It’s back to school season with the last of the schools in the U.S. starting up after this Labor Day weekend comes to a close. Children are trying on outfits, putting their names on backpacks and picking out new lunchboxes. But beyond the ritual of buying schools supplies, what can you do to create a sacred space around going back to school?

Starting a new grade is a big rite of passage for children — one that more often than not goes by unnoticed. In the flutter, hurry and relief(!) of finally getting those kids back in school, busy parents don’t have a lot of time to mark the moment. So here are 3 easy ways to honor the back to school process.

1. Special Breakfast. For many years I had a habit of making the children a special breakfast for the first day of school. The food wasn’t that fancy, just French toast and orange juice usually. But I made a special effort to set the table nicely, maybe with flowers or pretty napkins. I left a note on each of their plates with an affirmation for the year — my hopes for them that season. “May you make friends who love and respect you.” Or “This year – long division with ease!” Other options: a scripture verse to guide the year, or a favorite quote or poem about growing up, challenges, or surprises.

2. Growth Spurt: Many people have a practice of taking a photo of their children on the first day of school. Why not take it in front of something that can measure their changing height as the grow — say, with the same door frame in the background, or the swingset poles besides them. When they come home from school the first day, lay all the photos out in a row on the coffee table and let them celebrate how much they’ve grown.

3. Dreamboards. This year for back to school I made a collage for each of my girls with my hope for their learning experiences this year (both in and out of school.) I’m hoping that Cate will learn to love reading just a little bit more. (Time to give in and start buying graphic novels.) And my dream for Eden is that she discover ways to challenge her learning (even in the laid-back Danish skole system.) Both girls loved their pictures and we’ve hung them in the entry hall to keep those dreams fresh in our minds. This practice is especially nice because you can do it even if the kids’ first day has already passed

What do you do to celebrate the first day of school. What ritual or practice do you use to mark this rite of passage?

I struggle to live in the moment. So often I am casting my gaze back in regret and longing, or throwing myself forward in to future worries. I know it’s healthiest for me to live mostly in the Now. But to the Now I feel foreign born, and like an adopted child returning to the place of her birth, I must work a little harder to feel at home on what is truly my native land.

I notice this most when Summer fades to Fall, and the days begin to shorten. I start missing the Light even before she is gone. Start longing for her while she is yet by my side. And in doing so I waste the last long rays of her presence.

This then is my attempt to stay with her, to stay present as long as she is still here.  To remain alert to her companionship. To “…follow the day and reach for the sun.”Later when she is gone, these images may hold her near to me a little longer yet, until she gently moves my hand from her hers, pats my shoulder, and tells me to lean into the next season until she returns.  

 How do you stay present to the edge of this season? What will you need to transition into the next?

Did you know you could fly?

Yes you, with the middle-aged greys springing out of your ponytail…

You with the quarter-life crisis and the world as your oyster…

You with Junior High staring at you from the business end of a double barrel…

You can soar, if only you will bend your knees and leap into the great unknown.

True, the next day, you may fly in a metal tube for 9hours with your broken ankle in temporary cast, and ice from the airplane galley packed around your leg. But you will know in your core  that for those clear sparkling moments you were Icarus triumphant. And, when you are old, you will remember those glorious seconds aloft with clarity; while the throb in your bones will be but a faint memory, calling to mind not a fall, but a flight.

“In life you will come to a great chasm. Jump.”  -J.Conrad

_________________

 For the first time ever, Eden has asked that I NOT post her annual birthday letter on my blog. So in lieu of all that mushy goodness…this is she, and she is lovely.

(open this in a new tab for a musical background :-)

Dear Eden,

And now, you are ten. The big one-oh. A decade. A Decade! How can that be? (Do I say that every year? I bet I do. Silly Mama.)

