To be clear, I didn't make this pretty niche, I just noticed and recorded it, outside a lovely restaurant downtown, near our beloved Mast General Store. But looking back now, about a month after that cloudy, charming day, the image speaks to me, something about my life.
Often it is like that. Some of my images are just what they are, recording what we are doing, or showing off a new recipe or flower. But others have something to say to me, and it takes time for that message to come to the surface.
More and more it feels like my life at home is about making a little corner of loveliness and peace. Seeing the world alongside my boys' wide and innocent eyes, it seems more and more like an unaccountably ugly place. So like this little nook right off Main Street, I want to make a pocket of grace and tuck them in. Making the little things big, crafting a life of simple celebration and gentle care.
But I follow Jesus. So somewhere this analogy breaks down. We are called to be Him in the world, and to train up our children to follow His path of love and service. My job is more like building a nest or weaving a cocoon for these little ones, from which they will fly someday with compassion in their wings, rather than a hiding place to keep them "safe." ("You know, he isn't a tame Lion. . . ")
This is a delicate balance, to teach them to guard their hearts without making them fortresses, to be wise and gentle, to be grace and live truth. And my role comes in a thousand quiet ways every day. My words can drone, but my actions enunciate more clearly than I'd like sometimes. And it all happens in this little place.
This is one of those posts when I am not really sure I ended up writing about what I meant to say. A pretty picture but no neat ending. I'll close with a quote from You've Got Mail, a chick flick I confess to dearly loving. I am not sure if it has anything to do with what I've been musing about. And unlike the character Kathleen Kelly, I'd dearly love to know your thoughts on my ramblings:
Kathleen Kelly: Sometimes I wonder about my life. I lead a small life. Well, valuable but small. And sometimes I wonder, do I do it because I like it, or because I haven't been brave? So much of what I see reminds me of something I read in a book, when shouldn't it be the other way around? I don't really want an answer. I just want to send this cosmic question out into the void. So good night, dear void.
8 comments:
Thanks for sharing, Missy. This really resonates with me. I have been reflecting on this very idea for a long time. How can I embody the principles of Jesus - especially those that are justice-seeking - when they don't come naturally to me and I have so much to learn? Though I want my home to be a haven, how can I extend that out into the world? And so many more questions.
Please continue sharing your reflections on this journey.
Missy, I remember thinking many of these same thoughts when my children were little. I had the desire to shelter and nurture, to protect and surround them with beauty. But I also knew that the world isn't like this. How to help them love God, appreciate beauty, reach out to hurting people - "to be in the world but not of it"? I settled in on the path of homeschooling and centering our life in our home and praying hard that God would bring people to me. And he did. He brought lots of international students to our home, he brought a single professor one Christmas whose mother had just committed suicide and who was devastated but who rested in the balm of our family and little ones, he brought adopted daughters - college students who needed a loving home - and who still, many years later, think of our house as home. And through it all, my children learned about the hurts of the world and the grace of God so that they are now launching out...I could go on, but you know I think you're prompting another post on my own little corner of the blogosphere! Anyway, keep making your niche of peace and nurture and from that niche welcoming the world in to be loved and cared for. Looking forward to hearing more about how you carve it out and adorn it!
I love the encouragement, from a mom in my place in life, and from one a little farther down the road!
Could we sit and have coffee over this topic on a wkly basis for a yr? that's what i think it needs! i am so wrestling with this tension. i definitely appreciate your bringing it up.
more and more, i'm feeling the pull. and i am realizing i need to welcome a reprieve from largely being in the world at this stage in my life. during a seminary class a couple yrs ago, we learned how christian ministers of sorts who finished well were ones who had many such reprieves at various stages in their lives. but... the majority of their lives, they entered back in...
to that end, i don't feel comfortable thinking the Lord would allow my reprieve to become a life decision, even if it's just during while i'm raising my kids at home. because that's still a 20+ year committment. because then i graduate adults who might get married, have kids, and build their very own "fortresses" all over again.
i'm feeling the pull of the "good but not safe" God (requoting C.S. Lewis' Narnia with you.). I'm realizing that there are certain people (and issues) who will never cross the threshold of my home if i sit here and wait. and i'm feeling God's pull for me to get in their world, to love them where they are. and although i have few pictures of this in my life... i'm dreaming and hoping of a way to do that which would still enable me to establish and build upon the beauty and love in our own home.
i have to send all of you to one of my dearest friends' latest blog posts which highlights what i'm learning better than i can capture here.
http://joyinthemargins.blogspot.com/2007/03/prayer-for-glenwood-and-beyond.html
this is a dear friend from college and beyond, and co-worker of mine and my husbands'. enjoy this post.
i keep thinking that it can't be ok for me to constantly put my own kids above others. scripture calls me to hate my family for the sake of the Lord. of course this is a metaphor to encourage me to love God so much that anything else i love dear falls way behind... not a literal hate of my family. however, it does remind me to let Him call me to things that might go against my gut. and when i think of the 2 most important commands, to love God and love my neighborhood, i'm called to just that. and who is my neighbor? will it be the person who doesn't really need me? shouldn't it be the person who has no one else? and how will i meet that person if i don't worship, work, or live near them?
so we're trying to make our living decisions influenced by this. anyway, it's sooo hard. and i'm such a newbie. but i can't get those other kids out of my mind. and i want to work towards loving my part of this community so that it's safer and lovlier for those other kids. not only would i not know these kids if we didn't live here, i definitely wouldn't care about what the schools were like in their neighborhood, their grocery stores, who hung out on their streets, etc.etc.etc.
anyway, it's late and i need to hit the sack. but one more thing, i'm scared by the lack of examples i see of believers truly being engaged in their communities-- knowing and working towards peace amidst the real issues going on. i feel the nudge of the Lord to need and have to live in a risky way for them. and for my heart! i need to live on the edge. it is there that i depend on Him as i truly get out of my comfort zone... and i see Him in new ways from these folks that i wouldn't in my "normal" christian circles.
thanks for bringing this up missy. let me know your thoughts, i love you! let's keep learning and let's keep this topic on the table!
good gracious. i should've written my own post! sorry everyone!
I'm not sure I can adequately comment on the subject you wrote about but I can say that one of the reasons that I homeschool my child is to protect her from all that is ugly in this world. I don't want to protect her from hate, disease, poverty or bigotry but rather the foolishness of Walt Disney, television, junk food, video games, and all the "ugliness" of popular culture. I want her to understand that people suffer and that we can be in service to make other lives better.
Also, I love "You've Got Mail", I can watch 5 minutes of the movie and be content. I also love "Where the Heart Is" and can watch it over and over or just in snippets while my dh is out of the room. I just loved Kathleen Kelly's perfect little apartment and bookshop.
Thanks for your thoughts everyone. This is a hard thing-- and I will admit to some days of caring only about my little pair of boys, wanting to hide them in a little world I construct-- but that is not Jesus' way.
I am struggling with this-- and realizing it was easier in theory before Joshua started school, and now he has "neighbors" in his classroom. Sometimes when he comes home with their stories I am flooded with compassion, and sometimes I feel how small and cold my heart can be.
Again, as in the post, I don't have any easy answers. Just a desire to live in the uncomfortable, inconvenient and perhaps holy questions.
Oh I so understand what you mean Missy. Mine are teens and I still feel that way. I think as Mom's we can make our homes like that wonderful little corner, though, as a place of peace, refreshment, love and calmness from the world outside. When our spouses and our children have been "out there" they know they can come home to that haven. Do you know what I mean? (Sometimes I have trouble putting words to my feelings too. :vP)
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