The Pursuit of Beginnings (Ep9)

Be brave enough to be bad at something new.

It's hard to begin sometimes. The desire is there. We're inspired by experts, convicted by our shortcomings, or simply want to do a new thing. The desire is essential. But then fear can set in.

What if I'm terrible? What if I just can't change? Or learn?

And the excuses come a mile a minute.

There's no time. There's no space. There's no one to teach me. I can't figure this out, I'm not artistic...I'm not athletic....I'm not creative....I'm not disciplined....I'm not whatever.

Sometimes the thing we wanted to do dies there. An unrealized dream, hope, or hobby shriveling up on the vine. Other times that thing seems to haunt us.

It pops up in conversations, in memes on social media, on podcasts and blog posts, and it's all over Pinterest. Maybe the internet is stalking you, but it's highly unlikely your favorite podcaster has actually tapped your conversations. It just feels that way because they're talking about the thing. You know, the thing you only mentioned to your friend. Or not to anyone at all.

Then what do you do?

You begin. And guess what? You're usually terrible!

Don't stop there.

If a seed gave up the moment it was planted because it was terrible at being a flower, we would never have fragrant blooms. If a caterpillar just rolled over and gave up before it even got inside the chrysalis, we'd never have butterflies flitting around. If Shakespeare and Beethoven and Van Gogh had just stopped when they were learning how to read, to play, to paint because it was more ink blots, sour notes, and paint blotches than masterpiece we'd never have Romeo and Juliet, or "Ode to Joy" or Starry Night.

True, you may never become a master. But you'll never be anything if you quit right out of the gate.

Oh, and the naysayers, the people who are "only teasing", or the ones who straight up criticize you, forget 'em. Dont let those words take root. It'll crowd out the seeds you're planting. Don't let their fear of something new or different or good become your reason to be afraid.

After all, everyone was once a beginner. And God loves a beginner with enough grit to keep at it. Need some evidence?

Jesus's mama was an unwed virgin, a total beginner in both marriage and motherhood. God could've picked a seasoned mother of six or seven, but he didn't. He picked Mary.

Samuel was just a child when God started speaking to him. And He didn't start with something easy either like, "Go tell Eli that he's gonna win the lottery tomorrow." No, it was "Go tell Eli that his sons will die because they have defiled the priesthood and you looked the other way." Yikes. But Samuel the newbie was faithful and God anointed kings and delivered many a message through him.

And then there's Peter. Peter is maybe the most beginnery beginner to ever begin. Impetuous, impulsive, and sometimes a little dense, he was a brand new recruit when Jesus called him as a disciple. Peter was a fisherman. He'd never followed a rabbi before. And yet Jesus chose him. He taught him, rebuked him when needed, and loved him so entirely that Peter eventually went on to change the world with the gospel of Christ.

Yeah, God's okay with beginners. Even beginners who are terrible. We can't all be Samuel and hit it out of the park on the first try. Some of us are more like Peter.

And maybe your thing isn't religious, it's not spiritual, it doesn't seem like a Jesus thing at all. Perhaps it's not. Or perhaps you're not looking at it from the right angle.

Are you interested in something artistic or creative? God gave us beauty to nourish our souls and our senses. He is the Creator and made us creators in his image. Embroidery, sketching, painting, sidewalk chalk....if you're making something beautiful you are doing what God would do.

Are you interested in something more athletic? God created the human body to run, jump, play, explore, combat, and adventure. He gave us muscles to flex and energy to expend. When we engage our bodies, we're using the very thing be created out of dust and breathed life into. This can even be worship.

Are you interested in cooking? God gave us taste buds and filled the world with all sorts of different things to taste and see that it is good. Jesus himself prepared a breakfast of fish for his friends after his Resurrection. If Jesus takes a minute to prepare a meal for his friends, your newfound interest in culinary arts can certainly be a God thing.

Are you interested in organization and order? Yes, even that can be a God thing. After all, He is the God of order and not of chaos. He built structure and design into the universe and all the minituiae within. Your newfound hobby for organizing or spreadsheets is a reflection of God.

My friend, whatever it is, I challenge you to go after it. Even if it feels silly. Even if it feels unimportant. Even if you've tried before and failed.

2020 is supposed to be the year I explore the word "new". I'm working on it and it's already quite intriguing and inspiring. But, it also seems to be the year I learn to do things I always thought I couldn't do. I'm running and exercising even though I'm not athletic. I'm slowly teaching myself to sketch, even though I'm not artistic. I keep drawing these quirky pictures of woodland animals who stand upright and play folk instruments. I don't care if it's not picture book perfect yet or if anyone thinks it's silly or weird. I'm learning a new thing. And in the spring, I want to plant a garden.

(Side note: You can stand by for A Secret Garden episode in the spring because I can't even daydream about planting a garden without songs from the musical bursting in. What? You didn't know there was a musical based on The Secret Garden? Well, you will if I get the chance to monologue about it here.)

But I don't have a green thumb and everything I plant typically dies for lack of care or proper understanding. Still, this year, the imagery of seeds, roots, and growth keeps pounding like an unrelenting drum. And I just feel like this is one of those interactive metaphors from God. One of the ones you gotta literally dig into to get the full fruit of it.

So 2020 the year of new, the year of doing things I cannot do, the year where I can't be afraid to be bad at something new, or just stop because it's hard and I'm bad at it.

Join me in the pursuit of beginning. It's always better to know you're not alone in the pursuit of new things and being bad at them. And it's even better when the work pays off, and you can say you conquered the new thing. You can do it now.

Next week, we'll talk about what happens when you fall off the horse and need a break.

Gather the Good

In this episode, my best friend Marybeth gave us her take on Gather the Good. She shares about the beauty of deep conversation, experiencing live music, adventuring in the mountains, and photo journaling. Goodness is everywhere, we just have to gather it!

Episode 5: Making Use of a Broken Gift

I figure it’s time to tell you a bit about myself since we’re a few episodes in and maybe not all of you know me in real life. Unfortunately, every attempt I make at writing this thing out turns into a list of labels. So, I’m just going to run with that and start with giving you some of my labels.

