When Maile and I Woke Up to an Empty House

It’s been a cold week in Lancaster County. There have been a lot of snow days. You can tell by the look in the eyes of mothers wandering the grocery store aisles, the crazed searching, as if they expect to find, hidden behind the boxes of Cheerios or perhaps tucked away amongst the Campbell’s soup cans, small portions of summer, or all-expenses-paid trips to Cancun.

When I was a kid, my favorite part about snow days was stumbling back in out of the cold and finding steaming mugs of Swiss Miss hot chocolate on the table with those little white sugary things they called marshmallows – we all knew they weren’t quite marshmallows. They were more like tiny bits of sweetened, edible cardboard. When they started making packs with “20% More Marshmallows,” well, it didn’t get much better than that.

Unless it was Grandma Smucker’s hot chocolate. She made it with real milk and Hershey’s chocolate syrup, back when we knew nothing about human trafficking, back when we had no idea (and, quite frankly, didn’t even think to ask) about Hershey’s methods of doing business, where they got their cocoa beans, how they treated the workers who harvested their profits. Back then it was simply Hershey’s, and it was simply delicious.

Grandma Smucker, the queen of hot chocolate, died about sixteen months ago. All eight of her children, along with their husbands and wives, and their thirty-some children, and a dozen or more great-granchildren, spent that last week with her, watching her fade and singing “When We All Get To Heaven” and “What Heaven Means to Me.”

A country where no twilight shadows deepen
Unending day where night will never be
A city where no storms will ever gather
This is just what heaven means to me

* * * * *

Last week Maile, the four kids, and I drove to Missouri. Whenever we told people we were driving to Missouri, they looked at us as though we had said we were driving to Antarctica.

“You’re driving to Missouri? How far is that?”

Turns out it’s about 1051 miles, but the miles going out are shorter than the miles coming home. I’m not sure how that works, but it’s true. While we were out there we met with a publishing house about a potential book project, and we also got to catch up with some family and friends.

One of the couples we saw are old friends from here in Lancaster. They have a beautiful little nine month old who reminds me of our oldest son when he was that age, all smiles and quiet sitting in his high chair, watching. It’s hard to believe ten long years have come and gone since our son was that old. Time is a funny thing, and the last thing you should do if you want it to move slower is to try and grab on to it.

* * * * *

On Monday morning Maile and I woke up to an empty house. From under the warm covers I could hear large slabs of frozen snow sliding off the roof and crashing on to the ground. The kids all spent the night at my parents’ house, and it was nice having an evening with just my wife.

I went downstairs and stoked the fire in the wood stove, then came up to the main level and opened all the blinds. Bright snow light glared through the glass. I made myself some breakfast and started working. The house was very quiet.

At one point in the morning, Maile said, “It’s hard to believe that someday all of our kids will be out in the wide world.” Cade, on his own, making breakfast? Lucy, driving to work? Abra, making a list of things to pick up at the grocery? Sam, little Sam, paying bills? It’s very hard indeed, believing that, but on a morning like that one I could feel it, the peace and the sadness, the freedom and the sense of missing things.

It’s a good stage we’re in, this busy, loud, kids-sleeping-on-the-bedroom-floor-almost-every-night stage. Someday it will pass, and the new stage will be good, too. I guess it all just reminded me to love this snow-covered, freezing cold day for what it is, and not to reach for the future too often.

What I Found Inside an Old Doc Marten’s Shoebox

pic7On Monday night we took out the old Doc Marten’s shoebox and opened it up. You have to hold it in a certain way so that it doesn’t completely disintegrate in your hands.

“This game is called Settlers of Catan,” I told the kids. They stared at all the pieces as I pulled them out of the shoebox, intrigue and skepticism tugging back and forth in their minds. How could something so complicated, so messy, be any fun? How could something so messy, so complicated, NOT be fun?

So Maile and I started sorting through plastic bags of cards and pieces, all while explaining the rules. The robber. The harbors. We couldn’t remember if it was clay or brick. Oh, well. And that’s how the next fifteen minutes or so went.

Then, at the bottom of the box, I found a blue notebook. I opened it. Inside I saw four names: my sister’s, my brother-in-law’s, Maile’s, and me. Under our names was a long list of scores, a system we had created in order to keep track of who won the most games over a fairly long period of time.

And suddenly I was there, in that second floor apartment in Great Missenden, England. I was there when it was just the four of us playing, and I was there when it was the four of us plus two very large stomachs (Maile and my sister were pregnant at the same time). And I was there when we played Settlers while rocking two newborns in their small bouncy seats or on our laps or while the girls breastfed and refused to trade wheat or sheep.

We spent many an entire Saturday there, in their apartment, playing Settlers for ten hours straight. We were hooked.

