Vitamin Date

It's wonderful enough when I get to go on a date with my husband. Really, it is. Last night, we went out with some friends and enjoyed laughter, good food, and freedom for a few minutes. But today, the real vitamin is the sweetness with which I've watched my husband take each of our three kids aside and give them special, one-on-one Daddy time. They blossom under this attention. They thrive on it. I could not be mor epoleased with the man I have married, and I have a feeling that our children are equally smitten with the perfect Dad. I am blessed beyond measure today: blessed as I watch my husband bless our children. Thank You, God, for this gift.

Vitamin Convenience

No frills here: I just feel like listing out the things that truly make my life a picture of ease. In no particular order, they are:

My husband.

The washer and dryer.

Hot showers.

Helpful children.

Christmas tree lights (electric).

Dishwasher.

Garbage disposal.

More than one change of clothes per person.

My crock pot.

My pressure cooker.

Oven and stove.

Sinks with running water (hot and cold).

Computer, phone, internet, TV, radio, CD player, etc.

The postal service.

Caller ID.

Insurance.

Refrigerator and freezer.

Fully stocked grocery stores.

My day planner.

Calendars.

My parents.

Good friends who help with the dishes.

Heat and cooling in the house.

A swimming pool.

Generous family (think, toys for the kids I never would have bought them).

Job security (thank you, US Government).

Four bedrooms.

Toilets ... that flush.

Transportation we can afford.

Thank You, God, for Your bounty!

Vitamin Purge

I dropped off a large load of clothes to Goodwill yesterday. As I pulled in to the donation center, I noted a lumpy, mountainous pile of other people's cast-offs nearly obliterating the building - and I chuckled. Naturally, in the final days of this year, the whole city would decide to purge its possessions at once. And why not? Just as a new year begins, why not empty our closets, our toy chests, our drawers? As everyone knows, it's the perfect time to make a clean break from things we have too long been holding.

So why not empty our luggage as well? Yes, I'm speaking figuratively. Why not identify not only those things we want to do in the coming year (Exercise More! Eat Better!), but those we'd like to discard, as well? Of course. it's far easier to part with a moth-eaten sweater than a treasured, inner habit - but the relief after parting will be proportionate to the agony the habit caused us beforehand. If something no longer serves us well (perhaps it never did in the first place), why not send it out with last decade's frumpy styles? An attitude worn too thin, perhaps? An ugly tendency to complain? My list would be so long it would ruin the positive nature of this post, but you get the idea. Perhaps, before inviting in new habits when we ring in the new year, we would do well to make room for them. This will give the new habits room to flourish and grow.

I'm excited to let go of certain things as I start this new year. They've been cramping my style for too long and - like the items I so gleefully left at Goodwill - they're longer welcome in my life. So long, yesterday's ills. Hello, New Year! I'm now free to welcome you without the distraction of extra clutter - and that is a beautiful thing!

Vitamin Luminate

Luminarias line our driveway

And countless other driveways, city-wide.

They give off a feeble light.
Yellow, muted inside the brown paper bags

in which they sit.

They are tethered to earth by the slightest of things -

a small scoop of sand in each bag. This alone keeps them

from blowing away with each gust Christmas-time wind.

It is enough.

They stay,

stable,

their slender flames not wavering enough

to ignite their paper bags and consume them.

This must have been what it was like for Him.

Long ago.

He did not know it, of course.

For, on the one hand, He was just a baby,

born in a sleepy, anonymous town.

But on the other - on the other hand, He was more.

Humble, yes - rooted to earth, yes.

But possessed of a Power so great that it could have

illuminated His whole surroundings, consumed them

in a glory of flames in one instant.

It did not.

He, like the luminarias, simply stayed lit.

His light looking feeble to many

through the muting lens of this world.

And yet - His light gave with it an invitation.

Like every candle, everywhere, it held warmth.

Come.

Luminarias line my driveway.
They shine, ever so simply, next to the brighter, gaudier, lights of this season:

Lights that need cords, outlets, power.

But in their simplicity,

they attract those who are seeking.

They send out His message, after all -

a message meant for the simple, the humble, the seekers.

Tonight, they have sent it to me.

Vitamin Convention

I dislike pizza.

Yes, it's true. Crazy as I am about many of our edible American traditions (donuts, cheese, and apple pie, for example), the beauty of this one has eluded me. No, I don'd mind the occasional pizza experience. But, for the same reason I rarely gawk at sunsets, I seldom go out of my way to enjoy pizza. Pizza, in a word, has always been too conventional for my independent tastes.

