If you are a parent you know the drive. That first one when they put you and a tiny baby in a car and let you leave the hospital. If you’re the mom you probably sit in the back seat and question your husband’s driving abilities. Every bump, every sharp corner brings a gasp. Someone has made the unforgivable mistake of entrusting you with a baby. And, as you will many times, you wonder who is in charge to let such a thing happen. I made that drive with my husband and our baby girl years ago. It was just starting to snow and there were decorated flatbeds gathering to be a part of a Christmas parade. As we drove through the frosty afternoon every house decorated with Christmas lights seemed especially important because they were part of her world now. This little package dressed in pink ribbons and flannel deserved the best. I sat in the back seat of our red station wagon with an arm draped across her car seat to protect her from whatever danger I perceived and grinned the entire way home. I was exhausted and I’m pretty sure I still had mascara smeared across my face, but I remember having such a feeling of magic. I couldn’t wait to get started. I couldn’t wait to be her mommy. When we finally pulled into our drive way I realized my husband had somehow gotten the Christmas lights up. They shone brightly in the blue afternoon and I was so glad. I gathered that tiny warmth against me and whispered in her ear, “This week I am taking you to meet Santa.” And I did. I dressed her in a tiny red velvet dress and her brother and I took her to see Santa. I have the picture in a box somewhere. Santa looks terrified to be holding such a new little person. You can tell he’s wondering who put me in charge of a baby. Same Santa same. But I’m so glad they did. She’s out there in the world now and she’s her own kind of Christmas light. If you know her you’re glad you do. I still try to make sure she gets to see the best the world has to offer and I still throw my arm across her in the car whenever I perceive danger. Doesn’t matter that she’s grown with kids of her own. Turns out she and I are still on that first car trip and always will be.

My husband and I have this thing we do. When life is just so sweet we have a hard time accepting it, we will turn to each other and ask, “Who are we?” Who are we to still be in love after three decades? Who are we to have a daughter with sparkly eyes that still wants us around? Who are we to have enough sense to notice a sunset? This practice has served us well. It keeps us grounded in just how good life is. Despite all of the clanging and trauma that says otherwise. But, our little practice has met its’ match.

It’s our new grandson. He’s just too much good to absorb. He has a fat little tummy that sticks out of every shirt he wears. He has a pensive little face that regards you so very seriously that you find yourself waiting for his advice. Minutes will go by and you realize you’re still gazing into that solemn stare hoping he’s going to share some wisdom. Then, you notice the tummy again and you’re laughing. And smiling. And letting go a little. Believing in the goodness of the world. Believing that God must love us all to put this little man here. Believing that you can deserve this little human. His love and laughs and kisses. Believing that God chose you to be this child’s grandparent.

Then you remember who you are and you realize that’s just crazy talk. You turn to each other and ask, “Who are we?” Only this time it’s said with reverence and a little bit of fear.

Seriously, who are we? To shape this child’s life. To be someone he’s glad to see come through the door. To affect the way he treats other people? To play a small part in the way he experiences Jesus? To teach him anything?

We are not so great. We have road rage. We sometimes binge watch an entire series in a week. Sometimes, if I’m tired, I don’t put things back where they go in a store. We are not the cream of the crop and yet God has blessed us with this abundance. This goofy, chubby, wonderful little boy and it just feels like too much. Too much for us. He is extra.

Extra in an already good life. An extra scoop of ice cream the young teenager doesn’t charge you for. A parking place in the shade on a Houston summer day. A gas light blinking that makes it to the service station.

Another grandson to add to the one we are already enraptured with. The big one watching over the little one and holding him sprawling on his lap with a look of duty on his face that melts your heart. Sometimes we are there to hear him say hello to his little brother after school in exactly the same way they will when they are in their thirties and coming home to mom and dad for Christmas. It’s a voice full of love and connection and family. It doesn’t matter that our littlest guy says nothing back. His brother knows he hears him. They’ve got a vibe going that the rest of us aren’t necessary to. Already. After only two months. Who are we?

