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Silence (si·lence, Refusal or failure to speak out.)

I remember lots of things about my mother. I remember the way her laugh shook her shoulders as she cackled, I remember the smell of her coffee before I went to bed and when I woke in the morning. I remember her rough feet curled under her as she read her Bible in the morning sun. But I don't remember where or when or why she told me something I remember so well.

My momma never spoke ill of my father in public-- ever. She explained it to me once, and while I can't remember the event, I do recall her telling me explicitly why she did it and what for. She said that her vow to my father was sacred-- that he entrusted her with his heart and life-- and to bring up his shortcomings in public, even in teasing, was to betray that trust and dishonor him. It wasn't a promise my father asked for, but she freely gave him her confidence in honor and love.

We were at a bridal shower once when I was very young, lots of ladies sipping tea in a sun-filled room, laughing and eating finger sandwiches. My mom had brought me along because she knew I loved these feminine gatherings (and so I could wear the new frilly dress my grandma had made me), and after a while the topic of husbands arose. Eyes started rolling and each woman's pitch rose as she recounted a husband's recent indiscretion and roaring laughter ensued. Toilet seats left up, forgetting this, losing that (again!)... All was fodder for their popcorn grievance session. I turned to my mother at one point, half expecting her to chime in with a sarcastic gripe about something equally cringe-worthy my dad had just done, but she just sat there smiling softly, sipping her tea, and gave me a wink.

My mom defended our home ferociously, both from attacks outside and within. Hurtful teasing or sarcastic jabs at home were quickly met by her fierce gaze. "We do not talk like that at home. Apologize, NOW." Her goal was always to make our home a haven, a safe place, free of hurtful teasing and danger, and she modeled that with my dad. She saw his commitment to her as something to honor-- how could she disrespect his vulnerability by griping with girlfriends or her sister on the phone about his socks on the floor and that dumb thing he said last weekend?

Her honor changed him. My dad-- the oldest of three, son of an army colonel, having grown up rootless all over the world-- was never familiar or friendly with his emotions. Trust was foreign. He was by no means a perfect, or always respectable, husband. But as my parents' marriage grew, he transformed. He softened, learned to trust, and relaxed within the tender confines of unconditional love. And my mother continued, despite his consistent shortcomings.

I don't know why this memory has surfaced in the pools of my mind recently, but I can't stop thinking about how brave and strong that love of my mom's was, how integrous and whole. While my dad was the oldest of three, my mom was the youngest of five, growing up with a bipolar/schizophrenic mother and WWII vet father. She was raised in extreme dysfunction and pain, and at 18 bought a one-way ticket for as far as she could go. Her ticket took her to the place where she met Jesus and my dad. What strikes me about all of this is-- how did she know? How did she know how to love unconditionally when she had hardly ever been loved at all? How did she know how to create a safe home when she had never felt at home anywhere? How did she know to build a healthy marriage when she had never -- ever-- seen one?

The only answer I have is Jesus. His love and perfect protection, in stark contrast to all she'd ever known, taught her to love and protect like he does.

I can't stop thinking about how I want to be a friend like that, a wife like that, a mother like that-- someone who honors and loves even in silence. Someone who respects even when the other person is undeserving. My mother is gone, but her love is still here, still silent. I want to love like that.

Craving California

This song reminds me of that afternoon I danced in the kitchen with the dog. We had just gotten back from the beach and I went in the kitchen to get us a snack when this came on. The dog bobbed his head as I swayed my hips and shook my hair. My skin was dark and golden. I was still wearing my bathing suit and had on that breezy white dress with the wide skirt that billowed as I twirled.

Let's go back.

The Explanation

We were walking to get lunch, he and I, the chilled late winter wind slipping through the seams of our coats, under loose hems and up flapping sleeves. Wall Street comes alive at lunch hour, and sidewalks fill with street vendors selling children's books and scarves and incense as stock brokers in their perforated blazers and executives and their assistants all pour from high rises to fill their stomachs.

We were among the hungry masses, making our way two blocks over and down chatting about the normal things: How was your weekend, Tell me about your trip, What is that new project you're working on... He-- my short (hairy) Russian Jewish friend with the wicked, frat-boy sense of humor-- started telling me about his brother's surprise party on Saturday and the christening he attended on Sunday. With a good humored glint in my eye I asked him what it was like to be in a church, and he cocked his head back, grinning as he retorted, "I felt something burning."

He went on to tell me, serious now, how bored he was and how he kept watching his friend (the father)'s parents-- traditional Jewish immigrants also from Russia-- squirm in the Catholic ceremony. He felt sorry for them and wondered aloud why his friend and his wife couldn't honor both their faiths when raising their child. "You shouldn't indoctrinate a child with what to believe, they should be able to choose what they want when they grow older."

We were standing in line for lunch at this point when I responded, "But doesn't that invalidate the very idea of believing something? If you believe something is true and that's the way the world works, wouldn't that affect the way you raise a child?"

