Author Archives: Kari

Listen to the Rain

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Listen to the rain pounding on the glass.

Its rain not snow— we’ve come out of one thing and into another. Winter inches back, spring unfurls in raindrops and daffodils.

The sky is gray today but the clouds water the earth and we are all waking up to new life and new hope. There is blue sky and sunshine behind the clouds of gray. There is green grass and flowers vibrant waiting under the damp sod.

The rain means something; it means we are to the end of one thing and the beginning of another. Spring is falling from heaven in the rain and we are waking up with the sleepy damp earth.

Listen to the rain pounding on the glass. Like the beating of your heart, it means we are alive.

This is Our Life

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I keep waiting for the world to wake up with spring color so I can get my camera out and take pictures. Everything is brown and gray here in New England and I’m just about stir crazy waiting for the flowers to bloom and the grass to grow. I decided to get my camera out and take pictures of things around the house–bits and pieces of our lives—to get by until its warm outside and there are lots of green things to photograph and share with you. Until then…

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DSC_0087Sleepy head

DSC_0115Last week we had blue skies and the beginning of buds

DSC_0024I love that patch of gray above his temple

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DSC_0049 (2)Seaside memories

DSC_0018 (2) I have a bad habit of starting one book while still reading two others and never finishing any of them. This is what’s on my nightstand right now.

DSC_0040Creative spaces

…And that is all for now…

{Bread and Wine Book Review} Life Around the Table

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Have you heard of Shauna Niequist? I’ve been gobbling up her writing lately so when I had the chance to review her latest book, Bread & Wine, I jumped at the opportunity.

Bread & Wine is all about building life and friendship and community around the table. It’s about opening your heart and home to people and letting them in to be fed and loved.

Shauna writes:

“This is what I want you to do: I want you to tell someone you love them, and dinner’s at six. I want you to throw open your front door and welcome the people you love into the inevitable mess with hugs and laughter” (p. 256).

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After finishing Bread & Wine, that is exactly what I wanted to do—throw open the door to my home and let people in to be fed and nourished. Shauna’s book is filled with a collection of recipes—some her own, some from friends, others from restaurants and cookbooks—all look delicious. I decided I would take Shauna’s challenge to let people into my home and life by inviting a few friends over for dinner.

I have a group of friends who get together every now and then for what we call “Girls Night.” All that means is the husbands watch the kids and the girls hang out watching a movie or going out to eat. After reading Shauna’s words though, I thought it would be nice to have all the girls over for a real dinner made at home instead of snacks or restaurant food. I chose a couple of recipes from the book and worked out a time when everyone could get together.

I have to admit, I’m not a very good hostess because I get nervous about everything not being perfect. My house is tiny and there are never enough matching glasses or chairs at the table. I’ve let little things like this keep me from having people over. I always tell myself I’ll be more hospitable when I have more room…when we have a real dining room and enough forks for an army…sure, sure.

Shauna encouraged me with this:

What people are craving isn’t perfection. People aren’t longing to be impressed; they’re longing to feel like they’re home. If you create a space full of love and character and creativity and soul, they’ll take off their shoes and curl up with gratitude and rest, no matter how small, no matter how undone, no matter how odd” (pp. 106-107).

I reminded myself of those words whenever I worried about not having enough room or messing up the food.

On the day we were all getting together my friend Sarah stopped by early, when I was still in yoga pants with messy hair, to drop off home-made Mexican ice cream. I tasted a spoonful before she left and about died and went to glory—it was that good.

I spent the day grilling chicken and corn and prepping the food. Evening rolled around and the girls trickled in one by one, two by two. Jessie came first with a salad. We stood in the kitchen talking and laughing. Next came Sarah with Emily. We spread out in the kitchen and talked some more. Maya and Alicia came last with my little baby nephew. I took the baby out of his car seat and snuggled him up with kisses…aunties rights, you know.