I don’t know. But I’m there for it. All of it. I will take my turn every time it’s offered. I’ll change diapers and buy toys and go for walks. I’ll show up for holidays and school events and soccer games. I’ll do it all. And, someday, if the Lord is willing, I’ll have both those little boys at my house. We will eat popcorn and watch a cartoon and stay up too late. And, finally, when my husband and I are both exhausted and a little cranky and wondering why we volunteered for this they will fall asleep. Probably with their heads right next to each other whispering a secret and the little one’s tummy will still be hanging out and my husband and I will look at each other and one of us will whisper, “Who are we?”

And, as it so often is, that phrase will be a prayer of thanksgiving and wonder from two people well aware they don’t deserve any of it.

I watched a young girl the other day with shiny eyes and a sweet smile deliver a report on a court ruling about abortion. As I watched her, while spooning Captain Crunch into my mouth, I felt tears cloud my eyes. Before I knew it, they had escaped and mixed in with my breakfast cereal. The weird thing is, I would have been hard put to tell anyone why I was crying. No, that’s not right. The truth is I would have been hard put to tell someone each individual reason I was crying. I knew some of them. But others were deeper.

When did we become a society that talked about things like abortion with an exuberant voice and a twinkle in our eyes? Is it really a joyful subject? Really? I can’t imagine that it is for any of the real people experiencing it. I’ve sat on a scratchy couch in a dusk filled afternoon while my dear friend sobbed into a pillow. She was not joyful. In fact, for many many years after that my sweet friend was not joyful. It’s ok to say that–right? I mean these things the folks on TV espouse don’t always turn out great for us regular people. Maybe because we have to live the Tuesdays after the news break. The Tuesdays, and the one year anniversaries and the quiet moments in a car wash. Those are the times that big decisions like an abortion come back to say hello. I feel like somebody should say that.

Back to my tears. My day felt dark after that. You eat a salty bowl of cereal and your day turns a certain way. Not much you can do to change it. The next thing that happened was a heart breaking phone call with someone I love. She’s in the hospital. She’s in the hospital because she had an emergency surgery. It was a fluke thing that no one saw coming and when it did it came for her. So, now she’s laying there in the hospital and she doesn’t have all the tools she needs to fight as hard as I need her to. I don’t want to lose her. I don’t want her to suffer. I need her to come back from this, but her body is more than a little tired. She’s been carrying around way too much extra weight for years. It has taken a toll on her. Not her spirit but her body. Inside she’s strong. Her body just struggles to manifest that. She’s asked a lot of favors from it over the years and it has granted them. And now, she’s asking again. I hope. I hope. Please let her body grant this favor too. It’s a big one.

And, I have to admit, I wonder if somewhere there’s an interview playing on TV with another bright faced youngster talking about body positivity and what a great thing it is. How we should all love ourselves not matter what size we are. If we were having a cup of coffee and a danish somewhere I would agree with that youngster, but then I would ask why there was nothing in that report about how your knees ache first thing in the morning when you’re carrying around extra weight? I would ask for a follow up report that talks about the folks I love who worry whether they will be able to buckle their airplane seatbelt. Or how it feels to try to shrink yourself into a chair so you don’t disturb the person next to you. Being overweight, even if you’re positive you love yourself, is not a great way to live your life. High blood pressure and heart attacks are not fun things. Surely we can say that to folks?

That day ended with me typing out a response to a post on my neighborhood chat board. You’ve had those moments. Somebody says something and you immediately want to respond. To zing. To exhibit your superior intelligence. To set them straight. This post was about homeless people. Should you give them money or shouldn’t you? Which is more loving? I was going to respond with what I felt was irrefutable evidence that would settle the question once and for all.

Yes, I am sometimes just that dumb.

Those conversations never end with a lightbulb on over someones head. Instead, they make us believe we have absolutely nothing in common with the folks on the other side of those little alphabet letters. Believe that they might even be the enemy. Believe it even though we wave at each other at the pool, we buy their kids’ chocolate bars and they buy our kids’ wrapping paper at Christmas. Believe it even though they’ve been known to pick up our Amazon package when we were out of town. Believe it even though we know it’s not true.

We should tell each other that. Right?

