Tag: poetry

Little Things and Sacred Places

Lately, I’ve just had to push myself to find goodness, find beauty, find any amount of energy. Parenting and homeschooling are hard work. Living in another country can be hard work. (It can also be a fun adventure.) Being eight months pregnant and iron-depleted is also hard work.

I manage to feed and educate the children and do the fun Christmas traditions they’re used to, but I’ve really had to force myself to do much more than that. I’ve been working on double-stranded scarves for the last week or two. I’ve made eight so far for the teens/young adults we work with, and I have theoretically 13 to go. Michael initially had a count of 15 boys that he works with, and then it ended up being 21 total, so I may have to order yet more yarn to get them all done. (They may end up being New Year’s scarves, depending on children/health/yarn supply/shipping.)

BUT:

Michael handed out one wrapped scarf to a young asylum seeker that he mentors, and the young man was so shocked to have been given a present. His eyes started to tear up, and his face was filled with joy. He didn’t expect anything, and he didn’t know what Christmas gifts were.

This.

This is why.

I have photos, but I can’t share them in order to protect the privacy of this young man. But they make me cry every time I look at them.

To know that a couple of hours of time, a few balls of yarn and approximately 3500 stitches could tell a boy that he was cared for and valued and that people see him as a person and not as a helpless case. It’s immensely humbling that my hands could be used that way, and it fills me with awe and a sense of sober purpose when I sit down to work. It reminds me that little hobby of mine can be holy work. Just like faithfulness in doing laundry, cooking supper, and scrubbing toilets is holy work.

Too often we separate things that are “sacred” and things that are “ordinary.” It brings to mind the snatch of Wendell Berry that I often quote.

There are no unsacred places;   
there are only sacred places   
and desecrated places.   

Wendell Berry

But even though I quote it so often to myself, I still forget that everyday work is a chance to breathe and worship in a sacred place. It’s a chance to practice gratitude. It’s a chance to bend my knee. And more importantly, it’s easy to forget that if I don’t make it into a sacred place, it might become a desecrated place.

I don’t share this story to toot my own horn. I share it as a bit of a journal to remind myself that this work that I have the privilege to do can indeed make the world a more beautiful place. And to remind you, too, that wherever you are found today….it can be a sacred place.

I’ll close with a quote from Brother Lawrence, who some call the Kitchen Saint because in the monastery he served in, he had the oh-so-glamorous-job of washing dishes. But he found that he was able to experience a vivid and powerful relationship with God because he was able to spend time doing little things while acknowledging the presence of God.

We ought not to be weary of doing little things for the love of God, who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed.

Brother Lawrence

With Great Love: Work That Honors

One of Mother Teresa’s favorite mottos was “Do small things with great love.” There are about three or four iterations of this particular motto, but all with that refrain of doing small things with great love.

Isn’t that what making the world more beautiful is about? We can’t just swipe a huge oil pastel brush over the ugliness in the world to paint a sunrise or a sunset in its place, or a “happy little cloud” like Bob Ross. That’s not how it works. Because the world is cursed with sin and sadness, it will always remain present. But in our own small acts of redemptive defiance, we can resist the darkness. We can’t erase it, but we can plant a garden. Or we can make a pie. Or we can fold laundry. And in doing those little things with great love, we redeem and cultivate.

A few nights ago, I was up in the middle of the night. I’m a bit of an insomniac, to begin with, but pregnancy emphasizes that. And I was worried about a few different things. So I began reading poetry. At 3 a.m. (Please tell me that someone else, somewhere in the world, does this?)

I turned to Wendell Berry because his poetry has been so soothing to me in the last few years and in particular, his book This Day: Collected and New Sabbath Poems.

Teach me work that honors thy work,
the true economies of goods and words,
to make my arts compatible
with the songs of the local birds.


Teach me patience beyond work –
and, beyond patience, the blest
Sabbath of thy unresting love
which lights all things and gives rest.

Wendell Berry

And this became a prayer for me. Work that honors God’s work. Small things done with great love. They’re both so interwoven that it’s difficult to see where one leaves off and the other picks up.

