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i feel i should explain why this is one of my categories (which have been freshly cleaned up as of late…i eliminated many which seemed redundant or only had one or two posts filed in them.) my husband, who of course you know i love, has a little problem. i have joked here and there about his issue, sometimes referring to him as the gearhead. but i do not jest when i say he has a problem. i am not holding myself in any way superior. we all have our addictions. his just happens to be a severe weakness for many different forms of outdoor gear.
in his defense, he does do many things outside. it is one of the things i love most about him. he loves to camp, to backpack, to hike, to climb mountains, to bike, to ski, to do yardwork. oh wait, scratch that last one. but all those others. he loves them. and to an extent, yes, these activities require a certain amount of gear. which brings me to the explanation of the category name, minimal gear. an inside joke of sorts. at some point when i was giving taido a hard time about the arrival of some piece of gear (all of our gear arrives through the mail, via the internet…you just can’t get good gear in arkansas, apparently) he turned and said to me,
“i am surviving on minimal gear.”
at which point we both burst out laughing, at the sheer ridiculous-ness of his statement. even he could not pretend that he could really justify saying that he was barely surviving on the amount of gear he has. only as he thinks about all the gear he desires does it seem like what he has is minimal. since then the term surfaces frequently as a reference to why we need something. more ski pants? i don’t have any green ones. therefore, it is minimal to get one pair of ivy green ski pants. you get the idea. we aren’t really being minimalist here. and when we use the term to joke with each other (he can now tease me over the yoga clothing, which after bemoaning my lack of last summer, he has completely hooked me up with all things yoga), we both know that we are pretty much always talking about something that if push came to shove, we could live without.
so that explains the category. even though it is unused (only 2, now 3 posts), it makes me smile to see it there, and maybe i will now write more often about some sort of gear choice we make. so you too can get some minimal gear.
and of course, if we ever move to some mountain town and open a gear shop, we have our name all picked out.
i just want these lyrics somewhere where i can get to them. so you get to see them too.
we sang this song in church two weeks ago and i cried as i sung these words. i have remembered phrases here and there (that’s why some of it is in bold type), but i wanted to have the whole song to sing this week. of all weeks. hands out to God, embracing all that is holy week. i can hardly hold it all in my finite heart.
In Christ alone my hope is found
He is my light, my strength, my song
This cornerstone, this solid ground
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm
What heights of love, what depths of peace
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease
My comforter, my all in all
Here in the love of Christ I stand
In Christ alone who took on flesh
Fullness of God in helpless babe
This gift of love and righteousness
Scorned by the ones He came to save
Till on that cross as Jesus died
The wrath of God was satisfied
For every sin on Him was laid
Here in the death of Christ I live
There in the ground His body lay
Light of the world by darkness slain
Then bursting forth in glorious day
Up from the grave He rose again
And as He stands in victory
Sin’s curse has lost its grip on me
For I am His and He is mine
Bought with the precious blood of Christ
No guilt in life, no fear in death
This is the power of Christ in me
From life’s first cry to final breath
Jesus commands my destiny
No power of hell, no scheme of man
Can ever pluck me from His hand
Till He returns or calls me home
Here in the power of Christ I’ll stand
Keith Getty, Stuart Townend
In Christ Alone
i started this blog one year ago.
it has given new life and fun to my long loved practice of journaling. i have been filling little bitty notebooks with the songs of my heart since i was ten or eleven. the first one starts out with something like…i am writing this journal so that i can one day read it and know how very difficult it is to be a young girl with a mother who does not understand me at all.
to one day be a better mother than my own. that’s why i first started journaling.
over the years the reasons for writing my thoughts and prayers down have changed with every passing page. i have boxes filled with them. memories from crazy adolescent days. tears i cried throughout college. dreams i dreamed for our family. hopes for love dashed and fulfilled. prayers for my babies.
there is nothing earth shattering on the pages of those notebooks (or on the posts of this weblog), but somehow the practice of writing it down has preserved my sanity over the years. in one way or another.
the great thing about the blog is that i can actually find that wonderful quote i once put down. when i try to find a memory in one of those boxes of journals, inevitably i end up reading through a whole year or two of my life, which results in laughter and tears, simultaneously. and there is joy in that kind of journaling as well, just no search engines.
