Be Where You Are

I noticed it first at the Olympic Games in a way I’d never noticed it before. I was sprawling on my couch with my husband, watching the parade of nations. We had DVR’ed the opening ceremonies so we could really watch them in that sweet time after the chores but before bedtime. I’ve liked this part since I was a kid. I can still hear my mom saying, “We’re watching the Olympics because they only happen every four years!”

So I grew up watching hours of sports we never knew were sports, admiring the dedication athletes put into their chosen field, cheering for our country, and hoping against hope that this gathering might truly work toward an expanded sense of what we all have in common in the face of all that divides us.

And the parade of nations is just fun. You see styles of dress from all over the globe as the athletes beam with hope and expectation. But then I noticed something else, something I see all the time…

...they were on their cell phones. Oh, blessed technology that is such a curse! I wondered how any of these athletes could truly be where they were, in that moment in time, walking in as representatives of their nation, while simultaneously trying to record it.

There are so many amazing moments in the time I spend with my son. And many times, I’ve been grateful for my smart phone’s ability to snap pictures and shoot video. But I’ve also noticed how, as he grows older, he tries to look around the phone at me.

The very act of trying to capture a moment takes me out of the moment. I become the photographer-director, trying to get the perfect shot, instead of being mommy. And if these pictures are for our family, regardless of how much I enjoy the likes on Facebook and Instagram, maybe I can just trust our memories and leave the phone in my pocket more often.

The way my son does many things jars me out of preoccupation and back into my life. Like the way he eats. My son has not learned the habit of scarfing down his food yet. I don’t know where I learned it, to be honest. I just realized recently that I don’t really taste much of it most of the time because I’m already thinking about what I need to do, what comes next. I’m so busy preparing for the next thing, I’ve missed the thing right in front of me.

On the other hand, James eats like a connoisseur. It can be cold green peas, factory-shaped meat sticks, yogurt, or something we've actually cooked, but he’ll take a bite, stop, look at me and make this heart-felt yummy noise. "Mmmm!" As if to say, “Mom, this is so good! I am enjoying this!” And I look down at my plate, which is usually empty already, and wonder if I pause to savor, not just my food, but my life.

So I’m trying to slow down and be a little more intentional. I’m trying to be where I am, not anywhere else. I’m trying to remember what I did before my smart phone was an instant gateway to things that are interesting, but not always good or helpful or healthy. And I challenge you to do the same.

As Ferris Bueller said, "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in  a while, you could miss it."

Growing in Love

My son is 2 years old today. He’s talkative and challenging, fun and amazing. He’s the most clarion call I have to be where I am, but that’s a topic for another post. I could go on and on about him, like most moms, but today, the most astonishing thing I’ve discovered in reflecting on 2 years of life is how becoming a mother has helped me grow in love.

That may not seem strange, because we would all hope that the hormones of the mother and the smell, facial structure, and other things of the baby, would create that indestructible bond that ensures that another generation rises from the one before. And, of course, that all happened. My first sight of him overwhelmed my senses; I tugged the blanket back from his face to admire those newborn grey-blue eyes that looked so solemnly into mine. I took a big sniff of his newborn scent and planted kisses all over his face.

But looking back with some perspective, I wonder if my love has grown in other times and why it didn’t grow more, sooner. I know my love grew a bit when I became a Christian. I felt the assurance of God’s love for me and it inspired me to be a bit more fearless in loving others. But as powerful as a dark night of the soul then mountaintop experience was, it became a thing of a particular time and place that faded like a mile marker in the rearview mirror. And while I followed God intensely, running the gauntlet of seminary, candidacy, and residency, God became more of the subject of my work and less the love of my life. (It’s sad, folks, really, but it happens.)

The other mile marker that stood out to me was the day I married my husband. We were young, foolish, and full of love. In retrospect, I know it’s not important that the flowers didn’t show up on time or the photographer kept fussing about my make up or that we ended up cleaning up after the reception. We stood under a banner proclaiming “Amazing Love” and promised to be partners in this thing called life. Ten years later, I know our love is a deep bedrock for whatever else may come, but my husband and I have both shared how, in the birth of our child, the priorities shifted.

It is in my love for my son that I was able to outgrow Grinch-iness most fully. “And what happened, then? Well, in Whoville they say - that the Grinch's small heart grew three sizes that day.”

Or, as Elizabeth Barrett Browning, put it, “I love thee to the depth and breadth and height / My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight” (“How Do I Love Thee?").

Or, from Scripture, “A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 35:26).

It’s a strange thing, to grow in love. Most might think it’s a cliché, rather rosy statement. But, for me, I tell you it’s something vast and daunting. As I have grown in love, I realize that I have a strength and courage I never knew. I have the strength to work long days on little sleep, to tolerate things as they are for the hope of how they might become, to nourish another from the store of my own body. I have the courage to place another ahead of myself, consistently and always, denying my own selfish desires and claiming my place in any harm’s way, and by this example, to give that same love to others.

As I have grown in love, I have become terribly vulnerable. It started with episodes of Grey’s Anatomy. I would sob during every episode that had something tragic to do with a child. And my sensitivity kept growing! I have to gird up my loins just to watch the news or to embrace my everyday vocation as a pastor.

I think this growth is unique because my son is ever before my eyes and on my heart. While there was one glorious moment at 3:04am two years ago, there is now constantly with me a bright, wonderful, playful little boy who calls me to challenge my assumptions and grow in love. Praise be to God!