Beginnings

It's hard to pinpoint when I started writing, or even started loving to write. There's the time my mom's great-aunt sent me boxes of her books on college english and narrative and writer's markets. There's the year my dad had us copy poems or psalms for handwriting practice, to be read in front of the family in the evening. Then there's the fact that Mom loves to write, and that I have schoolteacher ancestors, and that my sisters and brothers and I would tell one another stories as we washed the dishes every day. Writing came kind of natural.

But this is the first poem of mine that my mom saved. I was 11, and I think this was inspired by a recurring nightmare of mine about being chased up the driveway and into the house by a black bear. Don't laugh. We all have to begin somewhere.

There Is a Tree

 

There is a tree

that’s just for me.

Along came a bear

and gave me a scare!

I was up in my tree

when it saw me.

 

It gave a growl and prowled around

so I jumped down to the ground.

I ran to my house as fast as I could.

I was safe: I’d run faster than any bear would!

 

Kings pardon, but He bore our punishment

John Donne, Holy Sonnet XI

Spit in my face you Jews, and pierce my side,
Buffet, and scoff, scourge, and crucufy me,
For I have sinned, and sinned, and only he,
Who could do no iniquity, hath died:
But by my death cannot be satisfied
My sins, which pass the Jews' impiety:
They killed once an inglorious man, but I
Crucify him daily, being now glorified.
Oh let me then, his strange love still admire:
Kings pardon, but he bore our punishment.
And Jacob came clothes in vile harsh attire
But to supplant, and with gainful intent:
God clothed himself in cile man's flesh, that so
He might be weak enough to suffer woe.

pieces and homes, and lots of pictures

(Many of these pictures were taken by other people)

 

driving north

 

              Naomi and I with huckleberries                                    The Sidney Psalter

 

 I have been an adult for longer than I'd like to admit, and moved away from home years ago now, and there is much joy and fulfillment and strength God has given me in this community and town and house which I am part of now. But still fresh in me is the uncertainty and responsibility and loneliness, the lostness and the frustration that come with leaving home for the first time and having to figure things out for yourself in the wide, wide world. You are pulled two ways. You are pulled on by the past, the things that made you who you are, the people who know you best, the habits and friends that delight and comfort you. And you are tugged at by the future, by possibility, by promise, by the expectations of others, and by your own strengths and ambitions. Leaving home is simultaneously one of the best and worst things about growing up.

Silas and I explore a culvert                       Lydia and the CdA beach

 

clear blue Pend Orielle river

 

Perhaps that was a hard time, and perhaps every young person knows it - that in-between where home with your parents doesn't quite feel the same way it used to, but you haven't married and bought a house and settled in for the long haul of establishing your own home for the rest of your life there.

Natalie and I                                                  The Cove                          

                                 Moscow Mountain cookout

 

                                     the happy orange chair

Jonte and I only wish we were hobos                             drinks to celebrate our new place

Perhaps it is true that I'm still there, in that in-between. It feels that way now and then, no matter how satisfying my job is, how happy I am in my church family, how lovely my house and roommates, how delightful my weekends and evenings with books and good coffee shopes with live music and writing and beer with friends and long talks with sisters and all of the things that fill my life.

Elsi reading in the van                                                            Ben with Alyssa

Hailey and baby




















NY Johnny's with friends late at night (Kristina, Kurt, me, Sara, Fraser, Mel, Susanna)                                                                

                                              

But I am here for now. I am building a home. And I am building who I am. I buy things for those purpose: tall lamps and old books and sweet-smelling candles and bright flowers to beautify and make useful my home, and food and clothing and more books and tuition for classes that fill my soul and body. And I hope to be building up another body, another household, with my presence and my hospitality and my gifts given to this community. This home becomes more home to me all the time.

