Connected Streams

(2014) Yesterday, as we do every year on the Sunday closest to January 6th, the gathered body of Christ celebrated Epiphany. In Sunday School Brennan joined in a search for baby Jesus. Conveniently his arrival meant there were three boys available to make the trek and re-enact the legend of the three kings -- a tale derived from Matthew's account of wise men bringing three kinds of gifts to the infant king. The boys found the swaddled baby beneath a hanging star, interestingly back in the same classroom where they had begun their search. If you know the story, then you know that the wise men are warned in a dream not to return home the way they had come. Matthew says they left for their own country by a different road. *** I have tended to think of Epiphany as a sudden shining moment, illuminating what has been hidden, making clear what has been murky. Some truth exists in this, but I have come to realize that epiphany only becomes such when preceded by preparation and followed b...

While on vacation, I dreamed that I had given birth to eight babies. The dream began in medias res -- the actual birthing process was done and not particularly relevant. Instead the drama focused on the integration of caring for these new family members while finishing what I had started before they were born. I was mid-semester in classes, working fifteen hours a week for money, however small, that we could not afford to give up. I had already been off several days and needed to get back to it. I was wondering how I might quit the job and simply nestle in with these newborns, yet I wanted to finish classes. Double pull on my soul, triple when considering the financial questions within the context of the dream. Meanwhile, my milk suddenly came in. With breasts bursting, I realized I did not have my breast pump, loaned out as it was, and I was stressed not knowing what to do -- stay or go? Meanwhile, I looked at these totally adorable, peacefully sleeping bundles in my husband's a...

I hate starting things. I don't know if it is my recovering perfectionistic nature or my impaired ability to make a decision when faced with endless options, but the task of beginning can leave me at the edge of the water, dipping a toe in here and there, agonizing over the entry point. And so that is why I write blog posts in my head on a day by day basis but have yet, until recently, settled on the defining title and jumped in. This paralysis is debilitating during a move. Nine months ago our family uprooted ourselves from a perfectly lovely home in NC where we had friends, a church that we had become deeply invested in (with loving members who were mutually invested in us), and a familiarity with all the back roads and shortcuts that only comes from settling down and knowing a place like the back of your hand. I can still remember feeling turned around three or four years after we moved to Winston-Salem, a town most certainly not built on a grid. After ten years, however, I co...