unearth flowers

he brought them in farmer-hand, showed me, raspberry flowers, bowed head waiting, and i saw in him the boy of yester-year, my husband's father made little in beauty-awe, and i took the weed-flower which he'd picked for me and cut the stem and stuck it in water-glass and i saw the smile on lips, shy farmer running calloused hand grey-hair-through. then he turned on muddy heel, stepped back into the wooded quiet where he walks amongst the deer.

and i find in these weeds the kingdom-holy. what we must seek, not found in bouquet-petals nor diamond shop. the beauty hidden deep.

go, then, friend... dig hard weekend soil and unearth flowers, rare.


linking up with L.L.'s On, In, and Around Mondays

imperfect prose on thursdays

we tuck together, arms 'round, against the wind and days of weary and we smell baby skin and bread-on-hands and commune, this family-small











and aiden plays his invisible magic flute and trent opens library read and i paint canvas, their faces with brush, and they don't know it but i'm making them timeless











and someday someone will see these pictures and wonder at the family tucked tight and we'll be gone but the angels will hum through canvas piece and i know










that this is why i'm here. to remember them this way. to teach magic flute-playing-son the trinity of mother-father-child. so he might grow oak-strong and branch out and tuck others into himself and be family-full for the empty-love.

**




join me today, artist-souls... link up your imperfect posts below... we're broken, together.

1. link your post to mine below, using mister linky

2. attach the imperfect prose button (below), or include a link back to this blog so others can partake in the community.

3. read others' posts, and comment!

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(ps. any of the paintings i show here on my blog are available as prints here, if you wish)

with you

"home is where you feel safest," he reads,

i am silent with baby and he stares and i look and see he's waiting









"where do you feel safest?" he asks







and i remember, on a hill decade-long-gone, him carving initials rough into bark, bowing low, begging marriage and me touching the place where his eyes scratched lines




and i remember today, him asking to play frisbee and cards and to go on a bike ride and kissing my body's secrets



and us taking boy to nuzzle hand with cow and the way the sky seemed to hold its tears until we'd stepped inside

and him slicing onion, eyes raining, because i like it on my pizza


"with you," i bare-whisper

"i feel safest. with you.

you. are. home."




joining up with one stop poetry today.

join me tomorrow for imperfect prose on thursdays.

quiet, soul

i tell him how the squirrels sound like him when he's hiccuping and he stares at my cheekbones and i feel the stillness of being known

his socks don't match his pajamas and he doesn't mind as he swings high

i think he looks like me

and i wonder how to be God to him

and does he see prayer in my smile?

and he laughs at the way the wind moves my hair and i remember what it is to be a child

...

a cow moos

...

and this is it.

this walking in light when the world is dark and this being something others want to follow

wondering, still

how to walk and be (motionless)
how to rest yet fill potential
how to have ambition yet be (content)

and my little boy holds out his hands to catch the rush of night air swinging low sweet chariot and his smiles breaks so many molds and all i know is

quiet, soul...

God is with us

i am a writer

i was grumpy and husband came running in for camera, three boys jumping jolly in living room, their mothers applauding and me hiding wrinkled on bedcloth being eye-wet and wishing-shooting-star.

i am a writer. i write articles and get paid for them. and i write books, and my agent markets them. and i paste the slips on my walls, rejections staring ugly, and i remind myself that so-and-so had so-many-slips before... and i can barely walk into a library for all of the spines standing straighter than mine, all of the names that have made it onto shelves, and somewhere along the way i've lost it.

the glee of running fast into bedroom for camera, to capture the smiles of three boys jumping high on living room floor.

and i hear his whisper as it always comes, like lover's breath, and it's gentle but the words are hard, and he says, "make him your number one ministry." him. my boy. future man. the one made of womb and blood.

"and i will bless your dreams."

do i trust God in this? do i trust him enough to close my laptop and make moment matter? do i trust him enough to.stop.trying. and pick up camera and shoot point blank?

i do. and so, i scribble across my child's life in love-ink. leaving the books and the articles until he sleeps, milk-breath against blanket, until i cannot see the rejection slips for the night-black.




and my 1000 gifts continue...

51. son blowing bubbles in bathtub
52. a husband who makes me rest
53. tennis with friends
54. wicker baskets and knick-knacks for new house at Goodwill
55. chocolate oh-henry-squares
56. watermelon dripping pink
57. renters for house in ontario
58. new canvas
59. my father's generosity
60. my God's love-whisper

baby sitting on a chair in the pool

sometimes








it's




all









about










learning









to








let











go







((wishing you contentment this weekend...))

imperfect prose on thursdays

for two years i met with teens, a group called CHUNKS, a place where we spilled angst and art onto paper, and we signed a creed saying all art was good art, because it came from the heart... and i believe that... and we celebrated brokenness, one body of bent and bruised, and we made collage and God was there.

here, i hope to share my paintings with you... one each week... this one, below, dandelion puff, a picture of a girl blowing dandelion seeds... (given to Joann)









here i also hope to share a piece of my life in which God is glory, in which i sing hosanna... and today, i sing because of these girls and the way, our final day together, they splooshed paint across tar paper and hung it up to dry.

i hope you feel free to share your imperfections here. maybe it's a post of prose; maybe it's a poem, or a photo, or a painting... or a piece of sewing you're working on, or a piece of artwork your child has done...

each week, let's meet and find redemption in the grace of the other. let's be broken on canvas, on material, on paper, on screen, together... for God is there.



you can read more about imperfect prose here.

rules to partake:

1. link your post to mine below, using mister linky

2. attach the imperfect prose button (below), or include a link back to this blog so others can partake in the community.

