.

The truth is that she asked me what to pray for and I replied "Just to trust" and she answered that I already have that. Not because I do, but because in her heart she thinks I do. And, really, to have someone think that about me is all I need sometimes.

So this afternoon while I am at the piano, she walks into the room, and says "You really are very good, but here's something you can do to make it better." And I trust her, she's Albany Symphony Orchestra alumnae. And tonight when I declare "I Will Write," and imply "if it's the last thing I do" she stands in the doorway and says, "You know what I wish you would write more of? Descriptive things, show me something beside your inner workings." And the best part is that no matter how many, many times I fail or come short, she always sees past what is for what can be.

Like He does.

Just to know that someone sees my messy practicing side and still thinks the best of it. That, like a friend said once to me, regardless of the erosion that feels like is taking place throughout my being, people still see calm and consistent and worship and love that is taking place within my heart. That even when I can't see past today's portion, which is almost laughable in its predicament, His word doesn't fail.

And nothing can improve that.

This morning we put ourselves in their shoes: those Jewish made for wandering shoes. We thought for a few moments about what it was like to stand there and listen to a man say He was God, say He was the answer, the Bread of Life. We tried to understand their grumbling over confusion, and how very right confusion feels in the moments we feel it.

We are guilty of the same. At least I am.

I am very good at seeing through a glass dimly--barely seeing, and yet thinking I see all. It's my nature, isn't it? To think that today's knowledge is the whole of it? To think that by today, certainly I've arrived. Haven't I? Haven't I worked up to this point? Haven't I made myself worthy of knowing what I need to know about me, my life, and maybe yours too?

Tonight I am reading Romans and Paul says this: "[Even though these things seem impossible or unbelievable,] it's not as though the word of God has failed!"

Because here's the first clue that I haven't got it all: my all is still so much only a part of it all.

Paul knew that these silly Romans, and all the silly future Romans, were very caught up in jots and tiddles, rights and wrongs, befores, hows, and nows. In short, they were caught up in understanding it all. But Paul also knew that the greatest mystery and gift of the gospel was that it is unfathomable--it cannot be understood. And this is not cause to think that it has somehow failed, that He has somehow failed, or that the Word has somehow failed.

But this is cause for us to say, like Peter, "To Whom else should we go?"

Because all the world has to offer is answers, analyses, protocol, and medication. It offers pat answers and dictionary definitions. It offers talk shows and best-sellers, book clubs and diets. It shouts from billboards and magazines "We have the answer! Try us!"

But we are not satisfied with answers, because there are always more questions: we are satisfied with mystery.

Because He has the words of Eternal Life.
And that is enough for this life.

I am driving to work, my thumb resting on the center button of my ipod; I've just pushed play. The clouds are breaking from last night's spring rain and there are patches of brilliant blue amidst golden grey. I have a hard time watching the road, the heavens are so much more to see.

We lift our eyes to heaven
We wrap our lives around your life
We lift our eyes to heaven, to You

I push pause and wrap my life around His life. So often I do the converse, try to wrap Him around my life, make me the gift and He the packaging. But it's the other way around, really, and I'm starting to see that this morning. I'm starting to see that asking to be centered by Him is not the same as making Him the center of me. I'm very good at the former--I whine my pleas to be centered, I long for it, I demand it when I feel pulled in every direction but to the Inner Core, the very Center of what (or Who) ought to be my whole universe.

I am learning what it means to center Him and to encompass Him, to surround Him, to be drawn with magnetic force to Him. To forget that I feel off-kilt. To disregard my skewed emotions. To stop constantly trying to right myself, over and over and over. I am learning what it means to trust that He Is The Center--that I don't need to put him there, like I feel the need to put myself there.

We wrap Our Lives around Your Life.

I am learning to wrap my life around His life--to say that regardless of the things to which I feel called, the things to which I have been called, the exploits and travels and opportunities and sufferings and learnings and journeys, regardless of these: He Is The Center. I orbit Him. And I gravitate to Him. And when I get off center:

He puts me back.
Because He's God.
And I'm not.

Biding time between classes, catching up on work, tried to make my fingers do what my head saw, but computers and I are not the friendly sort after hours. Someone poked their head in our office today and said "Wow, what a job!" We both laugh and say we love being here, we get to laugh all day, discover great music, design stuff, talk to our extended family, and brainstorm.

It's days like today that I am so grateful that I am surrounded by men and women with vision. My sight lacks so much of the time, I see the here and now and don't have faith for paint color changes or room rearranges. I can't always see past the looming nostalgia I know will be my portion when things change and I'm very good at wishing I was back in Egypt.

But things are sifting and shifting around here and I've signed up for life. Multiple prophetic words over this place in the past few months, confirmation after confirmation that we are in a season of deep vision for great enlargement. These satisfy the lurch in my heart when I think about the changes. I'm not only surrounded by Vision, I'm engulfed in Safety.

And there's blessing in that.

So while a pile of design ideas, bulletins, posters, notecards, web URLs, tutorials, and lists of things-to-do grow and grow, while snippets of conversations and deep visioneering sessions, while we glance over at one another and smile, while we set up extra rows in the back of the sanctuary and run out of visitor packets, while parking becomes a problem, but lack never does--this we remember: we're standing in the path of God, He cannot and will not pass us by.

We won't miss Him. He remembers us. No demographics are too small or too lost to grow a church and a people who love him.

