Well, this week marks our first week of the regular routine. I'm back in school.
After a week of dreaded anticipation, as always, I find that being back in routine is much easier than anticipating the change in routine. I'm taking an ethnography class on Tuesday nights (translation: a style of research that studies cultures and writes in a story-like form) and I'm supposed to be taking an organization theory class tonight (translation: the study of various theories of how organizations function and how to lead them), but with the snow day today, UMass, too, is cancelled.
I can't say I'm disappointed. I had yet another agonizing night of calf cramps last night, interrupting my sleep and leaving me writhing (is this to increase my pain tolerance and/or my ability to function the next day on interrupted sleep?). And I was still (trying to) catch up on sleep from a too-busy weekend--so much fun seeing family (the Winchells Saturday evening and my sister's going away to Liberia party on Sunday), but very long with hours of homework for my classes, Orilus' hours of homework, and basketball games. So it WAS good to sleep in until 8 this morning and have some time to get to some items on our to-do lists. We've also been learning how to play Settlers of Catan today with the boys, which is a really interesting game and a lot of fun.
Thankful this week that my sister and husband got off safely to Liberia (am hoping they arrive tonight!), for a friend's successful surgery, for a few friends' birthdays to celebrate, for Chinese New Year and the fun party we joined Sunday night with our Chinese friends, for time to be home today, and for new and invigorating classes and research work. And the baby (now the size of an...avocado? How weird is that!) is apparently doing well...February 9th, we'll find out if it's a boy or girl (we hope).
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Saturday, January 17, 2009
it's official
As of yesterday, I no longer fit into my favorite jeans.
A pregnancy article I read to say good-bye to my waistline, as it would be a long time until I saw it again.
Okay, true, but do they REALLY need to write that?!
:)
A pregnancy article I read to say good-bye to my waistline, as it would be a long time until I saw it again.
Okay, true, but do they REALLY need to write that?!
:)
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
neighborhood news
We had a most amazing night last night here at Grace House. After a few weeks of blanketing our neighborhood with flyers and talking with neighbors, we had a packed-out living and dining room last night to talk about renovating the park at the top of our hill. It was so exciting to see so many people from so many different walks of life come through our door...from the Ward Councilor to a representative from Lynn's DPW to politically active Lynn-ers to a gang street worker to neighbors who just want to clean up the park and make a better neighborhood. Some new to the neighborhood, others who have been here 10, 2o, and even over 50 years. The excitement in the house was palplable, and I was just so humbled to see the beginnings of what I hope will be a revitalization of this neighborhood. Our children--all the children in these hills of Lynn--deserve our unified efforts.
On a cold winter night in a neighborhood long forgotten in Lynn, a big group of caring people showed up and proved once again that the darkness has not overcome the light. As my good friend signed her email to me today, "Yours in hope." "Hope" seems to be the watchword in Lynn these days. And it feels good, to have so many with whom to hope. Tonight I'm celebrating the gleaming light of hope on this hill.
On a cold winter night in a neighborhood long forgotten in Lynn, a big group of caring people showed up and proved once again that the darkness has not overcome the light. As my good friend signed her email to me today, "Yours in hope." "Hope" seems to be the watchword in Lynn these days. And it feels good, to have so many with whom to hope. Tonight I'm celebrating the gleaming light of hope on this hill.
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Happy New Year
Hello friends,
I know, I know. I owe you all a BIG apology for not updating the blog in two months. I'm so sorry. I will really, really try this coming semester to update at least once a month. I'll try. It's just that the semester passed so quickly...working full-time, taking 2-1/2 doctoral classes, growing our family...I guess I've been a little "busy," though I'm realizing more and more that busyness is a state of mind and really has nothing to do with our schedule. Yesterday I took Orilus to his one-year checkup at Mass General and the doctor had read our Christmas letter (see the following post if you missed it) and she commented on how many changes we've been through this year, how much we have going on. But I, for one, have felt grace and a great amount of peace this semester. I've had a few moments of tears, but mostly, moments of great and abiding Love, a mark of God's work in our family this year.
The grace has extended to the boys, too, who are really doing great. They are HUGE (Orilus especially, who now has outgrown Jackson by 3-1/2 inches and over 10 pounds), and into preteen changes (puberty and all the moods and fun that come with that). They are into sports now (soon, basketball will start, and they continue in swimming lessons) and now that they belong to 3 area YMCA's, we spend a lot of time there as a family, swimming and using the basketball courts. They've also joined their school's drama club this year, and Orilus auditioned for the school play a couple weeks ago...we'll find out soon if he has a part! Jackson has plans to work on the backstage crew. And they've both taken some piano this year (every other week). When they're not begging to go to the Y, they're usually now entertaining us with evening "drama practices" (they like to do improv in our living room), song and dance performances...sweet remnants of childhood that I'm sure won't last many more years.