and of course blogging is different because i am writing for an audience. which is its own kind of different. sometimes stifling and sometimes very rewarding. sometimes both at the same time. overall it’s been super fun. a great outlet for me as a mom of a toddler and varying homeschoolers in the last year. so i thank you for reading and commenting and emailing and making me think that it is something worth doing.
i realized today as i was sitting by the lake that most days i am wearing three different scripture references right next to my skin. i went down to the lake to catch my breath and just enjoy a moment of quiet between the events of the day. i was holding my necklace and meditating on the scripture it represents and my mind wandered to this idea of actually carrying scripture around all the time to remind me of the truths i so desperately need to refer. then it sort of just came to me that i had three represented right there with me.
it’s not a new idea. moses commands the people of israel in deuteronomy to do this.
place these words on your hearts.
get them deep inside you.
tie them on your hands and foreheads as a reminder.
teach them to your children.
talk about them wherever you are, sitting at home or walking in the street;
talk about them from the time you get up in the morning until you fall into bed at night.
deuteronomy 11:18-19 the message
so here are my three daily reminders, constantly present with me, of God’s precious word.
first, my wedding ring:
it’s actually in greek, because my brilliant husband was studying greek in seminary when we got married.
it’s the phrase: as unto the Lord from ephesians 5. tai’s wedding band (also in greek) says as Christ loved from the same passage. both short phrases are the essence of longer thoughts about how husbands and wives are meant to love one another. the dance, the give and take of submission and sacrifice. i love to glance down at my wedding ring and remember both truths. and that it takes both. sometimes one of us is fulfilling the promise better than the other, but over 13 years of marriage, there have been some glorious moments where grace rained down and we were both in step with these ideas and it just works.
the second scripture reference is engraved on the inside of a james avery ring that i bought four of when three girls that i had been meeting with for a while were all graduating from college. we had studied revelation together that year and each of us had been impacted by the first five verses of chapter two. we all took away the idea that we are to remember our first love, jesus. we each spent time nourishing that thought and trying to reach back to the moment in time when we had first become acquainted with jesus and were completely enamored with him, reading the first four books of the new testament, just to read again of his compassion, his teaching, his unorthodox way of approaching life. we began to say to one another…remember your first love. i still hold those three darling gals in my heart. and even though we none of us live in the same state (or even country in one case), when i glance at my ring finger on my right hand i pray that each of them are remembering their earliest, most passionate feelings for jesus. and i tell myself again to remember.
and the last piece of jewelry has on it my most favorite verse in the whole bible. i put it on everything from my 30th birthday contemplative retreat, an event i have mentioned before on this blog. i was studying isaiah when i moved to arkansas and this verse served as the inspiration for our new house. i painted our living room blood red, much to the displeasure of everyone involved, most especially my grandfather who still comments on how oppressive it was. the room no longer exists because we later took a wall down and repainted, but for our first several years here, our living room was red and our bedroom was (and is) bright white. my favorite verse was manifested on the walls of my house to remind me over and over again that though my sins are like scarlet, they will be as white as snow. i don’t believe that God means for me to walk around laden with guilt and overwhelmed by my sin. but my disposition has always been guilty. i blame my parents for naming me alison, which means truth. i have never been able to lie well. just this week my dad told me that i still don’t have a poker face. my roommate in college said if she had to describe me with only one word, it would be convicted. and while conviction of heart can be a beautiful act of spirit within me, its counterpart…my hyperactive guilt gland can be an ugly stick with which i beat myself. so somewhere in a bout of guilt and shame and sadness, i latched onto this verse.
what is sweet to me is that because of my birthday (and my crazy paint job), people who are close to me remember that this verse is special to me. my aunt made me a beautiful planter for my 30th birthday with this verse etched onto it. and this year, i was delighted when whitney gave me a necklace for my birthday with isaiah 1:18 on it. it hangs around my neck most days now and i refer to it as often as i do to either of my rings. remembering that i am forgiven for all those things i did a long time ago. and for those words i said yesterday. and even for the unkind thoughts i had this morning. confessed. covered. clean. white as snow.
