Welcome to the World, Baby Girl

Dearest Mirren,

You're here. Your dad and I keep looking at each other and saying, "We have a baby," like this is somehow still unexpected, even after anticipating you for the last 9 months. It's just that you're so much more than we'd asked or imagined that we can't quite believe you're what was waiting for us inside my tummy.

People keep asking us about your name, little one, and I want to tell you what it means to us so I don't forget it and so you know what to tell the people who ask you about it someday. The truth is, I saw "Mirren" online and knew almost immediately that it belonged to you. It took daddy a little longer to come around, but one day when I asked him what he'd been thinking about names he just looked up and said, "I like Mirren," and that was about it. We had other names, in case you came out looking more like a Madeline or a Sophia, but I don't think there was actually much chance of that. Maybe God gave you this name, for your sojourn here on earth.

Your name means so much, on several different levels. Mirren (MEER-ren) is a Scottish form of Mary, I assume via some of the same linguistic routes as Miriam and Marian. There are lots of ways to spell it that are more Celtic (like Muiren, which is, I believe, the way they spelled Maid Marian's name in Robin Hood Prince of Thieves), but we wanted to give you the best chance of having people pronounce it correctly on the first try. We figured we could give you an unusual name as long as you didn't have to tell every single soul you met how to say it ;)

Anyway, both your Dad and I like Celtic things. He's of Irish heritage and I have some Scotch blood, and loved Scotland both times I visited it. Somehow, it seemed right to give you a Scottish name.

In addition to all of that, Miren (with one "R") is also a girl's name in Euskera (the Basque language). While we didn't choose that spelling, it seems appropriate given the fact that I once spent 4 weeks in Pais Vasco (Basque Country) and have a deep love for the culture, people, and language of the place. It was my first overseas experience and meant so much.

As far as meanings go, Mirren carries the same traditional meaning as Mary, which is "bitter." However, further research revealed that the name is also associated with being one who is loved, or beloved.

There's something about that juxtaposition that seems so right for life on this earth. Things will be bitter, and I know I can't keep you from experiencing that along the way. But no matter what happens, you will always be loved, and I hope you can remember that when you get a bad life-taste in your mouth. Because it's the love that matters in the end, and not so much the things that happen along the way.

Your middle name has raised some questions, too. Clarys (CLAIR-iss, rhymes with Harris) was your maternal great-grandma's name, and between her being a special woman and the name being too unique to lose, I wanted to give it to you. I would have considered it as a first name, but it reminds your dad of Clarice from Silence of the Lambs and neither of us wanted you associated with that.

I don't know what the name means, unfortunately. Apparently, there's a story about where it came from but no one quite remembers it. It's what it means to me that's most important, though. My grandma was a strong woman who lived a hard life in a hard place and still made something beautiful of it. Someday I'll take you to those wild, rolling South Dakota plains and show you where she came from, and I think you'll understand. I'll show you her grave, clustered with others (most of them your relatives) in a small, well-kept plot in the middle of a wheat-grass field. When you watch how the wind hits the tall sentinel pines that do their best to protect the cemetery, I think you'll see the sort of place where she made her life and made it work, even when it was hard.

That's what I want to give you, baby girl. That strength, that stands tall in the face of the things life offers and bends but doesn't break. My grandma had that strength and I hope my daughter does, too.

Little girl, you're our treasure. We talked about you as our little gift, the entire time you were inside, and you certainly are that. There's so much more to say, so many more thoughts and hopes and blessings I could give you, but I don't have the words right now and, besides, I think everyone is concerned as it is that I've been sitting on the couch crying for the last 20 minutes. I can't help myself. You're so very, very special to both your daddy and I and we love you so much.

Welcome to the world, baby girl. I hope you learn to treasure love and laughter and God and family and friends and that you have some sense, even now, of just how much you are loved.

More later, little darling, I'm sure of it. Meanwhile, sleep well.

Slowing

There's room to breathe, here in this place. Like the turtle I once loved, I feel myself stretching my head out, looking around to see what things look like. Maybe now there will be time to reflect, ask, ponder, answer.

I'm moving in, inhabiting this place. It's a place my heart knows so well. Home.

My body also knows this place. Breath by breath, beat by beat, I come to rest in the quiet.

There's space for me, here.

It won't last. Slowness like this almost never does.

In our crazy world, getting to move slowly is a luxury and, like most luxuries, comes in seasons. This particular season will be ended by the squalling arrival of the little one, one who already interrupts and whose interruptions are usually welcome. Since I can't exactly stuff her back inside once she's out (and wouldn't ever choose to!) I'll emerge from my slowness to do what needs to be done.

That doesn't mean that the slow place isn't home, though it's more like Home-That-Will-Be instead of Home-That-Once-Was. I'm not sure this world could sustain itself at the pace I would choose to live, but I'm almost positive heaven can.

All the same, it's good to be slow for a time, even here. It's good to accept the season, moving in harmony with it, not trying to disarm it prematurely.

Breathing.

Rejoice . . . always?

Several weeks ago, I started thinking about my year of "enough." It was a strange thing for God to give me that word, because I'd searched for his heart in similar ways before and not heard anything. But I embraced what I heard and walked through my year with it by my side.