Eden, I’m just so proud of you I hardly know how to express it. When I was younger, and I heard parents say they were proud of their children I always thought they were being kind of stuck up. I thought the parents meant they were proud of the job that they had done raising their children – like whatever wonderful traits the boy or the girl had, it was because their parents were so good at parenting. Now that I’m older and have been a Mother for a decade, I realize that’s not what parents mean at all when they say. “I’m so proud of her.” What they mean is, “Isn’t that amazing, all the wonderful things that girl can do? Isn’t she strong! Isn’t she smart! Hasn’t she learned so much! I am so proud of her!”

One of the things I like best about being a Mom is watching my children learn and grow. You have always been such a bright child that watching you learn was one of those things I could notice right away—even when I didn’t really know what Mom’s should be watching for yet. (New Mom’s have a lot to learn!) People hardly ever believe me, but even before you left the hospital you were lifting your head up off my shoulder so you could look around – something most baby’s don’t do for many weeks. I have a picture of you on Gig Gig’s shoulder looking all around and you are so tiny I can hardly believe your little neck can get your head up and around like that! You can see you inquisitive mind working in lots of your baby pictures. It’s easy to see that your wide, wise eyes are soaking in as much of the world as possible.

But these last few years, as you’ve become a school-aged kiddo, and are now a ‘tween’, I am even more amazed at how clever you are and how quickly you learn about your world.

In the time between when you were nine and when you were ten, you have accomplished so many things! You learned how to be responsible enough to ride your bike on your own. I remember the first time you got to ride your new bike around the block by yourself. You were so in awe. You looked at me in amazement and said, “I get to ride it all by myself! I’m going to ride around the block 29 times tonight!” I think you did ride around 29 times too! I know for sure you went through a couple bottles of water and rode until dark, that’s for sure.

In the time between when you were nine and when you were ten you learned how to choose friends who were good for your soul – leaving behind friends who treated you disrespectfully, and discovering loving souls like Noah to be your withmates. Is so good to see you and Noah together and know that you are two peas in a pod, and I know you will find someone that lovely here as well as time goes by. You are good friend Eden, caring and fair, generous with words of affection, quick to comfort someone when times are hard, and just as quick to celebrate when something goes well. Being a good friend is one of the best qualities person can have in this world, and you have that gift in heaps and mounds!

Between the time that you were nine and ten you learned an entire new language in just 2 months! You read a half dozen—not just novels—but series of novels! You learned how to make pancakes, grew responsible enough to have your own cell phone, and started to do some of the family shopping by bike! You are amazing.

And you’ve grown in other ways too this year. Remember how we used to be a totem pole with Souren? I fit under his chin, you fit under mine and Catie fit under yours? Not anymore! Now you are now nearly as tall as your Momma. (5 1 to my 5 3). Pretty soon you’ll be looking down at me and patting me on the head! And you’ve grown into your own sense of style this year too – sporty and comfortable, with soft seams and no pink sparkles. You always look long, lean, healthy, and vibrant. I know you get embarrassed when I say it and often roll your eyes, but you are so beautiful!

I can hardly believe my frail little baby who wouldn’t nurse and had to be weighed everyday for fear she was shrinking is now this tall, elegant girl who reads through entire libraries, swims like a fish, rides her bike around Copenhagen, and speaks two languages. Miss Eden Claire, I declare, you’re the sweetest anywhere…and I am indeed, very proud of you.

Happy birthday Ten Year Old!

click watch a joyful romp

mother’s prayer #105

may my children for always
feel this at home in
their holy, beautiful bodies.
amen.

Eden, age nine, while playing with these toys from her Kinderegg:

“I’m just an ordinary girl with ordinary dreams. I just want to win this nascar race and bring home a bag of gold to my man.”

Hmm. Is that an improvement from this conversation at age six?

What’s the funniest gender role conversation you’ve had with your kiddos?

“Lie back, daughter, let your head be tipped back
in the cup of my hand.
Gently, I will hold you.
Spread your arms wide, lie out on the stream and look high at the gulls.

Phillip Booth, Words of Mouth

By the way, Eden is nine.

