“The answer must be, I think, that beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there.”
Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

I never know how to start during these moments. The space I have is so narrow, too narrow for all the thoughts and fears, memories and questions, sighs and wanderings. I want to be poetic. I want to be still. I want to be alone and comfortable. I want to cry. I want to sing. There is not time.

So I will simply start. I will turn to the pages of this yellowed book, favored and familiar pages with good stories. I will be present with the pages that tell my story – and all our stories. I will inhale the pages that breathe life, truth, and grace. And I will fall in my trembling place when the pages say, “Just stay where you are. I’m coming to get you.”

Jude was asleep in the car seat as I pulled into the parking lot this morning. In a spot of sunshine, I would wait for him to wake up in time to make it to my stroller-mommy workout.

I listened to him breathing deeply, his fingers gripping a teething ring. As I watched his motionless face, his eyes closed so tight and his mouth open in surrendered slumber, my mind traced a random line back to the final days of my pregnancy.

It was a beautiful, whole and healthy pregnancy that I loved and would do again in a heartbeat. But those last few days of waiting were torture. You see, I had it in my head that Jude would come early (so much for motherly intuition). So when he still hadn’t come by his due date, I was angry, sad and a little worried.

In the waiting days, Jason and I did all sorts of things – some crazy, some sane – to pass the time. We made rosaries and painted model cars. We took walks. We blew up an air mattress and slept in the living room with all the windows open for nearly three weeks. We watched movies and ordered gluten-free pizzas. We did our best to keep our minds off the waiting, but as each day passed without a sign of Jude’s arrival, I couldn’t ignore the growing ache.

I knew I couldn’t be pregnant forever, but as 41 weeks of pregnancy came and went, I began to wonder if I may be the world’s first perpetually pregnant woman.

For me, Advent is something like that. There’s so much promise. So much beauty. So much good just on the horizon. But it can seem to stretch on and on and on as we wait for what’s coming. And we really don’t know exactly what’s coming. We think we know. But we really don’t. And no one can tell us entirely. We just have to wait. And see. And we do all sorts of things – some crazy, some sane – to pass the time.

But there will be a birth. There must be. We – all of us – and creation cannot groan forever.

I sat in our Advent service today, my eyes a bit glazy from the days before. In a week of new sites, sounds and people in Jude’s life, he required more of my care and attention to balance out the increased stimulation. It once again made me keenly aware of his deep dependence on me. Not just for food and shelter, but for compassion and energy, gentleness and peace.

As I held a sleeping Jude next to my heart, I glanced over the hymnal again and again to be sure I was reading the words right. The helpless babe… was what the Christmastime hymn had to say about Jesus.

Helpless.
Jesus.
Really?

I looked down at Jude and thought about how helpless he is. As it stands, he is utterly dependent on the care and kindness of someone else (namely, me) for every necessity. It’s hard to imagine Jesus in the same position as an infant. I mean, think of it – the being who spoke universes and mountains into existence incapable of lifting his head without Mary’s hand behind it.

Seems that Jesus gave more than we sometimes remember. Not just in coming to save his creation, but in entrusting his strong and holy self to the likes of a teenage mother and her betrothed. It says something about Christ. It says something about us, too. That somehow he believes we weak and frail beings are worthy of holding divinity in our hands and tending to his every need.

The thunderhead, black and pregnant with rain, blows across my path again.
A night of wind and breath, questions and groaning.
Will it rain?
It looks like rain.
Is that a drop?
What if there’s rain?
What if there’s no rain?
The air is thick with chaos and humidity as tall grasses bend low and shush loudly.
But then, as quickly as it moved in, the gale pushes the storm beyond the place where I am.
No storm tonight.
Only clouds.
And currents pitching against one another.
And I am left again in the wake of warm breezes on a strange and erratic precipice.
Wondering.
Hoping.
In the wild waiting place.

*For Jude.
I should have known you’d throw all our expectations to the wind, you little wild man.
We love you…and love waiting for you.

Cold glass of water.

DVR episode of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.

And the silent rhythm of pre-labor contractions, my breath and the life inside.

