Finding Light {A Post At Mom Heart}

My floor is cluttered with remnants of our day as I write. A ballet tutu recently adored during an afternoon of pirouettes hangs from the chair, a sword lays resting after battle, right smack in the middle of my coffee table and puzzle pieces are strewn all across the dining room. I have scoured our counters and floors again and again today, finding homes for interesting objects, filling our shelves with treasures in small swoops.

Even with more tidying waiting for my hands, I am done…I’m weary and mostly mush, but I’m choosing to stop and just stare at the un-ending scene of it all. Part of my mind never quite settles when there are tasks that lay ready, I get almost itchy with a compulsion to make our space look perfect. It can  take over me and until  I just see one (just one!) clean surface.

Sometimes when I am on my best behavior,  I can make a game out of the tasks that come with the  keeping of a home. Other times (which I think are more often) I remind myself of that awful nurse in The Velveteen Rabbit. You know, the one  who had no love or understanding of the soul and beauty of the nursery? The one who never understood  the real magic that lay behind The Skin Horse, the beloved Rabbit or even the mechanical toys. I always looked on her with such pity as a child. Did she even know she had been this close to something so wonderful and so rare and that she had missed it? How dreary to be that type of grown-up.

I don’t want to miss the magic…

Will you join me over at Mom Heart Online for the rest of my story today? And do say hello to our new community there if you haven’t already? 

Our Small Corner of the World

This is where we come to play and chase…

climb trees…

and pose…

We’d been getting a little restless…

 Climbing the walls even…

And since it looks like this outside…

We just plan on doing a lot more of this for a while…

We are so thankful for Spring. How are things in your own little corner?

A New Blog {and Where I've been}

Mothers work wonders once they realize that wonders are demanded of them. ~Charlotte Mason

I’ve been living out a bit of a balancing act lately. Not really here nor there, missing from my own blog and laboring in hiding at my new venture. So what exactly have I been up to and why won’t I answer email or pick up the phone?  (I promise I still love you, Mom!)

I’ve written before about my sweet friend and mentor, Sally and the way that her words have nurtured my own heart and home, through her books and teaching. We started dreaming together nearly two years ago, about an online space for mothers. I still remember waking early with her in my teeny apartment and whispering over candlelight and buckets of coffee about our wild dreams for our writing; about the longings God had placed in our hearts, and our desire for beauty and inspiration for mamas to come forth from all we envisioned.  More than a blog, or a ministry website, we wanted to shape a haven for mothers to come and find the warmth and nurture of a home, and be encouraged to go out and pour into the lives of others.

I am just one mom, one small person, who often feels overwhelmed with my own responsibilites and relationships and laundry piles, and I often wonder at the reality that God would want to use even me, the crazy, harried girl that I am, to love on and encourage other women in their high calling as mothers.

How many other moms are there like me, longing to take part in something epic and so beyond themselves, but not sure how to begin? How many want to know they are impressing something lovely upon the lives of their children and others they invest in? How many question whether the work they do in their own homes is lasting and beautiful and affecting generations? How many are lonely and wonder if living a life formed by high ideals is worth it? I believe that just one mom with a heart to say, “I am here, Jesus, use me.” can change the world.

And so I have dreamed, along with my friends, about igniting a movement of mothers who say yes and we have worked to forge a place where mamas can come and find encouragement an equiping, and a seed of courage to encounter God’s heart for them then to share it. Today I am so excited to share with you that Mom Heart Online is launching! Its a beautiful website with some incredible writers, all of whom I am so humbled to work with and glean wisdom from. Its is also full of resources (with more being added!) about starting Mom Heart groups, about your heart as a leader and tools for discipleship. Would you join me there and hoot and hollar and cheer at this new baby of a blog?

For those of you who head there today and through Sunday, you can also enter to win a drawing for your choice of one of Sally Clarkson’s Books, Mission of Motherhood, Ministry of Motherhood, Seasons of a Mother’s Heart or Dancing with My Father. Just head to the site, share our button on your blog, tweet, or share on Facebook and make sure you comment here to tell me that you did so! Your name will be entered one time for each way you get the word out! I will choose three winners on Sunday by 5 pm.

The Three Period Lesson

February’s chill burrowed its way into the confines of our apartment and I’m convinced a bit of it settled in our brains as well…turning them to mush by all accounts! The warmth of Spring  that unearths tulips and bulbs, can also be quite affective at removing the kind of the homeschool daze I pack on in the Winter. One of the ways I’m re-focusing is by reminding myself of some basic teaching methods.

Particularly in the Pre-school years, The Three Period Lesson, is a trademark of a Charlotte Mason education, but like so many of her principles, it seems like a common sense approach to the way a day is woven together with young children; talking, pointing out, and sharing observations naturally.

