A Holiday Haiku Challenge - Learning to advent with fewer words

In the hustle-bustle madness of holiday going, I don’t want to just sneak in a little advent –like it’s a noun. Checking it off my list like a Christmas card in the mail, a quick stop at Costco, a pie in the oven. Advent isn't another noun to consume this holiday. I want plenty of time and space these cold December days to advent – like the quietly abiding verb it can be. Pulling away to meditate on the coming of Christ! However, for some, this idea of sitting in the stillness and manufacturing a holy moment seems daunting. "How many words should I read? How many words should I pray? How long should this take?"

Well, while I hope that we learn to listen long, abide ceaselessly, and find refuge in His drawn-out presence, what if we begin with just 17 syllables? The length of a simple haiku.

Here in the midst of our merry making moments this Christmas season, let me challenge you to pull away each day in order to consider some aspect of God's glorious coming - to advent. I will offer you a daily Christmas theme for you to meditate on. Then you get to worshipfully work at narrowing it down 'til you arrive at its very essence. Boil it on the fiery stovetop of your heart and mind until you get a fragrant and flavorful reduction offering. 

That's the art of the haiku... discovering the essence of a thing in 17 syllables.

And so, throughout the month of December I’m hosting a holiday haiku challenge. I’ve invited other writers to advent with me each day in quiet community, and I want you to pick up your pen and join us. The emphasis will be on God’s glory, not on our going-going-going. And isn’t that the true challenge of Christmas? Slowing down... to worship... Him.

The title of the series (and my first haiku) is A Holiday Haiku: Fewer Words.

Day one: Incarnation - by Bethany Hockenbury

Day two: Advent Light - by Michelle DeRusha

Day three: Christmas Cookies

Day four: Strands of Christmas Lights - by Julie Kieras

Day five: The Fragrance of Christmas - by Mandy Mianecki

Day six: Be Still and Know - by Cathi Speake

Day 7:  Make Room - by Elise Hurd

Day 8: John 3:16

Day 9: Silent Night - by Colleen Mitchell

Day 10: Mary - by Becky Keife

Day 11: Lamb of God - by Angie Mosteller

Day 12: Adoration - by Susan Shipe

Day 13: Christmas Traditions

Day 14: Herod - by Kelli Stuart

Day 15: Search me O God this Christmastime - by Katie M. Reid

Day 16: Jesus was a Child - by Angie Mosteller

Day 17: Christmas Carols - by Alle McCloskey

Day 18: Christmas Hospitality - by Kris Camealy

Day 19: Angels We Have Heard on High

Day 20: Emmanuel - by Tara Ulrich

Day 21: Contented Christmas - by Amber Lia

Day 22: The Shepherds - by Gayl Write

Day 23: Christmas Presents

Day 24: Salvation

Now pick up your pen and join the fun...

17 syllables. That’s it.

17 syllables each day to point our hearts back to Christ this Christmas.

17 syllables broken into 3 lines. The first holds 5 syllables, the second has 7, and the third line wraps it up with another 5. 

17 syllables remind me of these lyrics:

Each day you holds a new writing prompt  - one word, a short phrase, a lyric, Christmas character, or a scripture reference to inspire your Haiku. Then advent with the Lord as you type out your worshipful response. Leave your poem in the comment thread, or share it on Instagram #holidayhaiku.

Writing, motherhood, and sacrifice

Back when I started blogging on a small private platform, sharing my timid words with only a close circle of friends, I was in survival mode. I was writing as a means to point my overwhelmed heart (and maybe a few others) back to Jesus on my weariest of mothering days. And it worked. The flow of words buoyed me up and carried me down the river with my three young boys. Eventually, patio popsicles gave way to afternoons at the skatepark, as boys grew into miniature men. The seemingly endless season of post-partum-depression came to an end, and thus began life post-partum-depression. As my hormones found their way home, so did I. And I continued to write as I learned again to live at peace within my skin.

[Tweet "When a woman's life transforms, so does her writing."]

A little over a year ago I launched this blog to celebrate my own growing up. Because what I found is that when children grow up, so does their mom!  Slowly, rediscovering her own independence as they discover theirs. It's a beautiful marriage of freedom, theirs and ours, as we walk this life together, intertwined.

