Gosh, it's hard to sit for long at the computer! But I'm back y'all.

Where I've Been

No excuses, but there is life to be lived. I would like to believe that this season of life is the most strenuous I'll ever experience. Everyone is old enough to be in a few different activities, but no one is yet old enough to drive themselves.

But, come January, the free ride is over for this one. Sixteen! My heart!

In the meantime, life beckons us to get in the car! Sign up for things! Have exerperiences! There have been many things I've felt I had to do. I've had to encourage my baby in her first "Try"-athlon. She is so strong! She is learning to do hard things!

We had to go play at the county fair.

We have had to support Brooks through his first marching band season. State competition tomorrow!

We did some home improvements, including a new color in the dining room. Painting around all the trim work really got to my nerves and I found myself trimming around one small section and then walking away from the project for a few hours. Or a few days.

Eventually, I let my girls go at it, figuring that the ratio of blue wall to white wall was at least moving in my favor.

Never fear, however, for those of you who, like me, worry that this kind of busyness often leads to drive-thrus, frozen foods and sandwiches on the run. I was able to keep that kind of meal at a minimum and instead turned to the grill and to my garden pantry for a kind of convenience food I can live with. A new favorite is White Chicken Chili and I love making fresh crunchy tortilla strips to garnish the top.

With Sophia going gluten-free, it's hard to trust even packaged corn chips that seem to have no suspect ingredients. One never knows whether the oil used to fry them have been used to fry another product that was gluten-y.

I use a pizza cutter to cut corn tortillas into strips, toss with olive oil and salt and toast in a 300 degree oven for five or ten minutes - until crisp and golden.

Where My Heart Is (Before Where I've Been)

I've been compiling photos and thoughts for what I thought would be my first post in awhile. (The "Where I've Been" post.) But then a weary and tender-hearted friend posted on Facebook a link to this blog and a certain post so spoke to me that I wanted to share it. Now. Feel free to read the whole post, but I feel eager to have her sound thoughts read, so I'll type out the last half of her post here. It is her response to the Chick-Fil-A debacle and the following firestorm only now dying down. (Please God.)

Jen Hatmaker is the blogger and she expresses better than I ever have what My Theology looks like. Or what I want for it to look like. Actually BEING like Jesus is hard for all of us, isn't it? She opens with background of her childhood in Kansas, where the tornados raged overhead while the family retreated to their basement refuge. You'll see that theme show up in the following:

"...lest you unfairly brand me as a mouthpiece for the right, I hate the culture wars on both sides of the party line. Christians, do you really think posting pithy statements on Facebook about 'standing firm in our values' and 'resisting the liberal media' is helping? The lines we draw in the sand do absolutely nothing except assure everyone else: YOU'RE OUT. When we turn to politics and power to legislate our brand of morality, we take the opposite approach of Jesus whose power was activated in the margins with the oucasts...humbly...peripherally.

I'm sick of the Jesus forwards and judgment. Sick of majoring in gay marriage. Enough, everyone. With every hate Tweet and finger jab and Bible bludgeon, you are telling my gay friends they are indeed unwelcome, unloved, unvalued and uninvited. If your agenda is to battle homosexuality, how's that going? How many gay folks read your Prop 8 yard sign, knocked on your door, and said, 'Thank you for voicing your opinion to the neighbors in this manner. Would you kindly invite me in and teach me how to be straight? And do you have a Bible study I can join?'

When we resort to the same tactics being leveled at Truett Cathy, we sink to the least common denominator and - this is important - we make everything worse. How are these culture wars working out for us? Well, the church is losing around 50K folks a week, and the next generation downright refuses to come. The gay community is ostracized entirely (oh, they've gotten the message alright), and Christianity has turned into white noise.

Digging our heels in even harder is the problem, not the answer.

Love is, if you believe anything Jesus ever said or did.

Everyone is screaming and swearing at each other, pointing fingers and posting cliches on Pinterest. The storm is out of control. What happened to civil discourse? What happened to basic human respect? What happened to good men and women pulling up a seat at the table together and navigating differences with dignity and regard? What happened to listening? What happened to humility?

I'm done. I'm going to the basement, and I invite you to join me. Here is what we hate down in the basement:

We hate injustice.

We hate our own sin and pride and arrogance, and we grieve at how it has wounded, sliced, slashed, and humiliated.

We hate that 25,000 people will die today of hunger and we're arguing gay marriage again.

We hate how the Gospel has been turned into a bludgeoning tool.

We hate pointless arguments that widen the gap and devalue real human people.

We hate abuse and violence and crowded orphanages and trafficked sixth-graders.

And it's not all hate, lest you imagine the Basement Dwellers are a sorry lot indeed. We love some things down in the basement, too:

We love people. Because Jesus does. All of them.

We love grace, because it rescued all of us sinners.

We love healing and redemption, and we get to be a part of that every day, if we are brave enough to say yes.

We love that Jesus uses broken people, because that is our zip code and He chooses us anyway. Mercy is our only sane option.

We love the Body of Christ, when she isn't being a bully or a tyrant or trying to take over the Oval Office and the Red Carpet. I swear, she can be beautiful.

We love Jesus, who was always in hot water with the religious folks for eating with sinners and offering scandalous grace not just to the leper but to the tax collector.

We love love, and we believe in its power.