I’m a wife and mother. I’ve been married to my husband for eleven years, and we have two children. My seven year old son is very creative and imaginative, as well as energetic and a very sensitive soul. My daughter just turned four so she basically thinks she’s grown now and is ready to do everything. She’s super bossy, but also very nurturing and loves to take care of people. We also have a dog, can’t leave my furry boy out. We adopted Bode nine years ago as a rescue dog. He’s a total weirdo but he’s a good fit for our family that way.

I’m also a homeschooler. I never thought I would be. I always thought homeschoolers were weird so that was a big no for me. Then, when my son was preschool aged and we looked into programs, we found that we couldn’t afford it. So I started exploring the homeschool world. I was amazed by what I found. There are so many styles, curriculum choices, and research which shows how beneficial homeschooling can be. Now, clearly, I believe in it because we do it. That said, I don’t sit in judgment of anyone who makes a different education choice for their kids. Homeschooling can be really hard and there are days I question my own choices (insider info: all homeschoolers question their sanity at some point. We’re not filled with everlasting patience for our own children all the time). But I do really love having the extra time with my kids, the opportunity to be creative in our learning, and being able to pursue any interests and passions we uncover. Maybe someday I’ll do a whole episode about homeschooling to debunk some myths or offer encouragement for those who are interested, but today is not that day, so we’ll move on.

I’m also a Christian. Now when I say Christian, I realize that can be a loaded term. I do not mean someone who just goes to church or who follows a bunch of rules or hates people. I don’t hate people. I’m not very good at following rules (I have a big fat sin nature just like everyone else) and while I do go to church, I don’t think that makes me a better person that someone who does not. When I say Christian I mean that there came a point in my life where I realized things were pretty messed up and I needed Jesus. It also means that in my darkest moments and hardest seasons, I’ve not been alone. I seriously have to tell you guys about the fireflies of 2016 someday….but today is not that day, so we’re moving on again.

I am also an author. And being an author is what led me to this podcast. Let me give you the backstory.

When I was in third grade I had this wonderful teacher. Her name was Mrs. Morris. She has since passed away after a battle with cancer. But I was lucky enough to have her. She was like one of those teachers you find in story books. She was young and pretty and full of life. She had new ideas and ways of doing things. She wasn’t afraid to be a little outside the box and she encouraged us to be a little outside the box too. I still remember her reading Charlie and the Choclate Factory aloud to us. And I remember she had these stations set up in the classroom. One was a reading station with a big carpet and some big squishy teddy bears and bean bags where we could just curl up and read. Now, I’ve loved books and stories for longer than I can remember so anytime I’ve ever been encouraged to just sit and read, it’s been my favorite. But Mrs. Morris also had writing stations. We would write in our spiral notebooks about all kinds of things. They could be lilke journal entries or short stories or just telling her what our plans were for the weekend---cause you know, eight year olds have some great weekend plans. And she would write in the margins all manner of encouragement and feedback to nurture our writing. She also had each of us write our own book. She made cardboard covers and put blank pages inside so each of us could write and illustrate our own story. Mine was called The Old Horse in the Beat-Down Stable. It sounds so bleak, doesn’t it? I still have it somewhere. I was so proud of my story and it lit a tiny spark of passion for writing.

Fast forward to 11th grade, English Lit with Mrs. Clark. I knew by then that I really loved reading, especially old classics but it was in her class that I realized I was different. We were studying couplets and while most of my classmates needed a minute to figure them out, I seemed to be getting it instantly. This was the moment I realized not everyone was like me and I was good at something. And I don't care who you are or what your thing is--if it's couplets from English poetry or trigonometry or fixing cars or styling hair--when you have that moment when you discover a talent, skill, or strong interest, it's a good moment. And that was one of my moments. Also, in this class, Mrs. Clark had us each write an allegorical short story. We had just studied Jonathan Swift and learned how he used allegory to make political points through story. I wrote a short story for this assignment that I absolutely loved. In fact, I turned it into a full length novel by the end of my freshman year of college. Then it morphed into a full series. Actually, for the next ten years, I continued tinkering with the story until it became this huge, unwieldy thing that didn't make much sense any more. Characters kept changing, the idea of what it was really about kept evolving, there were fairies at one point. It was a lot. But it kept the passion for writing alive and active in me.

However, there have been times when the writing stops, when the part of me that is a writer seems to go to sleep. It's usually because of excessive busyness, or sometimes it's because it feels like it doesn't matter so I should just watch TV, but whenever I stop writing, it's like I'm missing something that is inherent and essential to being me.

There was a gap for a few years when I stopped. Life was breakneck busy after my son was born. I was transitioning from working full time to being a stay at home mom and I also ended up leading our church's youth group in our living room. I had a blog then I posted in sometimes, and I wrote my own youth lessons most of the time, but that was it. I wasn't really writing. For two years, I didn't work at all on my novels.

Then, when my son was two, I realized I needed something that was just mine. I loved being a mom, but it's so demanding. And my boy as a two year old was an absolute dynamo from the moment he woke up to when I finally convinced him to fall asleep at night. And not only was I exhausted, but I had lost a sense of self. It was like I was a mom who was supposed to do mom things and think mom thoughts and just have mom feelings. And wife feelings too. But there was nothing left for me. So my husband and I talked and agreed I should have a night every week to do whatever I wanted. We didn't have a lot of money then so I didn't want to just do shopping sprees and I didn't have a lot of friends then so I couldn't just go out with the girls (plus, my friends were all busy too). I did, however, have a laptop, and there was an amazing coffee shop nearby. We lived outside of Bowling Green, Ohio then and in Bowling Green there is a coffee shop called Grounds for Thought that has not only coffee and a really good chai latte, but used books. Tons and tons and tons of used books. So I would grab my laptop, order a big mug of chai, get a donut with strawberry icing, and settle in to write.

