The first trip of 2012, a visit to Bellingham to visit Carla and her family. Carla and I became friends over conversation and coffee in Poland where we did mission work. It’s been over a decade, and our friendship grows and thrives in spite of distance and sporadic connection. We last visited almost two years ago, when her daughter was born. It had been too long.

I arrived to snow in Seattle, and the shuttle that took me north on I-5 crawled as the storm dumped inches and inches of white powder. Cars swerved, some into snowbanks along the sides of the highway. It was slow going getting here.

It’s been slow going these days here too, the temperature creeping down, down, down while the pile of snow went up, up, up all through yesterday. Today the temperature stayed well below freezing. I ventured out for a few minutes for a walk, but other than that, we stayed indoors, simmering chili and baking brownies while we played with little Luci, talking and laughing and enjoying the slow quiet a winter storm allows.

It feels good to be quiet, to sit here with my dear friend. The restfulness of this trip came unexpectedly. At first it seemed like the snow might slow us down; now it’s evident that the whole of this visit will be a full stop. Limited to the confines of Carla’s home, I read and pray. My only work, responding to emails and phone calls. These few days are the perfect beginning to a New Year (of which the first two weeks were spent wrapping up the previous one, at an almost frantic pace). I finally find myself awakening to expectation for all that is to come.

Here all that is before me is to be in the moment in a warm house with yummy food and like-family friends. In this place, my heart has stilled and my mind has calmed. I hear God whispering words true and love deep that makes me anticipate this new year. The last year passed a whirlwind, beautiful and busy and at times chaotic. I grew a business and a relationship and traveled a lot of miles and photographed many, many families. My sister married; my brother got engaged. My dad had and recovered from a stroke. When I stopped and reflected throughout the year, I was mostly grateful but often tired.

This year God’s whisperings are of life full and thriving, of learning quiet and rest, of trust and generosity. He invites me to leave behind the chaos and the busy, challenging me to believe more is possible. Perhaps I will learn to sleep and rest and play right in the midst of it all- is this not life abundant? Perhaps so doing will eradicate the chaos. I wonder if that is what could be.

I guess this serves as my new year’s post, a couple weeks in. More to come, hopefully soon.

The year’s end arrives with unseasonably warm weather resulting in a respite of outdoor activity under a canopy of blue. Did Christmas really pass last week? The rush leading up to the holiday literally ended Christmas Eve, and I stood in church with a lit candle singing “Silent Night” trying to remember silence. My family gathered, we celebrated sans one brother and one sister, and by Boxing Day, all I wanted was my own heavenly peace to sleep in. I love the end of the year and the way it makes me want to reflect and daydream. I become a child awake to the wonder of possibility, infinite. It seems we are wired to ponder life on a grandiose scale when the first day of a new year stares us down.

I’ve never been the type to make resolutions, but tonight I sat around a dinner table with Collin, his sister and her beau, and I hoped for some things for 2012. We ate at a little place in Arlington that we love, Potager Cafe, an outside-the-box, hole-in-the-wall with real food and genuine community. You can eat as much as you like from the menu comprised of local fare. It changes based on what is available. You pay what you want to pay for your meal. Tonight a diner at another table offered Collin a glass of wine from the bottle on his table when Collin asked if it was good. Cynthia owns the place, and she hugged me when I left, wishing us a happy new year and promising to email me about an idea we’ve discussed the last few times I’ve eaten there. These things happen at Potager. We love it.

After dinner, we ran errands before Collin headed home so he could get to bed early, as a long ride owns the entirety of his Saturday morning. I kept thinking about Potager. The food is always good there (outstanding, really), but I’m not sure that’s all that keeps me going back. When I eat at Potager, I find myself invited to dinner at a place where conversation flows easy, and no one is a stranger. I don’t know how to explain the dynamic, but the uniqueness strikes me. And I hope to be the kind of person in 2012 who forgets the boxes that social norms create and who remembers that people matter and so does the way we interact with the world.

I think that’s the appeal of Potager. The business model isn’t the type to attract investors: no set prices and an environment that beckons patrons to want to stay long after they’ve finished eating. But I don’t think Cynthia measures the success of her business in profits (though I think she’s paying her bills). I suspect she understands something about the nature of community and the importance of stewarding the earth. She’s created a unique space in the middle of Arlington that resembles a hodge podge family dining room. When you’re at Potager, you’re in the midst of a better story than the typical American eatery.

Real food grown in a garden out back or procured from local farmers prepared simply with real ingredients? Do people eat like that any more? And while eating like that we slow down and learn the names of the people around us and rub shoulders with their stories, if only for a few minutes. We leave full and refreshed- every single time we eat there. Did I mention we love it?

“It feels like church,” I told Collin when we left tonight. He countered that it is better than church, because you don’t have to keep up an appearance to experience a good meal at Potager. Though that’s a post for another day, I say that to say this: in 2012, I hope to be the kind of person who imagines and creates unique spaces that allow genuine community to exist and thrive. I hope to take the kind of photographs that invoke emotion and start conversation. I hope to write the kind of words that provoke the telling of a better story. I hope to live in such a way that heavenly peace is never far off, because the reality of the presence of God holds my attention day in and day out, leaving me full and refreshed and able to fill and refresh others.

I am a child awake to possibility, infinite. Yes.

In the midst of anticipating Christmas this year, a funeral. She was an 18-year-old college freshman from Collin’s cycling community, struck by a car while riding her bike in North Carolina. She died ten days before Christmas. I met Megan only once, but Collin knew her. Attending a funeral for a girl just stepping into womanhood shocks the system with a forced focus on the aching fractures that exist in the world. The heart breaks, because what else is it to do? The heart breaks and the soul longs for a different story. We long for the world to be set right.