It’s a little bit of a rough recording because I don’t know how to edit properly yet, but hang in through the not-too-long slower bits to catch Eden’s pearls of wisdom. In the recording I mention this product and this event, and Eden talks about my vintage collection which you can find here. Also, as a nice little tie-in I’m reviewing the band you hear at the end of the podcast in my weekly review over here. Happy listenting!

P.s. I’m a little shy about posting these podcasts, so if you feel like commenting it would go be ever so encouraging. And I promise to learn how to edit soon!

Jesus in My Stomach
orginally posted November 10, 2003

Yesterday my sister in law emailed me from Africa. She’s a missionary there, in Kenya. She and her husband work incredibly hard to install water systems and build medical facilities and school houses. They are an amazing couple.

Anyway, she emailed us yesterday to tell us “very exciting news.” Now, when I see this in an email from my relatives, I assume this means someone is having another baby. (We are the only ones stopping at two.) However, this time she was super excited because her four year old daughter had accepted Jesus into her heart.

Now I’m happy about this. This is very, very sweet. But at the same time, this makes me wonder, because even though I am an ordained minister, I have not so much as even offered to pray with my children about asking Jesus into their hearts. In fact, it hasn’t even crossed my mind.

After reading the email, I turned to Cate, who was sitting next to me at the computer and said, “Cate? Where does Jesus live?” “In your bah-dee silly!” Cate replied. (Cate is three.) “Oh Yeah?” I answered, nonchalantly, “Where?” “Here.” Cate pointed to her heart, with an uncapped purple marker, tapping her sweater several times.) “That’s great Catie. Glad to hear it.”

On to the next child, age 5, who’s cutting out paper dolls in the living room. “Eden, where does Jesus live?” Eden answered, sounding very bored and put-out, “In heaven….on the earth in the olden days….in my heart.” Again I try the nonchalant parent voice, “Yeah, that’s good to know Eden. You know, Auntie Jewel says Joanne just asked Jesus to live in her heart.” At this point Eden put down her scissors and looked at me with her head cocked to one side and her mouth scrunched up like she does when she thinks a grown up is trying to pull one over on her. “Jesus lives in everybody’s heart. Everybodies in the whole world, Mommy!” “Yeah, Eden. That’s kinda what I think too. (pause) Unless someone wants to kick him out.” Eden shrugged. Then she went on to her paper dolls and I went into the kitchen, confident that my kids were aokay in the ole’ salvation book.

That’s pretty much how I form my theology. Thirty four years of sermons, 12 years of Christian education, 4 years of Christian college, three years in seminary… and it all boils down to 2 conversations with the 5 and under set. Go figure.

Of course, the next day Cate told me Jesus lived in her stomach…with her baby, “Nina”….not sure what that’s supposed to mean…

Dear Eden,

You hung around our heals this morning as Dad and I rubbed our eyes and blustered through our morning routine until you finally had to joyfully burst, “It’s my BIRTHDAY!”

And now you are nine.

This has been a hard-won year for you little girl. No wonder you are so proud of achieving the next digit on the number line! Childhood experts say that there are stages of equilibrium and disequilibrium, and this last year for you as has been the latter. You lost your best friend to the school bully; got mired in yucky schoolyard dynamics; developed a queasy tummy to go with your upset heart; and pulled into yourself for awhile like a tiny turtle twice startled.

Your sensitive tummy didn’t indicate your really strength though, and like an unexpected heroine in a story book, you showed yourself to be deeply insightful, full of integrity and very, very strong. I was so proud of you when you ignored Mean Maddie and – in spite of her Rasputin-like control over your best friend Rosie – wisely declined her invitation to put you “on the wait list” for the Mean Girl’s Club. I was inspired by you when you faced bravely into an internal emotional storm front and struggled through to learn how to live within your broad emotional range. (A lot of people – grown ups even—don’t learn how to take care of their emotions and they just stuff them into a hiding places instead. You did real grown-up work this year, and I am so proud!) I was relieved to see you use “Team Eden” to help you find your way back to your healthy, happy self. (Not everyone can learn how to “find containers for big emotions” like you can!) Now, at the end of this hard-won year I often find myself gazing at your clear-eyed beauty as you read in the corner in your new wire-rimmed eyeglasses, or wander through the house and yard touching this and that and making up stories. You are such a self-knowing and winsome creature!