Those England times were long days. Long years. There was the time we opened our first store in Victoria Station – we were so full of hope, and I worked 33 17-hour days in a row. Then there was the time, three years later, that we closed Victoria Station, my brother-in-law and I packing up the shop, removing all the equipment, slowly lowering the clackety-clacking storefront shutter one last time, then walking through the empty, late-night train station, wondering if we could have done something different, something better.

“Check this out, Maile,” I said, holding up the book. She smiled.

“No, seriously,” I said. “Look at this.”

I held the book closer to her and she peered in at it. Then she took in a small breath.

“Wow.”

The date of our last recorded Settlers game was eleven years to the day. January 6, 2003. That seemed ironic. A lot can happen in eleven years. Four children, two miscarriages, one on the way. One job, three businesses, two of which ended without much fanfare. Ten books. A lot of white hairs.

A lot can happen in eleven years.

The passing of time reveals itself to us in the most random, powerful ways. Which means you can’t always be on guard or prepared for how the next thing you stumble on will remind you what you were doing ten years ago, twenty years ago.

Eleven years ago.

What would I have thought if eleven years ago God or an angel or someone, anyone, would have told me what I was about to go through in the next eleven years? What if they could have walked me down that path, in advance, preparing me for what was to come?

I’ll tell you what would have happened. I would have been terrified. I would have seen the challenges, the despair, a few of those long, difficult years, and I would have wondered how in the world I was going to make it.

We have no idea where we will be in eleven years. No idea what disasters and triumphs will come our way. And what a blessing that is, our lack of foresight. For all of my impatience, all of my striving to bring the future into the present, seeing that list of scores and the date, January 6th, 2003, gave me an incredible sense of peace, and a resolve to live in this moment.

The future will take care of itself.

What I Found On the Journey Home

photo-18There’s something fitting about starting a long journey on January 1st. There’s something that feels right about 1023 miles to go, heading north, heading for home. The gray sky leans in and the rain starts to fall and it feels like maybe you’ll never get there, and maybe that’s okay.

The small bumps in the highway form a rhythm, like the back-and-forth swaying of a hypnotist’s locket, and I snag a pillow from the back, tilt my seat, and lean over against the window. Out of the corner of my eye, the road blurs by, mile after mile.

* * * * *

Load the car and write the note
Grab your bag and grab your coat
Tell the ones that need to know
We are headed North

* * * * *

We sit on the beach and I watch my 4-year-old son Sam stand where the waves break, jumping over them again and again. Small, broken, white shells spill all over themselves. He focuses on the next wave, the next wave, and he jumps, and sometimes he falls and sometimes he lands but no matter, he gets up every time and waits for the next wave, waits.

Three of the other nephews and nieces dig and dig, a deepening hole forming in the sand. The sun comes and goes, and the wind forms small swells out beyond the sandbar. They dig. One more scoop, one more rake. Deeper they go, on their way to China.

One of my nieces, two years old and bursting with life, rolls in the sand, then lays on her stomach and stares at it, listening for a message I will never hear. Then she slowly lowers her face until the sand coats it. She looks up at me where I recline, clean and dry on a beach chair, and she smiles, then laughs loud, as if my cleanliness amuses her.

I cringe at so much sand covering skin. The grittiness. The thought of getting down and rolling on the beach, well, it’s simply something I would never do.

But then I think that her rolling in the sand is about as close as it comes to living completely in the present as one can get, no care for what it will take to get clean, no worry about sand in the hair that will not come out, no concern for the thin film of grit that will soon fill the minivan.

When have I rolled in the sand? Too long ago.

* * * * *

One foot in and one foot back
It don’t pay to live like that
So I cut the ties and I jump the tracks
For never to return

* * * * *

Maile and I in sea kayaks, the shore receding behind us. Small green and yellow buoys, the size of cantaloupes, bob in the water, five digit numbers handwritten on them in black marker. I stare down through the blue-green and sometimes spot the sandy floor, eight feet below us. It is rippled, like dessert sand, or pond water after a small boy throws in a large rock. Water within water. Messages within messages.

Faraway boats we cannot see send us their voices in the form of waves, and we crest and drop, crest and drop. Water trickles down the oars and we pull ourselves through the water, getting wet, the wind in our face. I fight the temptation to go further out, further out, further out, until the shore is only a thin line and I am the only thing in the world, the only thing.

Reluctantly we turn towards the beach, and though I paddle less hard, the wind and the waves drive us back to reality. No matter how far you go, there is always the returning. Except perhaps once in life, when there is no going back.

* * * * *

Dumbed down and numbed by time and age
Your dreams that catch the world the cage
The highway sets the traveler’s stage
All exits look the same

Three words that became hard to say
“I and Love and You”
“I and Love and You”
“I and Love and You”

* * * * *

Roll in the sand.