If you are weary of the storm, come on downstairs. We're going to get on with the business of loving people and battling real injustices and caring for the poor and loving Jesus. We're going to go ahead and offer mercy to one another, even if it is viewed as 'soft' or 'cowardly' or 'dangerous.' (But once I conquer all my own demons definitively, I'll be happy to turn a critical eye on everyone else's. Good?) We're going to trust that Jesus is actually at work in this world like He said, and when He promised that 'His kindness leads us to repentance,' we're just going to believe Him.

Sure, the storm will rage on up there. But you can find refuge just down the stairs. We have a whole thing going on underground. Gay friends and family, you are welcome down here. Marginalized women, come on down. Isolated and confused by organized religion, afraid your questions aren't welcomed? Join us. Activists and bleeding hearts, you are our heartbeat. Plain, old, ordinary sinners saved by grace, you belong here. Misfits, ragamuffins, and rebels, bring the party. Reformed legalists, you are my people. Pastors contending for God's glory an dpeople, help lead us. Dissenters, dreamers, visionaries, we need you.

Come on down to the basement. "

Stolen From a Friend

I thought this seltzer bottle idea of Margo's (or was it Mr. Margo?) was so brilliant and tidy, I just wanted to share it with whomever might stumble across me. Going to the recycling box now....

Peppered Marigolds...and Other Buffet Line Offerings

In my house live a man and a woman, a boy and two girls. Elsewhere on my property live three bunnies, a cardinal family (and other less colorful birds), the occasional black squirrel passing through and countlesss chipmunks.

They are entertaining to watch and do not hesitate to make their homes rights up close to the house. I remember the first time I heard loud and persistent chirping on the stoop at the door right behind my seat at the computer. I peered out the window to find the bird in distress, but it was no bird. It was a chipmunk, leaning against the brick, smoking a cigarette and calling to all the other chipmunk street toughs, letting them know the time was ripe to trot over and destroy my flowers.

These ruffians don't actually bother the blooms, but they love to dig through the soil and throw it out over the shoulders as they burrow. Years ago, I had some bunnies sampling my marigolds. The plants were large and impressive. I kept noticing that there were always buds swelling and promising to burst forth, but there were never any blooms. On closer inspection, I saw that there were several places where a stem would rise, presumably to present a bloom, but something had snipped it off. I blamed the bunnies that I had seen sprinting from beneath the marigolds numerous times. (I don't know if they just waited for the blooms to get nice and swollen before they took them off, or if they managed to get to a freshly sprung blossom before any of us got to see it.) Without inflicting real harm on the sweet-looking creatures, I wanted to protect my flowers. I visited my gardening store and found this product:

After sprinkling hot pepper sauce all over their buffet line, the marigolds filled out with yellow blooms within a week. And this year, I sprayed it on the container garden that was being bothered, and it is now lush and full. Or at least, it HAS been lush and full. Currently it is in another kind of distress, in this extreme heat and drought. Sad little things...

Midnight:30

"Why, oh why did I have two lattes after 8PM?" she asked, in the most alert way ever.

'Til We Meet Again

I want to tell you a story. I can't decide if the message of the story is about the power of social networks, or how we are all alike and human and willing to come together for each other, or what. But all I know is this is the saddest story I've observed in a long time and it will possibly wreck your day. Or inspire you. And I won't put my own message into it. I will let it stand on its own because it feels sacred. The players of this story are the members of a family who I know only peripherally. Five years ago, Ava was in preschool with their oldest son. Two more sons came after him, the youngest not yet out of diapers. Father is a teacher at an elementary school in town. I once served with him on a committee for the school system for a year. Mother is a pastor at a tightly-knit church. The rest of the story takes place, for me, on Facebook. About six months ago, a photographer I follow posted a picture of this family with a caption which mentioned that Mother had recently been diagnosed with cancer. The family was finding it important to preserve memories together. All members of the family looked sturdy and smiling. Over the last few months, I've been seeing posts from our mutual friends declaring that they are lighting a candle for Mother, or that Mother was the very personification of grace. I grew concerned for her and her battle and sought out Father's page. He had recently posted a photograph of some chalk scribbles on his sidewalk with this post: "From time to time, people will ask me how the boys are handling ....'s diagnosis. In case you aren't used to kindergarten writing, (he) wrote, 'I will kill you, cancer.'" My heart. I continued to observe MY friends and neighbors mention THEIR sick friend and neighbor and the admirable way she has faced her battle. The photographer recently posted another family photo, this one very different. Mother is thin and gaunt, her hair shorn close. Her arms drape tiredly across the shoulders of her two oldest, who clutch at her lovingly and grin at the camera. Father holds the baby. More Beautiful photos of her alone with each of her boys. My breaking heart. I checked out his page again. The latest: "I've been working on our Christmas newsletter. Christmas '11, that is. Only somehow it's turned into a ....'s on Hospice announcement. Somebody wake me from this nightmare." On Saturday, one friend posted to another asking for a tangible way to help this family. It was suggested that they check out a Facebook page with sign-up opportunities to provide meals. Also, the next day was Mother's birthday. They were placing a basket on their front porch to collect birthday cards that people might drop off. She would not be up to visiting. That night, another friend posted that she'd just gotten back from singing to Mother. Again, off to his page. Father had posted a video. He looks out the open window of their second floor bedroom. A huge crowd is gathered, and they are gazing up at their friends singing "God Be With You Til We Meet Again" in perfect, four-part, Mennonite harmony. The next morning, I check in again, fully invested. She had died in the night, on her 38th birthday. "God be with you til we meet again; By His counsels guide, uphold you, With His sheep securely fold you. God be with you til we meet again. Til we meet, til we meet... Til we meet at Jesus' feet. Til we meet, til we meet... God be with you til we meet again."