GENEROUS

1. liberal in giving or sharing; unselfish

Today was snow day #2.  Snow day #1 started at 6:40 AM when J climbed out of bed and turned on the TV in the next room to check the condition of the roads.  I grumbled to myself, still more than half-asleep, "Why couldn't he check the weather on his phone?"   Today got off to a better - and later start.  Near 8:00, K came clomping up the stairs.  I opened my eyes to find her fully dressed, with mittens and coat on and a bag in her hand.

"Mom? Can you zip me up? I want to go to L's house and give him this gift."
"Honey, what's in the bag?  It's a little early to go to L's house."
"Oh!  It's a gift that will make it easy for L to play with his little brother."

The contents of the bag were a somewhat broken music box.  I convinced K not to head out pre-breakfast to give her friend a hand-me-down gift, but her point was this: I want to give L a gift.  So I explained to K that I would take her to the store later in the day to pick out a gift for him.  She did not forget.


Hours later, we were back from a trip to the downtown library.  A trip that revived our weary, cooped up souls with much needed time away from home and wonderful books to read.  We had barely finished our post-library lunch when K said, "Can we go buy the present now?"  Laundry beckoned, so I mumbled yet another excuse to this six year old whose heart was bursting to give, give, give.


My excuse did not dampen her enthusiasm.  I later found her climbing on the step stool to reach her birthday money, which she wanted to use to buy L's gift.  Seeing that, I set aside all the chores awaiting me and put on my coat.


A trip to the store energized K.  She picked a stocking, then candy to fill it, choosing items that L could share with his family.  As I type this post, K is finishing up a pre-dinner snack so that we can walk down the street and deliver the stocking.  She wants to wait while L looks through it and sees the treats she picked out for him.


Perhaps it shouldn't surprise me by now how much I learn from my daughters, but it has felt like a special treat to see generosity in action today with K.  She is, in fact, the very definition of generous: liberal in both giving and sharing, embodying this aspect of the Christmas spirit exceptionally well.  She delights to show others how she feels about them.  She delights to give others things that she has or things that she thinks they will like.  In fact, she simply delights in others.  

I need to learn over and over again that relationship is worth the hurt and pain it brings when done authentically.  I sometimes think life would be easier if I were a hermit, left to my own thoughts and unencumbered by possessions and obligations.  That life probably would be easier for me, but it's apparently not the life I'm called to.  Because relationship is a vehicle for change, a vehicle to change me into who God made me to be.  If left to my own devices, without the iron sharpening iron effect of relationship, I would likely still be far more selfish, far more ambitious and far less creative, amongst other things.

 

I'm not as naturally generous as K.  This is due, in part, to my tendency to protect myself emotionally.  K lays it all out there - there's no such thing as less than total transparency with her.  This is beautiful - and terrifying.  Her heart will surely be broken time and again if she continues to lay herself open to people the way she does now.  I don't want her heart broken, but I also don't want her heart hardened.  I want her to remain the exuberant, loving, generous girl she is.  And I want to keep learning from her - about how to give freely and how to live with abandon.

LONE

1. being alone; without company or accompaniment; solitary; unaccompanied

I've lately been pondering the value of pursuing life with less accompaniment than I've had in the past.  This was brought into focus about ten days ago when it was time to turn in A's lottery application for the academic magnet middle school.  If your child is enrolled in a school, the principal simply initials your form saying that your child has the required test scores and continues to do well in school.  But if you home school, you need to provide six assignments and the accompanying work in the four core areas of language arts, social studies, math and science and your child has to take an on-site writing assessment.  This is fine.  Except that I didn't know anything about it.  So I hadn't been keeping records that enabled me to easily pull this data together.  As a matter of fact, when A takes a math test, I grade it and recycle it.  Oops.  Perhaps I should alter that practice. 

This unpleasant surprise was a bit stressful.  But I found I didn't truly panic.  I simply got to work and pulled together a packet that frankly left me feeling affirmed that A has learned a lot so far this year.  As I drove to make copies of the work in order to submit our packet, I was praying that what I was turning in would be sufficient.  And it occurred to me that one reason I didn't panic was that instead of turning to a friend, I turned to God.  Instead of picking up the phone and commiserating about how crazy it was that I didn't know about this requirement, I simply sought some inner peace and then did what I could do.  And I think maybe finding that inner peace was easier in solitude than in community.


