I’ve begun my battle against the demon weeds.

I’m gaining ground against them. Slowly but surely. Every evening about 8 I go out to spend 15 or 20 minutes doing battle. I’ve taken back a good 12 feet of garden thus far, only about 30 more to go. I suppose I ought to have taken a before picture. Oh well ….

LightHusband comes out and sits on the steps to chat with me and drink a glass of wine while I dig in the dirt. We catch up with each other. Sometimes one or the other of the LightChildren join us, or perhaps a pet or two.

Yesterday evening, LightBoy joined us briefly. He came out, sat with his dad and joined in the conversation. He said, “You know what I’m thankful for? I’m glad we get that beautiful sunset at the back of the house almost every night. It’s really pretty.” LightHusband and I just looked at each other, and he said, “Oh really, you like that?” LightBoy said, “Yes. I do. It’s the prettiest thing here. We’re really lucky.” He asked his dad another question about a tree we’d had to take down last year and then he went back into the house.

LightHusband and I sat back in amazement when he left. We do love the sunsets, but they have always been marred for us by all the houses at the back of our suburban tract home. We always think, “Well, that’s pretty, but it would be better if it weren’t for all the houses around.” I have three windows over my kitchen sink that I sort of love. I’d really love them, if I could see something besides more houses. The view I had from the kitchen sink when I was growing up was forests and mountains, but I didn’t appreciate it then. Now I keep wondering if I’m cheating my children. But it turns out that they think what they have is pretty wonderful.

I tend to forget that they don’t know the things that I know. Their memories are not my memories. Their life is different from mine. They know what they have, not what I have. All of which sounds as if it should be a duh, but it’s surprising how hard it is to keep that separate. Then when they announce it to me in an off-hand way, I get to smile and think, “oh … yeah. I can relax again.” It really is all about perspective.

Here are a few more things I love about my church.

We meet in a coffee house … in the part where there are usually rock concerts. It looks sort of industrial, but when we’re there it really is sacred space. I can’t explain it, it just is. Even when people walk right through the middle of communion to get to the bathrooms.

I love that worship is different (almost) every week. We use all of our senses. Here is a picture of what we did this week. We painted on fabric. We painted things that represented the bounty and freedom that we’re thankful for. I’m going to sew those pieces of fabric together to create a new cloth for the communion table that’s really ours. A cloth that in and of itself is worship and art. The paintings are drying on my schoolroom table now and I get to go in and stand in awe of their beauty.

I love the joy that greets me on everyone’s faces each week. One guy greeted me with this on Sunday morning, “Hello family!” and he meant it. I love that. There is grace there and love. To be sure, there are moments of strife and discomfort and all the other things that go along with family. But the umbrella that covers us is grace and joy.

I love that when I unwittingly disconnect the microphone from the cord and make faces, the teenagers come up to me afterwards and laugh with me about my faces. I love that my children are comfortable sitting with any other adult there during the service. And that all of the other adults will talk to my children and love them back.

I love my little church.

Here are some things that I love about my church.

I love that we operate with a flat heirarchy and in a team-based environment. I love that we show up on Sunday mornings with about a third of a service and know that the Holy Spirit is going to show up and fill in the rest. Sometimes that feels very irresponsible, but it always works and it’s always beautiful.

Yesterday it felt downright scary. I was more nervous than I’ve ever been. We were set to explore the Beauty of God in Freedom and had left a few more holes than even I am comfortable with. Actually, if I can be totally honest, I was being lazy or crabby or something. I just didn’t feel like filling them in. I couldn’t find the time and desperately needed to spend some time with LightGirl after she’d been at hockey camp all week. So I should have done it while she was gone, but I lacked the inspiration then.

Setting up for worship was crazy … crazier than usual. Someone backed into our van in the parking lot. Someone else came in and said, “We have a slideshow of our time at Young Life camp, can you put it in the computer to show?” LightHusband handled both without my knowledge or stress. Except the bit about the slideshow and my response (after it was too late) was, “We can’t have people coming in 15 minutes before service and throwing this at us.” Except … well … really, that’s kind of what we’re all about and I need to let go of it. We’re about people bringing their gifts and talents to the Common Table to share.

