We are traveling from Chicago to Kansas today, logging straight highway miles through Iowa and Missouri. National Public Radio is on, and an announcer just spoke of the brutal beating, to death, of a 12-year-old boy in Syria. As I listened to the account, I remembered the suitcase I saw on the side of the highway earlier on this drive. Flopped open and pressed up against the concrete half wall separating the two halves of the interstate, it spewed its contents along the side of the road. Those were important once, I thought when I saw a flutter of pink fabric and then noticed the rest of the lost items. Perhaps some were even treasured, stood for life events or special moments, told stories to their owner. Now they are scattered and exposed; they have become trash. I felt the sorrow of loss, and as I listened to the awful news of this nameless boy’s death, I connected the two images and realized that this young human, truly so precious, had also become a piece of trash to some people.
Like my mind was following a thread, another picture came to mind, this one from a long ago visit to the Holocaust Museum in D.C. Near the entrance was a giant bin of shoes, shoes taken from concentration camp victims, each one standing for a person whose value to the Nazis was less than the shoes he wore. Another image, this one from a movie, made me think of the RwandanTutsis, their personhood so unimportant that their slaughtered bodies were allowed to lie in the open air. These are gruesome images, extreme and very separate from my life, but then the Holy Spirit gently brought this sin home to my own heart. I realized that when I pretend I don’t see someone on the street because I have a schedule to keep and no time to chat, when I avoid eye contact simply because a person appears too different from myself, when I switch the news channel from another tale of human suffering, that in doing these things I have denied an innate human right and taken a tiny step toward considering someone else as worthless.
I suspect Philippians chapter 2, which I read this morning, has much to say about this. I am certain that Christ did not ever deny or ignore another’s personhood. What must that have looked like? He encountered all people as fellow human beings; He desired connection with them because each one was a soul, with depths they themselves didn’t understand; He saw them as the workmanship of a creative God. I cannot even imagine what this might be like in my life, but I would like the Holy Spirit to work some of that transformation, to “let this mind be in (me), which was also in Christ Jesus…who counted others as more significant and looked to their interests more than he did His own.”
Sometimes I read the Gospel accounts of Christ’s interactions with people and think His tone sounds combative or blunt, but I wonder if that is because I am unable to fathom someone who actually values each person. His questions to the Pharisees sound harsh, but isn’t anger with a person and the willingness to call out wrong you see in him or her, isn’t that more respectful than simply ignoring or glossing over wrongdoing? When He asked, “Who touched me?” drawing attention to a woman who tried so hard not to be noticed, wasn’t He, in effect, saying, “No, you ARE important. I want others to see you as a person like themselves. I am tired of their ignoring you.” When He spoke to Nicodemus in word pictures that would have left me, too, scratching my head, wasn’t He saying, “I know the brain I have given you. Use it for something greater and higher than devising rules that bear down on people”?
From all the things I have read, Mother Theresa seems to have had some of this gift. Not all of her statements “feel good.” To the downtrodden she spoke hope, but to those blessed with physical wealth, she had less comfortable messages. (My conscience is often stung when I think of her admonition to give the poor the best we have rather than our castoffs, our worst.) What would this intense interest in others as human souls look like in West Chicago and Wheaton, in my worlds?
I’m not sure, but I want to try it. I really

I took this picture in Kenya last year. A small child was fascinated with Emily's white skin and wanted to write on her hand. She was happy to let him.

do.