Say the things you’ve been wanting to say.

There’s no going back.

* italicized lyrics from The Avett Brothers song “I and Love and You”

On Road Trips, Disappointing Decembers, and Not Being Afraid

4361016842As I write this we’re driving south on Route 81 through a very stark Virginia. A few tenacious leaves cling to the trees lining the highway – other than that it’s just brittle, brown grass and small herds of large, black cows scattered like lost notes.

Maile is driving the minivan. When we first met, nearly 17 years ago, neither one of us preferred driving. Being the passenger meant reading or searching the radio for something decent to listen to. Or sleeping. Yes, the heavenly kind of sleep that comes when the car is humming over the road, the sun shining in your face, and mile after lonely mile slips behind you.

But these days being in the passenger seat more closely resembles the life of a flight attendant. Serving food and water. Being in charge of entertainment. Calming the masses. Which means that in between each of these typed sentences I’m handing out oranges and rationing water and shouting, “Don’t drink so much – you’ll have to pee!”

That’s okay, though. It’s a beautiful life.

* * * * *

Starting this long road trip south has me thinking about the upcoming year. The older I get, the more each year feels like a road trip, a journey, an adventure with a very uncertain ending. It has me thinking back over previous Decembers, the endings of those other journeys.

Three years ago we entered December without any significant income lined up. Then a potential client, a longshot, sent me a down payment of $1,000. We paid some overdue bills, bought groceries and a few gifts, and marveled at the timing.

Two years ago we entered December in the same situation. I met with a client I had never met before, hoping that it might lead to a project at some point in the future but holding out little hope that it would meet our immediate needs. I left their house with a check for $5,000, and I just couldn’t stop sighing with relief.

Last year we were at the tail-end of the worst six months we had seen (financially speaking). I was working part time at a farmer’s market, driving Amish people around (this is a job in Lancaster, PA), and doing a little social media work for our church. We had to decide which bills to pay and which to sit on. Christmas was a tightly budgeted affair. The Dollar General was a good friend.

Then, just before the new year, projects started raining in. More work than I had ever seen. And it’s continued through this year, through next year, through the foreseeable future.

* * * * *

I was thinking again about the whole “Do Not Be Afraid” theme we see in the best Bible stories. I was thinking of the time Elijah hid under the tree in the middle of the wilderness and God appeared to him and said, “It’s time to face the people who want to kill you. Don’t be afraid.” I was thinking of the time that the angel appeared to Mary and said, “What’s about to happen to you doesn’t make any sense. Don’t be afraid.” I was thinking about the angel who appeared to the shepherds and said, “You’ve been waiting for this for a long, long time. Don’t be afraid.”

And it has me wondering…maybe that command, “Do not be afraid,” had just as much to do with what was coming down the road as it did with that present moment. What I mean is, maybe the angel said “Don’t Be Afraid,” not because of the fear Mary felt at seeing the angel, but because of the courage required in the coming days, months, and years.

In other words, when God says, “Don’t be afraid,” maybe God means, “Put on your courage. You’re going to need it, and not just right now when you’re scared to death because you can’t bear this unveiled glimpse into eternity. Put on your courage for what’s coming, for the raw experience of life, for the journey I’m about to lead you on.”

If the Bible is any kind of a blueprint, when God tells you, “Don’t be afraid,” an incredible transformation is about to take place. The road is about to get bumpy. Hold on.

* * * * *

We’ve had our share of difficult Decembers. We’ve approached plenty of New Year’s wondering how in the world everything would work out.

But constantly, through all of these changes and challenges and seasons of scarcity, we’ve heard a steady voice.

“It’s going to be okay.”

“Don’t be afraid to hope for good things.”

“Don’t give up now.”

“Don’t be afraid.”

Three Things I Learned About Seeing Life as a Journey

IMG_0165
The bus we traveled in for four months and 10,000 miles.

It’s Sunday night. We’re packing bags and finding lost things and preparing for the journey back to Pennsylvania. There’s a football game on in the background. No matter how many times we tell the kids to go to sleep, I keep hearing the pitter-patter of feet running around upstairs.

It’s also the end of the year, and I find myself thinking back to previous years, previous Thanksgivings. One year ago I didn’t have any writing projects and questioned a lot of things about my life. Two Thanksgivings ago we were finalizing plans to head out on our cross-country trip. Four years ago we had just moved into my parents’ basement with our four kids and $55,000 in debt.

What a journey.

The five-hundred-mile journey ahead of us and the journeys we’ve been on as a family have me thinking about the nature of this life, the nature of journeys.

