Throwing Spirals and God Beholding Us … and Smiling
I threw the best spiral of my life yesterday afternoon.
I threw the best spiral of my life yesterday afternoon.
oday, the Episcopal Church commemorates Timothy and Titus, two companions of Saint Paul. Timothy and Titus were younger believers whom Paul entrusted with leadership responsibilities in the early Church. They were companions and fellow workers with Paul in ministry, but what strikes me most today is that they were also his spiritual children.
I love Epiphany. I love the stories of the Magi, Anna, Simeon, Paul, Peter, the wedding guests, and others who realize who Jesus is and why he has come.
“Mama, will your bottom just keep getting bigger and bigger until the baby gets here?”
Modern parenting has no shortage of overthinking things, and in particular, no shortage of overthinking holiday celebrations.
In the middle of a Saturday morning, with cartoon noise in the background, two dogs snoring after a brisk walk around the neighborhood, brothers rushing out the garage door to ride bikes and meet up with friends, our littlest will bust out in song.
They sit in their carseats, next to one another holding hands. The palest caucasion skin of anyone in the family, enfolding the brown hand of his Hispanic little brother. “Are they both yours?” The woman meeting us for the first time asks. “Yes,” I reply, but she wants more. “How did you get that black haired one?” “Same way I got the blond haired one.”
When it comes to mistakes, I tend to think I have a pretty healthy attitude on the subject. It’s okay, we all make mistakes, I tell my seven-year-old son when he accidentally falls off his pint-sized skateboard and skins his knee.
The banging of little metal cars against each other with the sounds of crashes made by young mouths. The shuffle of paper and the clack, clack, clack of a pile of markers being dumped out. An angry squeal by a younger sibling to ‘give it back!’
Our daughter lost her first tooth a few weeks ago. As I stared into that gaping hole in her mouth, I did the thing where you internally tear up and think, ‘where did my little baby go?’ in that wistful, nostalgic way. ‘It was only yesterday that I was holding her in my arms!’