out of doors

Roy works most evenings during the week and after a day full of work, I am more grateful than ever for beautiful weather and places to enjoy it.

Our routine is home - Miller watches an episode of Thomas the Train while I prep dinner - we eat - we go outside until it's nearly Miller's bedtime (7:30).

We walk up and down the street, sometimes we head around the block, mostly we end up at the park at the end of our street.

With plenty of grass, slides and swings nearby we rarely venture out in the car, but last week we went to the Arboretum at UKs campus. It was so worth the drive.

This one loves to run, a hobby I hope to cultivate. Soon she'll be old enough to do Girls on the Run, but in the meantime, we'll find time to jog.

The other one loves his sister, and the fish at the Arboretum. I could not pull him away and a few times I thought he was going to tumble head first into the pond.

Yesterday I told him he needed to come inside. He said no. Sophie said no. He walked to Sophie, took her hand, and they walked in the opposite direction together.

I am so screwed.

Every day I am tired. Every day I work so incredibly hard. And every day I come home to these kids and they make me happier than I ever knew possible.

They are so amazing. 

The Holy Mystery

As a teen and pre-teen I would kneel (figuratively) before God (usually as a result of guilt or peer pressure) and confess my sins and ask for forgiveness and promise to give up lustful thoughts and jealousy and hateful feelings and pray every day and be a good little Christian and even give up swearing, which was the absolute WORST part about those short-lived religious explosions.

At the little Christian High School I attended, there were many, many discussions on the importance of having Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior.  Hell was a place I was sure to end up (along with the rest of my heathen family) for all my wicked thinking about boys and the cussing and all my evilness. Oh and the conversations with one school-mate who insisted that Gandhi was in hell because he was Hindu.  The "speaking in tongues" hubbub my Junior year sent underclass boys and girls (and even me, by that time a disgusted and rebellious near Buddhist) into tailspins of self doubt.

During those same years I remember a conversation with an older, wiser friend who, when I confessed my fear of hell, laughed a great, deep belly laugh at me - "you are not going to hell" he told me. I looked at him, shocked. "I'm not?" I said. Somehow, that's really all I needed to hear.

After leaving home, I settled into a comfortable existence of believing in God (most of the time) and being "spiritual but not religious" and when the religious right political movement really took off I about lost my shit.

So to come - 15 years later - to where I am now is all at once completely expected and a total surprise.

Most Sunday mornings I find myself looking forward to the time that I can get on my knees (literally) and pray. To thank God and call forth those names so present in my heart. Sometimes I light a candle. I hear Mother Laurie preach the refrain, "God loves you anyway" and know my daughter is getting her religious instruction from her. I take the weekly Eucharist with people who are black, white, gay, straight, single, married, old and young and we are all equal and unjudged. During the peace I am met with hand shakes and hugs and peace signs.

The religious fervor of yore that I experienced in high school still exists in some circles, and hey - that's great. You go with your bad selves. But that's not where God speaks to me. And that's okay, too. Some friends find God when they're in nature. Others don't find him at all. That's okay. God loves you anyway.

On May 16, I will become a confirmed Episcopalian. I will never lose my Mennonite roots, but this inclusive church has brought me back. I have fallen in love with its history, its tradition, its public statement of tolerance, and its Book of Common Prayer. It is where I have rediscovered God.