Small Scribbles

We were reading John 6 this morning and we came to the part where Jesus asked his disciples, "You do not want to leave me too, do you?" Peter responded, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God." The kids were impressed with Peter's answer. "How come Peter's like that, Mama? How can he be so awesome sometimes and so stupid at other times? The power has been blinking on and off at our house for the past week and this is what I drew on for an explanation. "Well, it's kind of like the power around here. You know how everything is running fine and then the power blinks off and a few minutes later it comes back on? Peter is kind of like that. He has great faith but sometimes, under pressure, his faith shuts down for a little while. But the thing about Peter is that his faith, just like our power, always returns." A few hours later the power went off giving the children ...

Come. I've moved aside some selfishness to make a bit of room for You, here in my heart. Come. Join us at the breakfast table. When I remember You, we'll crack open your Word and search for treasure. When I remember. I remember until a fork clatters to a stop in front of me and then I forget. YOU DO NOT THROW SILVERWARE! SET THIS TABLE LIKE A LADY! I toss the fork back and it hits a water glass, and water and ice cubes spill out. The silverware tosser bursts into tears and loud cries, and I hear the words of my heart voice, Your voice, "That's not My way." And it's not. I dry tears and mop water and fill the glass again. Come, heart dweller. Sit with me on the sofa. Feel the press of a warm, wiggly little boy body. Listen to the story sounds and the giggles and the "Read Move Over Rover again, Mama." Hear the interruption, "I can't find my spelling book." And my irritation, "I am tired of looking for your school books! When you ar...

The kids and I have been nibbling our way through the book of Isaiah for months. It's our first venture as a family into the prophets. We wrestle with the message. It's a book for our times. Isaiah wrote to his people, the people of Judah, at the dawn of a long season of international turmoil. Assyria ran rough shod over the Middle East, followed in quick succession by Babylon, Persia and Greece. According to Isaiah, each empire was brought down because of they were quick to gloat over their achievements but failed to give God the time of day. The sin of haughty eyes he calls it. I brown the meat and simmer the stew and slice a crusty loaf of Italian bread but do not bow my head before I eat. It's the little red hen complex. I ground the wheat and kneaded the dough and sliced the carrots. I don't take into account that I didn't make the carrots or the wheat grow. I forget to be thankful that there are groceries in the pantry and healthy children around the table. ...

The apple on the cover of Twilight tempted. John saw that it was pleasant to the eye and good for reading so he took it from the shelf and waited until a dark hour (because vampire books are best when opened after midnight) and he read through the nights until he was pale and dark purple circles grew under his eyes. Because the first bite was addicting, he passed the forbidden fruit to me and returned to the shelf of knowledge and plucked the sequential drivel, New Moon , Eclipse and Breaking Dawn . When everyone else has turned in for the night, we flick on our flashlights and dive into the next chapter. And we wonder why. These books are pathetic. Trashy romance at its finest. Bella swoons. She bleeds. She breathes. She forgets to breathe. Edward breathes. His icy breath brushes her lips. He is stone. She a helpless disaster. This is a short story bloated into thousands of pages and we must read them all. We read on our respective sofas and every once in a while I burst out into an...

Over the past few weeks, our family has been watching hours of behind the scenes in The Lord of the Rings: Extended Edition . It's been interesting to get a bird's eye view into the minds of the movie makers and actors in the movies. In the spirit of The Lord of the Rings, I've decided to give you a behind the scenes look at my last post. Coping with aging has been an ongoing battle for me for the last few years and I’m sure I am not alone in this. As a Christian, I live against the backdrop of a known and secure ending. It is a comfort. But arriving at the end is something like the voyage taken in Pilgrim’s Progress . For all Christian knows where he is headed, he finds himself enticed away from the path leading to the Celestial City again and again into places where he does not belong. The Bible is my favorite book for many reasons. The one that is pertinent to this post is that all of the characters, apart from Christ, are shown as frail creatures. They are not polished...

Have you ever lived in a house that doesn’t match your stuff? A house full of flooring and light fixtures and cupboards that are outdated and worn and ugly? That’s my house. It’s was built in the seventies and retains some of the charm of that era: a Jack and Jill bathroom in the playroom, gold carpet on the floor, dark shelving and trim in the living room. And the paint! Oh my word! I do not long for fall. It’s colors are spread out majestically over my walls. Pumpkin. Caramel. Hunter Green. Gold. I love light and these colors drink in the sun in big thirsty gulps, covering me in shade and shadows. So we work. All the changes that we have made in the house so far have been with an eye to creating more light. Heavy drapes came down. Stuart is preparing to install French doors leading out to the sunroom. I paint. Cameo blue and white cover the gold hallway. Blue and white comforters do not pop against a pumpkin background, so bedroom walls are coated in layers and layers of white. The ...

“Mama. This isn’t true.” Faith has a Magic Tree House book open to the last few pages. She is pointing to the heading, The Rainbow Serpent , an Aboriginal myth about the role the Rainbow Serpent played in creating the world. “It’s not true. I don’t think that the author should write about things that aren’t true like they are true! Indignation leaves it’s mark on her little face. John has been watching the Discovery Channel with Stuart. He comes out in the middle of a program to let me know, “It’s another one of those the Bible can’t be true so here’s what happened instead shows. This week it’s about how Noah’s ark would have sunk. Last week, it was about how they found Jesus’ bones. Where do they come up with this stuff?” These conversations are heartening. My children are learning to evaluate the reasoning of others using the Bible as a plumb line. An incredible skill for ones so young. Just a few years ago, planes flew into the Twin Towers and scattered glass, concrete and human f...

