Good Things

Good things are growing.

Today has been a good day. Substantial revisions to my introductory chapter, affirmation from my director, more pieces in place for the teleconferencing technology I need for my dissertation defense, exciting possibilities on the job front, supper with Grant and Jenn, several phone calls from my dear people, sunshine, and cream in my tea.

I don't really have time to blog over the next month, but I do have time to be grateful. Grateful for daily bread in the form of good news, for the duty of prayer, which takes me outside of my own work and concerns, for confidence that good things are growing in 2012.

Grateful that when I hear this song, I see the faces of my friends:

What's growing in your life right now? How can I be praying for you?

Love Makes Language Exact

"Desire for the future produces words that cannot be stood by. But love makes language exact, because one loves only what one knows" (Wendell Berry).

As I have drawn near the end of my doctoral work, so many people have been ministers of grace to me. This week, I received two gifts from two beautiful friends, Lindsay and Kt. They are not the only friends who have encouraged me during these days of relentless work, but their kindness, coming in the same week, made me realize how blessed I am to be known so well. Lindsay and Kt have proven, as all good friends prove, Wendell Berry's claims that "love makes language exact, because one loves only what one knows." Here are the words they sent me:

This may seem a bit strange, but I would like to give you a small gift today... I just have to trust you to take the gift and use it well since I can't actually enforce it. I want to give you the gift of a cup of sweetened tea: as sweet as you would like with any sweetener you want. I know you usually only have sweet tea on Sundays, but I think you should have one to celebrate your new deadline and because I want you to.


So go make yourself (another) cup of tea and sweeten it to your heart's desire. I know this is pretty random, but this idea got stuck in my head and it won't leave. So hopefully that means you'll enjoy it.
Much love and prayers to you, dear friend,

Kt Ruth

 ***

Did you know that sometimes I just watch what you listen to on Spotify and then go listen to the same things? :) It's not so much that I like the music (even though I do), it's more that it makes me feel like maybe, just maybe, one day we'll be sitting in the same room together with our cups of tea and writing or praying or whatever, just communing together. For now, I'm truly with you in Spirit, and I'm praying for you over these final weeks in your pursuit of this part of your dream. I love you, sister.

Lindsay 

 I am so grateful to be known and loved such friends. They remind me that home is a place where language is exact, capable of comforting and challenging with the same strong words.

Have words ever consoled you during a time of stress of grief? Have you ever received a gift that proves the giver knows you deeply and well?

A (Belated) Christmas Letter

I worked almost non-stop over my Christmas "break," and this pace is part of the reason I did not send Christmas letters until the Ninth Day of Christmas.  This year's mailing was smaller than usual--only 52 cards--and for those of you who did not receive a copy by mail, please accept this rather late, rather short, but entirely sincere epistle:

(To see Christmas letters from years past, you can check out last year's post.)

Looking Back on a New Year

Perhaps because my enthusiasm for Christmas  overshadows all lesser days, or perhaps because of its dearth of carols (this and this being keen exceptions),  New Year's has never interested me very much. Most years I resolve to do or be some noble things (I don't need much prompting to make a list), but I have never really reflected on how and why I welcome a new year.

As 2011 gave way to 2012, I was sitting at my parents' dining room table, nearing the end of my final dissertation chapter. A cup of cheap black tea fueled my writing vigil, and as the neighbors began shooting fireworks, I thought--perhaps for the first time--about all the ways I have crossed from one year to another.

• Nearly every year of my childhood, I spent New Year's in a strange city. My parents used the long Christmas break to arrange mission trips for their college students, and so I would spend the new year watching the people I most loved and admired rebuild flood-ruined homes, serve meals, or encourage dwindling churches.

• During my junior year of college, my friend Julianna came to visit me, and we spent New Year's Eve dancing and singing with Lennon. The next day, my dear Lindsay became the first of my friends to be marry, and I sang in the wedding. 

December 31, 2004.

I was tempted to wear the tiara when I sang in Lindsay's wedding.