This past month has been one huge march, placing one foot in front of another. November is always our family’s most busy and haphazard month, with birthdays and Thanksgiving and trying to intentionally get things done so that December can be a restful season of Advent. But each of the kids has demanded attention in different ways.

I often notice that when some of my children want attention, they’ll pick up a handicraft and ask me to help work with them on it. It’s usually not well-timed or convenient. But it is a ministry. It is heart work. And it is teaching my kids that love is available and that love becomes available when needed. I’m teaching my kids about prayer and how the Father always is ready to listen to them. It’s nothing earth-shattering. It’s saying yes in a moment when my flesh and to-do list long to say no.

It’s also teaching the kids to fight for beauty in their own way. It’s teaching them that they have the agency to choose colors and designs in their own projects. They have creative license. But at the same time, their handicrafts are bound by the rules/laws of that particular craft, material, and gravity. It’s teaching them to take pride in their work and the joy of making for others. It’s giving them a way to do little things with great love.

One step at a time. One stitch at a time. One moment at a time.

Little things.

My Symphony: Dirty Dishes and Copious Amounts of Scarves

To live content with small means.
To seek elegance rather than luxury,
    and refinement rather than fashion.
To be worthy not respectable,
    and wealthy not rich.
To study hard, think quietly, talk gently,
    act frankly, to listen to stars, birds, babes,
    and sages with open heart, to bear all cheerfully,
    do all bravely, await occasions, hurry never.
In a word, to let the spiritual,
    unbidden and unconscious,
    grow up through the common.
This is to be my symphony.

William Henry Channing

I’ve been going through all of my social media sites lately and culling quite a bit. You see, I have the unfortunate habit of clicking “save for later” or whatever the equivalent is on each site. So I’ve amassed an insurmountable heap of digital content that I will never get through, nor would I ever want to try. Things that may have interested me five years ago hold less sheen and shimmer now.

But what I do enjoy is that I’m a word hoarder. I have journals filled completely with little scraps of beauty that I find in books or quotes from songs or sermons or what have you. In the culling process for all of these digital articles, I’m finding a treasure trove of words that I’ve collected on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest as well. (Like the poem above.) So I’m working on gathering them all together in one place, so I can read them on days when I need a good word.

Life has been less beauty-filled and more grin and bear it around here. We’ve had plumbing difficulties which lead to a lot of laundry from the sopping up of plumbing messes. And dishes piling up because everything is slow to get a fix for here in France. And I haven’t washed dishes in three days except for a couple of desperation rounds washed in the bathtub. So my cooking is all off-kilter as well because I’m trying to create as little dish disaster as possible.

It’s a hot mess. But it’s real life.

Also, we’ve been trying to evaluate one of our kids for a learning disorder. It appears that he may not have this particular learning disorder but that he struggles immensely and needs extra help in a certain area.

And some of the kids have had just genuinely angry days. My husband worked a Long Week last week; he’s working a shorter week this week. But the kids have not adjusted to the spontaneity of their Daddy’s schedule after years of predictability and availability. And sometimes that comes out in anger.

So I’ve been lax on my projects. But today I managed to pick some up for a few hours while listening to kids reading to each other or watching kids do some independent portions of their homeschool.

I’m nearly finished with this hurdler stitch scarf. I still have the mustard/gold baby blanket on a crochet hook, but as he’s not due till February, I need to prioritize winter and Christmas gifts first.

So I began this linen stitch scarf for one of twenty-odd scarves I’m going to attempt to make in the next two months. (I have ambitions that are overly high sometimes… I’m aware of this.) We work with 13 to 15 teenage boys who have completely heartbreaking stories, and I’d like to make them each a scarf for Christmas if I can. At the very least, the kids are going to be making them a Christmas cookie/goodie care package, but I’d love to include scarves, as many of them are frequently cold due to not being from this climate.

So yes, you’ll be seeing a lot of scarves here. Hopefully some fun color combinations. There are also a few odd family Christmas gifts that I need to make up as well. I don’t think I’m going to get to my own kids’ slippers that I have good intentions about. But as I’ve just made several of them scarves and made large blankets for all of them, I think we’re good for a teensy while. They’ll be getting cardigans for Christmas anyway. (Sadly, not handmade, but at least it’s something.) What’s that old joke about the cobbler’s children never having any shoes?