On page 34 of a favorite book, a poem by John Greenleaf Whittier is quoted:

Drop Thy still dews of quietness
Till all our strivings cease.
Take from our souls the strain and stress,
And let our ordered lives confess
The beauty of Thy peace.

My life feels in constant disorder, even when things are picked up, cars are vacuumed, budget is kept to, and schedule is planned--disorder is still the undercurrent of my life. I answer the phone today and someone says "I love calling because there's this deep sense of peace in your voice, even in your initial greeting." And I say thank-you, because, well, what is one supposed to say?

Because I'm fully aware of the deep sense of unrest in my soul and heart. This morning I walk to work and exhale the missteps, the mistakes, and the failures of the week--and oh, they are many. I breathe in dews of quietness. I choose to make strain my slave and stress my enemy--things I order and do not let order me.

But the tension is still there and that is what surprises me. Order is not made of rest or peace, order means work, it means sacrifice, and it means reevaluations every single day. Order means repentance, turning and walking the other direction when we miss the mark. Order means I will my body to serve the Lord. Order means there is nothing in my natural person that is peace-filled.

We pray "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven" knowing that this earth is not our paradise. But it is our portion and our plot for today--and Lord, we will order it accordingly. We will declare that Your peace is the garment of Your ordered children. We wear it humbly, we wear it proudly, we wear it though we do not deserve it.

Because You have ordered our lives according to Your good pleasure and You have said that peace is ours. So we take it, we thank You, and we are mindful of the responsibility it leaves on us. I order my life with only one confession and wear the testimony in my voice and my posture:

The beauty of Thy peace.

Some of us obtain nicknames because of baby fat or embarrassing facts we'd rather forget, others procure them by luck of the draw or slips of the tongue. My favorite are the kind that come by accident, someone says it and it sticks and soon we aren't known by anything different.

I'm camped out at one such nickname: The Little Yellow House. It sits on a curve in a small town, overlooking a river, a golf course, and a monstrous brick edifice known as Christian Fellowship Center and my church. It houses a Daddy, a Mama, and four little peppers called Gabriel, Bronwyn, Jackson, and Aubrey. It also houses lots of other things. Like Louissa and me for the moment.

Daddy and Mama and Aubrey are out of town and Louissa and I are happy to spend our weekend with aforementioned three at The Little Yellow House.

We woke up inordinately early, after going to bed inordinately late, and we set to work right away answering questions about primary colors and which letters spelled which words and what we would have for lunch. We left some questions unanswered because, as I mentioned, it was inordinately early and our question answering abilities were a little slow on the draw.

We colored lots and played Hindnsheek a few times, but were mostly thankful when an uncle from down the road celebrated his birthday by chasing three little ones around and around The Little Yellow House. We pulled apart two-hundred annuals, wrapping pretty foil around their two-hundred bases; these for the many mothers of our church. A small redhead helped me make dinner, mostly by eating all the cucumbers, a cherubic blond begs with her eyes, and the man of the house gives nightly concerts on his drum-set, being sure afterward that we heard it all (We did. How could we not?).

There have been a few tears, a few heads on tables, and furrowed eyebrows, but not ours, we promise, because really, in This Little Yellow House, there's this deep sense of peace that pervades and prevails. I'm not sure what Louissa and I were thinking last Monday when a conversation about churches and media and planting and salsa sparked an offer to set up camp here for four days while two of our favorite people, and certainly our Most Favorite Baby, took off for the city.

But I sure am glad to be here, at The Little Yellow House we all love.

A dictionary of garden lessons today:

"I've been planting seeds," she said, "and not just of the garden variety." She pulled weeds from around roots as I sat on the perimeter and let tears rolls down my face, swiping them away with every statement of truth spoken. I am unabashed and free with my tears around her.

"Sometimes the roots go down really deep and you have to dig around, eventually just breaking them off sometimes so they can be transplanted." I nodded, knowing as well as she did that she wasn't talking about Late Blooming Raspberry Bushes.

Her knees are covered in dirt and there's a spot on her face; she swats at gnats intermittently and I continue to cry, and listen.

I ask hard questions like "did you ever resent the call of God on your life? want to settle for less, find yourself settling for less to evade the call?" She gives hard answers like "It's only time to plant the peas and a few other things now, we'll wait a bit to plant the rest." Because we have to do things in order.

I repent for my unfaithfulness and discontentment. She leans back and says that a mother's heart always loves and always forgives, and always knows that the monster lurking on the surface isn't the real person inside. I turn my face and cry more, looking at the flat patch of dark earth beside me, knowing we see the seeds but only because we know they're there. To any other eye, though, it's a dark patch of earth.

We choose an apple tree and a cherry one; get a short lesson in small orchard care and drive toward home, the branches of our new purchases brushing our shoulders in the front seat. "We're not planting this for us, you know," she said. "We don't plant fruit trees so that we get the fruit. You understand that right?" We are at the top of the hill, staring at the small plot we both call home. My eyes are on the small orchard to the left of the house, five fruit trees from a hundred years ago. They are old and gnarled, we love them for their shade and small tart apples in the fall.

She doesn't say it, but we both understand it: the fruit that we bear isn't for us; we're the tree, others are the recipients of our fruit.

She is leaving for an appointment and I sit inside the perimeter of the garden, pulling out a few more weeds, not necessarily of the garden variety, and pushing Early Blooming Raspberry Plants into the soft black earth. I am not so good at this gardening thing, this planting and waiting and knowing that I may never see taste and see, but I know how to tend. I know how to listen. And I know how to learn.

And I know a lesson when I hear one.