As it turns out, I'm not sure if "enough" was something for me to focus on or just a heads-up about where I was going. Sure, I meditated on the concept and it functioned as a touchstone for me over the year, particularly during the first 6 or 8 months. But it wasn't something I did. It wasn't something I strove for. Hearing "enough" at the end of 2008 was almost like a prophecy, or sign post saying, "Just so you know, this is where you're going."

In light of that, I was surprised to hear another word for the next year.

"Rejoice," I heard, almost before I'd gotten the question out of my mouth.

My response was somewhat less than I would have desired. "Really? Are you sure?"

Turns out, God was sure.

My response was somewhat stronger several days later when we heard about Dave's job. "Clearly, that rejoicing thing is out the window," I said.

I don't think God said anything, but I had the distinct impression that he cocked his head slightly and looked at me with raised brows.

"You've got to be kidding," I said. "I think I might be lucky to survive next year, let alone find joy."

Since his expression didn't change, I could only assume that he was not, in fact, kidding.

And so today I embark on a year of rejoicing. I'm not sure what that means, though I'm fairly sure it has very little to do with feeling comfortable and happy. More like finding the winged horses that come to rescue those who can't help but jump off the cliff, hoping against hope that their distinct impressions of "something out there" are real, and will become solid before the ground does.

A Yearly Update

A year ago today, I wrote about my word for 2009.  "Enough," I said, "means that there's breathing space, room to be tired and stop striving, stop feeling like I should be doing more, being more, becoming more."

And this has been a year of enough.

Dave and I have had enough each month to live on. In fact, given our fairly simple lifestyle, we've had more than enough and we've been able to save. I found a place of balance between work, home, and my own heart, a place where I could be satisfied with "less than perfect" in each place while still pursuing my goals in each one. I even managed to get it through my head that I am, in fact, a human being and that, since God made me that way, He must not expect me to do everything that it sometimes seemed like I should do.

In some ways, 2009 has actually been a year of abundance. "Abundant normalcy" is what I've taken to calling it, at least in my own head. Not much out of the ordinary has happened. Most days, I've gone to work, gone to the gym, foraged some dinner, and spent a little time with Dave before falling asleep so I could wake up and do the same again. But along the way, I've found treasures in that. There's something about routine, even when it fills life with things to do, that opens up space for the mind and heart to grow. I don't understand it, but I know it's true.

Some highlights of our abundant normalcy:

• Finding our favorite easy dinners. Homemade pizza, chicken with brown rice and vegetables, soup and tuna sandwiches, rice and veggie cassarole
• Watching TV with Dave. Allowing our minds to rest while we spend time together offers great blessing. 
• Waking up together. I hate the mornings where Dave leaves early, because there's no one to roll over and hold when I wake up.
• Working out. There's not much better for me than 30 minutes a day spent sweating. I think it keeps me sane, some weeks.
• Starting my own business. Early last year (I think this was it), I walked away from writing as a career. Not as a practice, but as a career. At the end of the summer, I felt called to pursue commercial writing again, and found doors opening. At this point, it's a solid part-time gig that may turn into something more, and I love it.
• Our little home. It's a quirky apartment in a building that looks so much like the ones on either side that people have trouble finding it sometimes, but over the past year it's become home. Maybe it's the things we've added to make it look like home, but I prefer to think it's how we've learned to live and love here.
• Our marriage. This was the year where Dave and I transitioned from being newlyweds into . . . well, into whatever comes next. I can't give you a date or a time when the metamorphosis occurred, but occur it did. Being married feels normal now, and I love that.
• Quiet rhythms. Five minutes to pray here, ten to clean over here, and thirty to read, if I'm lucky, over here. Not much changes in a few minutes a day, but a year of rhythms is good for the soul, and a lot can change in five minutes and five minutes and five minutes and . . .

Standing where I am now, looking back over 2009 feels odd, like I'm waving goodbye to a little quiet lake among the mountains, one that most people don't know about, where I was invited to dig and and rest for a while, and where I'm now leaving.

Leaving, you may ask? Why leaving?

Ah, 2010. It's going to be an interesting year, a year where this abundantly normal state that I've come to find as enough and more than enough is going to get ripped up like a piece of old carpet. And who knows what will replace it?

To start with, one of these days we're going to have a baby. I mean "one of these days" quite literally--it looks like she won't be Daddy's little tax break, but our girlie will be here before February 1. Though maybe she's an example of the abundantly normal, too . . . I mean, how ordinary is it to have a baby? And yet what a special little gift we'll be unwrapping here in the next month!

On top of that, Dave is losing his job at the end of June. That's both exhilarating and unnerving. It frees us up to do so many things, mostly things that I don't think we would have done with the safety and security of a job with benefits keeping us here. On the other hand, the possibilities and lack of concrete direction can be overwhelming. We've wanted to move for so long, to live and quest and serve in so many ways, and now that we have the chance we keep looking at each other and asking Where? and To do what? and How will we have health insurance? It's sort of like going over the edge when you're rappelling--sheer thrill and sheer terror so mixed together you couldn't distill them if you tried.