There I was, just a little over a year ago:

Breathing deeper, so I began writing deeper;

Seeing clearer, so I was speaking clearer;

Hoping stronger, so my words of hope held more strength too.

It was here that I found my voice, upon these pages.

Writing bolder, because I was living brave and bold;

Laughing louder, because my children made me laugh;

Sleeping deeper, dreaming in the uninterrupted nighttime hours.

Life today is not without challenges, heartaches,

nor forehead-to-the-ground prayer sessions,

but I'm not paralyzed by the journey any more.

In fact, I feel set free to enjoy it:

The mothering and wife-ing and writing it all out,

still pointing my heart to Jesus as I do.

Free to trust, instead of fear,

free to hope, instead of doubt,

free to love, instead of tremble,

free to sing, instead of moan.

Looking back at this transformation,

from lamentations to psalms of praise,

I can see clearly the Lord  seated upon the throne of my life -

reigning sovereign over each season.

And from this vantage point my response is still the same...

                       ...to write.

There are, however, times - seasons - when writing simply doesn't fit, because life presses in too tight. Oh, the ache of such crowded hours.

"Why, oh why did I start this diary, knowing how crowded my life had been for many years? When it is almost impossible to write letters it seems the height of absurdity to attempt self-recording of any sort. As it is, I can only snatch moments to jot down fragmentary paragraphs or ideas which I have no time to develop, as a hungry man seizes mouthfuls of food. But having gone so far, as I have, I cannot now let go the raw material I have retrieved from oblivion; it will brighten my dull moments in retrospect." (Helen Keller, April 1, 1938)

I know a young woman, with two perfectly fairy-like daughters who cover their Mama in maple syrup kisses. Their life together is blessed - blessed the way my life was most certainly blessed when I was most certainly overwhelmed by the blessings, just a few short years ago.

She used to write upon the pages of her blog, about the marvelous and the mundane. And then she returned to work and suffered some personal loss that nearly consumed her whole.

Things had been quiet for some time, so I went looking for her words just the other day, and found that she had shut her website down. Because sometimes you have to shut down vital organs to survive. What irony! Words for a writer are like the heart thump-pumping and the lungs in and exhaling.

[Tweet "When a woman is also a mother, sometimes she must shut down a piece of herself, in order for the whole to survive. We call it sacrifice."]

There are seasons for that. And I honor this mother's sacrifice.

In this season, as my young friend puts her nose down to the business at hand, I am imagining her, here and there, jotting down little notes to herself for a future day. Notes scribbled within the pages of her extensive journal collection. It is my prayer for her, and for you, if your life is too crowded right now to indulge in your own private pleasures, that you might carve out cracks and crevices, slivers of stolen moments, to scribble down dreams and record visions for another day.

“I’m a collector of journals.

I keep them stashed in the console of my car,

tucked into the folds of my purse,

laid on the shelf in my entryway,

stacked by the jewelry box on my dresser,

and sometimes pushed deep into the back pocket of my worn out jeans.

My husband makes jokes but the truth is that they are everywhere.

Every day I spill my heart out in ink on the paper of these journals.”

(Mindy Rogers, 2014)

Growing Old Together - A love story

Hereby Grace Paley

Here I am in the garden laughing an old woman with heavy breasts and a nicely mapped face

how did this happen well that's who I wanted to be

at last a woman in the old style sitting stout thighs apart under a big skirt grandchild sliding on off my lap a pleasant summer perspiration

that's my old man across the yard he's talking to the meter reader he's telling him the world's sad story how electricity is oil or uranium and so forth I tell my grandsom run over to your grandpa ask him to sit beside me for a minute I am suddenly exhausted by my desire to kiss his sweet explaining lips

Today is our 14th wedding anniversary. 14 years of growing old together, only we're not really old. Not yet. Though we've three sun-drenched boys with sandy feet and hair all askew running through our house today. And I'm planning his fortieth birthday party. But I just know that I'm gong to blink and suddenly it will have all changed, and so will I.

Gravity.