3. read others' posts, and comment!


Link up here with Mister Linky:

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meeting ann voskamp

we met in summer-cusp, her tripping across the lawn with lilacs piled high in mason jar, tulip tucked pink like camisole, and she looked nothing like a farmer's wife, everything like a writer from paris. this ann voskamp i'd met online through a writer's group. we lived just miles apart in huron county, we women who bled prose in the after-hours and she called me 'emily of new moon' and i called her 'ann of green gables' for her gables were green, and her words, montgomery-prose. we struck up friendship in the fading light of day and i wished to cling to this woman whose shadow was humility. when she talked, she asked questions, face leaned in close, and she really wanted the answers. no matter that she had thousands of blog followers. no matter that she had a contract with zondervan. she wanted to know this young journalist who really didn't know herself, but found more of the missing pieces that day in the space between our chairs. we walked the garden, her afraid of snakes and laughing such and spilling prayer and i felt spirits cleave. and i cried as she left and put the mason jar on table and smelled the lilacs deep and thanked God hard for that moment and the blossoms began to fall.

we've met three times and each time, like the last, only harder to leave, and this, from an online group we're no longer part of.

together, we are real. and i know no one like her. for she seeks God harder than most. and her presence, like her blog, is a holy experience.





(this post is part of a "You are Real" community writing project at Higher Calling Blogs)

*Link up with me tomorrow for Imperfect Prose on Thursdays (please use the following button in your post, by right-clicking and saving as a link, then adding it as you would a photo; or, copy and paste this text: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_oCqRXPb5k38/TD-cQbHfNgI/AAAAAAAAAdE/MPJgmCbIBZo/s1600/button.jpg)... may our brokenness bring Him glory.*

undoing my buttons

thread

sliding

button

i think of making feather ticks, and i'm not crafty, but

i
make.

they talk of children gone missing and world gone tsunamai


if i do not make, i break. and even though finger-needle-blood, i thread white and try
again.

i write because words make beauty

i paint because pictures plead pretty.

i prick finger to bleed creation.



they're talking now of women gone mad and war and someone whose child died and

suddenly

the buttons feel so smooth and the thread makes them line up so and it's as though
i'm

making


world



gone


right




again.

being psalm 1

i feel his palm-grooves, see his wrinkle-eye.

he's stressed. and we press toe on lawn-grass, plant roots by stream. become psalm 1 this saturday.

me playing wife and mother--not writer, not artist--to my men.

and we toss frisbees, drink peach juice, orange flesh dripping chin, baby laughs and chews rhubarb and it's as if the sun has legs and is dancing across the yard.

"but his delight is in the Lord..."





summer peels like apple, sweet liquid on skin...

later we'll dig potatoes and fry fish and i'll make too many perogies and we'll invite Grandma over from across the yard and play cards to the tune of wine glasses clinking.

and it's my job today to forget. the dust and the cracks and to pirouette with the sun.

"he is like a tree planted..."

too soon, blink, light is shade. and all that's left is my son's silhouette, stretched long like corn-stalk across garden rows.

and this is what matters. these silhouettes. this planting. this being psalm one.

"whatever he does, prospers..."

joining ann, thanking God, for these:

40. for old table stained new
41. for library cards and piles of books
42. for articles to write
43. for family-large-dinner
44. for son sleeping long
45. for date-nights with movie in bedroom
46. for random gift of jacket
47. for friends-playing-game
48. for prayer-pled-answered
49. for money secured for house
50. for light and dark and God and good and breath

two lonely painters

this, the alberta sunset flapping red like silk pajamas and i walk into the silk, feet swollen from day's heat, and i listen for the sound of loneliness. the flap, flap of pajamas in stolen wind. i want to wrap myself in this silk and sink deep into sky folds, and i cry for having left friends and for the house-less fields and the air that seems to mock me with its tearless face.

and he answers. the painter of the skies. says, "i'm a lonely artist too." and as if for the first, i see them. his holy brushstrokes. the way the crimson streaks jagged against gray, the pink and blush and poppy-reds, the green of tree against it all, and i stop and something thick and full enters me, as when making love on wedding night. body filled with another.

