looking through me

Tag: perception

gifts received

It’s December—mid-December—and I haven’t so much as made a shopping list. I’ve thought a lot about gifts, but those thoughts aren’t falling into place by person and item.

So today I’m making a different list—a list of gifts I’ve received in the last year:
An invitation to a grief group.
A new niece.
A freedom to let go of my perceived place at the table.
A glimpse of glory driving into the sunrise morning after morning.
A powerful word of affirmation from one of my writing mentors.
A week with extended family in Michigan.
An unexpected job offer.
An understanding of sacred space . . . in a cemetery.
A greeting of “Welcome Home!” on my first day at the new job.
A long weekend in one of my favorite places.
A series of new opportunities to work and serve out of my giftings.
A spiritual director.
A community blended of older and newer connections.
A good conversation amongst introverts about being an introvert in the church.
A chance to teach and remember what I love about it.
A long-distance session of peekaboo over Skype with an eleven-month old.

This list is laughable in its incompleteness, which says so much about how rich I am and what good gifts I regularly receive.

And it’s reframing my thoughts on that list of gifts to give . . .

 

 

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

too much

The headlines are maddening. New—but not—every day. Shootings. Bombings. Protests. Finger pointing. Name calling. Scandals. Broken Promises. Natural Disasters. Wars and rumors of wars.

Even as I process the details I feel a little less shocked than I was by the last fill-in-the-blank atrocity.

I feel my heart hardening. Because how can I care about all of it? There’s simply too much. The scope is too big to swallow. The pain is too great to comprehend. It’s easier to look away.

Then I remember why I have to care.

I Skype with my long-distance nieces. I see the older one’s art projects and hear about soccer. I watch the younger one crawl for the first time.

I spend an evening with my local niece and nephew. I play make believe and Zingo. I throw paper airplanes and read stories. I give good night hugs and kisses.

And love roughs up my calloused heart.

Looking into the eyes of my brothers’ children I remember statistics are more than numbers. They have faces and names.

I check on sleeping children tucked soundly in suburban beds, and I think of how many children aren’t growing up in a safe place be it their home, their city, their country or their refugee camp.

The death tolls rattled off by the media rip un-mendable holes in families and communities whether it’s half a block from me or half a world away. And that doesn’t go away with the news cycle.

So . . . I listen and learn. I choke on the hatred and horror, but I don’t turn away.

 

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.