Gifts from Wild Seas

   We are exhausted. Exhausted from what feels like weeks of sickness, but in reality has only been about 10 days. We battle sickness, school, and each other. Oh, the battles. I've not seen the likes of these kinds of truly messy moments for about seven years, but we are in the middle of our messes, the ones we so easily make.

   I feel like whining. I am whining, but since we have embarked upon our Safe Families journey the mess has met us. Why didn't I expect this? "Get real," I tell myself. "You stepped across some invisible kind of line. Did you not expect some blow back from the dark side of the universe? You are so not equipped for this." But God. 

   And so, all our messes are meeting us in our moments: middle school moments, marriage moments, every messy moment possible. Eighteen years into our marriage, we are needing new tools. Yes, again. We aren't going to crash, nor will we burn, "but we been having us some bumpy landings folks," and we are realizing that we are once again in a transition time with the kids and each other, and we need to listen better. More. Intently. 

   I've been reading through Gift of the Sea, Long Life, The Connected Child, and Too Small to Ignore, and simply planting myself in Hebrews 1: He is the word that sustains life, sustains me. He the Word comes, and the words come. I've written 20,000 words this month and the words just keep coming. I love it, and my amazing critique group is so encouraging, but oh the battles in between those words, and all the words surrounding them.

   We even battled the river this month. J managed to pass his impromptu Willamette River swim test upon turning over a single crew shell last week in the river. Needless to say, God got his back, and his back stroke. He got home that night. Grateful. 

   And now it's 8 p.m. and we have begun this book in our home for bedtime discussions and prayers. We are praying round the candlelight for the Light.

   A few words that have been blessing my mama me this month in Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh.

   I walked far down the beach, soothed by the rhythm of the waves, the sun on my bare back and legs, the wind and mist from the spray on my hair. Into the waves and out like a sandpiper. And then home, drenched, drugged, reeling, full to the brim with my day alone; full like the moon before the night has taken a single nibble of it; full as a cup poured up to the lip. There is a quality to the fullness that the Psalmist expressed: "My cup runneth over." Let no one come - I pray in sudden panic - I might spill myself away!

   Is this then what happens to woman? She wants to perpetually spill herself away. All her instinct as a woman  - the eternal nourisher of children, of men, of society - demands that she give. Her time, her energy, her creativeness drain out into these channels if there is any chance, any leak. Traditionally we are taught, and instinctively we long, to give where it is needed - and immediately. Eternally, woman spills herself away in driblets to the thirsty, seldom being allowed the time, the quiet, the peace, to let the pitcher fill up to the brim. 

   Where are you finding time, creating time, to be filled within? When do you seek renewal, in a world that does not reward spiritual or inner renewal? 

   But why not, one may ask? What is wrong with a woman's spilling herself away, since it her function to give? Why am I, coming back to my perfect day at the beach, so afraid of losing my treasure?

   Here is a strange paradox. Woman instinctively wants to give, yet resents giving herself in small pieces. I believe that what woman resents is not so much giving herself in pieces as giving herself purposely. What we fear is not so much that our energy may be leaking away through small outlets as that it may be "going down the drain."  We do not see the results of our giving as concretely as man does in his work. In the job of home keeping, there is no raise from the boss, and seldom praise from others to show us we have hit the mark. Except for the child, woman's creation is often invisible. How can one point to the constant tangle of household chores, errands, and fragments of human relationships, as a creation? It is hard to even think of it as purposeful activity, so much as it is automatic. 

   Yet, that which feels automatic, often contributes to peace and creativity. Doesn't mankind hunger and thirst, seeking to create from the chaos around us? The automatic activities of woman, the chores and errands, do not create, so much as make space for creation. And within the walls of the home, we desire to be creators; we were fashioned creators, designers, and inventors. In creating, we desire to become, to live, breathe, and find a place where we belong. Thus, an orderly place becomes a creative space. Randomness can indeed lead to creation, for some, but for many, clear spaces make way for creative spaces.  

   ...We are hungry and not knowing what we are hungry for, we fill up the void with endless distractions always at hand - unnecessary errands, compulsive duties, and social niceties. And for the most part, to little purpose. Suddenly the spring is dry; the well is empty. 

   We want our spring to flow instantaneously, automatically, but when a spring bursts forth, its reservoir has taken time to fill. Never does a spring burst forth that has not been filled slowly day in and day out, over many a rainy season, and this is how the spring remains abundant and life giving, in even the most dry of seasons.

   Even purposeful giving must have some source that refills it. The milk in the breast must be replenished by food in the body.

    May you find solitude and stillness this week. May you be replenished in order to share with the thirsty who cross your path. May you be a deep spring. May you nurture this week, and also in turn, be nurtured. 

~ Kim