Trust, God whispers, and hope.  And I do, though I also grieve the loss of this for Dave and for me and for our family. We're trying to stand against the winds with open hands, not forcing things but ready to receive what's there and bring it into our lives and our selves.

So, I don't know what 2010 has to bring, but I know it's not the ordinariness of 2009 and I'm sure it's going to be an adventure. As a great character in a great story once said when told that something would be an adventure, "Applying Father's definition of an adventure being a series of unlooked-for and uncomfortable events, Theo guessed that it would be."

Here we go!

Waiting With Clenched Fists

"God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts: who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed
And post o'er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait."

-John Milton, On His Blindness 

I found these words a little over a year ago, when I spent the weekend with three wonderful women (Kirsten is the only one who still blogs regularly).

So much has happened since then, and yet I still find myself in this period of waiting. I see people around me being given significant tasks to do in the Kingdom of God. These people aren't very different from me: same age, same education, similar emotional and spiritual maturity levels. In fact, the only consistent difference I can find is that they are not me.

It's not that I don't see things I'd love to do, jobs that I could take and make my own and love and squeeze and call 'George.' It's that now is not that time for them.

I don't know how I know that, except I do. When I'm tempted to think that it's my own fear telling me to wait, all the doors of opportunity close. They don't slam, but they dissipate, like a morning mist as the sun rises. I can go so far, getting training and even degrees, but every step I try to take forward gets diverted. I'm left trying to grasp a handful of sand and wondering why there's nothing left in my hand when I open it.

It's frustrating. On the worst days, I ask God, "Do you want me? Am I somehow merely decorative in your Kingdom?" And all He does is smile at me. What in the world does that mean?

So I keep waiting, walking and waiting, because we have to move forward in life, through time if nothing else. One foot goes in front of the other, and I hope there's a culmination somewhere along the line.

I hope because I know Him, because even His decorations have a purpose.

Just a quick note to say . . .

I've realized that part of the reason I don't post on this blog anymore is that I'm not sure what it's about, anymore. I'm not sure what belongs here and what doesn't, or what I want to share in this space. While I'm figuring this out, I've started another blog, tracking Dave's and my journey into new convictions and therefore new actions concerning what we eat and how we get it. Check it out if that sounds interesting to you. It's not much to look at, just now, but looks can be deceiving.

(This isn't to say that I won't be posting here, just that I'm currently posting a lot more over there . . . you know, for those of you who worry that I'm going to quit blogging or something!)

Update, in no particular order

Well, it's been a while. Since I posted anything meaningful, I mean. So here are some updates, in no particular order.

1. The baby is growing. I feel her move pretty frequently and I can usually tell when she's awake and when she's asleep, because she's squirmy when she's awake! Now that I can feel her, it all seems a lot more real. Well, the baby stuff we're acquiring helps a lot, too! We don't have a name for her yet. At this point, I'm just hoping to have one for her before she's born. I had an ultrasound a couple of weeks ago and everything they could see looked good, but she was so wiggly that they couldn't get all the measurements they needed so I have another one in a couple more weeks. She's 20 weeks tomorrow, which makes her half a baby (Dave keeps saying, "Which half?")

2. Work is pretty stressful right now, though I will say that the satisfaction of seeing this new program that I've worked on for MONTHS now actually get started. Now, if only the details would smooth themselves out. For those of you who remember, it's nothing like my first semester in this job! Much, much better.

3. I'm becoming more and more interested in eating naturally and, as much as possible, locally. Living in my particular section of Los Angeles actually makes that fairly difficult. In fact, I've looked and looked for a blog of someone living here who does something similar, but I haven't had any luck! Dave and I are just at the beginning of this journey, I think . . . not doing a whole lot about it, yet, partly because there's not much we can do and partly because of our individual tirednesses, but partly because we want to make changes deliberately and fit them into our lives in a way that's sustainable, and that's even more difficult. But I think it's where we're headed.

4. Most of you know that I went to the Glen Workshop put on by Image Magazine at the end of July and beginning of August. It was quite the experience. Overall, very positive, though my tiredness made it hard for me to take advantage of everything I wanted to. But I met great people, had a critique group that really "clicked" and felt like I got some good feedback on my writing.

5. I'm not writing a whole lot, just now. Darn tiredness. I can blame the baby for that, right? But I am writing some, bits and pieces here and there. Keeping my feet wet, I guess, until I can fathom doing it with some kind of regularity again.

6. I feel like I've pretty much said goodbye to Dave for the semester. It's not that bad, but with his 40 hours of work, 3 classes, and 3-4 intense workouts every week, our time has gone from relaxed and lingering to hurried and intense. Life is a transition, I guess. And it will be worth it in the spring, when he only takes one class and can be around to learn to parent with me.

7. Speaking of Dave, his new workout routine (check out CrossFit) is helping so much! He's this close (see my fingers almost touching) to his fitness goals and so excited to finally be seeing some progress again. This brings us one step closer to his military chaplaincy goal.

Overall, I am well. Things are well. Life is full, and God is good.