From Wikipedia: Wabi-sabi (侘寂^?) represents a comprehensive Japanese world view or aesthetic centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of beauty that is “imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete”.^[1]

We went to a wedding yesterday, a beautiful wedding 2 hours outside of the city. The sun was shinning, the leaves were changing, The dying of the trees, it is exceptionally beautiful, isn’t it?

I had forgotten the girls jackets. I had remembered two jackets for myself and one for my friend, but I had managed to forget the jackets for either of the girls. It wasn’t cold yet, but it would be. The whole evening the girls didn’t seem to mind. Running and jumping and dancing, When they got particularly cold, they would sit in one of our laps and snuggle in. No jacket needed when you can tuck your arms into mommy and daddy, rub your red hair up their front like a cat.

My girls are still learning when it is appropriate to excercise their exceptionally large vocabularies. Juliet was narrating the entire wedding. Her exclamation at the appearance of the bride was perhaps inappropriate, but she was right. The bride was so pretty. And perhaps the promise of getting to go pet the goats after the ceremony was a bit too much. Repeatedly I was asked in a three-year-old whisper “now goats?” And the pronouncement of the bride and groom as an officially married couple was followed by a whoop from me, one from my three-year old, and a very loud and excited “NOW GOATS” Sure. Why not. First comes love then comes marriage then comes goats.

And suddenly we have a new phrase in our house to describe the happy freedom after the fancy formalities, to describe the little joys of a brownie or a mocha, or crawling into bed. Now, Goats. Yes we get to ride the train (now goats!) yes we can have candy after medicine (now goats!). I’m looking for the goats in my life. I want to say more often, NOW GOATS!

My husband and the little one didn’t make it through the whole ceremony. Quiet is a relative term and quiet enough for a wedding is not a volume level Priscilla has. Plus, when Christian scooped Priscilla up, her soaked through diaper soaked through her leggings and both of his shirts. I left Juliet with a trusted friend and found a gleeful and naked legged toddler thrilled that she got to play in the front seat. Wabi-sabi. This mis-hap was easily Rilla’s favorite part.

It was probably close with the dancing and the goats and the hotdogs for dinner, but Juliet’s favorite thing seemed to be the sawdust covering the floor. Initially, I asked her to stay out of it. But come on, we were in a barn. Their dresses were totally washable, and it did look fun. She buried her feet and her legs, she threw it in the air, and the girl’s hair and dresses were speckled with saw dust, and so was I after they crawled back into my lap to warm their naked arms up. I love the smell of sawdust. It looked like confetti in their hair. We were celebrating after all.

You, hey you, yeah. The one who stayed up too late grading papers/working on your presentation/answering overdue emails/filling an order/finishing your presentation.

You! Yes you! I am talking to you the one who vacuumed/packed lunches/did dishes/folded laundry/chose the family heath insurance plan when your body was begging you to just go to bed.

I know what your weekend plans may look like. Maybe there are birthday parties and soccer games and dance classes and swim lessons that have already been committed to. Maybe there are houses to be cleaned and meals for the week to be made and groceries to be bought and leaves to be raked. Maybe there is still more work in the they-pay-me-to-do-this sense. Maybe there is Mount Saint Laundry that hasn’t been folded in three weeks waiting to be folded and put into drawers. (Of course that last one is purely hypothetical.

You, hey, YOU! I know you have apologized what feels like a few thousand times this week. Becuase dinner wasn’t done. Because the birthday present wasn’t bought, because the email was late. Because you were just. too. tired. I know you want to cry everytime you have to say your sorry. I know you want to apologize for that too.

This weekend. THIS WEEKEND, not some imaginary future weekend that you promise yourself you are going to get to. Take your to-do list and cross as much out as you can. Feed the kids grilled cheese and raw apples for a few days next week. They will love it, and they will survive. Give the birthday boy cash instead of running through Target like a crazy person. 5 dollars is a windfall to a 5 year old. Then on the top and between every other thing that cannot be crossed off write this:

BREATHE. In. Out. BREATHE.

Go to bed early. If it makes you crazy go ahead and clean the house tonight, but if you can relax amidst the mess leave the legos under the couch and just breathe instead. (Turn your phone off, that helps).