We were crowded in the kitchen now with dishes coming out and different conversations bubbling over into laughter. We filled our plates we enchiladas, salad, and Mexican grilled corn. I didn’t have enough chairs at the table, of course, so we ate in the living room instead. Even then, three of us ended up sitting on the floor with plates in our laps. That is one of the reasons I don’t normally invite very many people over—who wants to have company sitting on the floor while they eat dinner? Well you know what, it didn’t matter a bit.

We talked and laughed, told stories and went back for seconds; we looked at pictures and caught up on each other’s lives. Soon we were streaming back into the kitchen for bowls of Sarah’s Mexican ice cream and brownies on the side. We filled mugs with coffee and hot chocolate and talked and talked.

Before Darren left that night he asked what time I thought we would be done. We were getting together at six so I told him we would probably be done by eight…I think it was ten. We just kept talking and laughing and every time someone would say something about needing to leave, another story would start and no one ever quite made it out the door. I love that. I loved the whole night. In fact, I think I needed it.

Life is busy and demanding and I forget sometimes when I’m hurrying through one day right into the next that I need to stop and make time for people, for love and friendship and community. I need these girls in my life because they remind to slow down and live for what really matters. They make me laugh and build me back up when I’m tired and torn down. They love me and encourage me even though I’m not perfect and never have enough chairs at the table. I need them and I’m so thankful Shauna’s book reminded me of that. I’m so thankful Shauna’s words gave me the push I needed to throw open the door to my home and my heart. I’m so thankful I invited people in and they came and filled a need I’d forgotten I had. I need friendship and love and community. I need life around the table to feed my heart and soul. We all do.

Look kids, I’m not trying to sell you anything. It’s true, this book was given to me to review but what I’m telling you are my own thoughts and feelings. I love Shauna’s words and I love this book. I hope you will read it because I sincerely believe you will love it too. You will be challenged and encouraged to slow down and live. To taste and feel and to let people in. That’s the truth and that is all :]

shauna1About Shauna:

Shauna Niequist is the author of Cold Tangerines, Bittersweet, and Bread & Wine. Shauna grew up in Barrington, Illinois, and then studied English and French Literature at Westmont College in Santa Barbara. She is married to Aaron, who is a pianist and songwriter. Aaron is a worship leader at Willow Creek and is recording a project called A New Liturgy. Aaron & Shauna live outside Chicago with their sons, Henry and Mac. Shauna writes about the beautiful and broken moments of everyday life–friendship, family, faith, food, marriage, love, babies, books, celebration, heartache, and all the other things that shape us, delight us, and reveal to us the heart of God.

Shauna blogs at ShaunaNiequist.com

Behind the Clouds

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On Thursday a winter storm rolled in. Winter weather is always disappointing this time of year when our hearts are set on spring. Apparently Mother Nature does not care if she’s a heartbreaker and was happy to shower us with snow and cold.

We couldn’t get our car up the hill we live on with all the snow on the road so we ended up abandoning it in a parking lot a mile from our house. Darren and I walked the rest of the way home at midnight with the snow still coming down. We were a sight with Darren wearing my fur-lined hood and each of us wearing one of his gloves. We were also carrying a box of ice cream because, snow or not, you don’t want to leave a perfectly good box of ice cream behind.

The next morning we grabbed a shovel and loaded backpacks up with rock salt hoping we would be able to get the car out of the snow. We bundled up and began marching back down the road to the car. We took about five steps before we started falling on our butts. Darren was walking along and fell flat on his bum. I try to be supportive so I laughed at him. He fell two or three more times and I started telling him he would have to walk alone if he was going to be so embarrassing and then I fell right flat on my bum too; that’s what you get for running your mouth and teasing. Every time one of us would get up the other would fall down and we slipped and slid the whole way down the road. It was very funny really, and there is nothing you can do but laugh at yourself in a moment like that.

We made it to the car and were happy to see it hadn’t been towed; we were very worried about that. But it was very, very buried in snow. Honestly, you could hardly even see it in the snow drift. Darren started shoveling it out and I started cleaning it off but the snow was coming down so hard that all my work was covered right back up. We got in the car dripping wet with melting snow and after a couple tries, we were back on the road.