The most recent news of this week is that we had our very first ultrasound on Tuesday...immediately, an image of a baby lept to the screen, sucking its thumb and wiggling all around! It was amazing. Turns out I'm just 12 weeks, which moved my due date further into July (now July 12th). The boys were able to see the photos afterwards, and they've heard the heartbeat, too...they are SO excited.
We spent our New Year's Eve, as always, delivering Chinese food for our friends who own 2 Chinese restaurants nearby. It was a busy and crazy night, and I have much I'd like to write about the things I observed last night (namely, the way Americans treat service-workers and the nastiness that can ensue when Americans don't get their food ON TIME and HOT, even in the midst of a snowstorm). After just reading Anderson Cooper's books about war-torn countries, Katrina, and starving children, I had trouble reconciling the American spirit of "New Year" (give me mine, now) with much of the world's (let me live, please).
So am praying to experience an ongoing season of grace this New Year as I continue to be uncomfortable with America's culture and to find ways to stay aware of the rest of the world. Grace for a new semester of classes. Grace for these months as we anticipate our baby's arrival. "Surely goodness and mercy will follow me..." This is the confidence of the Christ-follower, and my meditation today.
I know, I know. I owe you all a BIG apology for not updating the blog in two months. I'm so sorry. I will really, really try this coming semester to update at least once a month. I'll try. It's just that the semester passed so quickly...working full-time, taking 2-1/2 doctoral classes, growing our family...I guess I've been a little "busy," though I'm realizing more and more that busyness is a state of mind and really has nothing to do with our schedule. Yesterday I took Orilus to his one-year checkup at Mass General and the doctor had read our Christmas letter (see the following post if you missed it) and she commented on how many changes we've been through this year, how much we have going on. But I, for one, have felt grace and a great amount of peace this semester. I've had a few moments of tears, but mostly, moments of great and abiding Love, a mark of God's work in our family this year.
The grace has extended to the boys, too, who are really doing great. They are HUGE (Orilus especially, who now has outgrown Jackson by 3-1/2 inches and over 10 pounds), and into preteen changes (puberty and all the moods and fun that come with that). They are into sports now (soon, basketball will start, and they continue in swimming lessons) and now that they belong to 3 area YMCA's, we spend a lot of time there as a family, swimming and using the basketball courts. They've also joined their school's drama club this year, and Orilus auditioned for the school play a couple weeks ago...we'll find out soon if he has a part! Jackson has plans to work on the backstage crew. And they've both taken some piano this year (every other week). When they're not begging to go to the Y, they're usually now entertaining us with evening "drama practices" (they like to do improv in our living room), song and dance performances...sweet remnants of childhood that I'm sure won't last many more years.
The most recent news of this week is that we had our very first ultrasound on Tuesday...immediately, an image of a baby lept to the screen, sucking its thumb and wiggling all around! It was amazing. Turns out I'm just 12 weeks, which moved my due date further into July (now July 12th). The boys were able to see the photos afterwards, and they've heard the heartbeat, too...they are SO excited.
We spent our New Year's Eve, as always, delivering Chinese food for our friends who own 2 Chinese restaurants nearby. It was a busy and crazy night, and I have much I'd like to write about the things I observed last night (namely, the way Americans treat service-workers and the nastiness that can ensue when Americans don't get their food ON TIME and HOT, even in the midst of a snowstorm). After just reading Anderson Cooper's books about war-torn countries, Katrina, and starving children, I had trouble reconciling the American spirit of "New Year" (give me mine, now) with much of the world's (let me live, please).
So am praying to experience an ongoing season of grace this New Year as I continue to be uncomfortable with America's culture and to find ways to stay aware of the rest of the world. Grace for a new semester of classes. Grace for these months as we anticipate our baby's arrival. "Surely goodness and mercy will follow me..." This is the confidence of the Christ-follower, and my meditation today.
Christmas letter 2008
Grace House
Christmas 2008
“I know nothing, except what everyone knows—if there when Grace dances, I should dance.”
