happy new year

And suddenly, the new year is here.

We enjoyed a wonderful rest of our vacation...with an emphasis on the word REST. Recovering from surgery turned out to be a gift, after all. I made an art form of sleeping in (which I have never really been able to do before) and even spending two entire days in my new Christmas pajamas. It was absolutely lovely. I read a book my sister loaned me--Eat, Love, Pray--and this continued to work grace throughout the time, and inspired me to further thinking and prayer. The boys, too, seemed to take much time for rest. They enjoyed a sleepover they had planned, played with a friend from the neighborhood, visited with my grandparents...and then suddenly, the days were winding to an end, our Christmas tree was coming down, our living room furniture back to their usual places. New Year's Eve we spent reviving a tradition by working for our dear friends who own two Chinese restaurants--one in Lynn, and one in Swampscott. Jason delivered for the Swampscott restaurant while I answered the phones and took orders ("Do you have mishi?" And I'm thinking, "WHAT is mishi?!"), and the boys played in the restaurant's playroom with the owner's children. We all had a great time, actually--it put new meaning on spending the new year with friends, as there is nothing quite like helping your friends to accomplish their life's dream (a good resolution for us all: to help someone toward their dream this year).

In the meantime, we, too, have been dreaming. Of a different kind of church. Of a different way to live. And this year, 2008, is apparently going to be the year to put some of these dreams into action (I say "apparently" because all of the sudden, in the space we had of a 2-week vacation to pray and to talk, Jason and I are feeling directed and are hungry for all God intends for us to be). We're working to finish up a few small house projects this winter, and have decided to try to sell our house this spring. We have a dream to live in community with some dear friends, and some friends we want to be more dear than our busy lives currently afford. You can pray with us as we start looking this Saturday for a 3-family for purchase here in Lynn. We're hoping to move into one of the condos, and to enjoy the benefits of community life as our friends move in around (above? below?) us. We're truly tired of the American way of life...so isolating, so wasteful, so un-REAL. This Christmas I had a revelation--that the only growth of lasting value in my life happens because I am loved by others around me, an Incarnation of Jesus' love that FORCES me to deal with how great His love must really be. I can go no further in my knowing of Love without a community to hold me in Love more regularly than I myself, than my little family, can do. I am terrified to be so open with others, to share life with them in a real way, but is there any other way to truly find life? I think not.

Especially after all the reminders I also had this vacation that "the world is too much with us." Grieving friends. Grieving family. Friends caught between relationships. Friends unable to bear children. Children who have died, and are dying too soon. A colleague today who is grieving so acutely that her mantra "the whole fucking shitty world" took my breath away. This evening I emailed a sad friend more of our discussion about the Jesus we (try to) believe in. A Jesus not of triumph, but of great suffering. A recognition that we are together in our suffering--we humans, and if we can accept such a humble God--Jesus, too. In a grieving world, we need each other. And this Christmas this is what I realized--that the friends who sat with ME in my grief, in my doubt, in my suffering, in my stress, in my absolute awful-ness--their presence affirmed for me that I am worth something. That if my friend, my sisters, my husband, can sit on my couch when I'm at my worst, and keep coming back, then Jesus can, too. And He does. In them.

So happy new year to all. May this year be a year in which we can discover the Jesus-of-the-couch, come to sit with us, wherever we are, and to love us still. My resolution: I want to know His loving presence like a dear, dear friend who cries easily and loves lavishly.