A whisper in my heart beckons me day and night.

I awake from dreams with it hanging over me, peering into my sleeping soul.
/stop/
And I roll over.

I feel it behind me, calling my name.
Bridget. Bridget. Bridget.
But I close my eyes and assume if I can’t see it, it can’t see me.

But the whispers turn to shouts.
The coincidences fall into a line, obviously no longer coincidental.
And my skeptical little mind says, “well…what if…”

“I sound like one of them,” I tell Marshall.
“I sound like a Churchy McChurcherson.”
And he laughs and pulls me close.
With his arms of affirmation around me,
I know that I must follow my heart.
And in so many ways…I want to.
but.then.i.dont.
It will be hard.
I must be careful, weighing my words and tempering my thoughts.
I’ll have to be open, honest, and – worst of all – vulnerable.

But, for reasons I may never understand, I perk up as I ponder the possibilities.
Exhilaration courses through my veins.
The moment I’ve been waiting for is here…
…it just doesn’t look like I thought it would.
My insides shiver, as if a spirit has blown through me.
“Hmmm…” I think. “Maybe it has.”

My mind whirs with ideas, and I hold them up to the light of day.
And that’s when I begin to crumble.

“That’ll never work, you crazy fool,” I hear from my demons.
“You weren’t cut out for this.”
“You aren’t good at that.”
“You aren’t big enough, strong enough, spiritual enough for this.”

“You never know until you try,” my soul says sotto voce.
“The heart might lie, but I don’t,” I hear.
And my whole self shakes as I realize that I’ve heard the voice of God.

Never so clearly as before.
Never.

And so I shove a whole lot of hopes in my backpack and I step out of faith.
I just wish it weren’t such a big damn step.

We’re chaotically schlepping down the street, with what appears to be no system, no plan.
But there is a method to my madness.
I count religiously.
One-two-three-four.
One-two-three-four.
One-two-three-four.
One-two-three-four.
Always, always counting.
One wants to stop to pick up ‘goofy rocks’.
Another is jumping on cracks, singing of breaking backs.
(Mine, in particular).
“Move it, guys! We’ve got to go!”
And we trudge onward.
An older gentleman watches us as we head his direction.
I struggle to get them all to one side of the sidewalk.
My worry is that we will be in his way, cause him to stumble or hold him up in some way.
As we get closer, he smiles.
He calls out to me, “Your hands sure are full.”
Words that often bristle me don’t this time.
The knowing smile and sparkling eyes speak to my heart.
“We had four children, my wife and I.”
“It’s busy, but it’s fun,” I reply and keep walking.
Noticing the ‘goofy rocks’, he says, “Quite a collection you have there.”
And one to never miss a chance to speak of his blessed collection, my little man smiles and opens his hands gently.
Proudly displaying his treasures, he talks of the black one that sparkles and the one he found under his car seat.
I rush him through his words, finishing sentences for him.
The gentleman looks into my eyes and, without a trace of admonition, shushes me and winks.
Instead of being nonplussed and annoyed, I smile, knowing that he is right.

As we walk away, my throat tightens and my chest feels warm and heavy.
For all my talk of savoring the moment, I certainly don’t do it often enough.

Babbles become words before you know it.
But I want to remember the nonsense sounds.
Rocks fall from their tower of privilege to their home on the ground.
But I want to remember the joy of finding the perfect one and marveling at its perfect rockness.
Silly songs of childhood sung at the top of her lungs will soon cause her to face to redden and eyes to roll.
But I want to remember the reckless abandon of singing like the whole world wants to hear your song.
Stories of super secret spy missions will be left behind in search of grown-up goals and gimmicks.
But I want to remember how to believe that anything is possible as long as you have imagination and your trusty sidekick.

For Lent I am neither giving up nor taking on.
I am redefining.
Redefining myself, my dreams.
Redefining my direction.
And, mostly, redefining distractions.

Pausing to hear their stories with my whole self, even when I’m busy.
Taking a moment to brush my fingers across their cheeks, even when we’re running behind.
Redistributing time to allow for gaps in my day, pockets of nothing made for just being.
Leaving breathing room in my moments, time to catch my breath and not worry about what is next on my list.

I think of the old man; how I was so worried we’d be in his way.
Yet, it seems, not only did he not mind us barreling into his day, he actually made room for us-in the moment and in his heart.
He didn’t see a mother struggling down the street with four rambunctious children.
He saw happy memories and moments long gone now brought back to life.
He already knew that distractions are not things from which we should hide.
They should be welcomed warmly and with affection, even if it wasn’t in the plan.

Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease
I beg like a child, in part because I know no other words.

For someone who loves to craft words, I often find myself stumbling over them as I pray.
No words seem full enough or big enough or small enough or just right.