- W. H. Auden
Dear Family and Friends:
I write this letter from the wooden desk we’ve borrowed from a friend, alone in our small office at the front of our new multi-family house. The desk faces windows, and from here I have a view of two cities—Lynn, which stretches down our hill and towards the ocean water—and Boston, rising from the water beyond against the clear winter sky. The glass doors to the office are closed, but from my desk chair I can hear Orilüs and Jackson as they go about their weekend chores, singing loudly to Christmas songs on the radio and occasionally making up their own words to familiar tunes, (“And Santa came to say… Orilüs and Jackson are so cool”). Jason is in the kitchen, baking pumpkins. Downstairs, our friend Jodie is preparing a beef stew lunch for all of us while her dog wrestles with our puppy in our living room. It’s only eleven-thirty on a Sunday morning, but already our dining room table has hosted friends for our weekly “house church” of breakfast, discussion and prayer.
We live now in what we’ve come to fondly call “Grace House,” a two-family that rises from the top of a hill in Lynn—a hill that is a contested political battleground, rife with gangs and the kind of disillusionment that comes from urban poverty and frustrated dreams. We moved this summer. It’s difficult to live here—two nights ago, our sleep again interrupted by a mob-like party across the street, and two shootings in the last two months nearby—and we are still adjusting. Sometimes—like after we saw a few more mice last week, or something else suddenly breaks and needs fixing—we wonder why we moved at all. But we persist in calling it “Grace House,” persist in reminding ourselves of all the graces of the last year.
And these graces have included the realization of our dream to begin a faith community in our city. In August, we sold our single-family house and bought this one. Our friend and fellow dreamer, Jodie, moved into the downstairs condo this fall, and we have been delighted to work out the rhythms of a new kind of community life—sharing a washer and dryer, taking care of each other’s dogs, cooking meals for one another, and a Tuesday night tradition of eating together. We’ve begun to get to know our neighbors and are working with them to make plans to renovate the decrepit park at the top of our hill this spring and summer. It’s been a grace to see the community house actually happen and to anticipate together the ways in which we can become part of our new neighborhood and work with our new friends for transformation.
And there have been so many other graces this year. Orilüs and Jackson have “settled” into our family and into this new house with surprising ease; the turmoil of years past has given way to the normal kinds of fourth- and fifth-grade behaviors we’d expect. We are so proud of the ways they’ve navigated the move, made new friends in the neighborhood and improved in so many ways at school. Another grace has been my return to school as a doctoral student of education at UMass Boston, an endeavor that has been energizing for me as I’ve begun to research refugee education and marginalization. Jason, too, has begun taking classes as part of a CAGS (post-master’s) program in educational leadership. Between my new job working directly for Lynn’s school department, our class schedules, the boys’ growing repertoire of interests (piano, drama club, sports), our new house church, and the move, we’ve needed—and experienced—so much grace in the forms of connectivity, joy and friendship this year.
And the year is ending with an added amount of grace, as Jason and I learned this fall that we are expecting a baby this July. It’s hard to explain how we feel about this news—excited, but as third-time parents might, and not as first-time starry-eyed couples seem to. Orilüs and Jackson, as you might anticipate, are thrilled—in one year, they’ve gotten all they’ve prayed for (new friends, a new dog, and a baby)!
And so our Grace House will grow, even as we wrestle with how to grow grace here. How exactly do we show grace to neighbors we are just beginning to know, neighbors who are increasingly afraid of the neighborhood? How do we live grace in a city beset by a rise in crime and gang activity? What does grace look like in a smaller house with a larger family? How does grace direct us with regards to how we spend our time, our money and our energies? How exactly do we continue to believe in grace when our daily experiences in our schools and in our neighborhood would seem to indicate that force, not grace, is the solution to what ails? And how do we foster grace as personal and spiritual practices, even as our natural personalities are anything but grace-filled?
We do not have many answers to these questions. We know that we have journeyed through a season of suffering as a family (the transplant year and the year of adjustment that followed) and emerged this year into a sudden, joy-filled dance that can only be called Grace. While the rest of the world worries, fears, fights and hoards, we pray we will have the courage to live for the wild mystery of God’s grace.
If Christmas means anything at all, from where I sit overlooking our neighborhood now alit with police lights and roaring again with sirens, the birth of Christ must mean that Grace can be among us and make a home among the conflict and terror of the world. A Grace House, indeed. May we all have courage to enter there and the faith to know we are truly welcome.
Praying your family will experience Grace this Christmas,
Melissa for the (growing) Winchell family
Christmas 2008
“I know nothing, except what everyone knows—if there when Grace dances, I should dance.”