And we'll be sitting together on the couch for his eightieth, reminiscing about when we were forty. And maybe we'll even recall with some clarity the years before, when we were really young.

The first 18 months were euphoric for us. While many newlyweds suffer tremendously in their early days of marriage, we were giddy! As an actress I had auditions and sporadic jobs, but most of my days were spent looking through bon apetite magazines, and coming up with fun menus or new ways to arrange the furniture. I grew an herb garden and made all sorts of flavorful sauces from scratch. When Matt came home he'd find the bbq fired up and his wife swimming naked in the pool.

Which may have had something to do with the babies boys born in quick succession. So much blue!  Blue onsies and balls and even the baby blues that can shake a woman and a marriage. We were over the moon until we were overwhelmed. And we had to learn to love all over again as I cared for my children and he cared for us in other ways... like paying the bills and mowing the yard. But it was all caring, and we were busy and sometimes forgot to talk.

Life got messy at this point. I'm not referring to the spilled milk, or my painful attempts to nurse my newest baby. I'm not talking about the poop that found it's way out of diapers and onto the furniture... Life got messy because I couldn't seem to manage it all. The cooking, the laundry, the cleaning, the park dates, sleep deprivation, the trips to the doctor for baby number three... Needless to say, my sweet man and I ceased spending good time together.

Oh, we have been so blessed to have my mom and his take the children every now and then so that we can get away together, but in our day in and day out existence, we were simply surviving. And I began to miss him. Even as I write those words I sense the miracle of our experience. So many couples "grow apart" during these years with young ones underfoot, but we missed one another. Praise the Lord! Both of us longed for our friendship and the laughter, even when we were too tired or grumpy to delight in one another.

We are not quite out of the woods yet, but I am beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. One day soon I will have my man again by my side; not running to the left to grab one little hand as I run to the right to catch hold of another. But I don't want to push past where we are today.

I want to live "Here," in this moment, rather than wishing the days away. I know that when I get "there" at the end of my children's growing up years, I will have my man by my side 'til we're good and old; but I will miss their popsicle kisses, their declarations of love, and their promises to marry me. And so I purpose to live "Here" today, and find as many moments as I can along the way to taste tomorrow in my man's sweet kisses.

When you're desperate for your kids to believe these words - I love you

 

There are moments when all the matter of emotion in my heart gets stirred up like a sand storm over these children and it hurts - literally, physically breaks me. Oh that they know it! That the particles of it are swirling on their skin and get caught up in their nostrils, that they might inhale it deeply. Believing. Yes, I want them to know it deep-down-deep and own it, assured. They are loved.

I whisper it fiercely, sing it sweetly, tickle their backs with the skin-to-skin reminder. "I love you." More than words, "I love you" is real and near and safe, here in their childhood home.

Seven things that communicate this safety net we call Love

1) Good Morning Rubs - Wake your children with a touch and gentle words - I know that mornings can be rush, and grace can be elusive when we're hurrying out the door, but here at the beginning of summer purpose to indulge in slow waking up moments with a song and a rub.  My children especially enjoy a good butt rub as I sing, Rise and shine and give God the glory!

2) Breakfast Prayers - My children don't get rote prayers at the breakfast table around these parts.  Once their food is on the table we bow our heads and give a shout out to the one who gave us each new day, the sun on the rise, the unifying love of brotherhood, the flowers beyond our kitchen window, the zipline in the yard beyond.  Now don't for a second think that my middle kid isn't sneaking sips of milk, or that the youngest isn't kicking the oldest under the table.  I'm just flat out determined to praise God for each new day regardless.  I've decided that harping about their disrespectful attitude during breakfast prayers won't help them grow up to praise God any better.  So a gentle reminder is what I give, then I wrap it up with an Amen let's eat!

3) Ordinary, every day celebrations - Whether it is dinnertime in front of the TV or picnics in the back yard, saying yes to home-front adventures of the simplest variety communicates that family is a celebration.  My mom used to randomly throw us Teddy Bear Parties. We would bring all our stuffed animals to the dinner table - every chair in the house, pulled into the dinning room for our stuffed friends, and always cake for desserts.  Soft, cuddly, tasty, celebratory memories of a mother's love.

