April 12, 2010
John 14:16-17: And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him.
I have come to realize there are a few things you cannot receive unless you have learned to quiet your heart and listen: the gift of children, music and the Holy Spirit.
Children are with us. They are often loud, obnoxious, annoying. They speak a different language than grown adults: they do not care about money, time or efficiency. In the midst of a pedantic bedtime routine, they can ask the most profound questions: why is it so difficult to hear them?
Watching my children, from very tiny infants, and learning to listen to them, has taught me a whole new way of listening and communicating that has very little correlation with what we consider communication and language in the adult world. My baby, now 9 months, turns her head. I follow her gaze and see she is looking at the cat; I watch her eyes, and share in her experience of wonder and joy at this animal she has no name or category for, and finds new awe in every time she beholds it. So there is witnessing with them the new wonders of the world. Then there is also learning to listen behind their words to the pain they do not know how to express. Then there is learning to notice with them all the small things of the world: stopping for twenty minutes on a walk to watch a caterpillar climb up a tree, guessing which side of the fork in the trunk he will take—watching, awaiting that slow, slow crawl to see what he decides (do caterpillars decide?) Do carrots mind when we pick them? Does it hurt when we harvest lettuce? These are questions I answered gardening with my six-year old this weekend. Responding to a comic in the Sunday paper I said, “no one can live below the ground.” “Except the elves” retorted Hudson quickly. Who knows? If there is a fairy world of tiny quiet things, nearly invisible, it surely would be the children that would notice them, not us. We have grown so cumbersome and obtuse in our thinking; we steamroll and interrupt and run ahead. My children have taught me how to listen.
Which has been a surprising gift in regards to music. I have played harp and piano since I was very young. I know—have known—how to listen to a piece of music I am working on, its nuances and flavors. But to listen to a new piece; an unfamiliar piece… to make a new piece familiar—I had very little interest. What would I gain? How do I approach such a thing? And to what end?
But watching an infant work up—for three weeks-- the fine motor skills to roll over—prepares a person to sit and listen to the cadence changes in Mozart. Here is why: in both cases you set yourself down, that heavy bulky load of self-concern and narcissism. You must clear your mind (again, we are being prepared to receive the Holy Spirit) and watch and listen (how many times were we told this by Jesus in the gospels?) It seems so simple; it is directly in front of our noses: the baby rolling over; the bluebirds building a nest in the fern on the front porch; the slight variations in Bach’s musical offering. These things are spoken in a language that has become foreign to our tongue, because we have learned to only watch and listen to what serves us most boldly, efficiently and immediately. How do we expect the Holy Spirit to reveal himself to us—in our inbox? Message us on facebook?
But then I found this other language: this language that lifts up the small things and does not denigrate the little, hardly noticeable things of our world. I became interested in what the birds are saying in the mornings. I began to notice, with greater interest, the cycle of the leaves on the oak tree out back, and the birch out front. I became, over the months I worked on the Mozart, increasingly content with my job as keeper of the small things in our house: the quotidian tasks of laundry, cooking, cleaning. I saw with clear eyes how much work there is to be done with our children, and found fresh energy to bring to the task of discipline, relationship, physical, emotional and spiritual growth. And I discovered a secret—or what had been a secret to me—that it is the small, ever-present but nearly unnoticeable things of the world that do, in the end, shame the wise. It is the weak things of the world, the things that are tucked away in church nurseries and paved over for highways and heard only by white-haired concert goers that will, in the end, shame the wise. It is a secret I take so much joy in, because it is a secret by which I have found life: the Holy Spirit does not come in the earthquake, the fire or the wind. He comes, as we have always known, in a still small voice.
This is a secret I used to know as a child; I guess this should not surprise me, I imagine all children, if they are left to be children, know it one way or another. I was left to be a child for quite awhile: with very little media exposure and lots of time in the woods, I had an imagination and understood the importance of old trees. The old trees were wise and quiet. As I walked the mile-long one-lane road to our house, I would listen for their secrets. Gazing up at them, I imagined I could see their faces, hazy but present—and understood that they held their arms up in praise of their Creator, as an example for us to follow. As a child I understood instinctively the passage in Psalms, “if we do not praise God, the trees will raise up their arms in praise to Him”. All trees reminded me of our duty to praise God, and their quietness reminded me to listen. Until I left home for college, I continued to rise early in the morning and run the thin road that stretched east and west, watching the sun barely begin to make a dent in the darkness that was 5 AM. I would remember God’s promise to remove my sin as far as the east is from the west, and I could feel, in that barely sunrise, how far the east really is from the west. I am not sure I had ever even heard the term meditate; if I had, I would have been uncomfortable with the concept. But meditate was what I did every morning.
