Saturday, October 27, 2012

Celebrating when life happens and blogging doesn’t


Dear Cam and Scott

A bunch of regular life stuff has been keeping me out of the blogosphere. But I don’t want anything lost from your archives, so this is to fill you in on what I’ve learnt from the regular life stuff – the laughter and tragedy and honesty and disappointment and Lola-going-to-the-vet and miracles and fear and reaching-our-internet-cap and sadness and hope and endings and beginnings.

Human nature in the bath and the power of honestly being you

Last week you were both in the bath and I came in and there was a swamp on the floor and Scott, you were holding a cup and looking chuffed.

Me (hands on hips): Who did this?
Scott (pointing to yourself, pleading guilty): ’Cott.
I approach for the spanking because pouring water on the floor is a no-warning-first-offence smackable misdemeanour but –
Scott (lighting quick accusatory finger points to – ): Cam!

It’s also hard for grownups to be honest, sometimes. Like, in our cell group we’re sharing our life stories and it can be awkward and sore to go back to some distant bits. But there’s such power in turning around and seeing that the struggles have become flares of grace and that the journey is lit.

I even struggle to be honest with myself in regular life stuff like redecorating the lounge and worrying what others will think because maybe I don’t have any style. But just maybe I should back myself a bit and do what I think is beautiful because our home is a place of peace where Christ is King and I can trust that God will use it as a refuge from the crazy world for us and for those he brings to the door.

Sometimes-people-just-don’t-want-to-play-with-you-anymore and other shattered dreams

There’s a boy in your class, Cam, who is mean to you. He pulls your shirt and runs away and won’t play with you and for some reason you desperately want to be his friend. You’re sad and you ask me, ‘Why won’t he become un-mean?’ We’ve tried to draw the hurt from your heart and to equip you with super-grownup social coping mechanisms and mostly we pray and pray for God to surround you with some mighty little schoolmates in years coming. But vasbyt for now, my brave man. You are growing in all sorts of miraculous ways.

When you were born, Cam, something weird happened to my heart. I could suddenly rush into other people’s pain too quickly, too easily. Sometimes I battle to disentangle and get on with living. That’s also been part of the regular life stuff that has kind of overwhelmed my creative impulse. Like, in just a few weeks I’ve seen too many casualties with bleeding wounds from dream shrapnel. Some push you away when you try to stitch them up. Some can’t stop parts of themselves dying forever. Some are trying to grieve dead dreams and all I can offer are dead words that don’t help.

The art of untwisting a sleeping bag and other reasons to go camping with kids

We camped with the Lenhards and Le Roux at Sondela over the half-term. For me, camping was always the thrill of fires under the stars and roughing it with ground sheets and gas. But camping with kids brings a whole range of… fresh experiences. Like splinters and a lot of dirt and tantrums at the pool and not being able to find anything despite regimental packing procedures. The gearing-up-to-go and hosing-down-at-home wedges of the weekend’s pie chart were ridiculously too big. But from a gung-ho parenting perspective, it was justifiably worth it. Because discovering tent pegs and termites is part of living a rich life. Plus, we all had a good time. You played bike-bike and iPad-iPad with Abi and Jo-Jo. Scott, you fell asleep asking for ‘Animals!’, and ‘Animals!’ was the first word out when you woke. Cam, you spent dizzying hours of bliss in the pool, confidence and colour freckling your cheeks. As for us grownups: when you’re doing life together, conversations over rooibos in the rain sometimes beat cappuccinos in the city.

Salads and selflessness

Our priceless friend Pam – intrepid Zimbo with bits of her heart on various continents – came to stay this week. She reminded us that it’s a privilege to live in the country of your birth and that there is real trauma in being part of a displaced generation and that every salad needs fresh lemon juice and basil and that life is hard and choices are harder but we serve a God of hope. I was proud of you both because you (mostly) behaved like gentlemen and you loved Pam and included her in your Lego and your home-space, both of which you protect quite fiercely. (You also broke her Kindle cover. Not so great.) Pam took over my kitchen – oh happy day! – and there was bottomless tea for us and whoever rang the doorbell. She was also infinitely patient in the face of unremitting questioning (Cam) and a raucous dawn routine (Scott).

That’s about it. I’m celebrating how regular life stuff is happening today. Cam and Dad are riding bikes in the cul-de-sac and Scott is watching Noddy. Earlier, you guys destroyed the playroom (in a good way). Cam, your current imaginary passion is scuba diving. Scott, you’re into puzzles, and running, and hugging, and Lola. I guess, as regular life stuff happens, there’s God’s glory in planting our gardens and working for the peace and prosperity of the city (Jeremiah 29:4-14).

Thanks for so many cheek kisses these past weeks.

