Vacation Day One

We are 111 miles from Mauston, where we got onto the freeway after taking a state highway over the rolling hills of south central Wisconsin. Just a mile shy of what iron-athletes travel on their bikes before embarking on a marathon (and after having swum nearly two and a half miles). Now we're in Eau Claire at a hotel on the side of the road, along with a good portion of Minnesota's little leaguers. Here's hoping they have 7am games tomorrow and are going to bed soon. It's our first night in a hotel with all three boys -- cozy! Tomorrow we drive the rest of the way to Duluth where we will first go shopping because, once again, the weather up there is going to rapidly change upon my arrival. The last time was in 2002 when the temperature went from 80's one day to a brisk 50-something the next. The high on Sunday? 67. Do we have even a long sleeved shirt? Doubtful. At least Ryan won't overheat at the triathlon (not an ironman, but a long distance one). Sounds like the baseball players are quieting down, guess I should too.

Tribute to Pastor Kevin

Our pastor from our church in North Carolina, Reconciliation UMC, is moving on this summer. Here is a reflection on our experience of Kevin's ministry during our 3 years there.

It could not have been a more North Carolina Easter Day on April 16, 2006 when we brought our twin baby boys forward to be baptized into Christ's death and resurrection. It was hot, sticky, and the sun beamed down on us as one by one they were handed over by their sponsors to Pastor Kevin. I remember the look of surprise on Elliott's face, and that Dietrich seemed ready to play in the water and with the shell. It marked the beginning of their life in Christ though they had long been loved by the congregation at Reconciliation.

Each year while I was in seminary at Duke, Pastor Kevin was an integral part of how God was awakening me. Kevin was the small group leader in my "spiritual formation" group and he wasn't interested in having us feel good about ourselves and our sacrifices we made going to seminary. After a week or two of getting to know each other, he pushed our comfort with church as usual. We read articles that helped us check our assumptions about everything at the door; I began to ask questions about reconciliation in Christ -- which was what I came to Duke to learn -- that I hadn't even imagined. It wasn't long before Ryan and I began going to services at Reconciliation. Even that word -- services -- changed for me while working with Kevin as I began to see that reconciliation means service in Christ to each other.

My year as an intern under Pastor Kevin's supervision remains one of the most surprising parts of my seminary education. I would have never imagined being drawn into parish ministry when I started at Duke; now I cannot imagine ministry apart from the parish. Kevin faced the struggles of our church head-on while remaining humble. He followed through on the questions he asked and was a model for how to keep asking questions. He gave praise and constructive criticism, but I always felt that I was part of the church first, and that I belonged. But he always remembered to have fun, to smile, to keep on.

But a tribute to Kevin would not be complete -- would not be possible -- without a tribute also to Denise. When I came into a Monday morning meeting sick as a dog but with the exciting news that we were expecting twins, Kevin was excited for us. But it was Denise who gave me the reassuring look every time I saw her that it will all be okay. It was Denise who planned the best baby shower ever, and Denise who kept us fed in the early weeks with our babies. If there was ever a model of team ministry (without the compensation) Kevin and Denise would be it!

Thank you to both of you for your many years of sermons and salads, baptisms and baby-showers, honesty and hospitality. The amount you gave to this congregation cannot be measured, nor can the amount you will be missed. God's speed to you and your next adventure.

Ascension Day

Had it not been for a quick click on the Daily Text in my inbox, I would have missed this, but here it is, the winding down of the Easter season with remembering Jesus' going up. Something like a pianist after the final chord, after all the themes and repetition, crescendos and diminuendos, the rests, the scattered notes that are all pulled together into that final chord. And then she lifts her wrists, fingers falling softly underneath. Lifted up. The somewhere isn't even a thought because it is the music that is left behind that we hear echoed in our minds. Her wrists dangle there for a moment while she takes it in and breathes before the organized raucous of applause. So here it is, Ascension Day.

Yesterday I dared to pick up the winter coats from the lower hooks in the almighty coat closest and shuffle them over to the washer. Is this just tempting a last cold blast before summer swooshes in? After all it was just a couple of weeks ago that I sent the snow pants into the washer, dryer, and finally the attic. I first peeled off a sticker from Elliott's pocket that said, "I met a farmer today!". It came from an exhibit at the children's museum on the rooftop where we drank chocolate milk, petted baby pigs and sheep, and made crayons from soy beans before ducking back into the heated exhibits. His hidden pocket inside his coat held a long piece of purple yarn, rolled into a ball and a quarter along with the remnants of the last washing when a beeswax sculpture made it all the way through the dryer cycle.