Oh, I can't deny its appeal: The warm, tangy sauce. The colorful toppings. The melty goodness that heated mozerella creates. But even these charms can't resign me to give pizza a place on my "cool" roster. In fact, if the truth must be told, I typically enjoy pizza the most when it ist he furthest from its original (read: Conventional) state.

Thus, this Christmas season, I went out of my way to order pizza for our Christmas dinne that only slightly resembled this great American staple. At the take-out counter, my husband raised his eyebrows when I selected not one, but two oddly-concocted varieties of pizza. One contained sun-dried tomatoes and pine nuts, and the other boasted a white sauce in place of standard red.

What possessed me? The same thing that possesses me each time I think my preferences are bordering on the 'typical' for people in my culture - my peers. There's some wild hair within me that just wont' let me accept 'normal' as somehow all right.

Oh yes. I ordered one token standard pizza for those not enlightened enough to enjoy my higher tastes. But I ordered it grudgingly, without joy. We brought the bright boxes home, stored them in our refrigerator-temperature sunroom (winter in New Mexico has its chilly moments), and forgot about them until the great baking moment on Christmas Day.

The trouble is, we really shouldn't have done that. Apparently, these pizzas contained a mysterious substance that bonded them like hardening concrete to the cardboard in which tehy were packaged. Despite the "they'll be fine!" promises of the establishment from whence they were purchased, these pizzas had become one with their boxes. And now Christmas dinner loomed, a mearer 12-18 minutes away; what were we to do with the pizzas?

Well ... bake them. We reasoned that they might loosen themselves as they baked, and that the problem really wasn't as serious as it appeared - and we reasoned wrong. When the timer gave its cheerful chime and we removed our three small disasters from the oven, they had become large disasters instead.

We poked and we pried. We pushed and we prodded. We eased and we coaxed. And in some cases, we resorted to physical violence to extract our pizzas from their offensive white packaging.

Eventually, we succeeded well enough to salvage three lukewarm piles of crust, sauce, and cheese, and begin our Christmas feast. We enjoyed the meal far more than I might have expected, given the circumstances - but as we ate, I noticed a curious thing: The two pizzas I had bought in my effort to expand our tastes had turned to be the biggest failures. They stood as messy piles of rubble, eaten only out of necessity.

But the one pizza - the boring pizza - had survived its ordeal nearly intact! In fact, I found myself actually enjoying the consumption of something I had hitherto viewed with disdain. Could it be? Was this thing, so mundane, actually better equipped to handle a crisis? I submit that it was! And I believe that not only pizza, but sunsets, certain models of cars, long walks in the park, and all the other things that 'normal' folks tout as the best, deserve my respect as well.

You see, I begin to suspect that conventions don't happen by accident after all. They have been tested in multiple circumstances. They have been held to the fire, and not withered. True, some conventions (leg warmers, anyone?) may be fickle, but many will outlast their first fans. And rightly so! There is a steady assurance in espousing a convention for which one knows there is much evidence of goodness. Like standard pizza, for example. Or chocolate shakes. Perhaps its time that I not only coddle my preference for the unusual, but enjoy the beauty of the usual as well. Who knows? I might even find myself gushing over a sunset sometime soon. After this Christmas, I can't rule out anything - not even a boring old root beer float. Can you?

Vitamin Quiet

There's something beautiful about silence.

We're not talking visual beauty here, obviously - although it could be argued that the silent scene of a slumbering woodland lake is beautiful for its visible stillness. No, the silence I refer to is the ceaing from movement that only those who have been moving very quickly can appreciate. It is also a cessation from noise.

Do I speak from experience? Of course I do. At the momen, two of my three children are sleeping. The other, my oldest, is (comparitively) quietly playing in his bedroom with a friend while they listen to a story on CD. No phone is ringing nearby. No knock has sounded on my door for at least several hours. I spent this morning bustling about, mailing Christmas packages and fulfilling various obligations with gusto, and now, in the full of the afternoon, I find silence, find beauty.

It may not last for long. These poignant gifts rarely do. But while it is mine, I embrace it. I embrace the difference between working and rest, between noise and quietness. I embrace the gift of peace with a kind of fervent devotion - not for the peace itself but for the great Peace-Giver who has gifted it in the first place.

And now I hear my children laughing. The moment has passed; I move on. But I move on enriched for this brief pause, this moment of beauty that consisted entirely of the absence of activity. And as I move on, I realize that any activities I pursue for the rest of the day will speak of this moment of peace. I will be less frenzied - more calm. Perhaps I myself will become Beauty, or at least Quietness, to those around me. Perhaps I will be this for my own family.