All my love

Mom

xx
 All eight cuzzies... How rich you both are!
 I was getting your supper ready and came back to find Cam hiding under the tablecloth :)
 Maestros jamming...






 Cam did a seriously good job of this wall!
Jo-Jo and her stokies



 Marc, Bernd, Murray
 Reba and her girls
 Our experiment with white roses and food colouring...
Pam and her biggest fans
 Last day of Matrics 2012
My crazy wonderful colleagues

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Of trail running, naked painting, decision making and other climate conditions


Dear Cam and Scott

Here’s a synopsis of this week’s weather on the outside and the inside of our lives.

Outside:

It’s October and glorious. Most afternoons you’re wallowing lukewarm in the lid of the sandpit or riding bikes or we’re playing spaceship on beds upstairs or your cousins are here and you’re best friends / fighting / best friends. You’ve had an amazing run of health, though now you have colds. Scott, you’re only waking up once or twice every night so I feel brand new in the mornings and I suspect that sections of my brain may even regain life. You are totally loving the idea of undies though the actual concept of potty training still largely eludes you. You have also been experimenting with artistic expression and nakedness.
 
Baby Mia is very sick. She struggles to breathe because her trachea doesn’t look like most other tracheas. Uncle Lampies and Aunty Joey are very tired. They haven’t slept in, like, five months. Mia is in hospital and it looks like she’s going to be ok but things won’t be easy for quite some time. I’ve learned not to say to people, ‘I know what you’re going through.’ But Cam, it comes back to me in splinters of fear – that feeling when they wheeled you into theatre and we didn’t know the answers to the if-what-when-how questions that rose hot and desperate or echoed cold and empty. So I can relate a little to their pain, which I guess has been an outside and an inside thing. We are praying and praying and praying.

On Sunday morning Dad and I did a trail run. (I did more of a trail walk with intermittent bursts of running. Sort of.) It was a splendid respite – bush veld, boulders, blistering mountain slopes and always the river. Then home for quiet croissants, coffee and the stiffness seeping in. You guys went to The Hill church with Aunty Coral and Meags. Cam, you told us about how ‘the guy’ prayed for a girl who’d had a shark attack and that we should keep praying for her, too.

Inside:

Some high pressure systems developing over the interior.

We’re learning about decision making – about watching and waiting and leaning hard into God to guide and sustain us. About not making decisions until we’ve turned on the industrial heart-cleaning hoses – scrubbing out guilt with confession, anger with forgiveness, greed with generosity, jealousy with celebration. You’ve also been learning about this stuff. Cam, every day I ask you about your heart: Anyone make you mad at school? Anything frustrating you? Did something happen to make you sad? We talk about having cockroaches in your heart (bad stuff) or marshmallows (good stuff) – an idea we’ve borrowed from Toby. The other day you said, ‘I don’t feel cockroaches or marshmallows. I don’t feel anything in my heart. Just love.’

We’re learning about how having the courage to be vulnerable – to take the first step, to break the silence, to share our story – cracks open the stories of others and there’s trust and the freedom to be defenceless.

Lastly I feel I should say to you that friendships are going to be a big chunk of your life’s purpose. From the day we knew we were expecting each of you, one of the five things we’ve prayed for you every day has been for your marriage partners and your friends.

I’m praying for you that you would know when to let go of friendships, and say, ‘It’s chilled,’ and when to clutch friendships and breathe life into them. Trust God to make divine appointments for you. Let him be in charge of path-crossings and gut-feelings and I-just-know-I-need-to-pray-for-you conversations. Ask him to protect your old friendships and grow your new ones.

I have to fight the urge to box people and label the lid. Try not to be like me. It’s frustrating and impossible, anyway, to categorise humans. We’re too messy.

I pray that God would give you peace when you’re excluded. And patience when you’re included against your will. I pray that you would live with it’s-not-about-me perspective and that you’d just try to be Jesus to your friends. They are gifts from him.

I’m guessing you guys are going to be hyper sensitive, like both me and Dad. I see it in you already. This is an incredible strength but it can be a debilitating weakness. Pray that God would help you to channel your sensitivity into discernment to speak hope into people’s worlds. Pray against taking everything personally. It will sap your strength and resolve – annihilate your confidence. Always remember you can’t possibly know what’s happened in someone’s day-week-lifetime that has brought them to a point of abrupt discourtesy or some other offensive response. Be grace. Decide to be a happy, uncomplicated friend.

So, it’s partly cloudy and warm, mostly. Scattered showers here and there, which is lovely, actually. Eternal forecast: blue skies.

All my love

Mom

xx



 The Action Bible with Dad




Your gardening things were a birthday present from your cuzzies
 Waiting for Dad to get home


Putting out fires...