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I Wave to Her Now (For My Mother on Mother’s Day)

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That’s my mom in the middle, with her sister Kate and brother Omar.

I wave to her now
as we drive away
and my children call out
like hungry chicks
bye mimi! bye mimi! bye mimi!
and in that moment I remember
being a boy
waving to her from
the school bus as it stole me away
from our farm
she stood on the porch
with her steaming coffee and saw me
off
for as long as I could see the porch
she was still there
so that I imagined her perched there
all day
waiting for me to return

and in another memory
there she stands
at the sink
always the sink
in every hot house where we lived
without air conditioning moisture
oozing from the glasses of ice water
the lizards in texas
the flies in pennsylvania
and she stood there as if nothing was wrong
washing dishes
making dinner
standing there
talking to me with her back turned
soft shoulders
brown hair
and I never once considered
maybe she didn’t like doing dishes
maybe she didn’t feel like making dinner
maybe she would rather be talking
to a friend instead of
me, only a boy
but that is my mother
for you
I never felt the edge
of complaint from her never
the iron line of resentment.

I remember the day I climbed the bus
at the end of the long driveway
looked to the porch
and she was gone
for some reason or other
how all that long day I didn’t feel right
how all that long day I felt like crying

and I wonder now if that’s how it will feel
someday
when she is gone –
like an empty porch
like a vacant spot by the sink

but
that’s not true
because I know
from experience
she will still be waiting for me or
talking to me with her back turned
her soft shoulders
her brown hair her voice
in the wind
or the sun shining through glass
or coming out of the lilacs she loved

I wave to her now
as we drive away
and in waving I remember

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We Might Never Die

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It’s easy to believe
we might never die
on a spring day like this
leaves unfolding under blossoms
early bees lost in a strong breeze
the palest blue sky offering never-
ending life and promises I cannot hear
because I’m on the front porch
watching traffic go by
waiting for you.

Your shoes inside
the front door, where you always leave
them, conspire against me
blocking the way
tripping me up
reminding me every time I step inside
that another day has passed
without you.

You’ll enjoy the garden again
when you return
the spinach
growing inexplicably
in the middle of this city
like hope
the beanstalks curled
like the tender necks
of violins all in a row,
the peas stretching towards
their supports, and beyond that the pale
blue sky, never-ending. Those peas,
tiny shoots, so ambitious, yet
needing something else
on which to lean.

That’s me,
you know,
reaching for you.

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Can You Believe You Will Not Crawl Away From This, But Fly?

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Photo Credit: “Chrysalis to Butterfly (#3 of 5)”, © 2012 Sid Mosdell, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio

And just when I’m struggling with this in-between phase of life, images fall around me like raindrops.

Maile shared this beautiful one with me the other morning:

“Are caterpillars told of their impending resurrection? How in dying they will be transformed from poor earth-crawlers into creatures of the air, with exquisitely painted wings? If told, do they believe? Is it conceivable to them that so constricted an existence as theirs should burgeon into so gay and lightsome a one as a butterfly’s? I imagine the wise old caterpillars shaking their heads – no, it can’t be; it’s a fantasy, self-deception, a dream. Similarly, our wise ones. Yet in the limbo between living and dying, as the night clocks tick remorselessly on, and the black sky implacably shows not one single streak or scratch of gray, I hear those words: I am the resurrection and the life, and fell myself to be carried along on a great tide of joy and peace.”

– Malcolm Muggeridge

I was sitting at my desk when I read that one. I stared at the book for a few extra moments. Outside my window, the sounds of the city. Normal sounds. Mundane sounds. Certainly nothing that would herald the kind of transformation Muggeridge is talking about here.

If told, do they believe?

Because that’s really the question. I’ve been told that this death, this darkness, will always come before a resurrection, but do I believe it? Do I believe that this cramped space will suddenly open up, that this discomfort is not something I’ll crawl away from but something I’ll fly away from? Do I believe that I can be remade, not just into a better caterpillar, but some new creature entirely?

If told, do they believe?

I believe. Help my unbelief.

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Help Me Title My Next Book

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I’ve finished the first draft of the sequel to The Day the Angels Fell and I’d love your input on the title. I understand that you have no idea what the book is about yet, but would you answer four questions for me?

1 – Which title do you like better: A) Through Doors We Should Not Open OR B) Into the Grave of Marie Laveau

2 – Which title do you like better: C) Come Let Us Build a Tower OR D) One Third of All the Stars

3 – Which title do you like better: E) The River We All Must Cross OR F) The Edge of Over There

Which of the six do you like best of all?

Feel free to only answer in letters (e.g. ADF-D). Feel free to also give more detailed input as to why you like what you like. Thanks! I can’t wait to tell you more about it.

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When You’re Self-Employed Without the Employed Part

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It feels like an in-between time, and I have to be honest: I’ve never been good at these. Give me the excitement of something new, just beginning. Give me the long, hard work that comes between the start and the end. Give me the ending, the sadness, the victory, whatever.