Whatever the case, I will be grateful. And I will wait and work patiently until the next such moment comes, enjoying the other beauty that comes from the opposite of Quiet, Activity.

Vitamin Commune

We haven't been to church in a while. That's why, last week when we finally decided to make an entrance, my feelings bordered on the obsessive.

Who are these people, and why are they smiling? I found myself wondering soon after stepping inside. It's not natural to act like this! True, they weren't all approaching us with arms open wide (every church has it's quirks), but I had forgotten, the corporate joy over such a shared thing as the Spirit.

It was beautiful. The sermon, the music (imperfect, both of them) - even the tottering old man in his velvet hat who smiled at us as he picked his way across the parking lot - each of these things gave me a delicious echo of greatness. You have been here before! My awakened mind screamed. You liked this sort of thing. You thrived here!

While that statement was true, I also understood that things had changed since I'd last stepped into a church. I had grown. Adopted a few new philosophies, and let go of a few others. I felt as though, for the first time, I was observing the church from the outside - knowing of course that it was important and permissable to join such a crowd, but knowing also that it was not the only way to spiritual peace. I approached, not with a bent toward skepticism, but with an understanding that this pattern of life was not all that God had to offer.

So was it right for me - for my family?

I couldn't tell. We concluded our morning, returned home for lunch, and opted to try the same place again next week. This in itself was a first. In our past church-hunting experiences, one attendance had often been enough to frighten us away from a second.

So the next week, bright and early, we returned to the little church in the mountains. It was Communion that day: It had been Communion the week before, and I know a pattern when I see one. This church, unlike any other I'd ever attended, most likely celebrates Communion every Sunday. My husband and I, in the very farthest seats from the front, accepted the elements last. They were handed down the row to us, the little white wafers lying like scales on a silver plate from which we all partook. I imagined the germs we were sharing - especially as the last of a large group of participants. The man who handed me the bread was rotund, wearing some sort of shiny gray jacket, and clearly uncomfortable with newcomers. But he offered them all the same, with a forthrightness that seemed misplaced.

We accepted. We waited a moment, studied the words of Communion on the overhead projector in silence, and then partook of our portions. The grape juice - always so tart and poignant on the tongue - and the small, barely chewable wafers of bread. Inevitably they get stuck in the teeth - one bite crushes them, after all, and they lodge in my mouth and slowly dissolve, a dimminishing reminder of the Body that broke and bled for my love.

The service wore on. Singing, praise, sermon, prayer, and closing. At one point we greeted one another with Christmas cheer. The man beside me remained awkward, unsure. His smile barely showed itself and when it did, it appeared more of an afterthought than an intention. But when it came time to collect the Communion cups, he reached over to take ours, his sturdy arm pressing against mine with nothing of the reserve I'd expected. He must be more brave than I thought, I surmised as I surrendered our cups. This is his church, after all.

My mind wandered back to a conversation with my two-year-old daughter that morning. "Are we going to that big house?' she had asked me as I rushed her into her dress.

I had laughed. "Well, it's a church," I informed her, "but God lives there - so I guess it's a house, too."

"Is this a church?" She'd then wanted to know, looking around the purple-and-green paradise that was her room.

I smiled. "This is our house. But God lives here, too. So yes, I guess this is also a church."

In the context of the awkward gentlement beside me, this thought brought more sense to his actions. Being as this building was not just a church, but God's home, and being as he was not just a man, but God's child, it made perfect sense that he should feel a certain amount of comfort within his Dad's house.

I smiled as we stood to sing the last song. True to my prediction, the man all but bolted for the door the minute we were dismissed. But in his response, in the off-key singing of the congregants, the quirks and endearing attributes of the pastor, and even the lack of openness on the part of most of the church members, I felt at peace. We were One, after all. One Body fashioned from that first Body that lived and died to ensure our existence. This church, a small part of the larger Body, was bound together - and bound up with me - in ways that went so far beyond social niceties that they were nearly non-issues. I accepted with gratitude the few smiles and friendly overtures from several young mothers. And I agreed, with an element of pleased surprise, to my three-year-old's statement when I picked him up from his class.

"Guess what, Mom?" he beamed as he turned an exuberant circle in the foyer. "I know something special!"

"What?" I asked absently - eyes scanning the crowd for my husband. "What do you know?"