4) Relationships with dear friends - Allowing other adults to pour love into the lives of our little ones is paramount.  Having an occasional "girl's night out" is crucial for mom, but don't forget to get families together and OFTEN!  Grow family friendships, break bread, vacation together.  Love one anther's kids like family, bless one another's children, and be there for celebrations and sorrows alike. This past year my kids' school had a grandparents day and none of our grandparents could be there, so one of our best adult friends showed up in the middle of his work day to tour the children's classrooms.  "Uncle Pat," they called our friend, and their hearts swelled.  I have no doubt that in the years to come my boys will turn to Uncle Pat for counsel and encouragement many times.

5) Traditions are the roads that love travels down time and again -  Friday night movie nights, water skiing at the lake every summer, playing chess with dad, date nights with mom... traditions are those things (big and small) that you do over and over again and again.  A pathway in little brains, going deeper and deeper each time the familiar road is trod upon.  The message is spoken over again as batch after batch of brownies come out of kitchen ovens... "You are worth celebrating. I love being with you.  Our family is all about love!"

6) Word's of life - His pupils take over the speckled colors of his eyes.  Dilating in response to words that say I love you.  Every time I lean into the quiet and whisper, "I really like you son.  I like the way you treat your Grandma, the way you help me in the kitchen, the way you serve the little kids at church.  You are such a sweetheart of a boy and I just like being with you so much. You are going to be a wonderful husband one day, such a good daddy.  I love watching you grow up!"

7) Read books that model love - The love in a home between husband and wife, the love between a man and his God, the love between brothers and friends.  Lift up your voice and baptize your children with the pictures of love throughout literature, poetry, and the Bible.

8) Don't beat around the bush, talk about love point blank - Bathe them in conversation about love in all its various forms. And point it out, praise them for loving in the every day moments of living. "I just saw you love your brother!  Good job loving me tonight with your hugs and your words.  You showed love for our neighbors today when you swept their driveway!"

9) Night time Blessings - I thought that tuck-ins were going to be delightful with young children.  They proved harder, not so simple, with one issue or another arising each night.  But I believe in persevering through the melt-downs and demands. I press on, through I'm exhausted, because I want my children to remember their Mama's voice singing blessings over them.  "Praise God from whom all blessings flow, Praise Him all creatures here below, Praise Him above ye heavenly host, Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost." That's a good one there; A doxology to end long days.  Or our family's favorite nighttime tune: "The Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make His face shine upon you, and give you peace forever..."

10) Our private prayers - After the children are down for the night, or scattered throughout your days in an unceasing sort of way... pray.  Pray that the Lord's Holy Spirit continues to chase your children down and woo them to faith.  Pray that God's Spirit knits the hearts under your roof together in a supernatural way as you all sleep.  Pray for His unifying love to fill and overflow from every heart in your home.  Ask like a squeaky wheel each night that God would speak truth into the ears of your beloveds: "You are loved and safe here in this family.  You will grow to love and serve Me here.  You will love as you have been loved and care as you have been cared for.  Home is My gift to you.  Home."

Dear Moms and Dads, (and listen up my own heart too) this short season that stretches on in the most weary making way, is designed by Love for love.  God, who is love, planned the family as He did that we might love well and train them up to love their own generation and the next.  Love is not this elusive thing to be private about.  Love is radical and purposeful and a muscular sort of life that saves and serves and celebrates.  Love is our calling.  Love is the Light and the Salt and the heartbeat in every believer's breast.  Love is like an arbor grounding our children.  Love gives them the vision and the strength they will need to one day go out and build similar arbors of safety for those they love well on the other side of childhood.

Loving is an honor, our high calling. I want to grab it purposefully with my own two hands and build it well with my words and my touches and my reading and my singing, my laughter and my tuck-ins and my wake-ups, and my “come to the dinner” hollers into the back yard. All of it communicating this: I love you.