•  After my first semester of graduate school, I remember sitting at a New Year's Eve dinner with Emily, Dave, and Mandy. Bewildered by all the changes that had come in 2006, the first songs I heard in 2007 comforted me:

Service and singing, wedding and working: these are good ways to begin a year. I worked hard in 2011, and it was fitting that I ended the year hard at work.  2012 has begun in a rush--a job interview during the first week of the year, a defense date set for the dissertation, a new semester of teaching, and more--and I covet your prayers as I spend the beginning of this year bringing my PhD to a good end.

 Thankful as I am for the progress I made on my dissertation, I am have resolved that my next new year's celebration will be marvelous rather than dutiful.  Perhaps a star-gazing sing-a-long in the mountains, or a midnight feast? Maybe a square dance or a train ride or a blaze of fireworks? A slumber party or a boat-ride? Or maybe, most wonderful of all, a long, bright night at home: old friends gathered, new kin at the door, you here with me.


How did you celebrate the beginning of 2012? Do you have any ideas for how I should celebrate my next New Year's?

Comforts, Quirks, and Company

Hoosier Winter

This Christmas is very much a working holiday. I'm striving to complete my final dissertation chapter by December 31, so I'm not indulging in nearly as many movies, walks, or visits as I normally do when visiting Indiana. However, even while racing toward my deadline, I have been able to appreciate many of the good things about being here, in my first of all homes:

1. Kind Inquiries from Federal Employees: As I stepped onto the porch to retrieve the mail on Tuesday, the postman stopped and shouted, "Well, how is Baby Bear? Get good grades this semester?"
2. Things that Do Not Change: For more years than I can remember, my mother has used the same wrapping paper to wrap my presents. I suppose when you save a certain paper for one person, it can last a long time.
3. Creature Comforts: Writing a dissertation is much more pleasant with a purring cat curled up on my lap (or, less conveniently, in front of my keyboard)
4. Other Things that Do Not Change: My parents' Christmas tree will always be, in my estimation, the best of all trees.  Every ornament has a story. I especially like the angels made from aluminum foil, which Mama made when she and Daddy were first married.

Grocery shopping with Mama

5. Deliciousness: On Wednesday, Mama made eight casserole dishes full of homemade party mix. As far as I am concerned, this is our Christmas feast.
6. Quirks I Did Not Realize Were Quirks until I Left Home: On our living room walls, my parents have maps of Narnia and Middle Earth, but there is not a single family portrait to be found on any wall in the house. 
7. New Delights: Daddy is reading Harry Potter for the first time (he's just started the sixth book), and I love hearing his first-time reactions to the stories.
8. Quotidian Grace: Mama and I spend quality time together by running errands.
9. Sartorial Redemption: The Helping Hands thrift store in West Terre Haute, Indiana yields many treasures.
10. Good Company: Miscellaneous college and international students are in and out of the house at all hours.
11.  Ties that Bind: I spent last night and most of today with Lennon, Amy, and Andrew--kin by so much more than blood. (Amy, by the way, is a fabulous baker and blogs her creations here. If you're in central/southern Indiana, you should hire her to bake you a cake!).

Lennon, Amy, and Andrew with "Aunt Bethany"

A more typical glimpse of our time together.

Where are you this Christmas? What are some of the good things about being there?

Waiting my Way Home

"Ben, you're my last hope," the station agent said into the phone. "You see, I've got this passenger who needs to get to Ft. Worth and--oh. You're in San Antonio? Oh, never mind, then."

After five hours of waiting for a train, this was not what I wanted to hear from the Amtrak station agent. My northbound coach, the Texas Eagle, was schedule to depart from McGregor at 11:50 AM on Sunday, but an accident north of Austin had led to a series of delays. All the passengers who had been on the train were loaded onto buses, and train service was to resume in Ft. Worth. After a series of frustrating conversations with operators, who seemed to know about as much as I did about what was happening, I finally learned that one of the five buses knew I was waiting in McGregor and would be coming to take me to Ft. Worth.

