for a minute,
which, on this side of town, is a phrase often used to explain a person's extended absence from society.
usually it means they were in jail.
or rehab.
sometimes, for a whole lot longer than a minute.
which is not my explanation for my absence from this space, which i have missed, but does accurately describe how this fall has flown by; it does seem like i've only been gone for a minute.
we've started to school our kids at home, which has taken much energy and adjusting. we are finally, i think, coming into a rhythm that seems to work, and i enjoy it so. and that's taken me away from daily work at the boiler room, which has led me to feel unqualified to write to you about it; i simply am not there nearly as much as i was last year, so it's right for t. to be the main communicator about how God is working at the sbr.
but more than that, i have been struggling with my place in our neighborhood. this fall has been such a time of interior living: i no longer bring my kids to school and interact with other parents and kids there, i am not at the sbr as often, and the days are so occupied with teaching and mothering that i'm not available for the morning coffees with other moms that used to occupy most days.
and.
i get to disciple these children of God. i get to teach them about what it means to be in a family and think critically and invent colors and pray for each other and how to arrange words on a page and how this world is so much bigger than this year and this neighborhood and them. we've slowed down. we are learning to work together.
i have said that our children are our first mission field, always. this year, i'm learning what that looks like, and it feels right.
but.
there is also something dangerous about this work, this home mission field. at recess and after school, my kids want to romp around in the woods and splash in a creek and build forts. none of which can be found in our backyard. they have been quite vocal regarding their disappointment about this. i have felt guilty for depriving them of these things that they used to have in our old life. i have wondered if we should move. not far, of course, but someplace close. with woods.
and of course, that place does not really exist. and even if it did, to move would mean to miss the point entirely, which is that we did not choose this neighborhood for its beauty or valuable real estate; God, we believe, chose it for us. and instead of leading the charge, for once, for once, i followed. where i did not want to go. and this place has been a virtual promise land of fruit and beauty and joy for us and others.
except when my kids remind me that there's no woods or pond or apple trees, and i wonder what the real cost is to them of settling here, and if it's worth it, and i start to calculate how we can move further out while maintaining some semblance of integrity after all we've said about how great it is living here.
so all this is whirling about in my head this fall and i don't even dare share it with anyone because it will make me look worse than i want to.
until i remember, finally, that if we followed the wild call of the Holy Spirit here, then we're not budging until or unless he calls us someplace else. and i remember that the truth sets us free, and that part of the truth is that it's hard living in this environment sometimes. it's hard not having a beautiful landscape to gaze on at the end of the day. it's kind of a pain to drive my children to the woods so they can play, and it's painful to deprive them of the beautiful landscape that some of their friends have out their back doors.
and this is true, also: living across the alley from the prayer garage means that max and i can stumble over there in the middle of the night to pray together for an hour. and we can walk to dinner at the sbr with people we love so very much. and all the windows in this old house give me a perfect view of who is coming and going into and out of the boiler room, or who is stumbling down the alley or curled up next to the dumpster. which is not always beautiful stuff to see; it isn't.
t., i see now: Keats was only half right. beauty is not truth. but truth is beauty, and that is what i'll hold on to even when i don't feel like it: the beauty that is God, that is in and behind and beyond anything i see.
t., i was gone for a minute, but i'm back, and thankful to be here.
::jenn::