Now I am without the luxurious expanse of nature around me. Yes, we have the trees that form a canopy over our house. But we have freeway noise and neighbors and too much concrete. We have houses around us, and planned grass and shrubs. No more deer and porcupine and towering oaks. No more Mt. Rainier and Puyallup valley and expanse of clear blue and fog below, the river in the distance. But the listening is the same, even if the avenues are different: and the Holy Spirit promises that God is here. But…there is the caveat: The Holy Spirit is here, but the world cannot receive, because it neither sees nor knows. Do we see? Do we hear?
Friday, April 30, 2010
Monday, April 12, 2010
Invisible
You are invisible. Or so says my gmail header. But is provides an
interesting description for this stage of my life.
When I go to the grocery store with my three children, or to
Target--these are really the only two places I go with them, unless it
is to the park or the post office--I get the same sort of treatment,
non-verbal and verbal. I am a nearly invisible herder of three small
people who are adorable and annoying at the same time (I could almost
hear the man behind me at Costco yesterday... "really, she has to shop
with ALL THREE?") I am dwarfed by their liveliness, and by the
spectacle we make as a four-some. But I am assumed to be nothing more
than an at-home mom with concerns for her kids, her grocery bill, the
cleanliness of her home and her children's manners. I know people
assume these things about me because I assume them about other moms I
see when I am out: often wearing sweats, or the same old zip-fleece,
like me. Trying to decide and price-check and carry on a conversation
and herd at once. Talking on the cell phone in the grocery aisle. At
Target on Tuesday morning at 10 AM (who else is at Target on Tuesday
morning at 10 AM except us?)
Women like us, who go to Target at 10 AM on Tuesday morning, what more
could we have to say to each other--to contribute to the world--whose
concerns are limited to what kind of toothpaste our husbands prefer or
whether there is a considerable difference in the quality of Gold
Medal flour versus the generic market pantry label? Who ponders if it
is worth purchasing the cheaper cat food, wondering about salmonella and
food recalls and making impulse purchases on natural cleaning supplies
and gentle-smelling hand-soap. Those of us whose days are reduced to
walking behind small children and sweeping up their crumbs, putting
their clothes on in the morning and taking them off in the evening,
wiping their noses and bottoms and plates--acting both as nurse-maid
and dress-maid and cook and royal servant--what could we have to
contribute, after a day of this, to society at large? What about
after a week of this--or years?
Sometimes I feel like a fake listening to NPR. What does it matter if
I know about the state of the economy, or Barack Obama? Sure, it
matters since I am a citizen. But it is going to make my
son sit up and eat his carrots? Because then I would be interested.
I am interested, though--terribly interested. Which is the problem.
It would be easier to be so wholly confined to this private kingdom of
my home if I was not so interested in the outside world. I have
become curious about almost everything--physics, which I never paid
any attention to in high school or in college--biology, plants--my
goodness, how little I cared! How little I listened! I want to know
the names of the flowering plants in our over-grown yard, and the
trees and shrubs in our neighborhood. I am curious about the
neighborhood of birds that overlays ours, the hundreds of homes that
lay around and above our roof, and all the voices I hear in the
morning calling to each other--cajoling, mocking, annoyed. laughing.
inviting. I am so interested in what they are trying to accomplish
and communicate.
I know that it is out of the new stillness in myself that I have
become quiet enough to take interest in things like birds, and what a
baby means when it says hello without saying anything. These are the
things that have no place in the public square--babies, with their
drool and senseless babble. Birds, which tend to poop on our nice
cars, nest in our gutters and make themselves a general nuisance. Toddlers,
who are forever in the way and holding us up. I spent the first few
years of my time at home resenting that I was suddenly shut out of the
adult world, with the exception of watching BBC films and reading
novels. But even then, i felt more like a voyeur peaking in on
something that wasn't rightly mine, that I had no right to participate
in --than an actual participant. But suddenly, after six years at
this, I have discovered something: it is these small, things, these
shabby and overlooked and --to the world-trained eye--worthless
things--that are so full of brilliance.
Take, for example, the way my eight-month old baby looks at me
when I come in to get her in the
morning. She does not know words yet, but she speaks the most perfect
sentence of joy and fulfillment when I pick her up. Her eyes, her
whole face--her whole being becomes so bright with pleasure I am
caught in my tracks. Every time. More than once I have listened to
her grunting and complaining in her crib, and complaining myself about
my half-finished task, being interrupted, never having space or time
of my own... I march up the stairs, slowly--open
the door--and that look stops me dead in my tracks. I find myself a
five full minutes later smelling her sweet head, singing to her,
kissing her fat cheeks--when I remember I have a pot of soup on the
stove that has now boiled over, or one of the older kids is on the
potty, or my tea kettle is still whistling.
But this experience of seeing pure, unfiltered pleasure in the face
of a baby, is not something that translates easily as a thing of
value. It cannot be bottled and sold or marketed. It is not
interesting to bankers, investors, even pastors or lawyers or
teachers. It is a private communication, like a love letter, and,
like a love letter, loses its meaning when shared. Best kept private. As are toddlers, who don't know the difference between a personal question
and small-talk, and birds, who don't know when it is Saturday morning
and time to stop singing.