The novels I had been messing around with since high school were unusable. It was all nonsense at that point that no amount of editing could unravel. But there were a few fantastic characters worth air-lifting into a new book. I changed their names and decided to start anew. Yet, when I opened that new Word document and bright shiny white page was staring back at me, I had no idea how to start. It's very intimidating to sit down and try to just write a book. So I decided to just start with a single scene and whatever characters came to mind. In my mind's eye, I could see a grandfather and his adult granddaughter. They were outside in a plaza. My hometown, Cuyahoga Falls, has this riverfront area with stores and a cobbled streets. That's where I saw them. And the granddaughter was in a hot pink vintage party dress. And as I crafted the scene what bubbled to the surface was how much they adored each other. These characters were based on my own grandfather and me, although I don't own a fabulous pink party dress and my PapPap was a man of much fewer words. But this relationship gave shape to a brand new story. It was a launch point.

I took my laptop to Grounds for Thought every week for months. I pounded away at a rough draft morning, noon, and night in spare moments. I stayed up to two or three in the morning. I finished it on my thirtieth birthday. It would be three more years before the final draft was finished and ready for publication. It took four years in total.

I published that book in 2018. It was the first novel in the Sayen Falls series, and it's title is Once More. It's basically my third baby. But as I said, Sayen Falls is a series. There are four novels in total. Or there will be. When I published Once More, I assumed I'd start right away on the next one. I have the entire story arc in my head. I have the story arc for the whole series in my head. I can tell you who gets married, who has babies, what everyone argues about, what kind of tea they drink for breakfast. The trouble is, I can't seem to get it to come out of my head and onto the page.

Every time I try, what comes out isn't good. I suppose it's a form of writer's block and I've analyzed it six ways from Sunday. It feels like my words--the words I've had since third grade--have dried up and gone away. Every now and then there's a cloudburst and I can write something good and beautiful. It just never lasts for long.

And so I've tried to give this gift back to God. Here you go, it's broken and I can't use it anymore. The
trouble with that is that God doesn't accept returns and he doesn't make exchanges. He gently hands it back to me, in his own way, and tells me that he doesn't give gifts that are broken and he doesn't give gifts just so I can hand them back and say I don't want this. He gives gifts so we use them, even when it's hard, and when it doesn't flow, and even when you feel crazy doing it. If it's a gift, you're meant to use it.

So that's where I am. I'm simply trying to be obedient to use what I have. I don't want to be the guy who buried his talent in the ground because he didn't have any better ideas and fear stopped him from making better choices. I might not be the five talent guy who gets the biggest return on his investment--and that's okay. Maybe, just maybe, I can be the three talent guy who used what he had and didn't compare himself to the five talent guy and didn't give up like the one talent guy, and had something to offer the master when he returned. I'd rather have something, even if it's small, than nothing.

And that's what i'm doing now. When writing the novels started to feel so strained, I turned my attention to blogging. In fact, that's where you find all of my show notes, so you can look around at the blog posts as well. But even that has felt so hit or miss and hard to do. Then, one day, I decided to try podcasting. I'm going to be very honest--I have no idea why. If writing wasn't working, it doesn't really make sense to think that talking will work. If the words are gone, then what in the world am I saying? Still, I did it anyway. And here we are.

In a way, I wish I fit into a nice little niche and could tell you that I'm always going to talk about motherhood or homeschooling or books, but I've never been good at pigeon holes. I'm also not sure that's what God has for me. He not only gifted me words, but a vivid imagination and a thirst for beauty and passion for an inspired life. It will all be used somehow, some way. As author Erma Bombeck said, "When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, 'I used everything you gave me.'"

In the first episode I talked about Plotting Possibility and plotting a course. God is plotting the course here, the course of my life, the course of my story, and the course of this podcast. We're all in this together to see where we're going. I promise to be obedient and to use my gifts, and I hope and I pray that it's a blessing to you as we go together on this journey.

Gather the Good

Since this post is all about me, I thought I'd just tell you about a few of my favorite things in the entire world. These are really just a few random things that I truly love and I don't know when else I'll be able to talk about them.

My favorite vacation spot is Ocean City, New Jersey. In fact, it was the inspiration for Summerstead Isle in my novels. It's the perfect family vacation destination with beautiful beaches, a long boardwalk with miniatrue golf, amusement parks, and delicious food. If you ever go, you have to do Golden Galleon mini golf, grab a slice of Manco and Manco's pizza, and bike all the way to the end of the boardwalk to get some hot fresh donuts from Browns. It's worth the exercise.

My kids enjoying the ocean on our last night in OCNJ this past summer. 

The kids and husband playing skee ball on our first night in OCNJ. Only $0.10 a game!

The Music Pier reaching into the sea. 

That said, my favorite trip I've ever taken was to London and Ireland when I graduated high school. My uncle is a world traveler himself, and took my brother and me each on trips when we graduated. I got to pick so we trotted off for a week in London and a week in Ireland. I still look at the pictures all the time and tell the kids all about it like I was just there last week (It's been 16 years). It's true that the Irish are the friendliest people ever. And London is an amazing city. Someday I must go back.

18 year old me on The London Eye

While I was there, I got to go to the Globe Theater where Shakespeare's plays were first performed. Now, I'm actually not a total geek for Shakespeare but I do have a soft spot for him. His writing comes up quite a bit in my own actually. The title Once More is from a quote in Henry V, "once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more!" The Hollow Crown series is excellent. It stars Jeremy Irons and Tom Hiddleston, but also Michelle Dockery (think: Lady Mary from Downton Abbey) has a supporting role. It's pretty amazing to watch Scar, Loki, and Lady Mary do Shakespeare. But my very favorite play of all time is Much Ado About Nothing. The title for the second novel, Mend, is from a quote in that play. "Serve God, love me, and mend." I absolutely insist you watch the Kenneth Branagh version from the 90s. It was my first real introduction to Shakespeare when I was about 14 or so, and I love it as much now as I did then.