Then as I watched this unasked for, unprepared for, stress-adding slide show, I felt my pinched little heart grow a few sizes. I gazed in wonder at the Holy Spirit yet again doing His thing amongst us. For … there it was. The perfect opening for a service on freedom. It was the Young Life camp for young people who have special needs and our three high school students had gone to be buddies to them. When they got up to speak afterwards, I heard them say that by the end of the week, there was neither special nor normal, but all were one in Christ Jesus. And all were free, because they had heard the truth and it had set them free. Of course … being teenagers they didn’t actually speak those words. They said it like this, “Wow, I couldn’t believe it. We loved those kids. And ahh by the end of the week we were like you know all of us together intertwined and like we couldn’t tell anyone apart anymore. It was so way cool.” And they had big shiny authentic grins on their faces.

Because of the time that took, we had to cut a couple of elements of the rest of the service. We didn’t have any open prayer. We didn’t sing the Doxology. We didn’t really have enough time to paint the pieces to the new communion table cloth we’re making. But we had left ourselves free to hear God speak to us and somehow that was more important.

When we experience the Beautiful, there is a sense of homecoming. Some of our most wonderful memories are of beautiful places where we felt immediately at home. We feel most alive in the presence of the Beautiful for it meets the needs of our soul. For a while the strains of struggle and endurance are relieved and our frailty is illuminated by a different light in which we come to glimpse behind the shudder of appearances the sure form of things. In the experience of beauty we awaken and surrender in the same act. Beauty brings a sense of completion and sureness. Without any of the usual calculation, we can slip into the Beautiful with the same ease as we slip into the seamless embrace of water; something ancient within us already trusts that this embrace will hold us. (Beauty: The Invisible Embrace, by John O’Donohue)

For such is the beauty of God.

My BrickFriend started this. Then CityGirl picked up the gauntlet. Now I can’t stop thinking about it either. So here’s my list.

1. The opening riff from Know Your Rights by The Clash … This is. A. Public. Service. Announcement. …. WITH GUITAAARRRRR …

2. Any GOOD lone bagpiper playing Amazing Grace.

3. The solo part in Le Chanky Chank Francaise by Beausoleil. It’s amazing how smooth the transitions are in the leads from guitar to fiddle to accordian … you never realize it’s happening til after it’s done. Beautiful.

4. The opening shout in New Year’s Day by U2 … never fails to give me goosebumps and open my imagination up. I love that shout.

5. Real cannon shots in the 1812 Overture (not a timpany roll) … the kind that make your sub-woofers shake.

6. These lyrics from Quiche Lorraine by the B-52s.

Has anybody seen.
A dog dyed dark green
About two inches tall,
With a strawberry blond fall;
Sunglasses and a bonnet
and designer jeans
with appliques on it?

I know there are more, but I can’t think of them now. I’ll pick this up another time. But I’m enjoying really listening to music now for what I like and what is … well … just okay.

The RevGalBlogPals have a Friday Five Meme … I decided to participate today. So with little more ado …

In the U.S., we’re heading into a holiday weekend as we prepare to celebrate Independence Day. Although the topic of this meme may be inevitable, independence never is, so it couldn’t hurt to stop and think for a minute about independence in a general way and holidays in a more trivial way.

1) Do you celebrate 4th of July (or some other holiday representing independence?)
I/We celebrate Independence Day. LightHusband and I used to sweat it out on a parade route somewhere in a fife and drum corps. Now it’s good to stay cool and dry or perhaps swim in our Canadian friends’ swimming pool.

2) When was the first time you felt independent, if ever?
When I got my first studio apartment in Washington DC. when I was 23 years old. But now I’m married with kids, not so much.

3) If you’re hosting a cookout, what’s on the grill?
Not hosting … going to a cookout hosted by our Canadian friends of all people!! I’m not sure what I’ll take yet. Probably Strawberry Shortcake now that you mention it.

4) Strawberry Shortcake — biscuit or sponge cake? Discuss.
Biscuit … always. In fact, I’d never even heard of having sponge cake until I moved out of New England. And … it must have homemade whipped cream on top with lots of yummy strawberry juice. I’ve been known, on occasion, to make strawberry shortcake for dinner. Just because.

5) Fireworks — best and worst experience
Hmmm … best would be on The Mall in DC back in about 1984 or 1985 with a bunch of friends. We hung out all day on a blanket and ate food and laughed. Then we watched the fireworks explode over the Washington Monument. This was back in the days when people would buy real livingroom furniture from Salvation Army and leave it on the Mall for the Park Police to clean up the next day. So there were all kinds of people around us sitting in and on all kinds of furniture.

Worst … Was on the shore of the Potomac a couple of years later to watch the fireworks, but I had a migraine all day. And being in the hot sun was horrible. The fireworks were probably fine, but I was miserable.