It’s midnight. I’m nestled among my covers and pillows. The light on my side of the bed is on. My body is comfortable but my mind is uneasy. Pages are spread out over the top of the covers. I’m reading first hand accounts of slavery. Smallville is situated in the middle of cotton fields, fields that were once tended by slaves. In the 1930s, historians realized that the number of people who had been held in bondage by the chains of slavery was dwindling. Interviewers circulated among the remaining ex-slaves and recorded their stories. Their voices come to life in my mind. I can picture old Turner crying, heartbroken over the death of a kind white woman. I close my eyes after reading about a slave whose hands and feet were nailed to a board after running away. Closed eyes do not shut out the image. Anna, the daughter of a slave and a slave owner’s son reminisces about the good old days. For Anna, slavery was better than freedom. Frank described how after the war his master was reluctant ...

Alana at A Kiss, A Hug and A Squeeze is married to Rich, a Christian artist and a Professor of Art. She sent him a copy of my post and he wrote such an excellent response to yesterday's post Artistic Expression and Faith that I couldn't bear to keep it hidden in the comment section. Please visit Rich's blog, The Shaper Fables . I think he intends to carry on this conversation there. Here are Rich's words: Aforementioned Husband here, Kate, a very intriguing post. I too wryly smiled at the glowing Jesus remark. I teach at a Christian College in Missouri and I often have these discussions with my students. Unfortunately I believe that the depth of commercial Christian Visual Art is reflective of the spiritual depth of the average Christian. It is so sanitary and safe, an oversentimentalized unattainable ideal, irrelevant to unchurched individuals. We live in an A-Christian society. I was raised in a church. I get the visual flannel-board vocabulary and understand its nu...

A few days ago, I came across a post called Of Books and Faith written by Beck at Frog and Toad are Still Friends ( The best blog name EVER to my mind.) She writes about how the Christian market is saturated with mediocre books. How few fiction authors there are who really grapple with the messiness of humanity from a Christian perspective. I agree with her whole-heartedly. The Christian life does not come with the lack of conflict and the happily-ever-after resolutions that I find in many books of this genre. It's funny that I came across that post because I had been thinking similar thoughts about another form of Christian expression. Art. Christian art is often either poorly rendered or is just too pretty. It lacks creativity. It doesn't engage the mind. Remember when I made that long trek to Hobby Lobby for stencil supplies? That was where this idea started to form. I spent a few minutes flipping through posters. Flip. Glowing Jesus in a meadow. Flip. Glowing Jesus surr...

This is Faith... ...in her self-imposed uniform. A dark blue shirt and a pair of blue jean capris. She has to suck in her tummy to snap the capris but, "They're perfect, Mama! I love them." If the uniform is clean, it's on her body. Unfortunately, I'm the kind of mama who does laundry daily, so, yes, she can wear it every day. Unless she sleeps in it. I love the nights she goes to bed in this getup because I get to see her in something different in the morning. Maybe even something purple. She looks beautiful in purple. She is one of my most creative children. Perhaps this is because she doesn't waste an ounce of mental energy deciding what to wear. I have two more children who dress predictably. We read a science book a few years ago that showed how dark colors absorb heat and light colors reflect it. Hot-blooded Lauren took this to heart. She dresses in khaki shorts and a white t-shirt. "How 'bout if you wear your black shirt with those shorts? ...

On Saturday afternoons when I was a kid, we used to pile in the wood-paneled station wagon...three in the front...three (or four) in the middle...and three in the WAAAY back. Looking back, these rides probably preserved my mother's sanity but I did not know it at the time. We just saw them as a break in routine. We would stop fussing and fighting for the hour or so that we meandered through the countryside. Turn-Right Rides we called them. No particular destination in mind. When we came to a stop sign we voted. Left or right? A decision was made and the car pointed in a new direction. We played the Silo Game . 1 point for white silos. 5 for the blue Harvestors. You could only count the silos on your side of the car. We drove over a bridge with a grated metal surface. The Tickle Bridge. "Everybody put your feet on the floor, we're coming up to the Tickle Bridge." We laughed as the vibrations came through the soles of our sneakers. We held our breath as we crossed long...

What if you're right? And he was just another nice guy What if you're right? What if it's true? They say the cross will only make a fool of you And what if it's true? The kids and I were coming home from the library yesterday after story hour. Lauren asked, as she always does, "Will you turn on some music, Mama? I flipped on the radio. Nicole Nordeman joined us and performed What If for an audience of six . I sang along with her but not very well because I always get a lump in my throat over the lyrics. What if he takes his place in history With all the prophets and the kings Who taught us love and came in peace But then the story ends What then? She sings my story in these words. In college, I let go of my childhood faith and embraced tolerance and enlightenment. Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha...all equal...all historical figures. I saw spiritual people as basically good...all on the path to eternal bliss. What if you dig Way down deeper than your simple-minded friends...

Stuart returned recently from a business trip that took him to Betze-Post, an open pit goldmine outside of Elko, Nevada. He came home spilling over with bits and pieces of information. This is unusual for him. Work is work and home is home and never the two shall meet. Stuart followed a tractor-trailer carrying an oversized load onto the mine site. Four tires lay on the trailer bed...replacements for an earth-moving machine. Since 1986 when the mine opened, these machines have eaten away an entire mountain and have dug an additional sixteen hundred feet below the water table. The resulting hole looks like an inverted ziggurat and is deeper than the Sears Tower is tall. Stuart stood on the precipice and peered over. Mechanical ants scurried around below with bits of dirt between their jaws. The gold is microscopic and all of it is mapped out. This means that the miners can gobble and dump many truckloads of earth without sifting through for treasure. When they are digging in the valuabl...