Something like this, “Hey, that zinger you’re about to shoot off is going to Harvey. You remember him? He’s married to Kathy. They have two kids and a big yellow dog. He had knee surgery last year and always volunteers for Trunk or Treat at Halloween. Do you really want to label him with that colorful expletive? It might make things awkward at the pool?” And when we answer that we don’t know this particular Harvey, that he isn’t our Harvey maybe we should reply, “Well he’s someone’s Harvey you idiot.”

That’s ok to say right?

I guess that’s what I am asking with this post. Is it still ok to tell people the truth? The truth that something is going to hurt them in ways they can’t imagine. Or hurt someone else? Or hurt everybody? That despite what the young reporter with the shiny bob says truth is truth.

Because America, some decisions can’t be undone. Some things shouldn’t be made pretty or palatable. None of us are as smart as we think we are. We should always have Harvey’s back–he’s one of us. And, most importantly, I think, what our mothers and Jesus told us is invaluable. When we are brave enough to speak it– the truth will set us free. All of us.

A few weeks ago my husband and I had one of those moments that I believe makes life and all of its’ machinations and madness worth it. It was a Friday afternoon and my husband was done with work early. You should read that sentence again because that almost never happens. It sure never happens when you think it might or plan for it to. No, on those days my husband’s work runs late and is extra sticky. On those days, I sit on the love seat in our camper with my lipstick already on and my purse in my lap waiting for him to solve whatever problem has just become the most important problem that has ever presented itself. Sometimes, I sit there for a long time and then we go. Sometimes, I’m still there two hours later eating a peanut butter sandwich and wearing pajamas. At some point, my husband will stop long enough to come over and drop a kiss on the top of my head, tell me he’s sorry and ask me to make him a sandwich too. This is the flow of our days. I’m used to it.

Actually that’s what I say when he apologizes for another late night or canceled plan. “It’s ok, I’m used to it.” I don’t always say that to be nice. If you’ve been married for more years than not you know what I mean.

In fairness, I don’t always mean it mean, but it always has the history of his job and what it requires behind it. I would happily tell you what he does, but I’m not even really sure I know. I know that gravelly voiced men with Cajun accents call him in the middle of the night from platforms stationed in the ocean and that is never good. I know sometimes his boss calls to say something is solved, or working or just not broken with some software somewhere and that is never bad. I know that some days he comes home and his shoulders look like my grandpa’s used to. Rounded forward and tired, but from a different kind of work than my grandpa did. But still a work with a toll.

Not that Friday though. That Friday none of that was happening. He was home early and we had nothing to do. Nowhere to be. Nobody that needed us. And, we were ok with that. Sometimes, on those rare days. we hurry to fill it with something fun. Something necessary. We go listen to a band or run to a restaurant waiting to be tried or we make the dreaded trip to Walmart. But not this day. We stood there in the middle of our living room carpet and felt the space of unplanned time fold in around us. And then, this man that I have loved for so, so long asked me to go sit outside with him.

Tell me I didn’t do just that.

Tell me I didn’t go outside and pull my chair over next to his and just sit there seeing the same world he was. Listening to the same birds. Feeling the same sun. It was as close to perfect as a moment can come. Or at least it was to me. It reminded me of the very last scene in St.Vincent a Bill Murray movie that everyone should watch. After all of the drama and learning and loving that unfolds within the movie the film ends with Bill Murray sitting outside with a water hose and a canvas lawn chair and a bunch of dirt. He’s watering the dirt indiscriminately and singing and he’s happy. One might even say he’s in the moment.

Don’t cringe. I know that’s one of those phrases that has lost all meaning. I think that’s kind of a shame. Because if you can be content watering dirt, or just sitting next to someone and enjoying the same air I think things are going your way. If you can actually realize that it’s happening in the instant that it does it smoothes over so many days that head a different direction.

So, here’s to Friday afternoons that unfold unplanned. To movies that end with Bill Murray singing. To men that come home with rounded shoulders from a hard day’s work. To the blessing of still enjoying each other after all of the drama and learning and loving that happens in life.

I hope you find yourself in the same place soon If you do, you oughta take note. And, maybe a picture. It will give you something to look at while you eat your next sandwich on the couch with hopeful lipstick and your purse in your lap.