Preparing my heart for Advent has felt like a solitary practice this season, even as I have practiced it in community.  Even as I have read passages from the Celtic Book of Prayer and known that they are being read by others around the world, I have felt it as a lone practice.  As I've studied Advent symbols and verses with A in our unit study, I have felt this in a deeply personal and unaccompanied manner.  While attending church or reading the daily office, I am still doing so from a deeply private place.  And I think this must be the way, the only way perhaps, to truly experience Advent.


Because if Advent is the season of anticipation - and it is that, above all - anticipation is a solitary emotion, even when shared with the broader community.  If we are to spend Advent celebrating one arrival (Christ's birth) and awaiting another (His return), then some part of our hearts must do this in solitude.  Because while he will greet us communally, it is individually that we must ready our hearts for him.


One night this week, I sat in a friend's car talking with her about her friendships and how they've evolved recently.  This friend and I are in different seasons of life, but have some similar circumstances.  We've both seen a shift in the climate of our friendships as we've changed jobs, left schools or moved to a new faith community.  Days before my talk with this friend, my husband urged me to go out with friends more often.  At the time, I tearfully replied, "With who?!"  But I've made some efforts in the days since then.  I've had some successes.  And I've grown more and more thankful for this season of my life.  This season with more solitude, less community, more quiet, less raucous laughter.

I am thankful for this lone season - of Advent and life.  But Sunday's sermon reminded me that while Advent may be a season prepared for in solitude, it is one to be lived and shared with others.  If I am to be Isaiah - if I am to say, "Send me!  Send me to comfort, to exhort, to direct, to remind others of God's faithfulness," then I must first listen in the quiet of my heart for where God will send me, who he would have me speak to and what he would have me say.  And if the cacophony of community - even faithful community - drowns out that voice, then I will gladly walk a stretch of road alone in order to have my God beside me, whispering in my ear.

PO'CORN

1. Kate's pronunciation of popcorn

The first time J took me to a movie, he bought popcorn for us to share.  It had probably been years since I last had popcorn at a movie.  In high school, I was too cheap and/or too concerned with my weight to eat popcorn during a movie.  So it was a novelty to eat popcorn with J that day.  Little did I know popcorn was to be a regular, frequent and favorite part of our lives for years to come.

J loves popcorn.  He comes by this honestly.  His dad pops up huge batches of it, pours it straight from the pot into large bowls, butters and salts it liberally and passes it around.  J learned from the best.  Over the years, this husband of mine has perfected his popcorn technique.  He pops one batch for the girls and I (salt, no butter) and another for himself (butter and salt).  For special occasions, he pops rosemary brown butter popcorn.  Yes, it is as good as it sounds.


Our girls have eaten popcorn nearly all their lives.  I think A was a tiny toddler when J popped her first bite into her mouth.  The same was true for B.  But K.  K is the popcorn loving daughter J was meant to have.  She even has her own name for it: po'corn.  (It is essential to drop the second "p" when saying it.  Try it.  It's very, very cute.)  While I know she will outgrow this pronunciation one day, I don't look forward to the day.  I love that she has her very own name for her favorite treat.


Yesterday brought a busy morning - A to ballet at 9.  B to choir at 10.  Pick up A at 11.  Pick up B at 12.  While A & I were picking up B from choir practice, J and K were having a po'corn party.  Nothing makes K happier than po'corn with her dad.  She eats every morsel he puts in her bowl and asks for more.  In fact, I suspect that with A and B gone today, K was probably given a larger bowl than either of her sisters.  It may even have been the buttered variety. 


K has always been a momma's girl.  She was far more attached to me than either of her sisters, which is somewhat baffling to me since she's the least like me of the three.  So it's nice to see her curl up with her dad and a bowl of po'corn.