My last bit of goodness for today, the Cuyahoga Valley National Parks. As I said, I grew up in Cuyahoga Falls and as a teenager, my friends and I regularly went to the valley to hike and talk about our cute boys and feelings and other things that were important to us. I sorta thought everyone had a valley nearby for doing such things, but when I went to college, in the flattest county in Ohio, I realized that's not so. I desperately missed my green, twisty, windy valley in the ten years I lived in very flat, very straight lined Wood County. If you're an outdoorsy type, or ever find yourself in the Cleveland-Akron area with a few hours and nothing to do, you must drive into the valley and explore. And if you can go in the fall, enjoy how golden everything becomes as the sun pours through golden leaves. It's good stuff.

10 Things I've Learned from Les Miserables

(Fair Warning: There will be plot spoilers so if you're unfamiliar, go rent/stream the 10th Anniversary Concert, the 25th Anniversary Concert, or the Hugh Jackman film and come back. Or, if you'd rather, here's a great synopsis.)

July 1994
On top of the Empire State Building

My backstory: 

I first saw Les Mis in 1994 with my dad on a hot summer's day in New York City. We were vacationing in relatively nearby Ocean City, New Jersey, and Dad took me up to the Big Apple for a day. I was nine-and-a-half years old. I remember on our drive into the city my dad explained two things to me. One, don't look at anyone in a raincoat because they might be a flasher (this stayed with me for years ). Two, for the purposes of seeing Les Mis, he had to explain prostitution. Of the two, the flasher thing was more traumatizing. I was wary of trench raincoats for years. 

I'm sure I barely understood what was happening in the show and I certainly didn't grasp the  profound themes of human nature, but something magical happened to me. Magic always happens with Les Mis and me. And on that hot July day, a spell was cast on me that has lingered for the last twenty-five years and shows no signs of fading. 

May 1998
7th Grade Choir Concert

When my dad purchased the three-disc complete symphonic recording I commandeered it and made it mine. Sorry, not sorry. I read the liner notes cover to cover multiple times. I learned about where the cast members were from and how they did the recording. And I poured over the lyrics to soak them up. I must've been about eleven or twelve by then. The second disc was my favorite. It had all of Eponine's songs. And I really loved me some Eponine. When I was thirteen, I got to sing "On My Own" for my first real solo at the seventh grade choir concert. I remember our director raising an eyebrow when I asked if I could, but he humored me and it remains one of the proudest moments in my personal history. (Incidentally, it's been twenty-two years and I can still sing every word with as much feeling and gusto as I did then. Probably more.)  

April 2011
Playhouse Square

Les Mis has a way of surfacing when I need it. As a teenager it gave me music for my emotions. As a twenty-something it was a declaration of the triumph of grace and light. As a worn out mom in my mid-thirties, it refills my cup with the fullness of music, story, and magic. I got to see the 2019 staged production in a cinema showing on my thirty-fifth birthday the other night. It was everything I needed and more.

The deep connection I've had with this show for twenty-five years has proven to be rich and enriching. I've grown up, like a little Cosette, with the story and songs of Les Miserables as a sort of soundtrack running in the background of my life. I certainly had no idea as a wide-eyed nine-year-old little girl of the gift I was given that summer day in New York City, but it's one I now hold very dear indeed. 

The lessons: 

The themes of grace, redemption, love, mercy, justice, friendship, comradeship, sacrifice, light, and dark didn't become clear to me until I hit adulthood. There are about as many themes as there are characters and scene changes in Les Miserables (so a lot). Every time I do a deep dive back into it I resurface with some new truth uncovered. Reading the novel enhanced that by about a billion. It's a hefty tome, but I recommend reading it at least once. The character development alone is enough reason to power through the girth. In the rest of this post, I'll share with you just ten lyrics that have taught me something or resonated deeply with me over the years.

1. To love another person is to see the face of God: This is hands-down my favorite lyric from any show or any song ever. And my favorite book of the Bible is 1 John. What in the world do these two things have in common? This verse right here, which I'm sharing in the Amplified translation because I like how full it is. "No one has seen God at any time. But if we love one another [with unselfish concern], God abides in us, and His love [the love that is His essence abides in us and] is completed and perfected in us." (1 John 4:12) Because God is love and mankind is made in His image when we love, we are showing Him to others, and seeing Him in the object of our love. It's not easy to remember. Unselfish love is not the typical knee-jerk reaction when we're wronged or have our patience tested, but it is the manifestation of God within us. This kind of love changes both the giver and the recipient. This kind of love is actually divine.  

2. "Another story must begin!": Okay, so honestly, I used to gloss over the beginning because I was all about the students later on. But then, as I grew older, I realized that the most incredible thing happens in the prologue. After Valjean is released from prison, he's treated abominably by people in the villages where he tries to make a life. Then, the kind old Bishop of Digne invites him to stay for the night. This scene is even more powerful in the book as Hugo tells us what the Bishop's servants think (Bishop be crazy) and how precious the silver really is to the Bishop. In the musical, we see Valjean marvel at the foolishness of the Bishop in trusting him as he steals the silver. He's caught and arrested (as a kid, I always thought maybe he wouldn't have been caught if he didn't sing about it so loudly. *shrug*) and brought back to the Bishop. Valjean has told his captors that the silver was a gift from the Bishop, and shockingly, he corroborates the story. In an act of heaping mercy, the Bishop also gifts Valjean the silver candlesticks which he had left behind. As he does he tells him that he must use the profit from selling the precious silver to become an honest man, that in his act of forgiveness and mercy, he is showing him God's love, and it must change his life. This single act of radical kindness changes the trajectory of Valjean's life which then in turn saves the lives of Cosette and later Marius. Because Valjean experiences the sacrificial, radical love of God through the Bishop, he has to grapple with his own sin and hatred. He recognizes that this is a crossroads. Does he allow himself to be changed by this love? Or does he cling to what he knows? For Jean Valjean, he must literally create a new identity and begin again, but I find this a brilliant example of how we are all made new in Christ. Valjean becomes a new creation through redemptive love and mercy, and although we aren't convicts fresh off the chain gang, we too must be made new in Christ. And in that new identity, there is freedom to love and forgive generously.