We’re getting close, little Jude. Just a few things left to do. Your birth day is almost here.

I’ve told Jason many times that he’s my hero. In so many ways (mostly intangible ways) he has come to my rescue, slayed the beast and recovered my heart.

But recently Jason became a hero for an entire village.

When he found out about Ellie’s Run for Africa and that it only costs $25 to put one child through school for a year, he didn’t hesitate a second. He signed up immediately to be a hero and run the 5K race on Saturday, June 13 to raise awareness and support for children in Kibera, Kenya.

In just five years, Ellie’s Run has:

• Raised over $155,000
• Helped put over 420 kids in school by providing them with necessary items – books, uniforms and shoes
• Helped build classrooms and laboratories at a school located in Kibera, Kenya
• Helped build a vocational school in Kenya – where students can learn and develop a trade
• Donated funds for medical supplies at Mercy Children’s Clinic in Kenya and the Living Hope Clinic in South Africa to help Africans suffering from dehydration, malaria, starvation and HIV/AIDS

Learn more about being a hero for the children of Kibera and come out for the race. Or support Jason. Believe me…there’s nothing like seeing your hero be a hero to someone else.

Maybe since I have such a love affair with words, I’m more altered by them. But maybe you’re altered, too. So, as a toast to life-giving words (and the ones who so transparently offer them), I wanted to share a few I picked up along my path this week…

“We have magic adventures, more wonderful than any I have told you about; but now, when we wake up in the morning, they are gone before we can catch hold of them.”
- A.A. Milne, The House at Pooh Corner

“Lucky I’m in love with my best friend
Lucky to have been where I have been
Lucky to be coming home again…”
- Jason Mraz, Lucky

“Nothing moves a woman so deeply as the boyhood of the man she loves.”
- Annie Dillard

“If I turn to the suburbs where I live and see the pretentious mega-houses, the ugly shopping malls strewn about to make consumption more efficient, and the alluring billboards promising comfort and relaxation in very seductive ways – all of that while forests are demolished, streams dried up, deer and rabbits and birds driven out of my environment – I am not surprised that my body screams for a healing touch and a reassuring embrace.”
- Henri Nouwen, Life of the Beloved

“Perhaps the real answer is beyond human understanding: we know so little about Time and Individuality.”
- C.S. Lewis, Yours, Jack

“You are never more Christ-like than when you are choked with compassion for the brokenness of others.”
- Brennan Manning

“There is no fear in love…”
- 1 John 4:18

If you are an Introvert, know that there is nothing wrong with you.
- Kathy Reed O’Gorman, columnist

“What’s wrong with her?”

“I know. Why does she have to be such a, well, such a hermit?”

As I solitarily meandered aisles of old Mason jars and dusty bone china, the two ladies in the antique store chatted back and forth about their friend for several minutes.

“Well, I’ve never heard her talk about more than one or two friends. And she never wants to go out.”

“I know. I feel sorry for her. She’s got a problem.”

I felt sorry for their friend, too. But not because she had a problem. I felt sorry for this “hermit” friend because it is obvious that she is an introvert living in an extrovert’s world.

I, too, am an introvert. Ever since I took the Myers-Briggs test about ten years ago, officially outing myself as a hardline introvert and finally understanding what that meant, I have felt guilty. (And, believe me, ten years is a long time to feel guilty.)

Guilty that I’d rather stay home alone when Jason goes on his occasional guy night or camping trip. Guilty that social events and parties drain me dry. Guilty that my queen-for-a-day scenario has only one requirement: solitude.

Introvert = Guilt

But as I found myself eavesdropping on the bewildering conversation of these two extroverted women, I took comfort in this article I’d just read: “Being an Introvert in an Extroverted World.” I took comfort in the fact that we introverts do not have something wrong with us. That our God-given traits are not some mistake for our extroverted friends to “fix.”

It’s just a matter of understanding one another a little better.

So, if you, like these women at the antique store, ever feel confused, flummoxed or even slighted by your introvert friend, then I highly recommend this article. And if you, like me, ever feel guilty, berated or misunderstood for being an introvert, gulp down this cup of wisdom.