Note: We’re currently in Chicago, looking at houses and schools and praying through too many big decisions. I wrote this journal entry on the trip up to Chicago, though the day I wrote about was last week. More on our crazy weekend in Chicago later!
Mr. and Mrs. Bates live a half mile outside town on the dirt perimeter road. She is from Belgium; he is African American, and they both have grown children from previous marriages and none, I don’t think, from their marriage together. I don’t know the story of when or how they met, though I’d like to hear it.
I began buying fresh eggs from the Bates a few months ago, and I rode my bike out to their farm this morning to get some. They put the eggs and a Tupperware with change in it in an old fridge—like the one in my Mammaw’s house when I was a child—in the carport attached to the back of their house. I left my bike at the front fence and walked down the lane with Chai. Their little dogs (mom and daughter, rat terrier size the both of them) set up a racket, and Mrs. Bates stepped out. I bought three dozen beautiful blue, tan, and green colored eggs, and we chatted, stepping out of the carport to look over the beautiful little piece of land they have named Sunflower Farm.
She asked me about our upcoming move to Chicago, and I told her I was sad to leave Sterling. In her beautiful accent she began telling me that when she was young, she could not have lived in Sterling. “Too small,” she said. “I needed the city, the life. Now it is perfect for us. We like the quiet. I even hang my clothes out like my grandmother in the old country.” She waved a hand at Bates’ bright-colored work shirts waving on the clothesline next to the chicken barn and laughed. “I always said I would never do that.”
She went on to tell me about her grandmother’s bleaching area, a section of the yard where the grass was left to grow long. “Oh, if we forgot and ran through the bleaching yard, oh how would get scolded!” She smiled at the memory. “My grandmother would wash her whites and then lay them wet on the long grass. The grass would somehow whiten the cloth. So bright. When the clothes were dry, she would gather them, wash them one more time and then hang them to dry. We never used bleach,” she said, shaking her head, “but they had to be so clean. It was a shame to have dingy clothes hanging on your line, you know. It reflected badly on them as housewives. That was their world, their only area to shine.”
I had never heard of such a thing, and I wondered at how we lose knowledge like this, understanding of how the natural world can do things we now use chemicals to accomplish. It made me want to let a section of grass in our yard grow long and try it myself (in the same way I want to try canning my own vegetables). Something tells me Dave might not be so interested in the idea!

NOTE: I wrote this journal entry nearly a year and a half ago, but I decided to post it today. (One nice thing about going back through my journal is that I realize that I’m not the only one who has grown. My kids have made progress, too!)

A few days ago Jake and Patrick (PJ) got into it and PJ bit Jake on his butt, hard. When I pulled Jake’s shorts down to check, there was a serious red welt there, and PJ got a long timeout (for which he wailed as if I had beaten him—or bit him myself, I guess). Tonight when the boys got into the tub, the red welt was much smaller. PJ pointed to it and asked me, his face all screwed up the way it does when he asks me a real question (NOT “Why?”—that’s just standard response), “Mosquito?”
“No,” I said. “That’s where you bit Jake.”
“No,” he said. “Mosquito.”
“Not unless you’re the mosquito,” I answered.
And Jake lost it. He thought that was hilarious. “PJ,” he chortled. “You’re a mosquito and this,” he pointed to his butt, “is my mosquito bite.”
So funny.

Maddie did a not-so-funny tonight. She literally wrenched my work flash drive out of its socket, breaking it into several pieces. She came to me with the main piece in hand. “Mommy, you’re not going to like what I did.”
Uh, no.
But the grace of God intervened, and I did not yell or scream or make her cry. I started the “What were you thinking?” and then I stopped. “I don’t get it, Mads, but we’ll talk about this later,” I said and sent her to her room.
Em got on the phone and called Dave (I think she thought I might just lose it after all–she does understand what all might be on a flash drive–and wanted to call in the cavalry just in case or, probably more likely, she wanted to create drama. She is, after all, Emily.)
Dave came home a little later

PJ, Maddie, and Jake showing off some "miner" hats

.
And I was calm.
“I think it’s grace,” I said.
He grinned. “I know it is.”
Yeah.
So I went up to find Mads, and I put her on my lap so I could see her little face and told her I loved her, I wasn’t mad at her, I forgave her and the consequence would be that she couldn’t play on the computer for a week. She accepted it all and then she wanted to know what that little stick was anyway. As I explained it to her and told her that there was work on that little “stick” that is nowhere else and Mommy will have to redo it, her face crumpled into silent tears.
Maddie is generally a loud crier and the sobs and screams are generally of the “listen to how miserable I am” sort. Not these. Quiet, slipping-down-the-face tears.
It was another wonderful parenting moment, even more so as I explained to her the grace Jesus gave me so I could give it to her.
Oh, God, You’re good.