- W. H. Auden
Dear Family and Friends:
I write this letter from the wooden desk we’ve borrowed from a friend, alone in our small office at the front of our new multi-family house. The desk faces windows, and from here I have a view of two cities—Lynn, which stretches down our hill and towards the ocean water—and Boston, rising from the water beyond against the clear winter sky. The glass doors to the office are closed, but from my desk chair I can hear Orilüs and Jackson as they go about their weekend chores, singing loudly to Christmas songs on the radio and occasionally making up their own words to familiar tunes, (“And Santa came to say… Orilüs and Jackson are so cool”). Jason is in the kitchen, baking pumpkins. Downstairs, our friend Jodie is preparing a beef stew lunch for all of us while her dog wrestles with our puppy in our living room. It’s only eleven-thirty on a Sunday morning, but already our dining room table has hosted friends for our weekly “house church” of breakfast, discussion and prayer.
We live now in what we’ve come to fondly call “Grace House,” a two-family that rises from the top of a hill in Lynn—a hill that is a contested political battleground, rife with gangs and the kind of disillusionment that comes from urban poverty and frustrated dreams. We moved this summer. It’s difficult to live here—two nights ago, our sleep again interrupted by a mob-like party across the street, and two shootings in the last two months nearby—and we are still adjusting. Sometimes—like after we saw a few more mice last week, or something else suddenly breaks and needs fixing—we wonder why we moved at all. But we persist in calling it “Grace House,” persist in reminding ourselves of all the graces of the last year.
And these graces have included the realization of our dream to begin a faith community in our city. In August, we sold our single-family house and bought this one. Our friend and fellow dreamer, Jodie, moved into the downstairs condo this fall, and we have been delighted to work out the rhythms of a new kind of community life—sharing a washer and dryer, taking care of each other’s dogs, cooking meals for one another, and a Tuesday night tradition of eating together. We’ve begun to get to know our neighbors and are working with them to make plans to renovate the decrepit park at the top of our hill this spring and summer. It’s been a grace to see the community house actually happen and to anticipate together the ways in which we can become part of our new neighborhood and work with our new friends for transformation.
And there have been so many other graces this year. Orilüs and Jackson have “settled” into our family and into this new house with surprising ease; the turmoil of years past has given way to the normal kinds of fourth- and fifth-grade behaviors we’d expect. We are so proud of the ways they’ve navigated the move, made new friends in the neighborhood and improved in so many ways at school. Another grace has been my return to school as a doctoral student of education at UMass Boston, an endeavor that has been energizing for me as I’ve begun to research refugee education and marginalization. Jason, too, has begun taking classes as part of a CAGS (post-master’s) program in educational leadership. Between my new job working directly for Lynn’s school department, our class schedules, the boys’ growing repertoire of interests (piano, drama club, sports), our new house church, and the move, we’ve needed—and experienced—so much grace in the forms of connectivity, joy and friendship this year.
And the year is ending with an added amount of grace, as Jason and I learned this fall that we are expecting a baby this July. It’s hard to explain how we feel about this news—excited, but as third-time parents might, and not as first-time starry-eyed couples seem to. Orilüs and Jackson, as you might anticipate, are thrilled—in one year, they’ve gotten all they’ve prayed for (new friends, a new dog, and a baby)!
And so our Grace House will grow, even as we wrestle with how to grow grace here. How exactly do we show grace to neighbors we are just beginning to know, neighbors who are increasingly afraid of the neighborhood? How do we live grace in a city beset by a rise in crime and gang activity? What does grace look like in a smaller house with a larger family? How does grace direct us with regards to how we spend our time, our money and our energies? How exactly do we continue to believe in grace when our daily experiences in our schools and in our neighborhood would seem to indicate that force, not grace, is the solution to what ails? And how do we foster grace as personal and spiritual practices, even as our natural personalities are anything but grace-filled?
We do not have many answers to these questions. We know that we have journeyed through a season of suffering as a family (the transplant year and the year of adjustment that followed) and emerged this year into a sudden, joy-filled dance that can only be called Grace. While the rest of the world worries, fears, fights and hoards, we pray we will have the courage to live for the wild mystery of God’s grace.
If Christmas means anything at all, from where I sit overlooking our neighborhood now alit with police lights and roaring again with sirens, the birth of Christ must mean that Grace can be among us and make a home among the conflict and terror of the world. A Grace House, indeed. May we all have courage to enter there and the faith to know we are truly welcome.
Praying your family will experience Grace this Christmas,
Melissa for the (growing) Winchell family
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