and i can't stop praising him. the colors, the design, the masterpiece, hanging on the gallery wall of the universe. and i feel his pleasure, the shy tilt of head, that of the lonely painter who loves, loves, loves, with his palette.

and we walked that night in the eden of sunset, and we talked that night, two lonely painters, finding solace in the other.

imperfect prose on thursdays

i've painted my toes, they're chipped now, pressed against dashboard dust... i twist my dreads and we pull up to the curb in suburbia, our red and blue diesel like a confused, awkward kid in a playground of SUVs. we've borrowed it from the farm, our car in the shop, to furnish our new home.






and i remember the sign, "don't settle for less" and we pick up a table and chairs from a man on kijiji, and down the street a two-vehicle family stares at our diesel and i wonder if i'm settling. if this is less. and less than...?












then she and i visit on lawn, our babies drooling hands squishing cheeks and smiling eyes at how the leaves make shadows in light and then the sky splits wet and we're drenched and we run to the van and sit until wet turns dry and we talk and laugh of motherhood and art and i think

this is more.
so much more ...


"i have learned to be content in whatever circumstances i am." (phil. 4)

---------------------------------------

imperfect prose on thursdays



art-sisters…

this is going to be a place where we dig word-deep. where we uncover language lure, and breathe poetry. prose. in the name of faith.

i am a writer, and i am a believer. as such, i believe i am called to quality word-ing. to creating beauty. to mastering the literary even as i learn. i want to honor my maker with my gift–and i’m calling all of you writers, artists, sisters of image and painting and poetry, to join me in this high calling. in this striving to perfect the imperfect prose.

maybe it’s a poem you’ve written, or simply a piece of writing that you want to share. a discovering of God in your week that you want to unravel. maybe it’s a painting you’ve done, or a quote you’ve found, or a photo you’ve taken… or a post of simple writing… maybe you want to talk about how your child has shown you God. how your husband has kissed belief into your heart. how you’re finding it so hard to believe right now, and why… how you wish to be one thing, but find yourself the other… or maybe you want to share a story you’ve written, or a thought you’ve had about the literary world. maybe you’re reading an extraordinary book and you want to discuss that.

we are broken people. let’s celebrate our redemption. let’s make a theology of the arts on thursdays.

we will be starting this literary community next week... but if you'd like to link up today, you're more than welcome.

finally, if you'd be so good to link up with me on your blog, that will help generate more interest in this artistic venture... ((thank you)).

here is a funky button my friend ammee pearl designed for our imperfect thursdays, if you wish to use it:




(if you want to link up with me, just use this widget from mister linky:)

barefoot in canola

sometimes my son












who cannot walk













helps me










to












stand

song for mom

YouTube has written me... informing me that my Song for Mum has warranted enough hits to possibly earn me revenue...

I never saw this coming.

All I saw, three years ago on Goderich beach, husband in Korea, me having come home early from teaching contract to care for Mum, was the bottle of wine I'd purchased and the strings of my guitar. All I saw was God in the white flap of seagull wing, and the unknown of clouds strung up like laundry on a line.

I wrote, scribbled ink-words and blotched with tears this tumor which had stolen my Mama. And I sang, to the waves and the sky and the stones, to the little Canon camera we'd purchased on a weekend in Japan. And then I posted it to YouTube, so I could share it with hubby faraway.

Today, Mum's tumor has shrunk. Today she wakes bright mornings and dances to her own beat and hugs huge and smiles wide. She is more alive today than she has been in years.

And today, I sing "Hallelujah," the bottle of wine empty and my guitar strings rusty, and the clouds folded up and put away.

wild strawberry picnic

sabbath spent walking woods, children feet, adults with sticks finding place for picnic. "the robins are singing, always singing," older father says and brother finds long-legged spider on his long legs and children chew watermelon and somewhere peace peels back the earth in long slow swish of summer.






and we find strawberry plants and pick berries and squish red mouths and earth furrows black and this is where life is grown.







in the sabbaths of life undone. in the gaps planted deep.





we ride wind in truck-back, earth smelling pine, and the children's faces split wide with watermelon juice and we rest hard.







barefoot on holy

ground.



joining ann today... grateful for these:

31. safe arrival in alberta
32. accepted offer on house
33. publisher for book
34. rain on dry soil
35. baby rolling back to front
36. baby laughs so long
37. 7 years of marriage, celebrated
38. long morning runs by canola fields
39. soft beds
40. handwritten letters

making a home

feet graze gravel, deer bounds brown, white tail flash, cross canola-yellow, and

i find love

in leap of leg

in field, on fork of road and i nearly cry as white-splashes-blue

and i can do this. this making of home without a house.










father-stands-son staring wide at field and weed and bush and marsh and husband hears whisper of unborn children on this plot of land. and his father's back aches and husband shovels grain and feeds cow and breathes limb into family farm

aiden and i walk trails winding corn and he plays the air like a harp and

here we are. in the space of time between walls. a holy place that cannot be erased.

home.