tonight, welcome the wonder

Dear friend,There is a scene in Marilynne Robinson's Gilead I want to remember with you.

After a while the baby cupped her hands and poured water on her mother's arm and laughed, so her mother cupped her hands and poured water on the baby's belly, and the baby laughed... The baby made a conversational sound and her mother said, 'That's a leaf. A leaf off a tree. Leaf,' and gave it into the baby's hand. And the sun was shining as well as it could onto that shadowy river, a good part of the shine being caught in the trees...After a while we went on back to the car and came home. Glory said, 'I do not understand one thing in this world. Not one.'

I can't read this without tearing up. That sunshine and the shadowy river, the baby laughing, the leaf and the ordinary unconscious teaching of the wonder of the world, in a muddy bit of a river in Iowa. How can I not cry? That sunshine. That teaching. That wonder.--It's the day before Christmas, and I am caught up in the ordinary wonder of today. There is sunshine through trees, and my father-in-law and I spent a morning drinking coffee and looking out big bay windows and talking, our minds wandering new and familiar paths and it is that, the making of memories of laughter and wisdom shared and questions asked, in the unhurried way of daily life - that is the wonder of Christmas. That is the wonder we are welcoming in this moment, in this night. We welcome the wonder of new life, Heaven colliding irrevocably with earth. We welcome a baby, who bears our flesh, our ordinary, who is now in the midst of us and among us and in us.How can I not cry? We welcome the wonder of all wonders. Not apart from the ordinary, but entering the heart of it.--I sing Christmas carols around the house when I clean these days. I don't notice it all the time, but then suddenly I do: the same wonder, the rhythm of the cleaning of the floors and of my heart, too. I sing Christmas carols loudly and without worrying about managing all the right notes in the original key. I sing these stories loud. Something about the soapy water and the quiet and the ordinary work that never ceases: this is the work of wonder. The task of it, to repeat it in the midst of everything.--Tonight, we welcome the wonder of all wonders, the Lord of Heaven come to earth. We do this work of welcome in the middle of being so very much ourselves. I am myself, 24 years old, young in marriage and love and wisdom, me, the desperate seeker of a wilder love. I am welcoming Jesus as me, because Jesus comes for me. I am welcoming Jesus in the midst of my ordinary, singing Christmas carols with the Swiffer in hand. I am welcoming Jesus crying over Gilead. In the heart of the ordinary, the extraordinary enters in.Come with me even unto Bethlehem? Bring your ordinary, your uncertainty, your wearied heart and hands and self? Even unto Bethlehem?Tonight, the wonder of all wonders is born. Come with me, and greet Him?Love,hilary

poetry is wonder (a guest post)

Hi y'all!You know something I love (while I'm sitting here in Waco, TX, with that guy who makes my heart stop)? Getting to hang out and share some words over at Hannah's space. I love her loud, wondering and curious heart - and it's a joy to share at her blog. I even got to write about poetry, and wonder, and tell a few stories. I'd so love for you to head over and check it out here.

In a night of soft rain, she lies on her bed, angled just so her feet dangle off one edge while her head rests on the lopsided pillows. She feels her stomach rise and fall with the work of breathing, the letter still resting in her hand. She wills gravity to bring it back to the floor, but it stays nestled in her fingers. She won’t let it go, because in it is the truth, the kind of truth that once you read it sears itself onto your skin, an endless repetition. So she holds the letter and she closes her eyes. There is no music playing, not fitting soundtrack, just the night of soft rain and the rise and fall of breathing.

Keep reading with me, over here?

Love,

hilary

when you can't go back to sleep

I've been waking up every morning at 3am, then again at 5, and then, finally, at 6:20 when I'm supposed to roll out of bed and open the day.But some mornings, I can't go back to sleep. I lie and look at the grey sky - the sun must be rising somewhere, I know, but I can't see it yet - and I stare up at the ceiling. I like to imagine that if I could read it right, my story would be written in neat and beautiful cursive above my head. I want to believe that if I looked for the clues to the mystery of who I am and what I am supposed to do, I could solve it.Solve the not-going-back-to-sleep, I mean, which is solving the I-don't-understand-God, which is solving the what-is-this-life, solving the find-your-place-in-the-world.When I can't go back to sleep I do math equations in my head, add and subtract and subdivide by unknown quantity "n" looking for a way out of the grey. I wrote them on a piece of paper once:Fear and hope about job - (trust in God / WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE) + a boy who must exist in the universe somewhere / messy relationships (people hurt! + people are wonderful!) ^ the power of deep friendship - how do any of us even know what friendship means! + N, unknown = the meaning of life. This problem, I think, should go on the secret mathematician's list of "the world's greatest unsolved problems." They call them the Millenium Prize Problems: P v. NP, Riemann hypothesis, Navier-Stokes existence and smoothness... and then me, with "The Life Problem."On Sunday a girl in our Sunday school asked about the word "mystery" as the teacher presented on the Eucharist. "You mean like Sherlock Holmes?" She asked. The teacher, moving the clay figure of Jesus to the middle of the table, his arms frozen in outstretched blessing over his clay disciples, paused. "Do we solve it?" The little girl asked. I nodded with her, me and my life."Actually, this isn't a mystery that we solve." The girl wasn't buying it, shot the teacher a knowing, I-bet-you-say-this-to-everyone look. I mimicked her. "This is a mystery we wonder about."We wonder about how Jesus in his outstretched embrace loves the world and moves in it. We wonder about our lives and the people we cherish and the people we hurt and the love that moves  freely. We wonder. And perhaps it is better unsolved.

Mysteries, Yesby Mary Oliver from Evidence (Beacon Press)Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelousto be understood.How grass can be nourishing in themouths of the lambs.How rivers and stones are foreverin allegiance with gravitywhile we ourselves dream of rising.How two hands touch and the bonds willnever be broken.How people come, from delight or thescars of damage,to the comfort of a poem.Let me keep my distance, always, from thosewho think they have the answers.Let me keep company always with those who say"Look!" and laugh in astonishment,and bow their heads.

Love,hilary