Eden has the chickenpox. She’s got one in her eye, which can apparently cause “significant problems.” They made her eye glow in the dark at the doctors and her cornea looks okay. A tip for parents: if you kids get the chicken pox there is now and antiviral that significantly reduces the symptoms and the duration. (Not the vacination…just an antiviral.) It’s reduced Eden’s pox by 50% in two doses, andit has stopped the new pox from growing to their full and disgusting size. Kids have to be old enough to swallow pills. Eden prefers her in a mouthful of masticated pineapple. (You wanted to know that, right?)

Right now Rosie is over and all the kids are jumping on … {read more…}

There is no way to capture the deadening sadness that comes with being a tomb. To travel through your days with a stillborn child residing in your womb is a sorrow that defies description. I have made this journey, with Simeon warm, then cold, under my ribs. Now my sister-in-law walks the same path, her unborn child curled beneath her heart, his own heart ominously still and black on the sonogram screen.

“She lost the baby,” people will say. But Rachel and I both know that there was no misplacement of this child. We knew exactly where he was. We felt his birth, held his still frame. We have –or will– scatter … {read more…}

Okay, I wrote this really fast at 10:30pm without re-reading it, spell checking it, or adding links. (Bad blogger, bad!) But hopefully it well help out Mike (see below.)

Nighty Night!

Rachelle

__________________________________________________________

Mike,

Kid’s and the Abbey…well, for instance, our night started out with Emily and Israel (adults) showing everyone thier new pet corn snake. (A big hit with the kids…it lived in Emily’s shirt sleeve, pocket, and under her bandana all night. Josh and Tonya came in, our neighbors from up the street, and the girls climbed all over Josh who they call “thier human jungle gym.” (We set boundaries with the kids about who they can climb on and such. They have two or three adults who are close to thier … {read more…}

The mini monk at work in the children’s room at Mecca.

mecca

there is order here
serene, mathematical, brilliant

but a cacophony too,
of shape and color

things are not what they seem
she said be careful his bowtie is really a camera
that tree is really a trellis,
a strand of ancient bouganvilla,
a spacecraft.

be careful,
this thing you regret attracts.
the continuity longed for makes way for the incongruent

this is what nature uses to fill a vacuum

here iam who iam meant to be
frightens me, this alternate reality
this world of words and insight and form

i know not how to live in this,
nor where the impulse comes from,
born as I am of parents who knew only nature
never her abstraction

here lies
an unreachable labyrinth
diety’s core
spaceman’s … {read more…}

Well, we’re trying to take off for Pasadena. I was invited to a Fuller/Allelon consultation of some sort. I believe it has to do with updating seminary education for the postmodern era, but truthfully I’m not entirely sure. There were a lot of interesting folks on the invite list, so though I’m not sure how helpful I’ll be to the discussion, I thought it would be good to go and get in on some thoughtful conversation from some really sharp minds.

While we were trying to pack (the whole fam is going) Catie jumped off my bed and impaled her leg on a big fat bamboo KNITTING NEEDLE. I had to pull at least an inch of the needle out … {read more…}

3:45pm….

I don’t know what could be cuter than a little pink tutu hanging over the edge of a tire swing while the ballerina’s hair whips around so fast you cannot even see her laughing, freckeled face.

7:10 pm….

Unless it’s a little girl running about making flower soup on the front lawn, while dressed in only a belly-enhancing pink leotard and a walrus mask fashioned out of a paper plate.

4-6-05

I’ve been thinking about the nature of sadness. It’s is a slippery viscous thing – sliding away when one expects it to be present, clinging to you when no actual cause is within reach. Whenever something terribly sad happens in my life, my wise, well meaning mentoring lovies advise me to be attentive to the sorrow, to sit with it as needed. And I do, usually. Only it’s never as deep as I expect it to be. It’s never, very…well…timely.

Today I am inexorably sad. Why, you ask? Well, because last night I found out that I am knitting wrong.

Apparently I twist and untwist my stitches oddly. “It’s the Eastern technique, you see,” explains my knitting teacher, “as opposed to … {read more…}

People often ask me about Paul. What does he do? Is he just waiting with baited breath until Monkfish is big enough to “support” us and he can quit Microsoft and start pastoring? What’s his role at the Abbey?

1) He’s a program manager (PM) in DTUE at Microsoft. Ask him what he does and he’ll say “I tell people to program stuff for a program for programmers.” You won’t get anything else. It has an air of “I could tell you…but then I’d have to kill you.” But really, his job is just so specific that it’s hard to explain. I’ve actually seen him explain it to other Microsofties only to have them go, “Ohhhh…suuure.” Indicating that they … {read more…}

Dear blogging friends,

Paul is away on a rare business trip to San Francisco. He called last night and said, “I LOVE this city.” Apparently he waked around so much that his legs and feet hurt and he had to find a Walgreens to grab a bottle of ibuprophen. I’m so glad he gets to roam about. He so rarely getting nice-y little treats like a week away. He does so adore urban living. If we didn’t have kids, I’m certain we would be living in some little 900 square foot condo in Belltown.

It’s also Spring Break…which means that Paul is gone AND the priestesses are home full time. It’s been a full schedule of the zoo, polly pockets, … {read more…}