This year when Rosie and you hit a tough patch, you got over your fear that you didn’t know how to make friends and found a whole slew of new companions. This was the first year you’ve had boys-for-friends and you teamed up Noah, Sergio and Grant to be “The Four Amigos.” (Noah says that you are his best friend because you “have a kind heart.”) You also discovered a new friend in Ella, and helped Perrine find a place to belong when she transferred from her school in France mid-year. Not to mention all the kids who are clamoring to get invited to your birthday party! Your kindness has won out over all kinds of icky playground power struggles, and shown you to be a true friend to lots of different types of people. Good job Eden!

In addition to figuring out friendship challenges, you learned a lot of other things at school too this year. You listened to your emotions and your body and figured out that while you like to be active, you don’t like competition. So, you became the referee at four square, the cheering fan at kick ball, and opted for recreational swims over swim team races. Your teacher said you were “systematically making your way through the entire library” at school and you really excelled at writing. Your report about Anne Franks was sensitive and fluid, you showed a real writers “voice” in your lion report, and you wrote volume after volume of cleverly told true family stories in writer’s workshop. You excelled at speaking in public and did a couple of very nice oral presentations in class. You even overcame your nervousness of timed tests and became the only student to complete the entire multiplication sheet in two minutes!

One thing that really surprised and pleased you this year was when you were honored for your leadership skills and were chosen to be the CEO of your class store for Village Days. How exciting to be in charge of Toytropolis! You certainly took those business- building skills to heart when you landed your first Summer jobs — walking Merlin while the neighbors were away, and watering gardens-for-hire. And of course, I’m very proud of you for being so clever and generous as to hold a yard sale with a bunch of your toys to earn money for you sister’s birthday present – the American Girl doll bed she’d longed for but never managed to save enough allowance to buy. I’m so proud of you for being so generous and kind!

One of my favorite things to discover about you this year is how much you love water. You even sigh, “Oh…..water!” when you see someone hosing down a hot sidewalk in front of the local grocery store. You’re the first person in the lake and the last one out, and while other kids are just splashing around in water fights you are out there practicing your strokes and swimming in an underwater world of mermaids that is all your own. I’ll never forget the image of you out in the water at Golden Gardens raising your outstretched hands to the sky and shouting, “I’m up to my waist in the Puget Sound!”

Many times this year I’ve found myself staring at you in one of your many moments of enjoyable solitude, and I admire your extreme beauty. I love watching you unaware so I can drink in the clarity of your eyes, the perky scatter of freckles across your cheeks and the smooth strength building in your body. I love every complicated, insightful, joyful, intense, creative, powerful part of you. I’m so glad you made me a Momma. Happy birthday, baby mine.

Love,

Momma

This book is about an angel that takes care of people in the city. She dances along with the people on the street corner making music, and helps the basketball player get his ball through the hoop — and it’s like a mile high! The illustrator uses collage out of fabric and paper and also draws. This book is in verse, which I like. Two good things about this story are that the angel is nice to everyone and there are people with lots of skin colors from all over the world in this story. I would recommend City Angel for ages 5-6.

Me: “How do you mean?”

Eden: “Well Traveler used to not believe in God. He thought there was some alien or something that was God. So I talked to him about it, and I….protested…a bit and now…well…he sort of believes in God some.”

Eden: “Nuh-uh. If you can lick the tip of your elbow, then you are a fairy.”

Cate: “No, if you can lick this part of your elbow with your tongue you are a tree fairy, and if you can lick the tip of your elbow with your tongue you are a sky fairy.”

Me: “Did you guys read this in that book Fairy Dust and the Quest for the Egg ?

Cate: “No.”

Me: “Did you two make it up?”

Cate: “No. (pause) It’s true.”