Reading the Scriptures and pondering the Christmas story following Megan’s death made me hunger for God who became man to meet me, to meet us here, now. In any untimely death the questions that come first are often why questions, but that’s not exactly where I landed. My questions arose from looking at the celebration of Christmas coming so soon after the funeral. How does this get set right?

My love of the Bible sometimes leads me, perhaps, to over-familiarity with the over-arching narrative. I forget to remember the significance of a God who came, of the word made flesh, of his life, of his death, of his resurrection. The Hebrew Scriptures foretold the story of a poor baby born to restore history, God swaddled in tattered rags, fully Himself in human skin. It’s a magnificent story, really, that God so loved, that God so gave. That we have life. The world left to it’s own devices is indeed weary. Without the Jesus story, our hope falters and fails.

Last night I prayed for grace and peace for Megan’s family and friends. May they know their loss and longings grieve God. I remembered the Jesus who wept before he raised his friend from the dead. Death wasn’t a part of the story when God made and called this world good. I feel wide awake to the reality that we need something, someone greater to come, to heal, to touch, to redeem.

And we have God, who humbled himself, who became like us, who came. And I don’t understand how it all works, but I do know this: we have great hope. And so I hope. Living that hope out here and now looks like grace and peace. It looks like food for the poor and wholeness for the hurting. It looks like love in the face of hatred, plenty in the hands of want. May we so live.

oh this? it is life
with turns unexpected and twists dramatic
with soft-spoken hopes and bone-jarring fears
with a yieldedness (or not) to grace
and a drifted-ness from doubt to faith
with a quiet, quiet, quiet way that stops my stumbling

bread, cup
broken, bought
death, life
redemption (always)
aware or not
incarnation and oh,
resurrection

and oh, this? it is life
and oh, here? here I am
alive

This silence of late is not lack of words or story; rather, it’s fullness of life overflowing with relationships and photographs and running and breaking up with caffeine (that deserving of a post all to itself… soon). Collin and I made some big adjustments to our eating. I’m trying to be better about sticking to a schedule. Sleep is for eight hours most nights these days. And when it’s busy? Well, I need/crave/want/prioritize time with God and try to do the same with time away from the computer. Some days I succeed. That said, I miss writing and hearing from you (if I have any readers left after all this silence).

I love fall and the change in season. It stirs my heart in a way that provokes processing. It makes me want to ask questions and hear answers, curled up on a couch with a book or lingering with old friends over cold beer and easy conversation. And it makes me want to write. So write I shall. Hopefully will be very, very soon. In the meantime, here are some picnic photographs, because while I’ve been not blogging, life has continued. When we are busy and the weather permits, we love picnics.

a simple meal
and a quite spot
and a playful puppy
and outside

These things reset us; we thrive in these moments, Collin and I. We connect with God. We connect with each other. We remember life is good. We say thank you.

Life is good. Thank you. Much remains to be told.

No matter where, no matter where, no matter where my story- or your story- takes me or you, the deep breath yielded by a few minutes outside really looking at creation provokes wonder. It steadies me to see flowers and trees, sun and sky, and the cycle of life. Seasons shift and change. Transformation occurs. The world retains so much of the good God saw when he made it. In the midst of war and failing economies and broken relationships and sickness, even in the midst of death, a walk outside reveals new life. Some days that’s the grace to regroup and calm the heart and slow the pace.

God is here, everywhere. And we are his, loved and capable of loving. I’m captivated.

It’s outside that I most often find myself beckoned into his kingdom and story. I know I am small in the midst of a great grand scheme that is the world. That humbling reality- that very revelation- invites participation into the story of God’s great plan of redemption. I’m certain that truth ought to be taken literally and metaphorically.

It was fifteen months ago that Collin turned to me and said he didn’t want to leave things undefined. We didn’t have much of anything figured out. We did know we wanted to see if there was something there worth figuring out. And I suspected he meant business about pursuing me. Today I know that he did.

For this I am grateful. It’s been quite a year and a quarter. I see God’s handiwork in our story. I know that this is grace.

Yesterday Collin had flowers delivered to the house I’m staying at in Kentucky. I’ve been away for work for this past week. I love his thoughtfulness, ever looking for ways to make me feel beautiful, wanted, loved. I love that when I called to thank him I could hear the smile in his voice. I love that this is the page we are on.

Someday maybe I’ll write some thoughts on dating and love and how we’re walking things out. But that’s for another day. Today all I want to say is this: it’s a good story we are living, fifteen months in.

I’m a slow blogger of late. Hoping to remedy that soon.

wide-eyed with revelation, this
oh but life is joy, and here
we are alive, very
the wonder burrows deep, these
oh and roots cling deep, and here
we cling to life, desperate
oh taste and see the goodness, the goodness
oh hear and speak the fullness, the fullness
oh but life is joy, and here
we are alive, very
bright and bold, the beauty rectifies and redeems
the broken
life is joy, and here
we are alive, very

Sunday morning and coffee and prayers
a walk with the dog canopied under cool and blue
quiet is the early
grateful is the heart
awakening, awakening, awakening
this: grace
Sunday morning and hope and wonder
a recognition of new mercies this morning
steady is the faithfulness
grateful is the heart
awakened, awakened, awakened
life: gift

This I know: God is near.

we memorize places
letting them smooth rough contours and ragged edges
breathing newness in the shift from city to skyline of sky
longing for more
we retrace faces
yearning for years of moments, sacred and precious
lingering on pages of everyday, passage of time
hungry for more
we leave behind traces
of hope and of glory
of this better story
of new every morning
we live; this is more