The songs inside dried up for a while. Over the course of a year I wrote this once and it's like an episode 4 or something that falls in the middle of stories already told. I'm back pedaling to 2016 on my stories. Hoping to prime the pump again.
Oh Lord, I want to write again. I want a song to sing again.
Help me find the music in this land where my forefathers
died and this land of the pilgrim’s bride. Let freedom ring in my heart again
too.
March 30 Great Rift Valley picture
Daktari and I were out on a date in the scenic city at a fancy schmancy
aquarium that journeys you experientially from Appalachia down the Tennessee
River to the Gulf of Mexico. It’s
lovely and serene and so very local.
But they juxtaposed a picture of the Great Rift Valley there in the
peaceful places of Tennessee with the bluegrass music. I don’t know why they put that picture
there, but it was like a magic porthole that the Narnia kids fell into. The gravitational force pulled my heart
out and left me wondering- how can this even be the same world? How can I be way over here in this skin
and have that big beautiful prairie life so long gone?
Thankful to have both.
Heart brokenly thankful.
Monday April 4
Cherry blossom petals blowing down over a swarm of happy 2nd
graders. Little Miss calls them
the “tooth graders”. The
playground time on these sunny spring days when he doesn’t know I’m watching is
magic. Little boy, let your heart
be alive! I can’t keep you in with
me forever like that cherry blossom branch in the jar. You must thrive in this season and be
brave enough to be kind to the weak and be kind enough to be brave for
them. Tell them about Jesus- the
best thing they’ll ever learn.
Tell them how they are loved enough God let His Son die for them so they
can live this abundant spring blossoms blowing over the playground life in the
fullness of His presence.
Friday April 9
At home folding laundry. Enjoying the new almost found rhythm of life with just my
preschooler and me.
I sang “Born
Free” to her today and I cried. It
just overcame me. The vision of
that life in Kenya, the savannah, the exotic freedom of childhood in a mission
compound, the life on the edge of adventure, as free as the grass grows. Her
little body and big big spirit that longs to be there again- it overwhelms
me. It has dominated these past 9
months for her and feels like a beautiful memory that is so warm and so
intensely beautiful and difficult to manage. I don’t like to lift that band-aid up too often because the
feelings are still tender. Hers
and mine.
Wednesday April 13
He did it. He
told them the truth today.
The 2nd grade teacher said “What’s the most
important thing on the One Dollar bill?” and Man-cub said “In God We
Trust”.
“Why?” They
wanted to know-
And he says: “Well because God is like, way more
important than money”.
This public school thing might work.
Monday April 18
In this wilderness of material pleasures, my soul
desperately needs my Savior. I
wither under the vacancy sign in my heart as it flits to and fro from vanity to
vanity. Little Miss tells me we go
to too many shops in America and don’t see enough people. Ouch.
When we first moved back I listened to a lot of Rich Mullins
and Andrew Peterson music because they sound like home, they felt/feel the
spiritual homesickness that I felt so intensely as a sojourner. But now we have bought a house.
She says “Kenya is my home.” And he says “No, America is our
home”.
But can a person truly buy a home?
No.
The Lord is our home I tell them.
And she adamantly joins the ancient faith declaring aloud in
the carpool line “Heaven is my home.
I’m a Heavener!”
Wednesday April 20
Chattanooga is in the middle of a gang war. The tooth graders are being kept
indoors for recess all week it looks like because of that. No outside play? But the weather is so lovely and their
hearts are so alive with the wiggles and the earth is so beautiful, right there
on the playground that is overlooked by Look Out Mountain.
Dr. King even said “From Look Out Mountain Tennessee, Let
freedom ring!
From every mountainside, let freedom ring.”
And here we are, trying to do this American life again/ for
the first time and trying to seek first the Kingdom of God, and not be caught
up in the fear and consumerism and frenetic and lonely pace of life.
We took two little friends out to play after school this
week. They understood about
shootings. One of them said “My
uncle got shot behind Food City” like it was as normal as driving in a
car. Her reality accepts that as
normal. Her world is being built
in the projects. My kids have seen
poverty in Africa, but they have not known poverty with violence before.
But like Dr. King also said
“…their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that
their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.
We cannot walk alone.”
So they sit indoors looking out the porthole at the beauty
and feel that longing too.
Oh Lord, from every mountainside, let freedom ring. Let us work for it here too. Bring your Kingdom Lord, so we can have
our Home at last.
