The other day:

“Was das?” pudgy finger points towards my eye.

“My eye.”

“No, was das on yo eye?”

“My eyelashes.”

“Oh yo eye-asses…I got eye-asses too!”

Unlike some families (here I would link to Jaymarie’s post, except I am a total knucklehead and don’t know how. Suffice it to say her family isn’t in the habit of name calling) when a member of our family experiences abuse or injustice he or she is usually willing to give immediate and unedited feedback. At times it involves calling some names. My 9 yo son has been known to be a meanie and a big bully according to my 7 yo daughter. Although both have been reprimanded every time, him for being a meanie and a big bully, her for calling it so succinctly, it stuck in the tape-recorder-like mind of our 2 yo. One day she was being oppressed by her older brother and she wouldn’t take it. “You beeg bowlie!” She howled. I bit my lip while correcting her then had a huge laugh in my room. A week later she wanted ice cream for lunch, a most unusual request which was quickly denied. After calling me, you know what, she spent some time in her crib. Today her sister wouldn’t give her a cookie and was immeditely branded. More crib.

When she is freed she is always penitent, “I sorry for calling you a beeg bowlie. You agive me?” And so we pray and ask God to fill her heart with love and to help her to speak kind and respectful words. We want her to, as the Bible says, “Be angry and sin not.” Now I am just learning this myself as my husband can attest. But I want a heart filled with love which leaves no room for bitter condemnation.

Our pastor preached a sermon on weeping anger, which is righteous anger, anger at injustice that weeps for the hard hearts being unjust. Most of my anger in life has been the adult equivalent of not getting to eat ice cream for lunch, selfish frustration. I don’t know a lot about weeping anger but I am willing to learn. Pastor Dave encouraged us to pray for it. And I will because I want my feisty two year old and her siblings to see (not just be told) how to live.

“I will spend the rest of my life exploring what could happen through the life of one who is willing to cultivate the God-given appetite to see impossibilities bow to the name of Jesus. All my eggs are in one basket. There is no ‘Plan B.’ And it’s from this posture that I write.”

Bill Johnson
Pastor of Bethel Church, Redding California
taken from the forward to his book “When Heaven Invades Earth”

“Could we go to Meijer and buy some mouse for my hair?”

“Mousse?”

“Oh yes. If I use it I will be handsome like Nick (friend at school) and will attract girls.”

Long pause.

“What are you going to do when you have attracted the girls?”

“Oh…I don’t know…maybe I better not attract them.”

Yesterday I was hustling around our house, prepping the yards for a young man we hired to mow. Paul fractured his hand (more later) and isn’t able to do it himself. The grass had gotten too high for me to do it with our dull bladed push mower.

This is our first Spring in this house. There are a lot of gardens. I am a gardener, but a busy and tired one. I am trying to focus on what we see the most which is in the back. Along the side of our house I noticed an Oriental poppy growing a few weeks ago. I had planted some salmon ones at my old house which didn’t do well. The foliage was in a race to die before the flower bloomed. I wasn’t impressed. When I saw it coming up at this house I figured more of the same and didn’t keep an eye on it until yesterday.

It had bloomed and rather than the insipid salmony pink I had chosen this one was blood red. It was dark and bright at the same time. It pulled me to it. Poppies have fragile, paper like flowers. The rain had pushed this one down but it was still blooming with an aching beauty. I was filled with regret I hadn’t seen it sooner. Being a mother and a gardener helps me to transverse time. I sow things today expectant for five years in the future, but if I don’t keep my eyes open and stay present I will miss something amazing.

God, what am I overlooking on my “property”? What beauty is blooming its heart out, waiting for me to look and admire, maybe even pick? Help me to see it. And I just want to say, I am willing, I want, to flower brilliantly when no one excepting You and Paul and my children (more than enough) sees.

We have this little record player, I think it is Fisher Price, you know, it plays plastic records, one song a side – orange, lavender, blue, lime-green- one more can’t remember. My sister bought it in a fit of nostalgia and selflessly gave it to my profoundly deaf (then two year old) son who was just learning about sound. I loved it then. We would sit together, he would wind the crank, select a record, jam it on, turn on the player and then we would break down to “Camp Town Races”, “Edelweiss”, “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”, “O Where O Where Has My Little Dog Gone” or something equally snappy. I was thrilled to be doing something to support my little guy and unconsciously assuaging the monstrous guilt that dogged me night and day.

Well, it is 7 years later, my son is doing well, guilt has been slayed and my 2 yo daughter with regular hearing is the current keeper of the record player. I am glad she likes it, but as she is a bit of a speaking savant it’s no big thing and actually sometimes a bit annoying. For example when I have my own music blaring, we have just gotten home from school, the big two are whining and I am raising my voice to give instructions and or corrections. This was the scene yesterday when two chubby hands someone finagled the blue record onto the player and the tinny tune, “Camp Town Races” floated into the cacaphony, drifted into my straining eardrums and began to scratch them. I leaped across the room and tore the arm off the record, silencing one offensive sound.

“Hey Stop! Thas my Ha Lu Ya Box!”

Hallelujah box? I had no idea.

Clearly I was quenching the Spirit. Instead I turned off my music and allowed my baby to worship.

“Ha lu ya. Ha lu ya. Ha lu ya….” All the Doo Da Day.