you probably don’t even remember when i mentioned that my precious friend and i had started food journaling. that’s because it was 200 HUNDRED DAYS AGO. that’s right. together we have filled four notebooks writing down everything we have consumed for the last 200 days. we trade the notebooks on mondays, at the gym, in front of the scale. then we go to yoga to be nourished by jeannie.
why did we start doing this? well, because she looked at me at the end of last summer after we had both endured another hot bathing suit season and basically she said, something’s gotta give. the truth of the matter is that we were both done having babies. officially. both husbands had taken the necessary measures to insure this. and even though both of our babies were now walking, we were both still eating like pregnant people. we had come to enjoy our saturday mornings at the farmers’ market…sitting in boulevard bread company with our baskets of produce, drinking coffee with real cream and eating a large chocolate croissant or two. the fact that we are food snobs did not mean that we couldn’t gain weight. just because i wouldn’t touch a dorrito with a ten-foot pole doesn’t mean i can’t put on the pounds with a perfect cake. or cookie. or ahem, ten cookies.
i agreed with her…yes, something had to give. the weight wasn’t falling off like it did with cole (first baby). and i am not going to china for six weeks anytime soon (which is how i lost weight after mary polly). and taido isn’t stressing me out by changing jobs and leaving me alone all the time with three toddlers (after baby ben). also, i was ten years older when i had my last baby than i was when i had my first, so clearly, things were different.
so we came up with a plan. which was not a diet. because i hate diets. do you hear me…hate. them. there are many reasons for this, the first being that they don’t work. i have no interest in yo-yo-ing my weight between dieting and not dieting, without ever really changing the patterns which make me gain weight in the first place. patterns all the way back from college, when i discovered that ice cream tasted better than most of the other food in the cafeteria. plus diets have rules, and that just makes me want to break them. also, i hate the idea of paying money for someone else to help me lose weight. and i hate paying money to exercise. (except to jeannie…she’s special.) so we had to have a plan that was not a diet. and the plan was this. to write down everything we eat. and to eat less. then, in a few months…like in january, when we lost all this baby weight, we would celebrate by going on a trip together. somewhere warm. to do lots of yoga. and other fun girl things. the whole idea was that i would be motivated to help my sweet friend get to go on a trip and vice versa. if i held back, i would not just be holding myself back, but her as well.
well, january (obviously) has come and gone and here we are. still journaling away. we have had ups and downs. some weeks i have been the cheerleader and more weeks she has. she has bought the cutie notebooks. i was ready to be done when we finished the first ones and then she showed up with fresh new bold blocked color ones. we have had each had moments of extreme discouragement. and we have both given up and started again. but the good news, friends, is that we are close. at the very slow rate of a quarter pound a week or less, we have both (hopefully for life) retrained our tummies to eat less. slowly but surely.
so even though it is day 200, and i am tired of writing down everything i eat (and counting how many almonds i eat as eat them and other similar nonsense), i am going to do it. to keep putting that pen to the paper. 1/3 cup yogurt with 1/3 cup granola and 1/4 cup blueberries and 1 tablespoon honey. etc etc etc…because i can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. and it is shining happy thoughts my way. and though just losing that baby weight is a cause for joy, the best is that soon and very soon, whitney and i will be leaving two husbands and six children behind to go on our celebration vacation.
the single most important activity for building the knowledge required for eventual success in reading is reading aloud to children.
from a report by the commission on reading, as quoted by jim trelease in the read-aloud handbook
i think i have talked before about how much i love to read aloud to my kids, how it calms everyone (including me) down at the end of long day. most of our days are so harried. right now, with soccer season upon us, there are games and practices. there is always somewhere someone has to be. but eventually…after the dishes are piled, the dirty clothes tossed about and the bathwater drained, everyone climbs into bed (right now our older three children are all sleeping in the same room) and i sit on the edge of a bed, take a deep breath and read a chapter from our current book to them. frequently, we are all anxious to know what will happen next to the people in our story. it drives us to be quiet and listen. to immerse ourselves in another world. it is one of my favorite moments of the day. often taido will read instead of me and hearing his voice reading to them fills me up in much the same way. it is comforting. and i hope they will remember hearing his voice reading to them for their whole lives. and that my boys will read to their children. (i know mary polly will read to hers.)
