Prayer in a Bottle

There have been those days, boys running like crazy through the yard, on a grand adventure.  A neighbor comes by and says "Wish we could bottle that."  I laugh, because I know how hard they crash.  But I must admit, there are all kinds of things I wish could be bottled. And then today I am amazed to discover that one of my favorite things in the world can be!

Would you believe prayer fits inside old plastic water bottles?

In my classroom of 4 year old's sometimes there are tears.  When it happens I often feel awkward and ill-equipped, sorely out of my element.  As I have pondered how to help, I remembered a suggestion given at the Early Childhood Summer Institute I attended this summer.  One of the presenters demonstrated how an empty water bottle literally becomes a "sanity saver."

The instructions are simple.  Fill the bottle with sand and all kinds of interesting little things that are fun to look at.  Finally add a penny, cap it, and tape it up tight.  When the child is having a difficult time have them take some deep breaths.  Then give them the bottle, and ask them to find the penny.  "Sanity Saver Bottle" to the rescue!

I made one today.

Here's the crazy thing:  I thought I was making this for little kids who needed distraction, but something wonderful happened as I held it in my hands.  I began looking at the beads tumbling in the sand and my heart was strangely soothed.  I began to search for the silver heart, the butterfly charm, the shell.  I found the bead that had once been on my favorite bracelet, the one with subtle streaks of blue and gold, the one that reminds me of harvest and Psalm 126.  And I began to realize that the random things I put in this simple bottle were not so random.  And the bottle itself is not so simple.  Each little bead, and charm, and shell fragment, and sequin come from meaningful parts of my life. Watching them tumble around in the sand, playing hide and seek as they appeared and disappeared, made my heart pause and remember--the Holy One with us always.

Psalm 139 says it this way:

How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God!  How vast is the sum of them!  I try to count them--they are more than the sand; I come to the end--I am still with you  (Psalm 139:17-18).

Even if we could count every particle of sand in this bottle, we would never be able to come to the end of God's presence with us.  And if God's thoughts are more infinite than the sand we cannot count, then how much does He think of us?   His thoughts toward us have weight to them.  They are not passing, random thoughts.  They mean something.  They mean something not just to us but for us.  Our sweet Lord has thought every thing through.  Nothing has escaped His attention.  And more than we are waiting for Him, He has been waiting for us to realize we are with Him still.

There is no detail that escapes His notice. 

I don't always know how to calm the 4 year old heart.  But I'm so thankful the Holy Spirit knows how to calm mine.  And I am grateful that the Holy One waits for me to realize that in my sandy life, He is the treasure that I seek.

Life Wide Open

We are transitioning from the laziness of summer to the hustle and bustle of a new school year.  I always look forward to settling into a routine, but that settling part can sometimes get hairy.  I've been thinking recently of the beauty of a regularity.  I love the bones of a schedule that gives structure to my days, allowing me to hang my creativity in the most advantageous minutes of my day.  This free spirit self that I am needs the order.  It helps me enjoy every moment without guilt:  "oh yes, this is the time given to quiet contemplation; I can be present in this moment because the need to attend to the details of our lives can be attended to in that moment there."

When I taught University Experience (a freshman seminar class designed to help first year college students adjust to college life) I always had my students complete a time chart first thing.  It was a simple gragh with days of the week across the top and twenty four hours down the side.  I encouraged them to color blocks of time according to their various activities.  They were to include communiting time, class time, study time, family time, and yes, party time.  Then they had to reflect on what they learned from the experience.  And every year I also completed one too.

I always learned something.

You would think that year after year, there would be no new insights.  But there were.  As I completed my own time chart I could see how my stated priorities often differed from the way I spent my time.  Actually coloring my time as I committed my schedule to paper created a simple accountability that helped me see more clearly, helped me answer the question, "Is this how I really want to be spending my time?"

I have the need to get the crayons out again.

Somehow it helps me to see my life colored in--the sections of responsibility dancing with the passions and simple pleasures of my "mommified" life.  And to know that rest always comes.  At the close of each day, rest is there waiting for me.