The reason this all-the-things life feels totally impossible is because it IS totally impossible. We aren’t supposed to do it all. Doing the best you can is more than enough. You are doing this. We are doing this. Imperfectly but beautifully we are running this race.

It is Friday. Order your family a pizza, cut yourself a break. You really want to make it special, light some candles if you have them (but do not go to Target to get them. This weekend let it be one less thing) or throw some towels on the living room floor and call it a picnic. If no one spills sauce on them, fold them back and pretend they are clean.

Then breathe. Just breathe together. You are doing this thing, and you are doing it well, and it is time we celebrated that.

I used to think that the Jesus parts of me and the feminist parts of me, that they could co-exist like toddlers play with blocks. They could be in the same space, they could share some of the same stuff, but they didn’t work together, they weren’t interested in the same things.

I used to have my thoughts about this world and a womans place in it. I used to learn about how the world systematically tells women that they aren’t enough, and they are never going to be enough. I used to be horrified at the statistics about women in this world, underfed, undereducated, undervalued. I use to have all these thoughts and feelings I still have today, but they were in a box marked “feminism.” These wrongs were wrongs that feminists care about, this brokenness was one that feminists taught me. I didn’t think it had anything to do with the box marked Jesus.

I used to have my thoughts about this world and how God walks in it. I used to look at the brokeness and beg God to redeem it. The children starving,  the lack of water and education,  the depravity in this world. I used to stand in worship and cry out in the darkness, weep over the brokeness of this world. I knew that Jesus cared about these things.I knew that He was broken over it too. I know your kingdom is coming Lord, but isn’t it supposed to be here?

Still, I didn’t put the pieces together. I didn’t understand. I still thought there were seperate pieces that perhaps didn’t contradict each other, but certainly did not go together.

I started noticing the women of the Bible, (more acurately the Holy Spirit pointed them out to me) specifically the women of the gospel. I started noticing how deeply Jesus loved women. He touched them, he taught them, he called them whole.

And suddenly all the pieces fit together. These two tiny block towers merged into a great block castle. Jesus was a feminist. He acted on the assumption that women were fully people. And that is how we fight the darkness of the world. All of it. We look each other in the face. We declare each other enough. We see women as whole and fully capable, as made in God’s image too. The feminist ideas came so easily to me, because Jesus had already shaped my heart toward redemption.

Of course I am a feminist. Jesus was. I just want to be like Him.

The amazing Sarah Bessey birthed a book appropriately titled Jesus Feminist. I cannot wait to get my hands on it. We are celebrating her book launch with a synchro-blog. Join me?

Juliet and Priscilla,

You played in the rain a few months ago. While everyone around you was huddled under the safety of the pavilion, you ran out into the open air and played in the rain. You danced with each other and laughed and laughed. Who wouldn’t want to play in the rain? You made it look so fun, a piece of me wanted to join you. A bigger piece of me now wishes I had. I got wet anyway that day, with none of your joy to show for it.

You exclaimed at the state of yourselves. My hair is wet! My dress is wet! The whole experience delighted you. The whole experience delight you so, that many a stranger were delighted with you, delighted in you. Those two gingers sure know how to play in the rain.

You kept inviting me to join you. You kept inviting everyone to join you. Playing in the rain is more fun when people play with you. I am glad God gave you two each other. I am glad you will always have a partner in crime. I am secretly glad you have each other for your shenanigans, and I am let off the hook. I can just watch from the sidelines. It is a joy of raising sisters, watching them take on the world together, without you.

I wonder if some days when you are teenagers, or freshly out of the house you will roll your eyes at your mother. Leave it to mom to turn everything into a metaphor. She was always doing that! Why can’t a new backpack just be a new backpack? You will secretly like it about me though, my propensity to see everything as a metaphor for life. And I hope you play in the rain forever.

May you always play in the rain my dear ones. May you always see the beauty of the water falling from the sky. May you raise up your face and open your hands and spin in joy at the newness it brings. May you shriek with laughter where others shrink away. May you always see the rain as an invitation to live life fully. May you always accept that invitation with abandon. My dearest daughters, may you always play in the rain.

All my love,

Mom

October was a whirlwind around these parts! I had decided to celebrate my 3oth birthday with abandon, and I certainly managed to! But now, now I am exhausted. I am very much looking forward to a November full of empty weekends, and a low-key Thanksgiving in Indiana with lots of food and even more naps.