I wonder that now, after these six years, motherhood has become such a
joy to me.
interesting description for this stage of my life.
When I go to the grocery store with my three children, or to
Target--these are really the only two places I go with them, unless it
is to the park or the post office--I get the same sort of treatment,
non-verbal and verbal. I am a nearly invisible herder of three small
people who are adorable and annoying at the same time (I could almost
hear the man behind me at Costco yesterday... "really, she has to shop
with ALL THREE?") I am dwarfed by their liveliness, and by the
spectacle we make as a four-some. But I am assumed to be nothing more
than an at-home mom with concerns for her kids, her grocery bill, the
cleanliness of her home and her children's manners. I know people
assume these things about me because I assume them about other moms I
see when I am out: often wearing sweats, or the same old zip-fleece,
like me. Trying to decide and price-check and carry on a conversation
and herd at once. Talking on the cell phone in the grocery aisle. At
Target on Tuesday morning at 10 AM (who else is at Target on Tuesday
morning at 10 AM except us?)
Women like us, who go to Target at 10 AM on Tuesday morning, what more
could we have to say to each other--to contribute to the world--whose
concerns are limited to what kind of toothpaste our husbands prefer or
whether there is a considerable difference in the quality of Gold
Medal flour versus the generic market pantry label? Who ponders if it
is worth purchasing the cheaper cat food, wondering about salmonella and
food recalls and making impulse purchases on natural cleaning supplies
and gentle-smelling hand-soap. Those of us whose days are reduced to
walking behind small children and sweeping up their crumbs, putting
their clothes on in the morning and taking them off in the evening,
wiping their noses and bottoms and plates--acting both as nurse-maid
and dress-maid and cook and royal servant--what could we have to
contribute, after a day of this, to society at large? What about
after a week of this--or years?
Sometimes I feel like a fake listening to NPR. What does it matter if
I know about the state of the economy, or Barack Obama? Sure, it
matters since I am a citizen. But it is going to make my
son sit up and eat his carrots? Because then I would be interested.
I am interested, though--terribly interested. Which is the problem.
It would be easier to be so wholly confined to this private kingdom of
my home if I was not so interested in the outside world. I have
become curious about almost everything--physics, which I never paid
any attention to in high school or in college--biology, plants--my
goodness, how little I cared! How little I listened! I want to know
the names of the flowering plants in our over-grown yard, and the
trees and shrubs in our neighborhood. I am curious about the
neighborhood of birds that overlays ours, the hundreds of homes that
lay around and above our roof, and all the voices I hear in the
morning calling to each other--cajoling, mocking, annoyed. laughing.
inviting. I am so interested in what they are trying to accomplish
and communicate.
I know that it is out of the new stillness in myself that I have
become quiet enough to take interest in things like birds, and what a
baby means when it says hello without saying anything. These are the
things that have no place in the public square--babies, with their
drool and senseless babble. Birds, which tend to poop on our nice
cars, nest in our gutters and make themselves a general nuisance. Toddlers,
who are forever in the way and holding us up. I spent the first few
years of my time at home resenting that I was suddenly shut out of the
adult world, with the exception of watching BBC films and reading
novels. But even then, i felt more like a voyeur peaking in on
something that wasn't rightly mine, that I had no right to participate
in --than an actual participant. But suddenly, after six years at
this, I have discovered something: it is these small, things, these
shabby and overlooked and --to the world-trained eye--worthless
things--that are so full of brilliance.
Take, for example, the way my eight-month old baby looks at me
when I come in to get her in the
morning. She does not know words yet, but she speaks the most perfect
sentence of joy and fulfillment when I pick her up. Her eyes, her
whole face--her whole being becomes so bright with pleasure I am
caught in my tracks. Every time. More than once I have listened to
her grunting and complaining in her crib, and complaining myself about
my half-finished task, being interrupted, never having space or time
of my own... I march up the stairs, slowly--open
the door--and that look stops me dead in my tracks. I find myself a
five full minutes later smelling her sweet head, singing to her,
kissing her fat cheeks--when I remember I have a pot of soup on the
stove that has now boiled over, or one of the older kids is on the
potty, or my tea kettle is still whistling.
But this experience of seeing pure, unfiltered pleasure in the face
of a baby, is not something that translates easily as a thing of
value. It cannot be bottled and sold or marketed. It is not
interesting to bankers, investors, even pastors or lawyers or
teachers. It is a private communication, like a love letter, and,
like a love letter, loses its meaning when shared. Best kept private. As are toddlers, who don't know the difference between a personal question
and small-talk, and birds, who don't know when it is Saturday morning
and time to stop singing.
I wonder that now, after these six years, motherhood has become such a
joy to me.
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