Daughter/Father Bonding circa 2008

GIFT

1. something given; a present

I'm not a natural when it comes to giving gifts.  It's not that I don't want to please others.  It's more that I can barely get my mind to focus for long enough to think about the right gift to give.  I just don't care that much about things.  But I realized a while ago that my daughters don't necessarily feel the same way.  It started with A making gifts for nearly everyone in our family.  She did this for a Christmas or two before I realized that this wasn't just a crafting spurt for her, but an expression of her love.  I remember saying to her one Christmas as she pestered J to take her to buy me a gift, "Honey, you don't have to give me a gift.  I know you love me."  This yielded nothing more than a puzzled look and continued insistence on a shopping trip.

This month, A and I have been doing a unit study on Advent symbols.  Wednesday she studied gifts and as a part of her lesson read O. Henry's Gift of the Magi.  You may not recognize it from the title, but it's a short story about a couple trying to buy the perfect gift - she decides to buy him a chain for his pocket watch and he buys her combs for her hair.  In case you haven't read it, I won't say more.  (Except to say: click on the link above and read it - it's free via public domain.)  After A read the story, I asked her how the story made her feel and whether she wished for a different ending.  She was quite adamant that the couple in the story should have given their gifts because of "how giving a gift makes you feel."  When I asked her how she feels when giving a gift, she paused, then said, "It makes me feel like I've really shown them that I love them."  That's pretty different from giving a gift because it's expected of you, doing it to fulfill a duty or just because it's that time of year.

In the past, I've found it challenging to pick the right gifts to give teachers.  I've tried giving Thanksgiving gifts instead of Christmas gifts to make it clear that we are thankful for all they do and to take care of remembering them before the craziness of Christmas sets in.  We've made various gifts from cookies to bath salts.  This year's offering was fun to make, but took a lot of time.  There were several steps involved and the girls enjoyed some of them, but not others, which left me completing the project.  Yet I found myself working on small collage elements to go on each gift card after the gifts were wrapped and under the tree.  Not because it was necessary, but because I enjoyed it.  As I worked on the two dozen tiny cards, I wondered why I was doing this.  It wasn't really necessary.  But that's the whole point of a gift, isn't it?  Not that it's necessary, but that you enjoy giving it.

I'm thankful that this Advent season has brought the unexpected and delightful gift of stillness to my heart.  It's this gift that has enabled me to help my daughters create two dozen teacher gifts, wrap them and ready them.  And to do so with a joyful heart.  I figure regardless of what the teachers think of their presents, that's a gift - not just to them, but to us.

SEIZED

1. to take hold of suddenly or forcibly; grasp

On the agenda for Monday?  Work on an Advent unit study, do laundry, catch up on Bible Study, plan for the rest of our week.  It started OK.  A finished some math work and took her math test.  When I went to record her test, I realized I had given her the wrong test - test 11 instead of test 10.  She only missed one problem, so I guess that's OK.  We'll take test 10 tomorrow.

Then A got started on the first assignment for her Advent study: "Write today's Bible Verses in your journal: Luke 2:52 and Isaiah 61:1-3."  Except she copied the first three verses of Isaiah 6, not Isaiah 61.  After she copied the verses, A said to me, "Mom?  You were right about the seraphim when you described them."  I was a bit puzzled.  Seraphim?  Her verses were supposed to end with a bit about trees.  What were angels doing there?  And when had I described seraphim to her?  At least a year ago.  Clearly, the conversation stayed with her.  I looked at her work and realized her mistake.  I pointed out that the verses were supposed to come from later in Isaiah, then realized all was not lost. 

Isaiah 6:8 is another favorite verse of mine because of what Isaiah does after seeing the angels and realizing God's holiness.  God says he needs someone who will go to Israel and tell them how far they've come from what He intended.  It's not an easy job:  Israel is enmeshed in sin cycles and is not going to take this news happily.  But Isaiah says, "Send me!"  I'm sure there's no one else anywhere around, but I picture Isaiah nearly jumping up and down, waving his arm in the air, Pick me! Pick me!  I told A that I want to be like Isaiah.  I want to readily go where God sends me, even if the task seems daunting.  I also admitted that I'm not quite there yet.  There are days when I'm afraid to ask where I should go, much less go there.


