Ale La (Go There)

A week and a half ago we lost my precious nieces. Fiona Kate and Guenevere Anne were born at 24 weeks, and were only with us only for a day.  It has been devastating to walk through this time together. But we are together, as a family and as a community, so that is a comfort. It also has reminded me of how little I know, as a nurse and as a person, and how many questions I still have.  I wrote this as a part of my processing and read it at the memorial service last Saturday.  Love to all, Amanda I’ve told a lot of people that I don’t have words this week. The questions “How are you?” or “How are your brother and sister in law doing?” don’t seem to have any real answers. Tired. Shocked. Numb. Broken. We could try some of those words. But, they don’t seem to fit, and neither do the things that we say to try and feel better, because the truth is that words cannot touch this pain. It seems that my “prayer life” is mirroring my real life, and I al...

Usually when people find out that I work in hospice and at a birth center they say something like, “Wow, both ends of the spectrum. What is that like?” Either that or they start singing The Circle of Life… I haven’t figured out a complete answer to that question yet. But, it’s a little bit like this. Remember the days when you were a child swimming in the ocean and its blue infinity captured all your senses? Momma Rowe used to tell us to keep our rainbow beach umbrella in sight so that she could count our heads as we bobbled up and down in the waves and whitewater. But when we were IN the water we usually had our eyes turned out at the great never-ending horizon rather than looking back for the rainbow umbrella. Our attention was focused on the rhythm; sand beneath feet, approaching wave, duck under, power rolling over you, push off the bottom, take back your breath in the open air, shake stinging salt from your eyes to watch for another wall of water, feel the sand be...

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about Fear . Or more accurately, I have been thinking a lot lately about how Fear has been running my life, how it has been an undercurrent in many of my major decisions, and how it has distracted me from really living. I have a lot of ideas about this, and I’ve been challenging myself to write them out and to write about them honestly. But, in the middle of my honesty and “self reflection” I’ve come to a detour/stop. You see, Fear is not always a vague concept that is woven into a season of our life’s fabric. No, sometimes Fear is a real, visceral, confirmed and present danger. Sometimes Fear shouts at us through our circumstances, and, if we are honest, we are nodding our heads in agreement with it. What do we do when the face of Fear mirrors the reality in our life? What do we do when we have been rejected? What do we do when we face a life-changing illness? Or when we face the illness of a loved one? Or when we are told that ...

In the middle of sorting through my fears, dreams, hopes, and future plans I have found an Eden. The wildness is calling me. Lately, on my days off I am outside. I’m running the trails behind Fullerton. I am in the mountains with my family. I am pinching the flowering heads off of my basil plants, and leaning into and the rich, deep smell of homegrown tomatoes in the sunshine. When I’m inside, I’m wearing woolen hiking socks and T-Shirt that says “Go climb a rock.” I am smelling the left-over bonfire smoke in my hair and reading John Muir letters. The wildernesses outside and inside collide. Life is huge. It is full of things we do not understand. There are great joys and great tragedies. And sometimes in the rush and crush of overwhelming feelings we miss the grandiosity, the extravagance and joy.  I think the unexplained wildness of creation may be the very thing that calls to our hearts, the trigger of creation and the intricate detail of our innermost c...

This week I guest posted over at my friend Jen's blog for her series called "Expand." I felt pretty nervous about this because although I felt like I HAD to write about this, I also felt like it could cause some controversy. Would people read grace behind what I was saying? Would they think I was just another woman screaming that men have gotten it all wrong? NOT what I believe by the way. Anywho, in great trepidation I wrote and re-wrote and then sent this off to Jen for final editing. It's a part of my self examination of how fear has ruled my life. It's a part of the writing challenge that I set early this year. Here's an excerpt from the middle; "Looking back now, I feel like God was working on my trust issues with men at the same time as He was making me into feminist. Ironic. But, isn’t that the way that He does things? I want to say here that there are a lot of people who I deeply respect who don’t like the word “feminist.” For them...