Here are three things that came to mind late on a Sunday night (when I should be sleeping):

1. You are on your journey, and you can’t trade it for a different one. So many of us get caught up in trying to live lives we think we should live, instead of living the life we’ve been given. Too often the plans we make are more a reflection of what our culture expects than they are of what we’ve been created to do. Make your own way.

2. Embrace whatever leg of the journey you’re on. If life is a series of journeys, then you’re either preparing for a journey, on the road, or resting before the next journey begins. The most difficult of those three, for me, has been the resting, the waiting in between. The times when I didn’t know how everything was going to turn out. The times when I felt forgotten. But these times inevitably come to an end. It’s only wasted time if I spend it worrying and wishing it away.

3. Celebrate. Maybe you’ve published a book. Maybe you’ve gotten married or had children or went on a trip. Maybe you finally got that degree, or that job, or that promotion. Maybe you’ve passed a milestone. Celebrate it. Maile and I have been looking at our lives and trying to figure out how we can become more deliberate about celebrating the completion of journeys. The discipline of celebration is one way of pulling yourself into the present.

What journey have you been on lately? What journey would you like to embark on?

Where We Found a Thing Called Hope

IMG_1503We picked the kids up from their classes and headed south, through a sky already growing dark even though it wasn’t yet 5:00. Winter days will do that here, especially cloudy ones. The van bulged at the seams, full of pillows and blankets and luggage for our annual trek to North Carolina for Thanksgiving.

We bought fast food so that we wouldn’t have to stop driving. Maile called out the orders and doled out the food. Last minute trades were bartered. Complaints were heard and mostly dismissed. Then we passed the milkshakes back.

“If anyone doesn’t finish theirs, pass it right back up to the front,” I called out, not getting my hopes up.

We continued south, two hours, three hours. We had decided to spend the night at a friend’s house in southern Virginia before driving the rest of the way on Friday morning. Four hours passed.

“Are we there yet?” Abra asked over and over again.

After four hours we got off of 81 and headed east, into the mountains, into the shadows. We missed the lane the first time, had to drive a mile up and turn around, then circle back. We called our friend. Her name is Andi.

“There’s a small sign by the driveway,” she said. “Just follow the lane and keep to the left.”

We pulled slowly into the lane, crossed a narrow, wooden bridge. We had arrived at God’s Whisper Farm.

* * * * *

The house was cozy and warm. There were books everywhere, even on the stairs where Andi’s husband had painted the kickboards of the steps to match the spines of particular books. The Hatchet. Paradise. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

Their dog, Meander, was pleased to see the children, and she wrestled with them until she was completely tired out, lying on her side and panting. Andi gave out bowls of chili, supper at 9:30pm, followed by hot apple pie. Then I took the kids upstairs and wrapped them in their blankets. They were tired from the drive, and they fell asleep while listening to us through the vent in the floor.

We spent the rest of the evening talking, just the four of us, the heater lulling me to sleep. It was one of those nights when you wish it was possible to purchase extra hours, an evening when you want to keep talking but eventually your eyelids grow too heavy.

We went to bed, and for some reason I dreamed about hobbits.

* * * * *

The next morning we woke up, ate bacon, eggs and toast, then put on our boots and walked the trails through the woods that skirted the mountains. Meander ran past us, then back again, and the kids took turns racing her, falling hopelessly behind. Lucy and Sam scaled a small cliff leading up from a creek bed.

Andi showed us where they hope to build a lodge and then walked us over to the place her father plans to build a small cabin. There was the chicken coop, in progress, and the sloping field where the goats will live. A flat expanse had already been planed out for a barn.

As we walked the acres of the farm, and the three younger kids climbed on the tractor, and Cade wrestled with Meander, I realized what I felt there. I realized what was so appealing about that little valley.

Hope.

Andi and her husband have plans for that place, and they don’t seem too caught up in the concern that some of those plans might not come to pass. They’ve staked little signs into the ground with names that designate what they hope the future holds for each parcel of land: “Lodge” and “Cabin”. There is an overwhelming sense that things are not finished, that what you see is not what you get, that there is a story in the making. A beautiful story. A compelling story.

This, I think, is what the Gospel is all about. This is the Kingdom that Jesus invited us to take part in: an ongoing, compelling story, one full of hope. One where we take the time to place handmade signposts into the earth. Not signs that we anchor with cement or mortar, but signs that can be moved, signs that speak of a beautiful hope.

* * * * *

We walked back towards the van and the remaining four hours on the road to Charlotte. Lucy looked up at us with hope in her eyes.

“Mama,” she said to Maile, “when I grow up and leave our house, I want to live on a farm just like this one.”

This is the beautiful thing about hope. It’s contagious.

* * * * *

Please check out Andi’s new book, The Slaves Have Names: Ancestors of My Home.