While A was working on adding Isaiah 61 to her Advent journal, I was sitting at the table with her.  She was to my left, her back to the window.  From where I sat, I could see snow falling.  Not enough snow that it would accumulate, but enough that it was swirling in the air.  I'll pause here to note that snow in Nashville in December is rare.  We may get a bit of snow throughout the winter, but we're far more likely to see real snowfall in late January or February.  Not December.  So this was a rare treat.
  
I thought to myself, "We should go for a walk."  My immediate response?  "It's cold out there.  And there's still lots of work to be done."  After a few minutes of inner debate, I said, "A?  It's snowing.  Go get on shoes or boots and let's go for a walk."  So we did.

It was cold.


It was windy.


It was snowing.  

My daughter giggled - several times.



I smiled.


We were chilled, red cheeked and happy by the time we returned.


If you can't seize the opportunity to take a walk in a snow flurry with your ten year old, what's the point in home schooling?  As we walked along, a car slowed down beside us.  A woman rolled down her window and asked, "Do you need a ride?"  "No, thank you," I replied with a smile.  As she pulled away, A said, "Little does she know, we're doing this on purpose!"  Still, it was a kind offer.  But our purpose was to seize the moment, to enjoy the snow, laugh together and remember a friend who now lives in Mexico (A was wearing her hat, so she was fresh on our minds).


The laundry?  Wrinkled and still in the basket.


The daily home school plan?  Incomplete.


The day? Seized.


It doesn't make me Isaiah.  My task wasn't as hard as reminding Israel of how far they'd strayed from God's path.  But I think that walk in the snow it was where God wanted me to go.  That's something.

GRANNY

1. Informal: a grandmother (specifically, my father's mother)


I have my Granny's hands.  Not the shape, but the skin.  When you put lotion on your hands, what happens?  Do you simply rub in the lotion, perhaps pause to take in the scent, then finish with softer, moisturized skin?  Not I.  If I attempt to use a lotion with scent, my hands immediately inflame.  Tiny red dots appear, accompanied by burning.  This is one of the things I inherited from my Granny - hands that want nothing to do with lovely scented lotions.  But I also have her hands in the kitchen, when I dice onions to use in a gumbo.  When I stir dough to make cookies.  When I place the food on the plate and put the plate before my girls.


My Granny died a few years ago, on the day my youngest daughter was baptized.  I miss her often, but especially at Christmas.  When I was at that awkward age, between girlhood and adolescence, I started joining my grandmother as she baked the cookies for our family to eat on Christmas Eve.  As best I recall, I joined her that first year because I wanted to make cookies to give to my friends.  But it became much more than that.  When I would come home for Christmas break in college, we baked together.  As a newlywed, we baked together.  I still make the cookies we made together two decades ago, even if I won't have a crowd to feed them to on Christmas Eve.  We eat some.  We give lots away and do so with great joy.  

One year, we were traveling on Christmas Day and every time we stopped for a restroom break or to gas up the van, we gave a bag of Christmas cookies to the people working at the restaurant or gas station.  You would have thought we were giving people gold, they were so excited.  One gas station owner wanted me to let my girls pick a candy bar each in exchange.  I assured him that wasn't necessary, but I still remember how pleased he was to receive that little gift.  I'm sure it would have made my Granny smile to see a stranger in Georgia eating her cookies for a late afternoon Christmas snack.


I learned the basics of how to cook from my grandmother.  I learned to start a second type of cookie while the first batch was baking.  I learned how to use a candy thermometer (although I'll confess I don't own one - the pralines we made together are no longer a part of my holiday repertoire).  I learned to make a variety so that your guests and family can have several yummy bites.  And I still use her mini muffin tins to make pecan tassies each year.


I also learned Christmas carols from Granny.  She had a beautiful voice and lead the choir at our church for years.  I didn't inherit her love for music (I think my brain is missing a crucial piece when it comes to understanding music), but I love, love, love Christmas carols.  And I know a lot of them.  On command, I can sing two or three verses of many favorites.  This has served me well as a mother, putting my children to bed during Advent.  Joy to the World?  Off we go with three or four verses.  Silent Night?  O Come, All Ye Faithful?  I've even recently added a few with O Come, O Come Emmanuel being a newfound favorite.  And while I didn't inherit Granny's voice, her understanding of music or her interest in it, I think B did.  