Dietrich's sticker never made it off the waxy paper, and it read, "I voted today!" from what would have been a non-news election had it not been for the wild Wisconsin winter when a governor grabbed hold of power and whipped it around like a jump rope with a weight on the end -- no one, even the governor himself, knows where it will land and whom it will hurt. But we voted (or at least I did). Dietrich and Elliott were home recovering from another Kindergarten virus. He also had some string, just a short bit, and a stick that had no bark left on it at all. It barely fit into the pocket. I can see him struggling to squeeze it in, only to be left there for weeks, maybe even months. I found a black sweat band made my Grandma Carol to adorn complete his Packer outfit reminding me of the months (yes, months) that he wore yellow pants and a green jersey. The purple karibeener (sp?) I have no idea where he found, but surely had something to do with the yarn at one time, and will likely have some use when he finds it again in the pile of things on the laundry table.

Koen's fleece snowsuit goes into the load, too, though he has no pockets to empty. Just a veneer of baby chew from the velcro he liked to nibble while snuggled into the snowsuit, a hat, a carrier, then zipped underneath my jacket. By the end of the season his hands could actually peek out when the flap was flipped back, and the zipper was snug across his belly. The pockets will be here soon enough, and I wonder what they might carry?

In they go, washing away the haze of salt, the playground sand, and the wiped noses. I doubt they will fit next year, but I will keep them up with the snow pants, stowed, quiet, until old man winter whispers to us again.

Flash Mob Snow

Midnight and I am sitting in the rocking chair nursing Koen but just behind the blackout shades the city lights are as bright as a November afternoon, every night. I peek out to see if we are indeed getting rained on, or if the low pressure system shifted just far enough to whiten the streets. Rain, just rain, I see. Koen is amazingly efficient for a change and goes right back to sleep. My dreams shift between the mundane (but welcome) discovery that we did, in fact, save some of Dietrich and Elliott's spring clothes from babyhood and need not get new ones for the baby; to disturbing dreams of our city's shopping district turning red light in the face of a budget shortfall.

It seems like minutes before Koen is shifting around, but it is nearly morning and I am giddy with the knowledge that I've had a few hours of uninterrupted sleep. Knowing this is his last deep time of sleep, I dash to the bathroom before the back and forth sleep of the early morning hours begin. Something is different. There is no need to turn on a light in there and I know it before I even look out -- we've been hit by the snowstorm. I just learned that a flash mob can refer to a completely innocent and fun coordinated effort to show up, together, somewhere, and dance, or sing (I learned this from one of the few high school kids I know who knows just about everything in current trends). And that is what those soggy spring snowflakes decided to do. They just showed up! They were supposed to go north, we were below the "snow line", we were in the green, not the blue. But there was no denying it, we were snockered again (that should be a word if it isn't already).

I broke the news to my husband and household-snow-shoveler-of-the-year (while I take full advantage of having birthed a baby surgically as long as the snow season lasts). Once the sun was up, the sticky surprise offered the first of many contradictions that we are sure to encounter during Lent. It's a day we remember our fragility, a day that feels dark, a day we even accept ashes smeared on our foreheads. And yet it is beautifully blinding to be outside, every inch covered in more inches of snow.

Chase

We went out the front door, instead of squeezing out the side door, which, while energy efficient and directly up the stairs from the best edition to our house -- a closet -- is tight. Maybe that was the inspiration. Or maybe it was the stark blue sky and the moon rise, the reward of a clear, wind snapping January day. When we turned the corner towards the library (which turned out to be closed) we broke into a chase -- instigated by me, definitely something I have not done in nearly a year, maybe even more. In fact, I've felt unable to play, even unwilling, to play. A lot of that has to do with carrying a baby, first in my womb, now in a carrier. But the stars aligned and the pager cooperated that I could skidaddle out of the house late this afternoon. And so I chased those bigger boys, those boys who have looked sad with my reasons for not playing, for not picking up the football (but I can hike it w/ baby in the ergo). Down the street, down another street. Dropped off the books. Back up the street. One boy, then the other, then me. I no longer have to fake that I can't catch Dietrich -- I really had to work hard. We stopped to shop a post-Christmas sale, we grocery shopped. But it was the chase, the simple act of being in the game again, that delighted me. Does this mean I am going to start running again? Hardly. Does it mean I feel something like the sparkling crisp night that fell on us as we ran? Yes.