I went on a hike the other day and when I got back I pulled my shoes off and just spent some time in my lawn chair looking up at the wind blowing in the pines. Besides the awareness of a blister forming on my left heel, it was kind of a moment. I got teary eyed. A part of my soul poked its’ head up in that moment and made me aware of how nice it will be to be home. Not a home here on this beleaguered earth, but home home. With the Good Lord. Don’t misunderstand I’m in no hurry to make that happen. My bucket list is long and ever evolving. However, I am aware of what an amazing feeling it will be to be somewhere there is no bad. No blisters. Nobody worried about money. Nobody sick. Nobody with bad intentions. Nobody we have to guard ourselves around. Nobody we have to protect anyone from. That will be a moment. A moment worth everything. I imagine it will be a moment similar to one I have relived in my mind for years. A moment from my childhood. It was a family vacation. Five siblings and my folks crammed into a sub-compact car. Fights and tears and smells. Feet in my face and my fingers stuck out a window for some fresh air. Stops for hamburgers in greasy paper and cokes with melted ice. The smell of my mother’s cigarette, the rumble of my dad’s voice singing and the highway stretching out endlessly. It was waking up in the middle of the night still in the car with my little sister’s sweaty head on my leg. Moving her, making her cry and hearing the snap of my mother’s fingers in the darkness. Swallowing the surge of anger that I should get in trouble for wanting that heaviness off of me. It was the feeling that it was never going to end. That that trip would just go on forever and I would always be stuck in that cramped, sticky car. With people I loved but, also, a little miserable. It was the moment we finally got there. Vera and Ernest’s house. A kind couple that took my mother in as a child and, later, when she had five children loved them too. Put the fourth of those children in a grocery cart and talked to her all the way through the store like everything she said was important. Bought her a drinking cup shaped like a little bear and told everyone back at the house it was just for her. The kind of people you don’t have to guard yourself around. And the feeling of finally being there. Our little car in the driveway and their white house in front of us. Neat and small with a porch that ran along the front. There were two metal chairs out front. One with a blanket draped over the back. There were metal pails to snap green beans into and a black wire screen door. And framed in that screen door was Vera. Waiting for us. After that it was a mad search for our lost socks and bookmarks that had fallen. It was my dad telling us to gather up any food and trash. It was my brother’s elbow as he climbed over me trying to be the first one out. It was the ache of my knees as they unbent after hours spent folded sideways beside me. It was the smooth wood of their front porch and the feeling of my tennis shoes hanging from my fingers. It was her gathering me into her arms. Being smashed against her soft shirt that smelled like flowers and her strong arms patting me on the back. Pushing me away from her so she could see me. Her fingers smoothing down my wild hair and wiping something sticky off my face. Her hands pushing me into her little living room where I stood grouped with my brothers and sisters waiting for instructions. The instructions were to strip down. One at a time in her big yellow bathroom. There was a stack of clean white t-shirts and each of us put one on. Then, it was a bed. A pull out on a couch with the whitest sheets there ever could be. They smelled like flowers too. A crisp case covered a soft pillow that crinkled when I laid my head down. The luggage would be unpacked later. Baths would be needed. Admonishments to not roughhouse in the tiny house with so many pretty things but, first, rest. I fell asleep that afternoon completely contented. I wanted nothing. I needed nothing. I just wanted to nap in that pleasant house. To spread out as much as I wanted. To reach my toes down to the cool part of the bed not yet touched. I wanted to listen to the sound of the gentle rain falling and grown up voices visiting. The rise and fall of what they were saying creating the best kind of background noise. I burrowed into my crinkly pillow a couple of times, flipped over a couple of times and then I slept. Really, really slept. This is what I imagine part of the experience of heaven will be like. A much needed period of rest after a long and difficult trip. Warmth and clean clothes and the sound of loved ones voices nearby. All of it existing because of the goodness of the person who owns the house. A person who loves me and will gather me in for a warm hug and wipe away some of the dirt from my trip and send me in to gather with my equally tired family. Thank the Lord for people like Vera and Ernest. Hospitality and kindness are the bellwethers of heaven. Thank him also for the feeling of longing. For intently listening to me and knowing just what I need to remember that I am still traveling. Still on a journey home to him. Crisp pillowcases and a blister and worries and wind blowing through the pines. God is, indeed, good all the time.