First Breath

Now hold on to your butts!!! Here goes some rambling and I’ll explain the video at the end . . .

First off I am a ridiculous person. A complete disaster really.

Between God and my husband I have quite a bit of excellent leadership in my life and still I wander around most of the time befuddled with my head up my you know what. Then I notice whatever the most recent catch 22 I have gotten myself into and promptly wallow in an emotional tempest of my own making. When the hard stuff hits I cling to God and when the little stuff pops up I loose my #*%+.  I don’t want to be tossed to and fro by every wave anymore. I want to be a woman whose example convinces my children that our lives are solidly under God’s control, come what may. I want to be striding ahead ready for the next hurdle, not flat on my face on the pavement with tread marks on my back.

That being said – my children need a place in this world and so do I. When they were little that place was called home, but as they grow it must expand. I am not at home in suburbia and cul de sacs. Alas neither was I prepared to dwell in the really wild places or maybe I am just too big of a wuss for them. I grew up out of school and inside of books. I had space to dream and live in the reality of imagination. As years came the comfort zone was youth groups and YMCA’s. But I left that for the wild places of culture. The spit and polished places are where imperfection shows glaring, the cultivated ground has no room for wildflowers, the straight laced squeezes out the passion, the life. There is sin everywhere, just different kinds. I shelter my babies from the dark, evil run away with humankind. But I don’t want to smother them. I want them to know falling and picking back up, getting lost and being found. I don’t want them to run to the fringes of society but to feel at home in wind and surf, sand and dirt. When you see God in the clouds and call trees friends I don’t know that you can ever be truly lost. And to find friendship with real live people in this vast world of rocks and rivers, under the stars and amidst the glory, this is my prayer for them.

I am thankful for godly men that we have learned from in a building referred to as church, but beyond that we are mostly left empty. We went to a “church function” at a “good church” Friday night and came home full of strife and discontent, children unhappy and asking to never go back. This morning we joined the Y, two hours later we unjoined. My dream is not a gym, my dream is Pilates and photography, camping trips, bike rides and after having my body demolished by baby having to run again. Today we enjoyed the fellowship of beer and football at our favorite pizza joint followed by little boys playing in the surf at sunset. We came home happy, fulfilled, motivated, satiated. Little sand covered boys walking tall instead of trudging behind. Some how I must learn to step out of the boat a bit further in this life, to hold their hands on a trail into the wilderness so they find God on the overgrown paths instead of drugs, drink and sex. Our hearts know the wild places are real, that we need living people not panaceas.

I want them to know God in all his unruly wonder so they won’t run after the soul crushing things.

But I am afraid and want to hold them close, I want answers and guarantees. They don’t come and I am left listening for a small still voice, my man’s wise words and looking for golden light through the window beckoning us out into the open spaces. I pray that I will follow . . .

About the video – It’s the first flight where we strapped the GoPro camera the kids got for Christmas to their giant remote control airplane. The song playing is “First Breath after Coma” by Explosions in the Sky. I listened to it a lot while I did Pilates and Yoga with Joshua in my tummy – beautiful moments. I haven’t listened to it since we lost him – couldn’t. As I put the video to music I knew this was the song that fit. Still it blew me away how the unedited video flowed perfectly with the ebb and flow of the music. There are moments in life that are just perfect, everything falls into place and you know all else led to it. God is so blatantly there, and this one had a sound track already written for it. This moment, it’s a first breath . . . We have been having a lot of those after the coma of grief. First Breath. First Flight. Reset and Rebuild. Time marches on and my children grow. The next ten years are coming on strong. No time to stumble, breath deep, take flight and pray pray pray.