So let’s recap this month the way it went down. Fast and furious!

Piecaken- Sometimes, if I really like you, I bake a pie into a cake. It is a lot easier than it sounds. People give you crazy props. And it is totally delicious. My friend Megan requested one for her birthday and I put a cherry pie into a chocolate cake. Then we were talking about it at work and my department-head’s eyes lit up with the possibility of an apple pie inside a carrot cake. He is the greatest boss ever, and his birthday is a day after mine, so we had a pie-caken for our department meeting.

Bangs- On the way home from Megan’s birthday with the cherry-chocolate piecaken I had the uncontrollable urge to radically change my hair. (It just happens to me sometimes, I can’t explain it.) Twenty-four hours later I hit the Google and came up with this cut your own bangs tutorial. I got them a little short initially, but two-weeks totally solved that problem.

Scarf Week(s)- If you follow me on Facebook (or twitter or instagram) you know I declared the first week of October Scarf Week and wore one the whole work week. Two weeks later one of my students asked if we could have scarf week again. I wasn’t about to tell her no!

Girls Weekend- For the first time EVER my sisters and my mom had a girls weekend. We met half way between Detroit and Atlanta in Corbin Kentucky. We had a “cozy cabin” which was a totally affordable and had electricity, a microwave and a refrigerator. Between the electric griddle my mom brought and the fire pit out front, meals were delicious. We went hiking at Cumberland Falls, went out to eat at the state-park lodge, sang songs by the campfire, and broke into a national park because the government was shut down but we wanted to see the natural arch! It was perfect. We are for sure trying to come up with a way to make this an annual thing.

New Car- On the way home from the perfect birthday weekend, someone hit and totalled my car. Everyone is fine but it was sort of pain, being stranded in the middle of Tennessee. I told God right there I did NOT have time to deal with car shopping. When I got back to work and told my friend I was needing a car, he suggested I buy his father-in-law’s 1996 Camry. So I did. If you have any mix tapes sitting around I will take them, because my car has a tape deck in it!

Visitors- When I got back from Cumberland Falls my in-laws were in town. It is always really great to see them and they love spoiling the girls. I do no cooking when my mother-in-law is in town, and I am grateful for that.

They day they left my friend Alison from Story Sessions came in for a whirl-wind weekend. We went to the pumpkin patch, we hung out by the fire, we went out on the town with our friend Jennifer, and laughed, and cried, and laughed. I cannot wait to see her again.

Then a close family friend sent a “I am in Atlanta for twelve more hours can I see you” text on the 27th. The answer was yes, and Betsy got to marvel at the fact that Priscilla is a walking talking person who has lots of her own opinions.

My Phone- I finally entered the technology age with my new smart phone. I have the galaxy 3   and really like it, though I am sure I am only doing about a third of what it is capable of. My students are slowly remedying that. I remember sneaking into my parent’s bedroom and hoping the dial-up did not wake them. I cannot believe I now carry the internet in my pocket. (The new phone is the reason for all the pictures in this post!)

Story 201/Editing- I have been taking the 201 class in Story Sessions. It has been amazing and I am really sorry it is over. I would not have been able to finish this round of edits without these ladies. When I got desperate, they would even monitor my Facebook usage and yell at me when I should have been editing and skype-date with me and just sit there so I wouldn’t have to do it alone. Elora is leading a Story Arc class in November, and if you want to do 101, let me know. I will send you the early bird link because I think it is going to fill up really, really fast!

So now I have an edited manuscript, which is terrifying because now what do I do with it?

My Birthday- The night before we had a party and were able to raise quite a bit of money for my friend Erin’s push to get girls educated in Nepal. She is now fully funded. She runs this weekend, be praying for her. Then on Saturday we woke up and had donuts, Christian bought me a t-shirt. That evening there was The Tattoo. The healing is freaking me out a little. It was so perfect that second it was done, I want it to look just exactly like that.

Halloween- The girls were a cupcake and an ice cream cone so Christian and I went as a baker and the ice cream man. The best dads rock pink stripes for the good of the family costume!

As always I am linking up with Leigh Kramer’s What I am Into post. You should do one and join me!