The Calling In What Remains Of Your Life

by John Blase

The eyes of the aspen are watching to see if before you cross over to that next place you’ll take your simple life and grind it up in your imagination so as to build exquisite arbors of memory your children and children’s children can stand beneath and find shade. If you are faithful to this calling then future generations might pause beneath the shelter of your effort, shored up with the knowing that one of their kin dared each day to look unafraid into the very heart of this sorrowed heaven on earth and that even in the vex of grief said thank you, thank you for it all. The eyes of the aspen are watching to see if you’ll spend the remains of your life this way. If so these earthly angels promise gold as you surrender, a quaking whisper of those forgotten words from the old book: well done.

Books for Boys

Lunch is for poetry.

One afternoon, as my sons sat eating apples and meat roll-ups, I flipped through a worn book of good poems.  Infact, the collection was entitled, Good Poems, comprised by Garrison Keilor. Often I read, Nothing Gold Can Stay, by Robert Frost, but that day I landed on a new one, For All, by Gary Snyder... and the boys leaned in.

---

For All

Ah to be alive on a mid-September morn fording a stream barefoot, pants rolled up, holding boots, pack on, sunshine, ice in the shallows, northern rockies.

Rustle and shimmer of icy creek waters stones turn underfoot, small and hard as toes cold nose dripping singing inside creek music, heart music, smell of sun on gravel.

I pledge allegiance

I pledge allegiance to the soil of Turtle Island, and to the beings who thereon dwell one ecosystem in diversity under the sun With joyful interpenetration for all.

(For All, by Gary Snyder)

One stanza in particular made me stop and read it again, asking the boys to stop their munching, close their eyes, and consume the imagery instead.

Rustle and shimmer of icy creek waters stones turn underfoot, small and hard as toes cold nose dripping singing inside creek music, heart music, smell of sun on gravel.

That first line, calling upon three different senses to describe a simple rippling brook - rustling, shimmering, icy.  And then the sting of bitter cold in nostrils and the way a heart sings happy, and the smell of gravel in the sunshine.  The boys all nodded, deep nods, because... well... boys know about adventure in the great outdoors - even if their great outdoors is 18 square feet of backyard with cinderblock boarders.  Boys understand blades of grass and snails in the dirt, and the smell of each season, and the salty sweet taste of their own sweat.

What am I getting at?  Simply this: Boys need great books filled with masculine adventures, imagery, and imagination.  They need to flex the muscles of their heart and mind as they flex their sinewy legs and arms, pumping hard outside each day. Boys need kind farmers and noble knights and gentle women and magic, loads and loads of magic.  I do not know nearly enough, but I know that boys need books.  Books and backyards and mothers.  I don't have an exhaustive list of books for boys to share with you today, but I will offer you these few titles with my hearty endorsement. Order one today for your boys!

Books for Boys

All Creatures Great and Small or All Things Bright and Beautiful, by  James Herriot (ages 3-8)

Billy and Blaze, written and illustrated by C.W.Anderson (ages 4-8)

Swiss Family Robinson, by Johann David Wyss (Classic Starts Series, ages 8-10)

Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis (ages 7-107)

Little Men, by Louisa May Alcott (ages 8-16)

My Side of the Mountain, by Jean Craighead George (ages 9-11)

Where the Red Fern Grows, by Wilson Rawls (ages 9-11)

Summer of the Monkeys, by Wilson Rawls (ages 9-11)

Old Yeller, by Fred Gipson (ages 9-11)

Pax, Sara Pennypacker (ages 8-12)

Hatchet, by Gary Paulsen (ages 12-16)

Navigating Early, by Clare Vanderpool (ages 12-16)

My personal all-time favorite read-aloud: Saved at Sea, by Mrs. O. F. Walton

And one to help you understand the wild inside your men: Wild at Heart, by John Eldredge

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And now a poem that I wrote for my eldest, who loves to read and loves to be read to, and who cries at just the right spots. 

I finished it

He tumbled out of his room, wiping wet from his eye and smiled, accomplish, then sighed, “Well, I finished it.”

“Was it good?” I asked over the stove and he nodded it was so… so good, he’s sad he finished it.

Two dogs with their boy, a hatchet in hand So like my son who longs to be a man, but he’s not finished yet.

This growing up wild and growing up free and growing up reading in the crook of a tree till we’ve finished it.

But the day will come with he’s grown up and gone and the books on his shelf will sing out like a song, “Well, we finished it.”

by Wendy Speake