My son stopped to gaze up at my face. "These people are our family!" He announced. His glance took them all in, and he gestured broadly at the sanctuary, the small pockets of visiting friends, and the children clustering like crows in the stairwell.

"Who told you that?" I asked, astonished at the way his sentiments mirrored my own .

"Nobody!" His smile broadened, and a sheen of confidence crept into his eyes. "I just know it."

"Well, you're right!" I replied as I reached for his hand. "You're absolutely right." Nobody had heard our little exchange. Perhaps we would never return to recount it. But no matter. It was true all the same. As we made our way to the car, we passed the same distinguished old man from last week, his velvet hat perched on his head like an elaborate toupe. I felt a kinship with him - not because we have ever shared so much as a word between the two of us, but simply because we share the same Body. We are family, after all: Red, yellow, black, white - friendly and awkward alike. We are One - brought from One and worshipping One - and this makes us all related.

With that thought in mind, I leaned back in my seat as we drove away from the church. Who knew what the next week would hold? And who cared? I belong to something far greater than one church, one service, one denomination or religion or spiritual trend. I belong to a Family from which no power on earth can remove me. For the rest of my life, I plan on communing with those who understand this belonging, regardless of their social or religious persuasion. And that's all the Communion I need.

Vitamin Renew

Our fireplace room has been a stark white since we moved to this house. And not just stark white. Stark white made even stark-er by the presence of dark beams across the ceiling and a dark wood floor down below. The contrast has not been beautiful, but we have managed - managed, that is, until tonight.

Today, the most velvety of green paints made its way into our home. Today, against all common sense, we cracked open the can and began our endeavor. Today, amidst a towering list of Things to Do and in my own personal process of Dealing With Angst, we set out to beautify this most univiting of rooms.

The job began in silence. In the process of Dealing With Angst, I have begun to learn the valuable lesson of keeping my mouth decidedly closed. Thus, we painted away in what would have otherwise been a companiable quiet - but what, in my mind anyway, was a seething opportunity for more Angst. Wordless woes pressed upon me. Meaningless anger filled my thoughts. What on earth could be bothering me? Where on earth was my Peace? I could pinpoint my frustration to my lack of time or focus to do the things that matter most to me - keep my spiritual and physical self fit -and to a lack of 'hearing from God' in the past several days. I'm sure the lack of time to listen and the lack of words from God were intrinsically connected, but that didn't cross my mind at the time. I simply felt angry - alone - un spoken-to - and pitiful.

In reality, this Angst-imposed silence was the first long stretch of 'nothing' that I'd encountered in quite a while. The wordlessness of the moments began to soothe me. I fell into a rythm with my paintbrush, resenting my husband's suggestion to take even a five-minute break. This was my groove, after all! My neck ached. My hands cramped. But still, I painted on. And afer a while, the silence began to fill up with words.

No, not my words. Not (at first) even the direct words of God to my heart. But my husband turned on the music, and while we painted, song after random Christian song filled our slowly-transforming space. The station - one that plays all Christian songs without discrimination based on quality or chronological appropriateness - produced several giggles at the road over which Christian muscians have traveled. A few lounge-type songs made us guffaw. Sevearl painful synthesizer-laden ballads made us cringe. But through it all - through the cheesy lyrics, and also the ones that spoke straight to my heart, I sensed a kind of camraderie. These musicians - silly or oudated though they may be - had poured out their souls in order to express a passion we both shared. I began to take note of their words, forvgiving most (not quite all) of their poor musical choices. And as I listened - listened, mind you, rather than griped about my own sorry state - my ears began to hear the voice of my God.

We painted on. The room slowly transformed into a moss-green oasis of comfort. And in my own heart, a similar metamorphosis took shape as well.

I felt whole again - or at least sane again. God had not forgotten me. Though I had been unable to stop and listen for so long thta I should have at least had His finger shaking in my face, I got instead a gentle and multi-voiced reminder of His unfading love for my soul.

I felt renewed. I felt at peace. Yes, I felt tired as well, and still just as anxious for things to slow down. But I knew that if this ugly room could transform in one evening, God surely had similar plans for my heart. I stopped working for the night while the music still played - hoping to spend some time making a little music of my own before falling asleep. It might be cheesy, just like what I had heard through the evening, but I didn't care. It would surely come from a heart set afire with the same love these songwriters shared - a heart transformed just as wholly by grace. No, not all of my Angst had dissipated, but I had set aside my own worry long enough to listen to the joy of others - and that had renewed me more than an evening of grumbling ever could have.