3. "Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise." : Darkness doesn't get to win; light is always the victor in the end. This line is taken from the epilogue, when all the characters who have died return as a somewhat ghostly chorus. It begins very softly and faintly, but it is "the music of a people who are climbing to the light." By the time the last notes ring out, it's a full fanfare about the victory that's promised "when tomorrow comes." I am one who often has to climb to the light. To put it as simply as I can, depression is hell. When I'm experiencing depression, it cuts off all that is good, healthy, and light from my experience. I know it's out there, but I can't reach it. I can't make it mine. Still, I climb for the light not just because I know it's there, but because I am a child of God. There's a fullness of life that is my birthright now. It is absolutely worth the struggle--I am worth the struggle--to fight the darkness of the night, and sing as the sun rises.

4."It is time for us all to decide who we are...": Very recently I realized how intensely devoted almost every character is to something or someone, and they each have a point at which they're willing to die for it. Fantine is desperately devoted to the well-being of her beloved child. Javert is devoted obsessed with justice; Enjorlas with equality and freedom. Grantaire is devoted to both wine and his friendship with Enjorlas (usually in that order). Eponine is devoted to Marius. Marius is devoted to both the cause of equality and to his new found love, Cosette, and ballads passionately about the conflict. Cosette is devoted to her father and to Marius. And Jean Valjean, the star, he's devoted to loving and protecting Cosette, and honoring God and using every bit of the redemptive grace he was given for the good of others. Devotion abounds, people, it's dripping off the walls. It's probably embarrassing it took me two and a half decades to really notice it. (continued in #5)

5. "We're the ones who make it in the end." : The exception to all this devotion is the Thernadiers who care only for themselves and self-preservation. The contrast, in fact, is startling. As they tell us, they're the ones who make it in the end.  And they're right. Spoiler: by the time the curtain falls, only four characters are still alive--the young lovers, Marius and Cosette, and the stinking Thernadiers. But what is the survival of the Thernadiers for? Their legacy is worthless. Utterly and entirely worthless because it only serves themselves and their good fortune is only ever temporary. On the other hand, the lives and sacrifices of (almost) all the others are beautiful. To love deeply and truly, and to be devoted sincerely to an ideal gives meaning to their lives and purpose in their legacy. The love, friendship, and devotion can carry Marius and Cosette into their future together infused with strength of those they've lost. Which prompts me to consider my convictions, my personal sacrifices, and the legacy I'm crafting. A legacy doesn't just pop up upon death, instead, it's the culmination of things cultivated in life. What do I believe in passionately? Who do I love unselfishly and sacrificially? What foundation am I crafting for those who will carry on when my time has passed? If my life is all about me, it's worthless. If my love stops just short of sacrificial, it's incomplete. If my convictions run dry when tested, they don't have much value

6. "My heart is stone and still it trembles.": There is one more exception to this devotion rule. Javert's obsession with justice ends up being the end of him. And try as I might, I can't find anything redemptive about it. Instead, what I learn is that mercy is a polarizing thing. It either changes you or it hardens you. Case in point? Inspector Javert. Over the years, I've come to see his suicide as one of the saddest parts in the show. Michael Ball's recent performance as the inspector definitely aided in that sympathy. But the heartbreaking thing about Javert is his deep misunderstanding of God, the law, and humanity. When he's offered mercy, it breaks him. The same act that set Valjean free to live a redeemed life, condemns Javert to suicide. His devotion to justice crowds out any room for mercy. His intense distrust for mankind pushes away any connection he might make. His legalistic understanding of salvation leaves him without any place for the love of Christ. He's a strong contender for the most tragic figure I've ever encountered in a musical.

7. "In my need, you have always been there.": If "Bring Him Home" isn't one of the most emotional songs in a musical, then I don't know what is. And here's the thing, in the musical, it sorta gets lost that Valjean marches his self to the barricade hell-bent on killing Marius after he intercepts the love letter to Cosette. Then, he's so impressed with Marius that he ends up saving his life. But in the musical, since this is the way musicals work, we get this incredible song. The whole thing is a prayer in which Valjean wholly recognizes that it's all in God's hands. I personally really love this lyric because I know that in my own life, God has always been there. Through heartaches and trauma and grief, God has never left me. That doesn't mean I've always gotten my way or that life is just sunshine and roses. Go back and re-read that line about heartache and trauma and grief. Life is life and sometimes it knocks the wind right out of you. And yet God remains steadfast, and I can always call on Him. I also like that God's way of answering Valjean's prayer is to make him an active participant in making it so. Marius isn't miraculously spared from any injury; instead Valjean carries him through sewers and pleads with Javert to give the boy a fighting chance to live. And, in my experience, God's answers to prayers usually require us to step up and do something too.

8. "This rain will wash away what's past...and rain will make the flowers grow.": Major spoiler: This is the heart wrenching moment between Marius and Eponine when she finally feels the warmth of his embrace and love as she dies in his arms. It's rough. Yet there is something so poignant and hopeful about Eponine. Unlike her parents, the Thernadiers, she's not bitter, covetous, and nasty. Eponine takes her hardships in stride, constantly imagining what could be and giving of herself to an absolute fault. In this song, she tells us that rain is really okay. That sorrow can lead to healing, that darkness precedes light. And rain is actually life-giving. Without it flowers don't bloom, trees wither, fields die from want of water. How too we humans blossom and grow with rain, even if we think all we really want is sunny days without the challenges of clouds and storms. The truth is, if we want beauty and strength, we must accept also what is bleak and hard. 

9. "I will never go away and we will be together every day.": Okay, full disclosure, I used to make fun of this line. Like, okay, Cosette, literally all of Marius' friends have just senselessly died, but it's alright because you exist. That's not narcissistic at all, sweetie. But I was terribly wrong about Cosette! What she's doing in this moment is drawing Marius from the edge of despair. He has survivor's guilt and is deeply grieving his friends. Grief is important. He must grieve, he should grieve. But he can not stay there, it will consume him. And Cosette knows this. With gentleness and hope, she helps him recall that his life has meaning, and that there is love in it. Love, as we have already seen, is a very powerful thing. Love and hope have the strength to pull us back from the edge of darkest despair.