But this time between the ending of something and the beginning of something else? This stalled-out floating down held breath, I could do without it.

We sort of saw this coming from a little ways off, when all of my existing projects started ending. I’m still wrapping up a few things, but with nothing new in sight, life feels very stalled. You know? When you’re self-employed but the employed part is sort of waning, it gives you a lot of time to wonder.

What’s next?

* * * * *

We were supposed to be on a grand book tour right now, but because of the lack of projects we’ve had to really scale it back. My wonderful friends Kristin Potler and Andi Cumbo plus the folks at The Corner Coffee Shop, the Pequea Valley Library, and Aaron’s Books have hosted some great events for The Day the Angels Fell, and I’ll be hitting Albuquerque soon, plus maybe a few other cities. I’ll be doing a two-Sunday series for our church forum at St. James on April 26th and May 3rd.

But the main question still remains. How will we make a living in the coming months?

We’ve been here before, Maile and I. We know how it feels to tighten the belts, reign in the expenses, hunker down until the next spate of work arrives. We know what it’s like to get creative in order to make money. I recently started a bakery stand and Maile’s applied for a job at a local organic market. I actually don’t feel worried at all (that’s what worries me sometimes – my lack of concern). We know it’s time to settle into this strange place of trusting God, waiting, believing that things will come around, as they always do.

* * * * *

So what have I been up to in this time of waiting? Here’s a short list:

– Listed Building a Life Out of Words for free on Noisetrade Books and gave away 750 copies in exchange for email addresses.
– Reached the 1500-copies-sold mark for The Day the Angels Fell!
– Finished painting The Bookshelf.
– Finished writing the first draft of the sequel to The Day the Angels Fell (tune in Monday to help me narrow down the title options).
– Answered a few questions over at my Goodreads Author page.
– Dropped off more copies to sell at Aaron’s Books in Lititz, PA.
– Got my first 1-star review of The Day the Angels Fell (but then I looked at the person’s profile and they gave All the Light We Cannot See 2 stars, and that was a brilliant book, so I felt better).

* * * * *

I guess what I’m trying to say in way too many words is that even though life is a little hard right now, and things aren’t clear, and I sometimes feel stuck in between…life is still good. I look at my wife and my kids and this cool house we’ve got and the mini-garden we’re trying to grow and I think I’ve been given way more than I deserve, way more than I ever could have imagined. And I know the work will come in when the work comes in. And I know the money thing will be fine.

Seriously.

Take that into your weekend with you, if you can. Know that it will be okay. Whatever it is.

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When Sam Washed His Little Brother’s Feet (or, Rediscovering a Kindness That Brings Down Barriers)

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Have you ever washed someone’s feet? Have you ever poured water over someone’s soles, felt the callouses on their heels, dried their feet with a clean towel? Have you ever put your shoes on after someone else has washed your feet?

On Maundy Thursday, we were invited to come up as a family and wash each other’s feet. Nervous shuffling ensued. The kids went first, gentle and uncertain. Then Maile and I. It’s a strangely intimate experience. There’s a tenderness there, and barriers are lowered, barriers that you aren’t aware you even have as you go about your normal life. But when you take off your shoes and someone handles your feet, your stinky, dirty feet, I don’t know. Walls come down.

I looked over as my five-year-old son Sammy washed the feet of his younger brother, nine-month-old Leo. Sam was so eager, and he grinned the entire time, spilling the water, looking up at us for approval, looking up at us to make sure he was doing it right. On the wall behind him, a painting of the crucifixion.

* * * * *

 “Jesus poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, do you wash my feet?” Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.” Peter said to him, “You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.”

If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.

* * * * *

Kindness, so often seen as weak or insufficient, is sorely missing from the Christian community in this country. We insist on our rights…to own guns, to have one’s opinion heard, to refuse service, to retaliate.

We demand to have what’s coming to us! What’s rightfully ours!

But the voices we use to fight for our own rights are too often louder than the voices we use to speak on behalf of the hurt and suffering people. Those whose voices are overlooked. Those who need us to speak on their behalf.

What I see in that beautiful passage where Jesus washes the feet of his disciples is a kindness that is blind to its own rights, a kindness that serves first, a kindness that makes less of oneself in order to bring down the barriers between individuals. Jesus had every right in the world to ask his disciples to wash his feet, and they would have fought each other for the honor.

But he didn’t ask them to wash his feet. He asked them to let him wash their feet.

* * * * *

Believe me when I say that my little son Sammy is the king of demanding his rights – he has to be. He is number four of five and would probably be overlooked a lot if he did not speak with a loud voice. But what I saw in his eyes when he washed his younger brother’s feet was a beautiful timidity, a soft kindness, and an eagerness to serve.

Somehow, we need to rediscover this. Kindness needs to be resurrected here, in all of us.