Lesson One is where naming occurs. “Sweetie, this is the color yellow” or “This is the color green.” Or “Oh look at that animal climbing the tree! That is a squirrel!” The opportunities to name and speak with our youngest learners throughout the day are endless really, but the mental shift comes when we engage these opportunities and intentionally plan to build on them.

Lesson Two is where a child shows recognition of a given object, letter or number. In a line of the letters A,B and C, you might ask, “Which one is the letter B?” Or when you are visiting the zoo or reading a book about animals, “Which one is the elephant?” “Can you show mommy the orange fruit?” 

Lesson Three requires that the child has naming, recognition and pronounciation of the word within their menal capabilities. Independently, the child is able to give an answer as you point to any given item and ask “What is this?” 

In our home, The Three Period Lesson is a staple of our pre-school. It is a method that gives some shape to introducing numbers, letters, colors, animals and other objects. 

This week we are also using the three period lesson in:

-Baking I’m measuring and pouring and talking to Lael about cups and teaspoons and the ingredients needed to make her favorite pancakes. She’s nearly ready to make breakfast herself, minus the griddle skills, of course.

-Nature Study As we begin our observation of birds returning to the Northeast this Spring, we are beginning a study of the wren as well as identifying trees and signs of Spring.

-Colors using watercolors along side our impressionist study, Lael is showing mastery in her knowledge of the basics, while the older children are using the color wheel to identify complimentary colors in the elements of design.

-Poetry learning about limmericks or sonnets, the three period lesson can be extended to identify the structure of different styles of poetry, and ultimately, allow the children to create their own works.

So, how do you think you could apply this simple method to what you are teaching this week?

Weekend Links

Here are some of my favorite reads from wandering on the web this week…

~ Living in New York can be lonely for me at times…Heartbreakingly so. I found healing in these words What You Can Find While You’re Waiting on Friends

~ For fellow bloggers, social media directors and brands: I love Stephanie Bryant’s words about how we share who we are in the online space via Stephanie Bryant Social Marketing

~ So much of my own heart is wrapped up in Ann’s words about our Lenten Season The Secret to Fasting in a Lent is Failing

~From my pastor of Community and Justice on how we integrate children into Missional Community

~ And Tickets to this wonderful gathering are now available. Would love to meet you there!

To Really See

My husband met a wildly talented photographer last week and shared with me the beauty of some of  the creative process he was able to observe. Without snapping even one photo, he asked his subjects just to look at one another. To really see….to imagine life without their loved one, to imagine they were saying goodbye and wouldn’t see one another for years.  He encouraged them to share the beauty they saw, just looking deep and remembering…

The couples in the experiment were often brought to tears, holding one another close, expressing truths and care that had been bottled and forgotten. It was as though they fell in love again, right there, before the lens. The photos were stunning. They captured who these people really were. This photographer was able to plumb the depths of their relationship, their fears, their memories, their thanksgiving.  He was able to bring people to a place where they longed to sluff off the moments often taken for granted and bring value to the finite. 

It made me realize how often my gaze is quickly distracted. How often I turn to a task that needs to be done or focus on where we are headed next, instead of just looking long and seeing beyond into the sweet souls before me. 

How often have I missed…

The wind whisping, the thought forming…

Nerves building, hearts needing to be stilled…

The everyday moments to share a meal and laughter…

The moments of heartstrings tied and friendships formed…

Or when being with “just the girls” becomes a part of your sisterhood…

Times when independence is known and flourishing in the midst of big city bustle and noise and all kinds of reasons to hold back from taking flight…

When joy is emulating the man you admire most and just being together…

Or looking at light caught on water like glass and becoming lost in the reflection for the first time.

It’s Lent. We are going slow, living simply. I’m refining and aligning my heart’s affections. I am utterly aware of my humanity as I embrace sacrifice this season.  There is a piece of the sifting that brings my view into focus, a clarity that comes with paring down. My aim is to really see…

Wide Open

Photo credit: Rhys Logan

“There had been a time when the world was full of blank spaces, and in which a man of imagination might be able to give free scope to his fancy. But…these spaces were rapidly being filled up; and the question was where the writer was to turn.”

-Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in honor of Robert Peary, May 1910

The expanse of the west nurtures room for my heart and mind to expand along with it-  to dream wildly, to imagine an epic adventure… There is a vastness, a bleakness to the horizon, that allows for every possibility.

I didn’t even know how crowded my mind had become until I looked upon the open sky. Every muscle in my body slowed under the Colorado blue. The air infused me with a fresh calm, a fresh rhythm. Breathing in and out…slowly taking on the wild, some part of that air staying with me, moving with me. With each breath I took on a bit more of that place, the calm and slow of my surroundings.

In the city I can start to assume that all the rooms have been filled- ideas squeezed tightly together into fine rows…categorized, turned over, already classified. I never cease to feel a part of something big here, a part of something so beyond myself…but the wide open leaves room for me to stand alone; and I had forgotten how necissary it is for my soul to wander and just be. 

How will you just be today?