so, here are our last two read alouds if you’re looking for something new. i finished this one with the kids a couple of weeks ago and now the kids are traveling to mount everest every night with taido. both books have been fun stories about kids who have great adventures. the first one is by a local little rock author and he is actually signing books this saturday at lorenzen and co. booksellers from 1-3pm. stop by and pick up this little gem! there’s a sequel coming out this summer.
i am so sad over the resignation of this amazing woman from her unpaid position with obama’s campaign. she is responsible for a book that totally changed how i teach history (and maybe life) to my children. she is brilliant beyond understanding, an incredibly gifted writer and has a unique approach to foreign policy that washington desperately needs. i can certainly forgive her offhanded comment that hillary clinton is a “monster,” yet i understand and appreciate obama’s unwavering commitment to stay out of the mud and the mire of such character assassination. however, since samantha power covered in great detail a genocide that occurred on bill’s watch, she could probably have come up with much worse than “monster” to describe such ruthless power mongers (though she is actually quite generous to them in her book). i will certainly remember the term “monster” every time hillary’s voice comes on npr to grate painfully on my nerves. like fingernails on a chalkboard is that woman’s nasal tone. and it has been ever since i heard it as a schoolgirl denouncing school districts in arkansas, on which she left no good mark. always quick to move on to the next step in her political ladder, she left our sad little arkansas school districts much as she found them. i could never have imagined then that she might call for someone as necessary as samantha power to resign from politics. except that i am sure she knows what an incredible loss for obama it is. if only she had hired her first. except that she isn’t/wasn’t for hire. samantha power is far too uncompromising to be campaigning for/with hillary. i can only hope to the stars that obama is also so uncompromising. while my disappointment is great in seeing power step down, it cannot possibly even hold a candle to the despair i would feel should obama choose hillary to run alongside him next fall. every time someone mentions it, i shudder.
and while you may or may not agree with any of my strong opinions, let me assure you that regardless of your political persuasions, you would benefit greatly from reading samantha power’s book. i have two copies if you need to borrow it.
it is a superb day for a blanket and a good book. since school was canceled because of the rare appearance of snow in arkansas, i spent nearly two hours in the tub this morning finishing this book that i started over christmas. i don’t know why it took me so long to finish, possibly because the stories, though intertwined, have their own beginnings and endings. the narrative bounces back and forth between india and new york city. lilting and sad. as one of the characters points out, sadness can be claustrophobic, which is maybe why i took so long to read it.
even though the stories center on a handful of seemingly random individuals who are loosely connected to one another, they are backdropped by both the historical setting of india and the predicaments of illegal immigrants in the u.s. and england. it is amazing actually how many grand issues of the world the author manages to address through the lives of this cluster of common folk.
about a demonstration turned riot where several young boys die senselessly, desai writes,
This was how history moved, the slow build, the quick burn, and in an incoherence, the leaping both backward and forward, swallowing the young into old hate. The space between life and death, in the end, too small to measure.
it is fascinating to me how many different political upheavals all over the world could be described with her words, including the recent turmoil in kenya.
many gorgeous descriptions. i have an exact picture in my mind of where sai waited longingly for life to happen and to where biju wanted to return. both sai and biju will be hard to give up. after having lived with them for several months now, i have these sweet ones who inherited so much brokenness in my heart.
jerusalem started a week of posting in color last week sometime and it didn’t cross my mind to join in the fun until today, when the color was green.
i love green. it’s my favorite. in just about any shade. our painter looked at me funny when i gave him the grass green color i wanted for our playroom. but i love it.
this year our entire family will be wearing starbucks green for easter, in many different versions. dressing up (and alike) for easter is one of those beautiful southern traditions that i embrace every year with joy. the heralding of spring with pastels and happy frills. new life. the resurrection acted out everywhere. everything turning green and popping leaves. large glassy rhododendron leaves that reflect the sunlight are the usual setting for our easter gathering. my parents’ front yard. two years ago, and many years to come.
we were in lime green two years ago, and even though i was pregnant (i think simon must have been born later that day in fact), i was happy to be in green.
so, i say with dolly.
get out your feathers, your patent leathers.
your beads and buckles and bows.
’cause there’s no blue monday in your sunday clothes.
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