Of Pink Tea and Pirouetting

My little guy came out of his sister's room and quite proudly declared, "We made pink tea!"  A look at his hot-pink stained fingers gave confirmation. And on the floor of his sister's room: a geode, once brilliant pink, now a rather sickly mottled color, somehow reminiscent of both sludge and licked-over peppermint. Their teacups lay strewn about the room, full of pink water, leached from the very unnatural but brilliant dyes from the stone. A stone gifted to them from a natural history museum.

Funny how some things can look so deceivingly beautiful but are just veneer.

My 11 month-old cannot yet walk, but she can crawl. She crawls the fastest when she sees me with the broom. One of the child's biggest pleasures in life right now is to follow me around while I'm sweeping in hopes of grabbing some delectable crumbs before they reach the dustpan. I have to be a sweeping ninja to get it past her attempts to grasp. It is almost a kind of dance--this reaching for refuse and pirouetting it out of reach.


This dance--it is a daily thing. We eat. We live. Crumbs fall. We clear and clear again. But still, they'll reach, innocently enough at first. They'll grow. They'll want to make pink tea, not understanding until too late that what they have ingested is not beautiful. They might bear marks, stains. They might even bear them proudly, not knowing. Or, knowing, they might hide them.

Ultimately, the cleansing cannot come from us. We may be the ones sweeping and cleaning and dancing it all out of reach, but haven't we also been the ones trying to grasp at what we shouldn't, at what looks like delight but can really sicken and weaken and stain? But there is also a grace. In the staining, in the weakening, in the grasping, there is opportunity for understanding and for empathy and much gratitude for growth

I can't say that I'm looking forward to seeing pink tea appear on the menu here again any time soon--unless there is a drastic recipe change. For now, I'm thinking a dash of sugar and milk will do just fine, in between dances, of course.

Brokenness

I felt it, sharp and hard, underneath my foot. A piece of glass--the barest sliver. It pressed against the tender places, and it gave me pause. It wasn't supposed to be there--nestled in the carpet, ready to pierce soft flesh. And then I looked, when perhaps I wouldn't have otherwise, when perhaps I would have been too busy rushing to get things done. I looked, and they were everywhere. Those slivers. Some larger than slivers. How had I not seen them earlier? But there they were--twinkling like so many jagged stars under the Christmas lights. Broken shards scattered and one smashed bulb hanging loosely from its ribbon amongst the branches. Then a confession.

But what happens when we confess only in the aftermath, only once we are found out, when there is nowhere to hide the damage? We can attempt to hide the evidence of our shortcomings. But like the bulb hanging precariously from its branch, hidden so that no one might notice its cracked edges, do we not incur more damage in our quiet? Broken bulbs are not all that surprising in a household of little children, especially when those children are tempted to pluck them off the tree to play with them or admire their intricacies. Nor should it be shocking to find brokenness amongst ourselves. We are, all of us, fragile in our ways. But when we pretend perfection, what ensues can be dangerous. Others might, unknowingly, step on the shards we silently leave behind.

What if we were vulnerable enough to admit our fragility, to admit that sometimes we shatter or break? What if we were not afraid to be real?

Most of my life has been spent in academia. I have been trained to offer critique. Critique has its place, but it can also do damage if not properly wielded. As a mother of little ones, I'm learning (ever so slowly learning) that we all get it wrong sometimes, even a lot of the time. Too often I have expected too much, critiqued too hastily, judged too harshly. Too often I have expected perfection, of myself and of others. But that only damages. It is not real.

That little one who broke the bulb and left its remnants across the floor, that little one who pretended all was well, that little one who remained silent until it was almost too late--that little one is us. That little one is me.  There are none perfect, but One. Let us slow and be in relationship with one another, encouraging one another in love to press on. Instead of pretending the broken is not there, let us let Him bind up our brokenness, so that we may be free.

So...beginnings....

So. How does one begin? I have long wanted to have a space of my own to record and remember because these days--they vanish, and I find myself with years of notebooks unchronicled, letters unwritten, and pages bereft of ink. And while I think I will always prefer pen & paper to the stroke of keys, sometimes even bibliophiles need a space to call home in the cloud. And, so, here I hope to etch out my thoughts and fancies from time to time--mostly for my own benefit and for my family's, so that I am less likely to forget the doings. And though I may wish this space to be a retreat full of eloquent words & wisdom, it is far more likely to detail the flaws, the hard, the imperfect. Because life is far more often messy than elegant. But if Ann Voskamp has taught me anything, it is that if you look closely, there is a beauty even in the messy, even in the imperfect. And by counting it all joy, therein is grace.