Waiting for another train, July 2007

By 5 o'clock, however, the station agent was beginning to worry that the bus had either forgotten me or was not going to arrive in time to get me to Ft. Worth.  Just before he called Ben, I had overheard him say as much to Maria, the station agent at Temple, Texas. "Do you know where he is?" my agent asked. "No, I can't hail Billings, either." The inability to "hail Billings"--the driver of the bus that was supposed to come for me--had become the last in long series of obstacles to my journey home for Christmas.

I should pause here to note that my wonderful, amazing, patient housemates had been waiting with me all afternoon, and when Jennifer realized that Billings-the-bus-driver was incommunicado, and that Ben-the-taxi-man was in San Antonio, she said, "Could we take her to Ft. Worth?"
"Could you?" the agent replied, relief visible on his face. "That would be best, because we just can't seem to hail Billings....and Amtrak could reimburse you for the gas."
"Okay. We'll do it. When would we need to leave?"
"Well, um, right now."

And so Grant and Jenn, who had originally planned to wait with me for fifteen minutes, drove me two hours to Ft. Worth, arriving about ten minutes before the northbound train pulled out of the station.  The generosity, patience, and love they exhibited was more than I could have asked for, and they, bless them, didn't even make me ask. They simply saw my need and met it without fuss or fear.

At the beginning of Advent, I wrote about how I have found it difficult to be faithful in waiting (read the full reflection here). Writing that entry humbled me because for most of my life I have thought of myself as being fairly good at waiting. In college, I liked to quip, "Delayed gratification is good for the soul," too often dismissing my friend Rachel's protest: "Yes, but it is hard on the heart."

My long day at the train station reminded me that waiting is much easier to bear with friends. This is hardly an original observation, but it is a truth that has come to dwell with me this year. Often, people describe life as a journey, and friends as our companions on the road. It is wonderful to have friends travel alongside me, but in some ways I am more encouraged when I realize that my friends are waiting with me as circumstances, sickness, or uncertainty stand in the way of progress.

And so tonight, safe and warm in my childhood home, I am thankful for Grant and Jenn, who waited with me all day, hugged me when it looked like I might not get home at all, then took action as soon as they saw a way to speed me on my journey.

I am also thankful for all the memories of other friends who have waited with me. I remember the spring I was preparing for my preliminary exams, when Adrienne would  come over and study with me, to help me stay calm and hopeful. Steph stayed up with me all night as I graded a mountain of essays and exams. And then there was that wonderful piece of pie Liz brought to the library during my second year of grad school. I was working frantically to finish a term paper, and she came and sat with me until the wee hours of the morning. In college, I once became sick on a night my friends and I had planned to cook dinner and watch a movie. They put me to bed upstairs, and whenever I would wake, one friend or another--first Rachel, then Keith, Mari, or Mark--would be sitting across the room, waiting quietly in case I might wake and need something.

As a single adult, I do not expect anyone to wait with me for a train to come or for a night to pass. No one is obligated to tend me if I am sick, to drive me to Ft. Worth, or to keep me company if I must work late into the night. Consequently, whenever a friend does wait with me, I know their waiting is a form of grace. When they wait, they say, "We believe this will end -- we believe you will get home, you will finish this essay, you will be well again."  But they also say--and this is such a gracious mystery--"This moment is good, too. "

At Advent, and during all our  seasons of waiting, we need such friends. Their presence reminds us that our savior's name is "Emmanuel"--God with us.

Handed Down and Made by Hand

"Why do we give gifts at Christmas?" My friend Dustin asked this question as he led discussion in Sunday School this week. During Advent, our church has been studying the Advent Conspiracy, a campaign that calls Christians to make Christmas celebrations vivid and effective testaments to the Gospel. (Click here for the Conspiracy's most recent promo video). The tenets of the Advent Conspiracy are that we should "Worship Fully, Spend Less, Give More, and Love All" in ways that counter the glut of money, time, and anxiety most Americans spend on Christmas presents.

