A house that talks

I went away for my birthday last weekend and returned to find the walls of our house, previously bare, covered with photos and artifacts from our travels and pictures of that lovely girl has become the source of so much inspiration on this blog and to her parents.  My husband and his parents had to work around the real plaster walls to adorn the place but it surely feels more like a home now that it did before I left.

A few months ago I wrote about how I’ve struggled with this big purchase, this acquisition if you will, but how the house has already brought us so much joy, and perhaps God means it that way.  And you’ll have to humor me for writing yet another post about the house.  But it continues to feel like an adventure, this getting to know the house, and its old ways.

Lucia enjoying being outside in front of our house.  All photos mine.

For one thing, the house creaks and moans and groans and talks.  It’s kind of like another character in our lives; it does its own thing.  And it seems like people forgive that personality of old houses so much more easily than new.  A crack or a cranny or an angle or a blemish is just how she or he was made, rather than something necessarily to be fixed.  You work within the house’s constraints with more measure, because it has existed long before you and will continue to live on (hopefully) long after you’re gone.

Lucia on a walk in the cemetery.

A few people have asked me whether it’s haunted and I’ve replied heartily, gee, I hope so!  Across the street a cemetery that initially spooked one of Lucia’s nurses (she’s from China and has a hearty respect for ghosts) has become a favorite walking place for all of us.  It’s the view we linger upon from our windows, that and a little church that’s no longer in service.  All these features can be kind of painful reminders of the lives lived within these walls and around this little town that cease to be.  But they can also remind us of our smallness.  Our small, small part in the grandness of God’s works throughout the ages.

You see, when we were looking at houses, we kind of fell in love and bought this house because of the way the sun set and the golden light glittered on the field out behind it.  Sure, we cared about the inside of the house, its spacious kitchen, and its accessibility for Lucia, but it was not as much about just who the house was but what the house held out before us that made us buy it.  Perhaps this is why old houses are so much more than the sum of their parts–they have storied pasts and thus, hold out before them artful futures, and we continue to feel blessed to live in the in-between space, where history is relished and dreams are conjured.

Lucia and her dad on the porch.

We’re learning to live with the clunks in the night, but it’s so funny, whereas in our previous apartment we used to go all frenetic when the smoke alarm went off and might wake Lucia, in this house, we let the sounds live.  I think we imagine she enjoys and leans into the creaks and the clunks as much as we do.  They’re a sort of comforting reminder that the house has its own truth to be spoken in a world that can be so careless with the histories, stories, and lives of things that mattered to someone and will matter in the future.

So on a rainy morning like this one, I listen to the rain fall on the rooftop, place my feet on the boards that have been here for hundreds of years, and relish the little creaks that let me know that my weight upon it means something to this sturdy, storied house.  And I wonder how our lives lived will be added to its landscape, our little imprint figured into its much longer, illustrious, creaky history.

Virtual coffee date

I have been thinking lately about how helpful it is to reframe major challenges in life as adventure.  

You know how sometimes you’ll be going through something and someone will try to comfort you by saying, well, it will make a great story later, won’t it?  What if we could embrace the great story now?

It sounds crazy, but I think my life is just as much, if not more of an adventure, here in the everyday with a baby, classes, and trying to be faithful to God as it was living in China and traveling the world.  I’m trying to be grateful for the adventure as I’m living it rather than tomorrow or in a couple years.  I’d love to hear how you do that in your lives!

Amazing islands of Hong Kong. Photo by Evan Schneider.

I’ve also been reading Sacred Pauses and just hit the chapter on silence, which you know is my jam.  My mind was kind of blown by the idea that none of us have actually ever experienced silence, the true absence of sound, and that silence in general actually makes us more attuned to the presence of small, overlooked, everyday sounds.  The author used this to encourage us that God is always working, especially in the silence, a truth that has been powerful and poignant for me over the years, too.

An illustration from Ezra Jack Keats’ The Snowy Day.

It’s finally a little warmer, though there’s still heaps of snow on the ground.  Yesterday our little family took a lovely, cozy walk through the snow.  I just love how it crunches under your feet.  About a year ago, a friend gave us the children’s book, The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats, because our daughter, who will turn one next weekend, was born in between two snow storms.  It is my favorite children’s book that we own, and I’ve been reading it to her a lot lately and reminiscing about her coming into the world amidst slow flakes coming down in the wee hours of the morning.

Yes, I’m adult, yes, I was raised in Wisconsin, but there’s still something so magical to me when it snows.  I remember my husband trying to describe snow to his students in South China who had never seen such a thing.  They were incredulous and full of wonder.  I wonder if they will ever see it snow in their lifetime.

Sure, it gets cold out here.  But life is quite the adventure anyway.

Happy weekending.

Love these two…my photo.

 

 

 

 

 

The challenge of following

Remember how I said I love a good challenge?

Well, operation-complete-a-revision-of-the-first-draft-of-the-dissertation-before-the-baby-comes is in full swing!

On Friday, armed with decaf coffee and hot cocoa, I tackled the first chapter and am happy to report that while it’s not perfect, it’s light years from where it was.  I have a lot of motivation, of course, with a baby on the way.  Plus, I’m signed up for a dissertation bootcamp through the writing program next week, and I really believe I can do this.

Still, there’s nothing like a baby to put your plans in perspective–to help you realize that your plans are yours and well, God’s are God’s.  I sometimes imagine God chuckling, “Just try to control the timing of this baby, just try.”  

I’m sure God very much wants me to finish this draft of my dissertation, of course, but I’m also certain that following God has to happen on God’s time and with my full commitment. Babies and due dates remind me that following God involves submitting all my plans to God’s wisdom and supervision, learning how to be content in all circumstances, and trusting God to provide possibilities beyond my wildest imagination.

Fading sunset on the River Seine, Paris, France. Photo by Evan Schneider.

And that’s actually a pretty good deal, if you ask me.

I’ve remarked before how the true liberation of the spiritual life is to live a life free from our control and instead, fully committed to the adventures God has in store for us.  When we relinquish our expectations and allow God to dream, the results are life-changing.

With a baby on the way, I certainly expect no less!