He protested and we went back and forth for a few minutes as we placed our orders and paid. Finally I said softly, carefully, "I guess it's hard for me to say because I don't think you should marry someone who doesn't believe the same way you do."

This was it. I knew where the conversation was going after this, and I girded my proverbial loins.

"You don't??" he asked, eyes widening.

"...I don't."

We stepped back out into the winter wind and he probed further dubiously. "So you... You wouldn't marry someone who didn't believe the same as you?"

I smiled and said, "No... I wouldn't."

"What if he supported you entirely and said, 'Whatever you want'?"

Still no.

His large brown eyes were growing larger with every response. "Not even if he said, 'I support you in whatever you believe, whatever it takes, I just want to be with you'?"

I laughed softly and shook my head.

This was clearly beyond his realm of reasoning.

"Why??"

I paused. "Well, to me, the most important thing in my life, the foundation of who I am, is my relationship with God. ...I believe the reason I was created, the reason I am alive, is to know him. He made me for himself, for me to know and be in relationship with him. And every decision I make, and the way I view my life, is based on that. So if I were to marry someone who didn't fundamentally believe that, then at some point our relationship would begin to splinter and we would separate because we weren't building our lives together on the same foundation..."

He didn't like this. I remembered the guy in college with whom I had had nearly this exact conversation... He didn't like it either.

We continued in silence for a few steps before he said, shaking his head, "...So why do you believe what you believe? Is it because you were raised that way?"

"Partly. I grew up in a Christian home-- both my parents were Christians, we went to church every Sunday... But when I was a teenager I thought, 'I'm only doing this because my parents want me to. If I'm going to keep doing this, it has to be because I believe it. I want to know who God is, and if all this stuff is true or not for myself.' So I asked. I asked God to reveal himself to me and I wanted to know that these things I had been believing all my life were true. Because I'm not interested in being part of a big club... If I'm going to do this, it has to be real."

"And it happened? You found it?"

"It did. I asked God to reveal himself to me and he did. And I decided that I wanted to continue in that relationship for myself-- not for my parents, but because I knew for myself that it was true and that being in relationship with God was the only thing that would ever satisfy me."

We passed through security and waited to board an elevator.

"People will disappoint me, my career-- no matter how hard I build and work and succeed-- will disappoint me, relationships will disappoint me, the only thing that will never disappoint me is God."

This was too much for him to handle, and he spat out, "GOD will never disappoint you? Are you kidding me?"

"No. He never will."

"You're telling me that when bad things happen, you get hurt, you don't wonder, 'Why did God do this to me?'"

I shook my head and opened my mouth to respond, but suddenly there was a flash, and I saw my mother's swollen and incoherent face as she lay in her hospital bed dying. A flood of pain and heart scar tissue started to throb, and suddenly all the nights I spent crying myself to sleep on the floor of my apartment, all the tears poured out onto pillowcases and journal pages, began to fill my vision until I could hardly see him standing in front of me. The scars on my heart opened their jagged mouths to speak, "Really? You think you can honestly say you've never felt disappointed by him? We're STILL wrestling with that right now! LIAR!"

The elevator doors opened with a ding and I snapped back.

We walked in relative silence back to the lunch table and were joined by more friends and the conversation turned to other things, but for the rest of the day the sting from that aggravated scar tissue lingered, tugging on the edges of my concentration.

Was what I said true? Did I really believe that? For so long, no matter how much I didn't want to, I had felt so betrayed by God-- abandoned and rug-ripped-out-from-under. I had entrusted him with the biggest, most important thing I would ever trust him for-- my momma's healing-- and my heart had been broken. Abandonment, mistrust, hurt, and anger all came like infections, seeping into the cracks in my heart. In the four and a half years since her passing, many of those broken places had been healed, cracks filled, wounds salved. But scars remain.

I just kept picturing her face, her grotesque, once-beautiful face, staring at me from that hospital bed. How could I say God would never disappoint me... when he had?

Lies are loud but truth is soft, and as the questions started to die down I began to hear, "He is alive... He is alive... She may be gone, but he is alive."

He is alive. He died so her death wouldn't be forever. He is alive. He saved us from death and sin forever. He is alive.

What I already "knew" began to register... She is alive. He died for her, and for me, to take our sins and death forever. My pain, as awful as it is at times, is temporary, and the only hell I'll ever know. Her death is only temporary. She is alive.

He does not fail, he does not let down, he supersedes my disappointment and understandings of failure.

He is alive.

And that is when I knew what I said was true. He will never disappoint.

He is alive.

A Day in D.C.

Spent the afternoon in our nation's capital, feeling like the First Lady in my royal blue coat. What a beautiful day.

Sipping wine with lunch at Union Station

The Lincoln Memorial

Abe

The only cherry blossoms in all of D.C.

Back-up gig

America

Can't get enough of Adele lately...