10. "Take my hand, I'll lead you to salvation. Take my love for love is everlasting.": Les Mis shows us the vital importance of human connection, tenderness, and friendship. Without it we become narrow-minded, self-serving, and cruel. In the absence of love and mercy, only brutality and depravity can grow. Yet when love and mercy are given, hope is born. And out of hope, all manner of new life begins. Kindness, gentleness, sacrificial love, honor, and integrity blossom and take deep root. In friendship and camaraderie, there is strength to stand in the darkness and proclaim the light. It is love that lasts forever and ever. "And now there remain: faith [abiding trust in God and His promises], hope [confident expectation of eternal salvation], love [unselfish love for others growing out of God’s love for me], these three [the choicest graces]; but the greatest of these is love." (1 Corinthians 13:13)

And if you made it to the end....here's a special treat! I've been binge-watching this clip for about a week now. Michael Ball and Bradley Jaden singing a duet version of "Stars". It's pretty fantastic. 

The Inheritance of Cathedral Work

As I write, it is one day since most of Notre Dame has burned. The reports are slightly conflicting as to how much was truly destroyed, "ravaged" by flames as the eye witnesses describe. But in any case, it's a breathtaking loss. It feels surreal. This magnificent, larger than life structure, full of grandeur, designed to lift the eye to the light and bend the knee to the holy has been standing for eight or nine hundred years.

I've been learning about cathedrals just as a matter of happenstance lately. Many of the podcasters and bloggers I follow have been writing and speaking about them. Most of the oldest, tallest, grandest cathedrals took generations to complete. One generation would begin the work, another would finish it. Perhaps three or four generations separated the beginning and the end, but the work was singular--to construct a beautiful gathering place to reflect on the majesty of God, to lift songs to the risen Savior, to quicken the imagination for the perfect city God is building for us. 

My modern American brain struggles with the idea of starting a work that I will never see completed. We build churches in a matter of months. We routinely tear down sanctuaries and start over to build bigger, better. We seem to make our churches ever darker--not lighter. Paint the walls black, use filtered lights, fog machines. Our ancestors would think we were nuts. In a time before man-made light, they craved light. Stained windows cast a holy glow over a place to open up the mind for contemplation. I wonder what our obsession with dark and fog says about our cravings. Maybe it's because we live in a world so full of stimulus, that we have to darken our worship areas in order to focus. I don't know. I digress.

So today I've been thinking about building cathedrals. It's a lost art. Communities just don't do it anymore. We don't quarry the rock and fell the forests and hire the artisans to labor for two-hundred years to build a place where our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren will worship. We don't weep on the same altar where our parents and grandparents did. And that's okay really. The Holy Spirit is just as sacred and potent and strong in Saint Paul's Cathedral as in a hovel in Africa or a secret church in China. Some would argue, the earnest artistry has been overshadowed by pageantry and the Spirit has been hushed. Perhaps so in some of these grand once-sacred places.

Still, there seems to be a message in this. For me, anyway. A directive finally uncovered. I'm in a strange, quiet season where words don't flow and writing hurts. I've been reading and reading and reading. And listening to podcasts and soaking up whatever I can to wring meaning out of it. I'm hungry for answers to deep questions, questions that I've maybe carried with me my entire life but are finally bursting forth to be answered. As if someone had planted tiny little apple seeds in my soul when I was a baby, and now it's time for them to grow into a tree and bear fruit.

As I pondered cathedrals and generations laboring together, knowing one would start and another would finish, I felt some sort of deep truth blossom. Isn't this exactly what my grandmother did in her own quiet way? The woman never carried a chisel to carve a stone, she never worked with glass to reflect the light, but she labored in love for Christ. She served in her local church for decades, and at her funeral person after person after person after person stood to tell the story of how she loved like Jesus and their lives were changed through her. She loved us, her kin, her family with humble devotion. She taught her kids right from wrong and the promises of God. She loved my brother and me, her grandchildren, whole-heartedly but with wisdom. I just said to my husband last night that when I'm tempted to complain about my kitchen (I cook on a hot plate, y'all, because I don't have a stove actually in my kitchen) I ask myself what my grandmother would do and I know she would do her work cheerfully. I try. I try to carry on as she would. She started a cathedral work; I've inherited the labor and I want my contribution to be as lovely in the eyes of God as hers.

It will look different. I tried to be her for a while, but that doesn't work. We were created differently. I'm working with different spiritual gifts, different personality quirks, different talents. My generation is also remarkably different than hers--she grew up in The Great Depression and had her oldest children during World War 2. I'm in that displaced generation between Generation X and Millenials, where we remember library card catalogs but also had to be told Wikipedia isn't a legit source for research papers.

However, our striving is the same. My grandmother spent her life laboring for the Kingdom of Heaven. There's no cathedral I can point to and boast that she set this stone, she crafted that window, she hand-carved that gargoyle. But I am a living, breathing example of one who was changed by her work and her example. And I labor for the same Kingdom. The fruit will be in the people around me. My children, my someday grandchildren, my friends, my community....the people I may never meet who read the words I write. My words are like seeds blown into the wind. I don't know how far they may float or onto what kind of soil they may land, but God may bring fruition through them. I pray for this. I pray that my contribution to the cathedral pleases Him. And I pray that though I get tired and weary, I never give up.

I have to imagine that at least some of the workers in the cathedral had to wonder if spending their lives creating something they would never see finished really made sense. Certainly, in our modern world we would say it was stupendously inefficient and a waste of  life. We crave production, end results, and mass quantities of them if possible. Thankfully the laborers of the cathedrals didn't quit when they couldn't see the end. And thankfully those who have labored on invisible cathedrals of the heart and soul didn't give up when they couldn't see the end either. They kept the faith, they finished their work, and passed the mantle to us.