What do you think?  Want to try it?

I know it doesn't seem to be a deeply spiritual exercise.  But I tend to differ.  I think it is significant in the most important way.  It gives us the chance to live deliberately.  Because we can color in our lives as they are.  Or we can consciously choose to color them the way we truly want them to be.  First on paper, then in real time.

As Tim & I were waiting in Walmart with the boys today, an older woman sitting by the door began a conversation with me.  Jeremiah was pulling on me, tugging, running back and forth in front of the doors, and oh my goodness I must fetch him!  She said I had such wonderful boys.  She said they were blessings.  I agreed of course.  And then she told me of her own children, how they loved each other so as children.  She told me that everyday she told them, "You have to be good to each other, because we are not promised tomorrow."  She told me that although they would have their moments, they were best friends.  Then she told me her daughter had died.  She still had her son and his children, but her daughter was gone.  She explained how her son was so mad at God for taking his sister away.  A year passed, and then he came to her one day and said, "This is that tomorrow you were talking about isn't it."  She said it took him a year to realize it, but he finally did.  As we parted, we blessed each other.  Literally the words were coming out of our mouths at the same time:  "God bless you." 

And we are so blessed.

And that is why mapping my time is deeply spiritual for me.  I don't want to waste a moment.  I don't want to wake up one day and think, "Oh God! I wish I had spent my time doing---loving---helping---holding---hoping---being!!!!"  I want to think now.  I want to wake up now, before the time is past, while I still have the power to change the way I spend my day.

I want to live my life with eyes wide open and arms wide open and heart stretched wide open.

Oh sweet LORD I do want to take it all in--

New Beginnings

Food is at the heart of our celebrations.  It's how we mark the significant events in our lives:  We eat!  And we eat the kind of things that leave an impression.  Unfortunately, not only on our tongues, but also our waistlines.  Thank goodness significant events don't happen everyday. 

Take for instance when we discovered Tim had landed a school administration job:

And then to celebrate Isaiah's entry into Kindergarten:



How cool is it that our summer has been bookended by doughnuts and ice-cream?  But between all that sugar, there have been some uncertain moments not nearly as sweet.  I am incredibly thankful to be settled, still trusting, but at complete peace about stepping out in faith on a new path.

Thinking fondly of my sweet Isaiah boy.  Today he began a new path of his own.  Today he donned the traditional orange vest to join the ranks of kindergardeners all over our city.  He wore it proudly, and totally without fear:

All of these things, from special meals, to special vests, to special backpacks have the power of ritual, the tangible representing the intangible reality; something significant has changed. 

When our children are young, we are careful to mark milestones.  We take extra care to make sure they know they have stepped across a threshhold, and that it is a big deal.  I wonder if we fail to change as much as we age because we fail to mark our own milestones, our own intangible realities that may not be noticeable on the outside but have deep significance on the inside?

Or--

I wonder if we fail to make progress in our own transformation because we fail to marry intention with tangible, touchable expressions that keep our new trajectory constantly before us?  Sometimes it is the simple reminder that makes all the difference.

I've made my own kind of marker.  It's not much.  But I see it everyday, and it holds me accountable to the Holy Nudge to start moving in a new direction.  No one else can provide the momentum this Holy Nudge demands but me.  I know that if I don't keep intentionally choosing to move, the Nudge, and the Dream it represents, will dissipate.

Disappear.

I'm too chicken to wear my own orange vest.  Something obvious to everyone.  A bright sign post pointing to a new goal.  I'm too chicken to held accountable in such a public way, where everyone can ask--Have you done it yet?  How far along are you?  How is it coming?

In case my own resolve melts, I don't want to be caught in a gaping hole of obvious, having to not only stare down my own disappointment, but everyone esle's too.

So it's enough for me to tape my Nudges to the bathroom mirror, and each day ask myself how I will step out in faith.

I believe this is the stuff new beginnings are made of.