As our Sunday School class discussed ways to live out these ideals, I spoke about the gifts my parents used to make for me. In response to my recent post about traditions, many of you wrote that making Christmas presents helps you celebrate. As a child, my favorite gifts were things my mother or father made for me. The first Christmas I can remember, I awoke to a toy kitchen my father had built. Often, I would catch hints of these projects during the months leading up to Christmas. From a time before I was old enough to see over the kitchen table, I can remember marveling at the pieces of fabric and yarn that would eventually become Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls. Years later, I would sneak into the basement to peek at the doll's trunk my father was building, or I might catch a glimpse of calico that would somehow become a little dress by Christmas morning.

Making or buying handmade gifts certainly answers some of the Advent Conspiracy's calls. By making gifts for me, my parents spent far less money than most American parents, yet they gave me gifts I will always treasure for the time, care, and thoughtfulness they required.

Homemade, matching nightgowns, so Bethany can be just like Mama, 1987.

However, these happy reflections didn't quite answer Dustin's question. Can making gifts teach me about worship?  Can any kind of Christmas gift-giving help us experience and proclaim the Incarnation?

 Before I had an answer to these more difficult questions,  Jeremy spoke up from across the room. "I think giving gifts can teach us about the Incarnation," he said. "Ideally, any Christmas gift should remind us that Christ's willingness to live among us was a gift. But think about Bethany's story -- she saw signs of the gift long before it came. From the hints and signs in her house, she learned that good was coming, and that one day those bits and pieces would become something wonderful because her parents loved her. Maybe that's one way giving gifts can teach us about Christmas -- by reminding us that something more is coming from one who loves us."

The more I think about Dustin's question, the more I like Jeremy's answer.  Making a gift for someone requires the kind of love that God has for us: I should know the colors that catch her eye, the shape that will suit him best. I should notice that she shivers on our evening walks, or that he always plays that certain song after long days. Once I have found a need or desire I have the power to fulfill, I look for the finest materials and select the most skillful pattern. Then I work in secret, anxious to fill my friend with joy, but waiting for the proper season. Once finished and given, these gifts are one small way I can send some of myself with my friends--all so scattered and far. The gifts I make are signs of my hope that busy schedules and long miles will one day pass away, and we can enjoy all our work and rest side by side. Unlike God, I don't have the power the make that hope reality. However, the love that grounds the desire is divine.

Jackie learned the pattern as a girl in France.

This Christmas, I have scores of ideas for gifts that can help us recognize aspects of God's creative, generous image within us. However, some of my readers will soon be recipients of these gifts, and so I will save most of those ideas for the new year. Instead, I will share one project idea that is going to someone I am sure does not read this blog.

This gift is a pair of knitted slippers. I love knitting, in large part because it leaves the mind open for conversation or prayer. I transcribed the pattern from Jackie, my surrogate "grandma." Jackie came to America from France in the 1940s, and each Christmas I look forward to receiving a cup of tea and an hour of stories from her. I am excited to share this pattern with you because it could be the emblem for these ruminations of handmade gifts. Jackie once gave me a pair of these slippers, and I wrote the pattern down at her kitchen table last December. My notes, a strange composite of English and French, provide a very rough prophecy for the warmth the actual slippers will provide, and I love the idea that I am passing the pattern to you as it was passed down to me.

You can find the pattern by clicking here for Grandma Jackie's Slippers.

I think it has a rather pleasingly elfin look to it.

 I still have many gifts to finish before Christmas, and sometimes I think how much faster it would be to buy a gift I could put in my friend's hand today. For mere mortals, waiting can be difficult for the giver as much as for the receiver. I hope I am learning that in the patience and waiting it requires, making gifts offers yet another lesson in experiencing the slow hope of Advent.


What is the most meaningful handmade gift you have ever received or have given? Do you think giving gifts at Christmas can teach us anything about the Incarnation?