“I guess we’ll just keep trying to help her come out of her shell.”

That was the last thing I heard as I left the musty shop. As the door closed behind me, I wondered if I should have said something – something kind, something balanced, something to help these women see their friend in a different light. I didn’t want to meddle. But maybe I should have said something anyway.

After all, I know we’d all rather be alone, but we introverts gotta stick together.

I sat in my car rubbing my pregnant belly, watching the man like a hawk. He couldn’t have looked more benign, more friendly, more well-meaning. But it didn’t matter. I had become momma bear.

I’ve heard that this is a state of being not uncommon to pregnant women. Toward the final days and weeks of pregnancy, an overwhelming desire to nest and protect take over the most rational thoughts and turn a perfectly normal woman into an aggressive, untrusting creature.

If I’m like that at our apartment in the confines of my locked car with a harmless maintenance man, just imagine me out in public. I am a beast. From insane drivers to the strange man at the gas station who keeps looking at me to the nice cashier at the grocery store who reaches out to touch my belly, it makes no difference. Everyone is a threat. In momma bear world, there is no distinction.

One article I read said, “One of the most dangerous bears that a human can encounter is a mother bear protecting her young.” Another article reiterated that by saying, “A mother bear with cubs is at her most aggressive state.” And finally, Bear.org found that, “attacks by defensive mothers account for 70 percent of human deaths from grizzly bears.”

I’m not sure what the remedy is for momma bear syndrome (MBS). Maybe there is no cure. Maybe it’s chronic. Maybe even when I have little Jude in my arms, the MBS won’t go away. And I suppose that’s not a terrible thing. It’s just maternal instinct, a really good urge that helps us protect our children, even if sometimes we end up protecting them from harmless dangers.

But one thing’s for sure: I have undeniably contracted the MBS bug. And it doesn’t seem to be going away. So the singing maintenance man better watch his back.

I just finished reading Cathleen Falsani’s book Sin Boldly today. As I closed the last page of the book, I couldn’t help smiling and feeling a bit lighter on my feet.

Maybe it was the combo of finishing her book the same day I started re-reading Henri Nouwen’s Life of the Beloved.

Maybe it was the Spring air and the puffs of white clouds in an afternoon sky.

Maybe it was a surge of nice pregnancy hormones.

But whatever it was, I came out of the week-long funk I’d been in as I read the last chapter of Cathleen’s treatise on grace. I even laughed.

It probably had something to do with the way she helped me stretch my grace muscles this past month, to see all the nooks and crannies where grace resides…sometimes really ugly and uncommon pockets of the world where grace abides. But it also had something to do with finding such a common voice, a soul sister of sorts, in the pages of Sin Boldly. I heard echoes of my own feelings, hesitancies and hopes as she recorded her interactions with extraordinary people.

Take this conversation, for example, as a Vermont native questions Cathleen about her religious background.

“Wait, go back to that Southern Baptist part,” Julia said, interrupting, as she does. “Are you born-again?” articulating her question as if she were asking me if I were really a headhunter or a Martian.

“Yes,” I said, “but I’m not an asshole. At least not theologically speaking.”

I could picture myself saying the exact same thing to any number of people who ask me if I’m a Christian. Because, let’s face it, Christians (like every other group) get stereotyped, pigeon-holed and otherwise ridiculed due to the asshole-ness of a few poor representatives of the faith (though we are – all of us – poor representatives of Jesus more often than not).

But I digress. That was just one small example of why I loved this book. The candidness, the messiness, the laugh-out-loud-ness, the unorthodox search for love and grace, mercy and peace. It is a book I highly recommend to anyone who wants to be moved a step or two closer to an understanding of unearned favor, unmerited joy, undeserved love. Because, as Frederick Buechner says, “in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.”

Amen, brother Buechner. And thanks, Ms. Falsani. You have helped me break off another link in the chain of lies that bind me to ungrace. Grace has indeed taken me “by the hand and romanced me.”