When the wind and the snow are blowing in your face and the whole world seems buried beneath a veil of grey and white, you can’t imagine that the snow will ever melt or the sun will ever shine. But we woke the next day to a clear blue sky and mild spring temperatures.

It is just like Robert Frost said in his poem:

“The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You’re one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
A cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
A wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you’re two months back in the middle of March.”
From the poem Two Tramps in Mud Time

The warm temperatures quickly melted the snow off the roads and Darren and I actually went for another walk the next day—only this time it was for the pleasure of the warm air and sunshine and neither of us fell down. I kept looking at the cobalt sky and I was a little amazed that it had actually been there all along, only hidden behind the clouds and the snow. The blue sky never exactly went away; it was only veiled by the weather.

Life is like that too, I suppose. Life gets stormy and we fall down and it’s hard to imagine that the sun ever shone or will ever shine again. But it does. The clouds clear, we get back up, and the sun continues to shine. Even though we could not see it, the sun never stopped shining and the blue sky never failed. Our vision was veiled but nothing was ever really lost to the storms and clouds.

I’m trying to remember this, that the sky is always blue…right behind the clouds.

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Setting Sun

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“And still, after all this time, the Sun has never said to the Earth, ‘You owe me.’

Look what happens with love like that. It lights up the sky.”

{Rumi}

Breathe in the Outside Air

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I need to go outside. I need to breathe in the outside air, feel the sunshine on my skin, the wind on my face. I need to walk in the woods, feel the earth crunch beneath my feet. I need to sit by the ocean, toes buried in sand, salty sea on my lips. I need to climb a tree, feel the rough bark against my skin, see the world from above. I need to hear the birds sing, listen to the leaves rustle with the breeze. I need to smell earth wake up again in blossoms and blooms. I am alive when the earth is alive. I am awake when I’m outside.

Spring is coming, we are almost there. Winter will let go, earth will wake up again. We are almost there.

On Time Before Time

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I sit here tonight all cozied up on the couch with a book and a mug of hot chocolate—the real stuff, not the store-bought packets. Cocoa powder, sugar, and milk warmed together on the stove top. Heavy whipping cream, powdered sugar and vanilla whipped together into a fluffy cloud of heaven melt into the hot chocolate and I think I might be complete now.

I ran out to the car for something and had to put my weight into pushing open the front door against the snow that has accumulated on the porch. The snow is already up to the tops of my boots and the wind is swirling around like a sort of snow hurricane. It’s exciting {so long as you’re safe and sound inside with a good book and a proper mug of hot chocolate, that is}.

I’m reading Cold Tangerines by Shauna Niequist. She writes:

“I stomped out the door, back into the car, still in my pajamas, and as I opened the garage door again, I stopped in my tracks. In the park across the street, one of the tallest trees, twice as high as a two-story house, was the brightest, most insane, lit-from-within red I have ever seen. And it took my breath away, for two reasons.

First, because it was so beyond beautiful, and second, because I had not noticed one step of its turning. I had been in and out of my driveway a zillion times in the last two weeks and could not have told you if the tree was even still standing or not. As I stood there in the driveway, I realized that I had stopped seeing the most important things to see.”

Reading that I was struck by how God had that tree ready just when she needed to learn something from it. God didn’t zap the tree and turn it red at that moment, no, he slowly, carefully turned it red one week at a time until it was just right at just the right moment. That took some thinking ahead and I think it interesting all the work and preparation that goes into the moments that stop us and teach us something about life, or God, or beauty just when we are most in need of such a lesson.

And I wonder what God is preparing right now while I sit here in a snow storm sipping hot chocolate. I wonder what tree he is growing or what person he is teaching that will someday cross my path and guide me when I most need some guidance. I wonder what God is planning ahead before I have any concept of a need that will someday be met, seemingly, in the nick of time.

God is working, he is moving. He is growing trees and people and directing so many paths and patterns and working all things out and together to meet up in just the right place, at just the right time.