I was almost done with this post and my kids came in. The writing bubble has burst. The words are just gone. As suddenly as they came to me, they're now gone. So I can't really "finish" this the way I would like to. I like to wrap up with something neat and tidy, poignant if I can manage it, quotable if I'm really on a roll. But. After ten minutes or so I've trying to manufacture something that's good and it just feels like a tangent or like I'm changing the point or I'm just plain rambling, I've realized something: this whole post is about doing work that can't be finished. I'm a writer with two noisy kids. My labor in their lives is perhaps the greatest work I'll never do, so sometimes I have to set aside the writing. I don't truly know what my legacy of words will look like, but I know what I want my legacy of love to look like. So. I'm leaving this blog post more or less unfinished to go do the work that will last. And I'll leave you with this simple thought: What are you working on that will last? What will out-live you?

And since words escape me and I find myself lacking the poignant, I leave you with a poem that has given me much food for thought in the last six or nine months. Just read it slowly, line by line, and consider how you live today and the cathedrals you build for tomorrow.

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

By: Wendell Berry 

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,

vacation with pay. Want more

of everything ready-made. Be afraid

to know your neighbors and to die.

And you will have a window in your head.

Not even your future will be a mystery

any more. Your mind will be punched in a card

and shut away in a little drawer.

When they want you to buy something

they will call you. When they want you

to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something

that won’t compute. Love the Lord.

Love the world. Work for nothing.

Take all that you have and be poor.

Love someone who does not deserve it.

Denounce the government and embrace

the flag. Hope to live in that free

republic for which it stands.

Give your approval to all you cannot

understand. Praise ignorance, for what man

has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.

Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.

Say that your main crop is the forest

that you did not plant,

that you will not live to harvest.

Say that the leaves are harvested

when they have rotted into the mold.

Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus

that will build under the trees

every thousand years.

Listen to carrion – put your ear

close, and hear the faint chattering

of the songs that are to come.

Expect the end of the world. Laugh.

Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful

though you have considered all the facts.

So long as women do not go cheap

for power, please women more than men.

Ask yourself: Will this satisfy

a woman satisfied to bear a child?

Will this disturb the sleep

of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.

Lie down in the shade. Rest your head

in her lap. Swear allegiance

to what is nighest your thoughts.

As soon as the generals and the politicos

can predict the motions of your mind,

lose it. Leave it as a sign

to mark the false trail, the way

you didn’t go. Be like the fox

who makes more tracks than necessary,

some in the wrong direction.

Practice resurrection.

Sparrows, Rams on the Mountain, and Me

When my daughter was born she screamed for the first forty-five minutes of her life. She wasn't crying. She was screaming. She was irate. Inconsolably angry at being brought into this cold, strange world. And she was hungry. I mean, she was eleven pounds, eight ounces at birth. The girl probably really wanted some chocolate chip cookies and a glass of cold milk. It was her favorite in utero and it's her favorite now at three years old. But it's not exactly protocol to give newborns cookies and milk, however much they scream. Instead, we tried to get my baby to nurse. By "we" I mean I had a whole team working with me and trouble-shooting and trotting out every trick they had up their sleeves. When the lactation consultant--who was so kind and cheerful and positive and wonderful--declared that my daughter was a "tough case" I knew I was in for trouble.

You see, I have two children (most of you already know this, but I will write for those of you who perhaps don't know me in real life). My daughter is my youngest. I have a son three and a half years older. And he never did get the hang of nursing. Oh, we tried. And the guilt I had when I stopped trying and started using formula instead was intense. Deeply intense. And very much exacerbated by my undiagnosed post-partum depression and the mommy wars. You know, those passive aggressive comments made on social media that cut to the quick and everyone bloody well knows it. Those mommy wars.

So when my sweet screaming girl came along, I had been determined that I would breastfeed her longer than my son. If memory serves (which it doesn't because I've been sleep-deprived for almost seven years), I made it about ten weeks with my son and my goal with my daughter was eleven. I wanted just one more week. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Back to the hospital....Collectively, the experts and my husband and me agreed that we would try to get my daughter to latch for ten minutes and if she was still hopping angry, we'd stop and give her a bottle. We didn't want her to start associating feeding, or worse yet, me, with anger and frustration. The plan was to pump as much as possible but if girlfriend needed a little formula, that was okay too. Really hard for my pride in the mommy wars, but okay.

I so clearly remember sitting alone with her in my quiet little hospital room and feeling deeply worried. I had all this emotional baggage from "failing" with my son. I had hoped she would be easy. Nothing about this was going right and we hadn't even left the hospital. Then--all of a sudden, as they say--I felt in my spirit a message from the Lord. He assured me that he looks after birds and makes sure they get enough to eat each day, and that my dear sweet girl was worth more to him than any bird. He would make sure she'd thrive too. One way or another, I wasn't in this alone. I wasn't responsible for making sure she was okay. I mean, I wasn't free to neglect her, but the parts that were out of my control were in His control. He saw me. He saw my daughter. And we were going to be okay.

Naturally, I looked up the scripture passages about sparrows and the lyrics to the song "His Eye is on the Sparrow". I started singing it to her to soothe her. I found a rendition by The Newsboys that I think freaks my mother (Hi, Mom!) out a little bit, but it worked like magic to settle my fussy newborn. I learned all the words to that song. I memorized them in the first week or so of her little life. It became my anthem, even when it didn't work to calm her down.

There were some nights when she just wouldn't stop crying. It didn't matter how hard I tried, how much milk I offered, if I swaddled her or not, if I rocked her or not, if I sang or not. It didn't matter to her if I sang, but I kept singing because it mattered to me. I distinctly remember standing in her nursery, so bleary-eyed from no sleep, and teary-eyed because I was just so wrecked by the crying infant and singing over and over again...

"And I sing because I'm happy, I sing because I'm free for His eye is on the sparrow and I know He watches me."

Singing about happiness with tears streaming down your face makes an indelible impression on your spirit. I was clinging to that promise. I grabbed hold of it hard and I didn't let go.

Eventually, my daughter got a grip on her emotions and settled into a pretty wonderful baby. I also eventually gave up nursing her (I believe I made it eleven weeks and one day.) About the same time she became rather pleasant, PPD hit me hard. Anxiety. Never had it before. Not like that anyway. Which I talked about in the post 'Kindness Carries the Light'. Fluctuating hormones, and weeks of high-stress and very little sleep did me in. Still, I had the promise that God was watching.