B is singing in two different choirs this holiday season - one at our church, one at another church.  She loves it and she does it well.  For several years, we've worked to find an activity that B will love as her own.  She was good at soccer, but didn't want to keep playing.  Basketball she liked, but it required constant coaxing to get her to fulfill her commitment.  But choir?  She knows when her practices are, has her songs memorized, does it all with joy and anticipation.  It thrills my heart for several reasons.  Primarily because she's found something she loves.  But also because I see Granny in her.


A few weeks ago, I came across a note in Granny's handwriting.  It was tucked away in a book of hers that I had and when it fell out, I immediately recognized the writing.  It made me remember a story my mother once shared.  When I was in college, my mom stopped by my grandmother's office.  As she walked in, Granny was writing a word, then sweeping her hand across it to see if the ink got on her hand.  "What are you doing?" my mother laughingly asked.  "Oh.  I'm putting together a package for Shannon and she doesn't like it when the ink gets on her hand when she writes.  I was checking to see which pens to send her."  (As a Leftie, this is a big problem for me.  When writing papers in high school and college, my left pinkie would be smeared with ink by the time I finished a paper.)  It's a sweet memory to think about my grandmother, hours and miles away, doing something so little, so simple, so sweet.


Can you tell I miss her?

SLOW

4. requiring or taking a long time for growing, changing, or occurring; gradual

My Christmas wish for this year is quite simple: I want to be counter-cultural.  In a season when the world tells us to rush, rush, rush, buy, buy, buy and do, do, do, I want to go slow.  I want to soak up every moment this season and it's only possible for something to soak if it sits for a while.  

From the outside, our lives might not look slower this season.  There are still parties to attend, crafts to make, cookies to bake.  Each girl wants her very own shopping trip - to buy gifts for her sisters and her dad.  I want time with friends old and new.  These are all good things and we will do them as time allows.  But whether it's visible or not, I feel slower.  And I mean that in the best possible way.

I can feel the rhythm of this season deep in me and it's not a rush, rush, rush.  Instead, my inner rhythm is to go when necessary and stop when possible.  More and more this season I'm not asking whether something should be done, but whether we want to do it.  It was always important to me that we do the exact same things, the exact same way at Christmas.  But I don't sense that desire in my daughters, so I'm not going to push them to do things just because we always do them.  Instead I ask, "Do you want to?"  And if the answer is "No," then we don't do it.


Yesterday, we went over to a friend's house to make Christmas bells.  I picked up B & K early from school (something I would never have done a few years ago) so that we would have more time to be with our friends before J's work Christmas party.  While we were there, A & K were rarely in the room with us - they played outside, upstairs, all around.  But they were consistently uninterested in making an ornament.  B made one ornament and helped others make several more while staying near the art materials, making an assortment of things.  None of my three daughters actually did what I envisioned when we planned the afternoon.  And that was fine with me.  

They weren't bad guests.  They weren't unkind friends.  They weren't antisocial.  They were just following their own internal rhythms.  A played with my friend's twins who are several years younger, then curled up on the sofa to read a book she found laying around.  K played with her friend and her friend's sisters, then continued playing while her friend drifted downstairs, working her way through assorted dress up clothes.  B hummed, sang and generally entertained my friend and me.  She helped choose just the right Christmas card to turn into an ornament, reminded us to put a real bell inside our paper bells, turned our rectangles into squares and generally acted like a 9 year old art teacher (which is exactly what she is).


We only had a few hours at our friends' house.  We had to get home for the girls to head to their uncle & aunt's house.  We had to get home so that I could soak in the bathtub, get dressed in party attire and go out on the town with my great date.  But our limited time didn't feel rushed.  It felt just right.

I am finding that the key to taking Advent slow is not in what or how much we do.  The key is listening to the rhythm of our hearts and going when we want to go, staying when we want to stay and resting when we want to rest.  If we approach Advent in this way, I think we'll find our very own epiphany - that this season is done best when done slowly.