It’s official. I am now the world’s meanest mommy. I just thought I should tell all you other mommies and let you off the hook. I have claimed the brass ring.

My garden has become a metaphor for my life. It is choked and full of weeds. Everytime I leave or return to the house, those weeds laugh at me. They chortle with glee and claim victory over me. They try to tell me that I cannot decide which plants will grow in my garden. That my hydrangea must die, my nandia must wither, my lily of the valley must wilt and my peonies fall away. The only plant that is thriving is the yarrow, but really that is a weed that we have decided is a plant. So what is the dividing line between plant and weed?

Two of the weeds were HUGE. They had large broad leaves. They were tall. Much taller than I and I am tall for a woman. I had to stretch up tall with my arms above my head to cut off the top leaves yesterday evening. But I got those two. And many other smaller more garden variety (pardon the pun) weeds in 10 minutes. I have been grinning ever since to know that those two will no longer laugh at me. That I can take back my garden and slowly my life. This metaphor is good and gives me space to think whilst I dig in the dirt.

On the other hand, this morning, LightBoy was crushed. I have killed his favorite plant. He played with is Lego people in it. It was a fort, a spaceship, a playhouse and who knows what else. He wants to find a seed for this weed and plant a new one. I may help him.

One mommy’s metaphor is one son’s castle in the air. Motherhood is hard.

Terror was opening a box and finding that the quilt I’ve been working on for nine years (on and off … it’s all done by hand) for LightGirl had become a home to some very disrespectful mice.

Relief was discovering that all they did was relieve one tiny bladder on the quilt itself.

Anger was finding that they used the stash of antique fabric below the quilt for food and nesting.

I can wash the quilt. The box of fabric will go in my fabric closet to be salvaged when my blood pressure returns to normal. The tiny rodents had already been removed from the premises before their perfidy had been known.

Update: Peace is living in a place and time where terror is finding that a possession has been destroyed by rodents. My cup indeed runs over.

Some of you may recall the glimpse I had of the Kingdom a few weeks ago. It peeked out again and left me breathless.

I’ve always loved the story of Ruth. Several years ago I got to lead a women’s Sunday School class through the book. I bought a commentary to help prepare. It was tough reading, but I enjoyed it. Last summer our church did a service based on Ruth. I made a costume and told her story in the first person. It is a story that encapsulates so much theology in simple, yet beautiful language. All the great themes of both Testaments are in four chapters. Beautiful, clean, graceful.

This past Sunday we moved our Muslim refugee family from one apartment to another. It is not their last move. We hope to make it their next to last move. We managed to pack the truck before the torrential rains came. We were not nearly so lucky with the unpacking.

In every move there are little mis-steps that leave everyone standing around waiting. For the efficient, time-managers among the crowd this causes stress. But I think those waiting times are necessary, it gives people time to rest, to pause and breath. It gives the people who’s home is being moved a chance to regroup and make more decisions.

It was during one of those waiting times that I came upon the husband of the family and LightHusband having a conversation. The husband was talking about how grateful the family was to have had our help. The other husband talked about how different culture is here, that in his home country, family helps with things like a move. If one doesn’t have family one is … well … out of luck. LightHusband told him that many of us don’t have family in the area and that our church has become like our family. He went on to tell the other husband that they are part of our church now, regardless of their faith. And then he expressed his thankfulness that they had been able to secure an apartment that was not terribly far away and that we would be able to maintain our relationship with them. And then the other husband said (in his beautiful lilting accent), “Oh, you will not be able to get rid of us. We will sleep in a tent to be near to you.”

With those words, I heard the modern echo of “Wither thou goest, I will go and wither thou stayest, I will stay.” And I knew then that we are following Jesus into the hard places. That this was bringing hesed, the Kingdom, into being, on earth as it is in Heaven. Despite the weather, I was at peace.

Those of you who know me in the so-called “brick and mortar” world of our church and of my family, may have noticed that some new friends are stopping by this blog in the last few days. They are the RevGalBlogPals. They are women involved in ministry either directly (as pastors, reverends, etc. depending on their denomination) or indirectly (like me, Dee, Liz, and Maggie – in our church). They all have blogs. They all support one another. They are very welcoming and you’ve seen how they have welcomed me. Take some time to visit them and read their excellent writing. Check out the blogring, you’ll find the link on the left and down a little ways. In the meantime, enjoy the comments from my new wider circle of friends.