And not just watching, lest you think this God of mine is a passive one who merely observes from on high and occasionally remarks to other celestial beings about the tiny humans on that blue and green ball. That is not my God. My God is deeply personal and intentional and deliberate and kind. God moves. His plans are, in fact, set in motion before my need even arises. He knows what I need now and what I will need next week and what I'll need in three years or thirty or whatever. Being omniscient gives you that kind of high-level clearance. And being omnipotent gives Him the clearance to also do something.

You don't always see it. Or, I don't anyway. I probably shouldn't speak for you. Maybe you're more observant than I am. But I don't usually see the provision before it's smacked me in the face and announced it's arrived. I don't see the ram climbing up the hill as I trudge up with my sacrifice. When Abraham and Isaac went up the mountain so Abraham could sacrifice his beloved son, he didn't notice or know about the ram coming up that would take Isaac's place. But God did. God made sure that ram was coming. Lately, I like to trace the steps backwards in this biblical narratives that we know so well that we take the details for granted. God knew that ram was needed the day it was born. That ram had a purpose and God got it up the hill for Abraham on just the right day. The ram wasn't a week early and missed it, it wasn't a day late and a dollar short. The timing was perfect. The provision came in the moment of crisis.

Friends. I'm going to be honest with you. 2019 has been a moment of crisis for my family. All three months of it. My husband has a heart condition; it's genetic and he's known about it for over twenty years. It's been well-managed and monitored for those two decades. This January he had an episode that landed him in the hospital for five days while they poked and prodded and scanned him, then hemmed and hawed and read results. The good news is after a minor surgery where he got a new internal defibrillator with some additional features and some new medicines, he's stable and good to go. He can live his normal life and he's fine! Except his employer won't let him come back to work for a year. We don't understand it. The doctors don't understand it. No one I have talked to understands it. And mountains of paperwork has been printed and faxed and copied and mailed and messed up by people not us....and hours and hours of phone calls have been made to fix what's messed up and find out what's needed and to determine what our immediate future holds. It's been stressful.

Yet. My God is watching. El-Roi. The God who sees me. This name was given to Yahweh by the Egyptian slave Hagar, a woman mistreated and hurt and desperate. She was sure she was alone in the wilderness and unable to provide for her son when God spoke to her. He gave her a promise and he provided for her and her son.

I've loved the story of Hagar ever since college when I first intimately understood that my God is one who sees me. Then today, oh, today was a hard day of listening to my husband's half of phone calls and feeling like I can't fix anything and trying to keep the kids and the dog quiet and no one was having it. I was so done. I was just so exhausted deep inside. I used up all my soul energy frowning and fretting and freaking out but swallowing it up whole so the kids wouldn't start to worry. Anyone else ever been there? Anyway. I finally got shoes and socks on the wild ones and we headed out the door to pick up some things we needed. As I stepped into the garage, it hit me--all of a sudden:

"His eye is on the sparrow and I know He watches me."

It was almost audible. I'm surprised my kids didn't' say, "who said that?" I dialed up the playlist I made for my daughter when she was a newborn, I haven't listened to it in two years at least. The first song on it is "His Eye is on the Sparrow" by The Newsboys. Ordinarily, my children have very strong opinions about what we listen to in the car. If it's not The Greatest Showman, Mary Poppins Returns, or Charlie Brown Christmas they're not having it. Today we listened to "His Eye is on the Sparrow", "A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes" (the Lily James version, so lovely), "Blackbird" (yes, by the Beatles. My son asked to turn it up), "Forever Young" (sung by Alfie Boe. Look. It. Up. Get tissues first), and "Your Grace Finds Me." They fussed a little with the last one but I had it cranked pretty loud at that point. *Shrug* I was worshiping the Lord.

I wish I could tell you that we got home from the store and my husband ran out to greet us shouting that all our problems are over and we struck oil in the backyard...or found gold under the shed....or someone just gave us a check that would cover the whole year....or some other bananas thing. He didn't. But he was smiling. And we had a nice dinner and then he played with my son while my daughter and I did the dishes. Okay, I did the dishes. She played in the sink but it makes her so ridiculously happy to do it that I no longer mind the water slopped on the floor or the fact that she's technically in my way. We were together. We've been together more in 2019 than we've ever been since the kids came along. And happier. We have our moments--all families and couples do. It can't always been sunshine.  But we're contented together. We play games and build with Legos and do puzzles and draw pictures and tell stories and read books and watch movies and play with the dog. There's so much to do just here in our home. The little home we complain about because the kitchen needs remodeled and we wish it sat on five acres. Yet this home is full of good things, and "every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like the shifting shadows." (James 1:17 NIV)

James wrote that in his contribution to the New Testament. James was a brother of Jesus. I wonder if he was among the brothers that first thought Jesus was mad and tried to bring him home to just be quiet and stop embarrassing the family. In their defense, maybe it was bad for business. Reputation is everything for a family business. But James came around. We don't know how exactly, but clearly he came to believe in his big brother. And I'm glad he did. James also wrote "consider if pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance....Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him."

In my life, I have faced trials of many kind. The other evening I started thinking through the last several years of my life and the list of trials was staggering (I had a legitimate reason for pondering this, it wasn't self-pity, I promise! It may perhaps be another post sometime this year). I don't know that I've always persevered well. I'm not much for perseverance typically. I'm more of a sit in the dirt and whine type. And yet. I'm here. And I've learned so much about the Lord it is also staggering. I know I haven't considered it pure joy. At no point today did I start naming and claiming 'pure joy' about our circumstances. Yet, in the moment when I heard the Good Shepherd speak to me, I experienced peace and joy. I was able to worship Him with a lump in my throat and kids in the backseat because I know that His eye is on the sparrow and He also watches me. I don't know that have that 'crown of life' yet, but I know that if I get handed any crowns or treasures when I arrive in Paradise that I'm headed straight to throne room to set it at the feet of Jesus. I have much thanks to give for all the rams on the mountain, all the provision in the wilderness, and all the reassurances that my family and I are worth more than many sparrows. Really, I owe Him everything.