Em (left) and Katie treat me with a foot soak and pedicure

Last Saturday Em and her best friend, Katie, gave me a “pedicure.” Katie told Em that I seemed stressed with the younger three kids and the upcoming move, and together they decided to do something special for me. So they set up a “spa” in one of the upstairs bedrooms (we’re not using those right now), took me by the hand and led me up there.
And here’s a wonderful little miracle! I squelched my nasty, first tendency to say, “Oh, girls, I have so much to do. I just can’t do this right now,” and I went right along with it—no hesitation whatsoever. And, that, if you know me, is definitely supernatural. (I struggle with a little god known as my to-do list.)
They pulled an armchair up to the blow-up footbath someone gave Em for her birthday last year. They put a robe on me and helped me sit down so I could soak my feet in warm, soapy water. They took turns massaging my shoulders. Ooh la la! Then it was time to dry my feet, buff my nails (I just sat there like a clam; they did ALL this), apply nail polish (they’d even made a little card with nail polish swatches on it for me to pick from), and then draw little swirly shapes on my toes! I even got a clear coat on my fingernails (I’m sure Em was hoping I would pick red, but I wasn’t THAT relaxed).
It was fantastic fun, and the price was great. It made me wish that I would throw my plans to the wind (here in Kansas, they’d fly two states away) and let the kids float my boat more often. I have a feeling there are many times when they are better at steering it than I am.

We’re moving! Again. I’ve decided that my favorite verse right now is the second part of Psalm 23:6: “I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever,” emphasis on “FOREVER”!

Seriously, though, I wonder what it would be like to be born, grow up, live an entire life and die in the same hometown. I’m intrigued by some of my farming friends who are tied to a particular piece of land, whose lives are defined by place far more than mine is.

Well, more on this later. I’m sure this will be a theme of blogs to come, since moving tends to consume life for a time. I dislike that, but I am

I took this pic last summer of Kansas sunflowers. Unfortunately, their faces are turned away from me. This is one of the beauties of Kansas I will definitely miss.

hoping to learn lessons along the way.

Dave with Maddie in the summer of 2010

Today is my husband’s 41st birthday. For an entire month and 19 days, I can tell him, “I’m married to an older man.” Then I turn 41 myself. How did this happen? I remember being 15 and thinking, “In the year 2000, I will be thirty.” It was the equivalent of saying, “In the year 2000, my life will essentially be over.” Ha! Thirty was young.
For that matter, 41 is young. I don’t feel “old,” whatever “old” is, and I sure wouldn’t want to go back! A few years ago I had a lunch date/writing meeting with several women, all of whom were older than I. The one closest to my age was turning 40 that year, and she mentioned that. “Oh,” said the eldest of our bunch, “you’re just getting started at 40. You get some wisdom then, and you’ve still got energy to do a lot. It’s a good age.” I see that now. The past couple of years, it’s like I’ve found out who I am or at least who I’m not—and also discovered there’s a lot more to know, both good and bad. I’ve looked back at the past with so much more perspective than I remember looking back with at 35 or 30 (and I understand that at 50 and 60 I’ll probably see what a dunce I am now). I’m seeing so many ways I failed to take hold of everyday opportunities to know and love people, to be gracious and relaxed and human. I recognize how stiff and awkward I was, unable to allow differences to be just differences and feeling the need to label them “good” or “bad.” I see how I thought I’d arrived someplace, and now I’m somehow more aware that there’s this long journey of learning ahead of me, and I’ve taken about three steps.

Today was a “full house” day. I drove home from school this afternoon with three extra kids in the car. The last one was picked up at 5:30, and two hours later soccer players and college “foster daughters” started trickling in. I’m not sure how many came, but it was wonderfully busy. It made me think of a journal entry I wrote last fall on another full house day. I’m pasting it in below.