Me to Cate: “Well this week we don’t have any orthodontist appointments so you don’t have to miss any Spanish.”

Eden: “So you have to suffer as I suffer! Bwah-ha-ha-ha!’

Zoë had a secret superpower.

Zoë’s secret superpower was not turning invisible, or running faster than any kid that ever lived, or being able to zap brussel sprouts off her plate when her mother wasn’t looking. Zoë’s superpower was that she was very very good at Emotions.

Zoë carried around a lot of her own Emotions.

“Wow! I did so great on the spelling test! The best EVER. I bet I’m the bestest speller in the whole WORLD”

And…

“Oh, I didn’t get to Rosie on the bus! In fact, I hardly EVER get to sit next to Rosie on the bus. I bet I never, Never, EVER get to sit next to Rosie on the bus again!”

But Zoe alos carried around a lot of other people’s emotions.

“Teacher seems sad today, I wonder what’s the matter? Maybe her dog is sick. Maybe she didn’t get a dessert in her lunch today. Maybe she’s got a stomach ache. Oh! I feel sad now too!”

And…

“The people at this grown-up party are talking so loud and laughing so much! They must be really excited. I feel excited! Maybe I’ll run around in circles giving everyone humongous hugs!”

But most super-powerish of all was Zoë’s Magnetic Emotion Catcher. You, see everywhere Zoë went—to the grocery story, or to swimming lessons, or to her best friend’s birthday party—all the Emotions that people had dropped on the ground jumped up towards Zoë and stuck like magnets to her superhero cape. Some of the Emotions were happy Emotions. But a lot of the emotions were hard emotions – because those were mostly the kind that people left lying around. Poor Zoë, she would get so stuck-up with Emotions she could hardly lift her superhero boots off the ground!

Now, you may not know this, but sometimes even superheroes need someone to come to their rescue. Luckily, Zoë knew Godmother, who also had super powers, and she could call Godmother by sending out her Secret Code Radar Beamer, which lived sort of between her eyes and slightly under her eyebrows, right along the edge of her super hero mask. When her Magnetic Emotion Catcher made her get too heavy, Zoë beamed a message to Godmother.

Godmother lived in some beautiful hidden place Zoë had never seen. But that was okay with Zoë, because Godmother herself was so beautiful all Zoë wanted to do was look it just her. Godmother had long golden hair, and flowing silver robes, and beautiful purple eyes. When she came to Zoë, Zoë did not even have to use words. Godmother just knew what Zoë need help with. Godmother saw right away that Zoë was all stuck down with too many Emotions.

Now, Zoë did not want to lose her Emotion superpower – she liked the good emotions, and she like being able to tell what people were feeling even from far away. But she did not like being stuck to the ground with so many hard emotions. So Godmother showed Zoë a special trick. With a wave of her hands she called down a whole flock of tiny flying dragons. The dragons smiled and flitted around Zoë’s head. They flashed their green and purple scales this way and that. They showed off their bright red wings and gave of tiny firework-shots of orange dragon-flame breath. Zoë liked watching them dance a circus in the sky.

Godmother told Zoë that she could call the dragon cloud down by picturing them in her mind. Then, she showed Zoë how to tie the heavy Emotions to the dragons with the tiny ribbons that dangled down the dragon’s backs. Zoë did not think such tiny dragons could carry such heavy Emotions! But as soon as Godmother had tied the knots, up the dragons flew, carrying away the hard Emotions as though they were birthday balloons.

Where did they go? Godmother never said. But Zoë imagined that maybe they really were birthday balloons, celebrating some grown up superhero party in the sky. (She still didn’t want to go there, though. She liked being a kid super hero right her in her own backyard.)

Of course, one or two of the hard Emotions stayed with Zoë, but these were the ones that belonged to her, not the extras she had picked up from the floor. Godmother promised they would not be too heavy for Zoë to carry. And to prove it, Godmother held Zoë’s hand, and light as a feather, off they both flew–Godmother’s robes rustling in the wind, and Zoë’s cape floating out lightly behind.

The End