Matt and Evelyn                                                            

Laura, Elsi and I

Snake River with Jonte, Emily and Ashley                                                     

Coeur d'Alene Lake                                                                         

                                

But one of the nicest things about not living where I was born, and about trying to accomplish this settling-in and home-making here, is being able to go home in more than one direction. For home to be not in one place means that I have bits of my heart in more than one place, and while that hurt when it first happened, it does less now. The longer we live, the more places we go, the more pieces our hearts become, and this isn't a bad thing. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also, a wise man once rightly said. Where you invest your love, you invest your life, sang someone a little less important, but he was right as well. Love means investing, love means caring, love means missing what is loved when you are far away from it. Those places you have so many memories of that parts of you want to go back to sometimes so badly that you ache? That is love. Those faces you can visualize perfectly even though you haven't seen them since the beginning of the school year? Those are your investments. That place on top of the mountain where you sat and stared out at the dark of the world and the lights of mens' lives, and stared up at the dark of space and the lights of singing planets and stars, and you felt like you could stay in that moment for all time and be content? That is the glory of being a human with a soul.

Moving into our new house: Jonte, Mel, Tali and I

Ellis and Rachel's wedding            

                                                                       

                                                    Abel, Seth and I

 

The more places I taste, the more people I shake hands and chat and eat and work and theologize and commiserate and laugh hysterically with, the more books that I open and decipher by means of ink and phonics and imagination, the more songs I discover -- the more I live, the more I love, and there is always - and constantly increasing - things tugging at me from different directions. This pull - back toward all the things I have a fondness or a sharp memory of, forward toward all the things I want to know and love and stash in me like so much treasure - is part of what makes me know I have a soul. The pull shows me I am creature.

                                                                                              outing with Ria before she moved                                                            

                                                                  

Mel's birthday. Riquel, Donny, Adam, Mel, me, Jonte, Zach, Cherie, Bridgette, Wilson, Bailey

                                                            wonderful parents

Steptoe Butte with cameras and good cheer

Ford Raymond Tucker, in memoriam

You may lay his body in the ground today
    like a grain of wheat that has fallen,
       but what is rainfall, what is the dark of sod,
       when your life has been hid in Christ with God?
    Your son, your brother will be called
to rise up tall with eternal day,
and the Son of light will dry all tears away.

Ford (center) with 6 of  his 10 siblings at Easter

Fallen Hearts

Bohun staggered back against the wall, and stared at him with frightful eyes.
"How do you know all this?" he cried. "Are you a devil?"
"I am a man," answered Father Brown gravely; "and therefore have all devils in my heart."

- G. K. Chesterton, The Hammer of God




The heart is deceitful above all things,
And desperately wicked.

- Jeremiah 17:9




For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness.  All these evil things come from within and defile a man.

- Mark 7:21-23

Around here

It is summer around here, and these are good times for exploring. For going to a lake

for walks in the lively green woods

for campfires

for cooking in cast iron, for veggies

It's a good time for photography with friends, and for staring at sky and earth

for finding patterns in things

for discovering new flower faces in the yard

There are so many things I haven't photographed. Granite Point on the Snake River. Maria sketching in the backyard. The yard after I mowed it diagonally. The eagle and owl and snake at the Reservoir. My brand new niece open her eyes straight into mine. The fireworks in my grandparents' yard.

There are so many times that are good and can't be captured in pictures, but need to be remembered.  Iced coffee with my sister and talking about our work like grownups. TV shows that are completely ridiculous, but fun because of who I'm watching with. Going to the nursing home in Pullman and having Dodie not want to let go ot my hand. Meeting new friends in a coffee shop and having them feel immediately like old friends. Conversation with Dr. Wilson about snakes and toads. Heaps of chunky sauce. Laughter with my student. Convicting sermons. Singing with all of the strength in me. The relief of cutting yourself off from something unhealthy and knowing what it's like to pluck an eye and throw it from you. The heat rising from the pavement under the thin soles of my sandals.

God is mighty. I am broken. Christ is grace. His world is gorgeous.