And so I pause on repeat, not contemplating sentence structure or grammar or flow.
Not groping for synonyms, I give in to the repetition and just go.

I do it with please and thank you, but also with names and random words that pop into my mind.
Bible verses learned long ago nudge their way into my moments and I grab the word that is the brightest.
Or, honestly, the darkest…because sometimes it’s the darkness that draws me in.

It took me years to understand why someone would (or could!) meditate on one word.
It took me years to understand, but it seems to be taking me even longer to learn how.

I struggle to clear my mind, to focus on one specific thing.
Even when I sequester myself away from my family, I still hear their voices, their laughter and squeals, the sounds of life.
But I am even more easily distracted by the voices within, the ones that whisper and the ones that shout.

And so I chant.
One word at a time.

I haven’t written here in a while. I’ve shied away from social media. And from you. Although I’m not sure why. Well, I do know why I’ve backed away from Facebook. They worry me with their Terms of Service. So many people just gloss over them and accept them at face value. Everybody’s on Facebook so it must be fine, right? Marshall tells me I worry about it too much. But the data doesn’t lie. It does, however, sell. The ‘free’ service is far from free, people. And now Instagram, too? Ugh. (And, yes, I am aware that I am beginning to sound like a crazy conspiracy theorist girl.) I like sharing my life with you. I like hearing your feedback – the good and the bad. I feel less alone and more connected when I get comments from friends and when I see you doing your thing – whether it’s travelling the world or raising children or helping people with AIDS or even just posting pictures of cats. (What? Lolcats make me happy.) But I can’t help but wonder what price I’m paying for this.  Could it really be this bad? I believe it could. Do I think that it will? I don’t know. But I know that it makes me a bit queasy when I think of it.

Totally unrelated, I love the new packaging for instant oatmeal. For years it’s told you to add 2/3 a cup of water. Now – right on the packet! – it says fill to this line with water. I’m a fan of one less step.  And only semi-related: why does the peaches-and-cream one need more water than the others?

My children are driving me a bit batty today. You’d think that we’d be used to being together all day every day since we are homeschooling, but when we are “out of school” we don’t have a schedule to our day and no schedule = chaos. And chaos = little patience. Add post-op issues and I’m whipped.

Post-op. *sigh* My surgery went well. (Thank you for your thoughts, prayers, and kind words.) I had some post-anesthesia nausea (as I do), but once it dissipated, I felt better. I’ve been sore, but haven’t had any pain. (Warning: TMI ahead.) I wasn’t able to void on my own after surgery, so I came home with a catheter. Not really my preference, but not horrible either. I went back to have the catheter removed yesterday and still wasn’t able to void on my own. I had to learn to self cath. Ugh. Once again, not painful…just very frustrating. The surgery is 92% successful with no complications. Look at me hanging out with the lower 8%.  I have been able to void some, but not nearly enough. And I’m having to self cath regularly to ‘retrain’ my bladder. Fun fun. Please pray that this will all work itself out sooner rather than later!

For two weeks I’m not supposed to lift more than 10 pounds. Which isn’t often a problem…until Alden wants me to hold her.  I hate refusing her that. She’s got a cold and last night she was in bed coughing and wheezing and crying and I couldn’t take it. I made Marshall bring her to me in our bed and I just held her for a while. I rubbed her back and she rubbed my arm while we watched “Eat Pray Love” on TV. Oh, that child…she is certainly the little girl with the curl in the middle of her forehead. But I love her so. I love them all.  Even on days like this.

I can’t talk about my children without thinking of the children fo Newtown. I feel bad for my response, but when I first heard the news I thought, “Thank God we homeschool.” And then I flinched because this could just have easily happened anywhere – the grocery store, church, the post office, Zaxby’s – places we go all the time and think nothing of it. I am tempted to be frightened of the big, bad world but then I feel like I’m letting fear win and I’m too stubborn and head-strong for that. Of all the things I’ve read about Sandy Hook, this post rang true with me the most. There is much that I could say, even want to say about this horrific situation…but if ever words fail me, it’s now. I find myself praying for the families and my mind wanders to a chant of “Dear God, oh dear God…please keep my babies safe. Please. Please. Please.” Why do my prayers always come back to me me me? Is that something you outgrow? Is there some point of maturity – spiritual or otherwise – when you stop being so egocentric? I start out with thoughts of others, hopes for others, petitions for others…and then my mind gets so crowded and I circle ’round to what I know best: me.

And I write that and I think, “Do I really know me? Am I really that shallow? And self-centered? Are we all?”

When my mind gets crowded, my words get jumbled up and I can’t put them in the right order. I can’t make them say what I want them to say. And so I’ll stop for now and let the crowd die down. Maybe my words will come back when it’s not so loud.