And I think that is beautiful.

Don’t Waste Your Pain

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If you go through something terrible and don’t learn anything from it, you are wasting your own heartache. I believe everything that happens in my life, good or bad, is meant to change and instruct me.

The way I grew up was not easy, not terrible, but certainly not easy. Sometimes I look back and think life was unfair; I think I would have been better off if everything had gone differently.

On better days I look back and realize that all those hard times helped me become who I am. Not only am I stronger but I know now just how strong I can be. I know what I can do without. I know what life looks like from the other side and can better empathize with people. Yes, life could have been easier, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it would have been better. I would not be who I am today had I traveled any other road.

Sometimes pain is the only teacher able to speak loudly enough to get my attention. C.S. Lewis said,

“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”

He’s right. The good things in my life keep me going but the bad things bring me to my knees and force me to grow and change in ways beyond my comfort.

I have a very good life but sometimes I get caught up in the things that are difficult, the things I would like to be different. Today I am reminded that every season of life is filled with purpose. There is something in today’s troubles that will instruct me in tomorrow’s troubles if I’m willing to learn and be made better by whatever I’m going through.

One thing I know for sure, I don’t want to go through a hard time for nothing. If I’m going to struggle then I at least want to come out on the other side having learned and changed into a stronger, more mature person.

Don’t waste your pain; use it, grow from it, be made better by it…just don’t ever waste it.

“I want to keep my soul fertile for the changes, so things keep getting born in me, so things keep dying when it is time for things to die. I want to keep walking away from the person I was a moment ago, because a mind was made to figure things out, not to read the same page recurrently.”

Donald Miller

Grow Towards the Son

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I have a basil plant sitting in my kitchen window. He’s a survivor, that plant, for he’s lived here for months now and hasn’t been killed. Plants generally come to my home only to meet their maker. I don’t mean to kill them…I just forget to keep them alive.

But that basil, he fights on and on. When I first brought the basil home he was bushed out in all directions with his fragrant leaves going everywhere. After months in the window he’s grown bald on one side with all his leaves growing only on the other side—the side facing the window. His leaves face the glass, soaking up the sunshine (as much as can be had on a short winter’s day) and watching him stretch towards the light makes me think—he grows toward the sun.

He reaches for the light, the warmth, the food that foods his green little veins and watching him makes me wonder—shouldn’t I too be growing towards the Son? Toward the light, the warmth, the food that feeds my soul?

It’s a simple thought wrapped up in a hard lesson and I’m reminded to turn my back on what doesn’t feed my soul and turn my face towards the only light that does.

I’m reminded to grow towards the Son.

Silent Letters

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Must your every thought and word be heard? I’m afraid my generation and the generations growing up behind me think so. We share everything—on Facebook, on Twitter, in our blogs, through Instagrams. And then we wait for a reaction—for the likes, comments, and all the pretty little stats that tell us we are good, we are heard. It’s a drug, an addiction—a hit that sends endorphins flooding through our brains, lighting up the part of us thirsting for attention and affirmation.

And we find the silence becomes deafening because we just can’t live without the noise, the reaction, the endorphins flooding in and telling us we are heard, we are good.

And we lose the beauty of silence, the sacredness of solitude.

Sometimes our souls need to be alone.

Sometimes we can only begin to hear in the hush.

Sometimes words need to be written but not read.

Sometimes beauty needs to be seen but not captured or shared.

Sometimes we just need to live quietly in a moment or we will lose ourselves in the noise.

My soul needs some silent letters—words written but not shared. Letters penciled into my journal for the soul, not for the reaction. Letters tapped out on my typewriter slowly, carefully with the heavy stoke of each letter hammered in ink to paper—just for me.

Letters and words good and valuable…and ever so quiet….quiet enough to be heard by the soul.

Because not everything I am must be known. Not everything I say must be heard.

My soul needs silence. Solitude. Words written and not read.

Otherwise I will drown and lose myself in the noise.

hampton-beach-2011-121Can your soul find silence? Can you walk away from the noise?