God brought this folktale to mind today. There was once a poor man whose wife was not content with the size of their house. The husband went to the local wise man and asked him what to do.
“Move your sheep into the house with you,” the wise man told him.
The next week the husband was back. Things were worse. How was this supposed to help?
“Move your cow into the house with you,” he was told.
For several weeks the husband returned to the wise man. Each week the wise man told him to move another animal into the house with him and his wife until his house was filled with his chickens, his pigs, every animal they owned.
Finally one week the husband was at the end of his patience. “She says she cannot bear with the noise, with the mess, with how the entire house is filled. The house is too small for all of us to live together.”
“Move the animals out, all of them.”
The man did, and when he came back the next week, he said, “Oh, our house is so clean and big and spacious. My wife is so pleased with it now.”
Well, I thought of that story today in relationship to children. We walked home from an early school dismissal (12:30) with my own four children and three others. When we got home, Shelby and Dylan from two doors down came over. Then Tristan and his brother Tray came. Finally Em’s best friend Katie joined us. In and out, in and out, the house felt like a zoo.
And then, suddenly, it was dinner time, and I was left with only my foor, Dierdre and Katie. It seemed so quiet in comparison! And in a few more minutes, when Kids Club gets out, it will just be me and the four Underwood children, and it will seem relatively sane.
I’m sure there are many reasons God gives me days like this one, and I KNOW that much of His good work for me involves my own children and the many others who enter our home, but I think that one of the reasons is to remind me that four children—well, that’s not so many. I could have 7, 8, 9. That’s chaotic, but this, just me and the four of them—well, that’s normal.

Jake, Patrick, and Maddie

We keep a journal of funny things our kids say or do. I thought I’d share a couple with you today. These are both about the wonderful color-blindness of our children.

One day in the car, Em, then 9, mentioned that someone had recently told her how much she and Jake, one of our then-6-year-old twins, look alike. “Yeah,” said Dave, my husband, “you two are very like each other.”
From the backseat, Maddie (the other twin) piped up, “Yeah, and me and Patrick look alike.” (Patrick is our youngest; he’s adopted from Uganda.)
Pause, then, “Except that his skin is brown and mine isn’t.”

Jake was in the hallway at church when his buddy Christian walked by and said, “Jake, is that you?”
This puzzled Jake–why hadn’t his friend recognized him?
After thinking for a few minutes, Jake offered the suggestion: “I think he thought I was Patrick.”

I wrote this last year, but I found it in my journal this morning and realized it certainly applies to right now.

I am in the middle of summer—my four kids home all the time and several neighbor kids in and out nearly every day—and I am exhausted and feeling unproductive. I just read the above journal entry (note: it was about doing more personal writing) and thought, “What have I done since then?” I’ve wiped a lot of snotty noses (namely ONE nose, PJ’s); I’ve done a lot of ferrying to swim lessons, gymnastics, library activities, etc.; I’ve fixed a lot of meals; I’ve hosted a lot of people; I’ve written quite a bit for the College–just not stuff “for me.”
And I just read these verses:
“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. For I am the Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior” Isaiah 43:2-3
Oh, I am not going to be dramatic. There are others dealing with starvation and abuse and sickness and grief, but there are days when I feel overwhelmed, like a river is washing over my head and I am bobbing in its waves and pushing up again and again to suck in the quick breaths that will keep me alive.
And You PROMISE me that You will not let it sweep over me; I will not be carried away from You, from sanity, from the life You have for me.
Thank You.

Psalm 139:23-24: David shows such boldness before God—to ASK that his faults be revealed. It is a terrifying thing to request others (anyone) to tell you the faults they see in you. But David can do this because he has full trust that God will be gracious and loving—in both the revealing of the sin AND the sanctification that must follow.

He asks, too, because he has learned that he (David) cannot know himself. I understand this more and more as I get older. I look back at the past and see areas of sin that I never recognized as such in the actual time. My self-centeredness and pride pushed me to give up on relationships that no longer felt important or convenient; they caused me to use people rather than love them. Though my sins are clear to me now, they weren’t in the moment.

I don’t want this to be a constant in my life—to find only in hindsight the sin that was there all along. But what also becomes clear in looking back is the beautiful redemption of God in spite of—or because of—my sin. I see how He healed hurts, repaired relationships, gave second chances, worked GOOD, and only then, sometimes, revealed my hidden faults.

Because all this is true, I can be more open to seeing my sin in the now, more vulnerable with God. I can pray with David, trusting in the gentleness of a God who is all about restoration, all about redemption, “Search me [thoroughly], God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there is any wicked or hurtful way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”