This Classical Life

Pensive, doubting, fearful heart,
Hear what Christ the Savior says;
Every word should joy impart,
Change thy mourning into praise.
Yes, He speaks and speaks to thee,
May He help thee to believe;
Then thou presently will see
Thou has little cause to grieve.

Fear thou not, nor be ashamed;
All thy sorrows soon shall end,
I, who heaven and earth have framed,
Am thy Husband and thy Friend;
I the High and Holy One,
Israel’s God, by all adored,
As thy Savior will be known,
Thy Redeemer and thy Lord…

Though afflicted, tempest-tossed,
Comfortless awhile thou art,
Do not think thou canst be lost,
Thou art graven on my heart
All thy waste I will repair,
Thou shalt be rebuilt anew;
And in thee it shall appear,
What a God of love can do.
–John Newton (as heard on The Gadsby Project)

but this amazing video made me smile. (Atlanta school kids parodying TI’s “Whatever You Like” and laying out the issues.) They were interviewed here, and it’s worth watching, too.

HT to Janelle, my amazing sister, who is currently visiting. Hurray!

2008 has been a year. When I decided not to go back to the homeschool coop, I was really nervous. It kept me way too busy and drove me more than a little crazy, but it was dependable income, albeit very small. I had barely any photography clients. I thought my business would never take off. I was making less than minimum wage when I calculated in time and gas, let alone wear and tear on my equipment, Michael’s time helping watch the girls, etc.

Last week I officially had to close off 2008 for booking. My work as child and family photographer hasn’t taken Birmingham by storm quite yet, but it’s doing really well, well enough be booking into 2009! I am building a wedding portfolio I am pretty proud of, while working with wonderful Camille, a new friendship birthed in the fires of others’ big days.

When I was really anxious about all of this, I heard a cover of “Hold Me Jesus” in Chick-Fil-A, and for weeks, I kept meditating on the lines “Surrender don’t come natural to me / I’d rather fight you for something I don’t really want / than take what you give that I need.” I was applying to jobs I wasn’t sure I wanted, because I was afraid I’d never start making money doing what I love. I am grateful that those fears were unfounded, and that I have had exactly the number of clients I could handle without going crazy or totally neglecting the children.

Our lives this year haven’t been all raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, but as I take a step back and see what God has done, and is doing, in spite of us, I am thankful. And I am glad for the encouragement to carry on, because honestly, I need it.

The girls have worn PANTS (yea, even jeans) almost every day since Saturday. If you know our children, you know what a huge deal that is. This was even accomplished without weeping or gnashing of teeth.

What is your small victory this week?

Lest anyone think otherwise, we didn’t move to the perfect neighborhood (you know, the one with the manicured lawns and the fancy billboards) and find instant community. We moved intentionally to one of the three neighborhoods where our church has settled in. I’d say at least 80% of our church lives in 3 neighborhoods and the 3 or 4 other neighborhoods that connect them. We’re in the middle neighborhood. So, at least 80% of our church is less than 5 miles away.

I do have friends in the neighborhood who don’t go to our church. And I hope to make more! But our “instant community” was really community that has be percolating for quite some time. From the time our church was planted, those three neighborhoods have formed the nucleus. We organize community groups by neighborhood and other social functions, and elders serve each neighborhood as well. It’s an intentional community.

I can’t recommend this situation to you more highly. Whether your community is through church or a tribe of people with common interests, living together, in the same geographic area, really enriches relationships. You are more likely to bump into people. When you drive by their homes you think of them. It makes it very hard to be isolated. If your community is spread out hither and yon, pick someplace central and move in near *one* friend. One is better than none. Hope and pray that others follow.

I am so thankful we were able to sell our house and move. Having a friend next door to come help with groceries when I am getting out of the car and visit with me as I start dinner is a gift. So is being able to carpool and trade babysitting with another friend, who volunteered to watch my kids while I ran an unpleasant errand and ended up cleaning up one of the problem areas in our house, just because. When I went to the park to let the kids play through our wait for M, I ran into our friends who live just up the hill from us. We had both had our knitting and had a lovely chat while we worked (and with her husband as well.) I went to a baby shower for another friend who lives in the neighborhood at yet another friends’ house two blocks away. Hysterically, I shot a new client who was referred from the internet, who happens to live six houses away. Every single one of these things happened since Tuesday. Community is a remarkable providence, and I am thankful. These days of great mercies and difficult situations all at once can feel really schizophrenic but having the continuity of community makes them so much easier to bear.

God of my life, to Thee I call,
Afflicted at Thy feet I fall;
When the great water-floods prevail,
Leave not my trembling heart to fail!

Poor though I am, despised, forgot,
Yet God, my God, forgets me not:
And he is safe, and must succeed,
For whom the Lord is sure to plead.

Friend of the friendless and the faint,
Where should I lodge my deep complaint,
Where but with Thee, whose open door
Invites the helpless and the poor!

That were a grief I could not bear,
Didst Thou not hear and answer prayer:
But a prayer-hearing, answering God
Supports me under every load.
–William Cowper, as arranged on This Breaks My Heart of Stone

slightly shameless plug:

Christmas Card Mini-Sessions are happening in RALEIGH as well, on November 25th. Let me know if you want to book!

I made a doll for Kate’s sweet friend Frances’ fourth birthday. It was pretty easy and lots of fun. I’ve never sewn a doll or embroidered anything, and it wasn’t very difficult at all. I used this pattern. Here’s how it turned out:

Serina asked in the comments, “you work, work some more, take care of the kids, take care of the house…when do you read?” Here’s my secret: I don’t take good care of the house, always, and sometimes I get behind on other things as well. In the midst of a busy and chaotic life, the things that make me feel accomplished, sane and fulfilled have to take precedence. For me, that’s reading, taking pictures and crafting/creating. I get creative and I find time, no matter what our family circumstances. Lately, I’ve been carving out time by making sure I go to the JCC once a week sometime between 4 and 6:30, putting the kids in the nursery, not to work out, but to get an hour and a half to read during an otherwise trying time of day.

I love my life, I have a remarkable husband and two delightful little girls. I am exceedingly thankful I get to spend so much time with them, but I am also thankful I have ten hours a week to work or clean or read while they are at nursery school. Unsurprisingly, I’m not a perfect parent, and they aren’t perfect children. We have moments of connectedness, love and joy I couldn’t begin to put into words. We also have moments where I wonder if I say “you get what you get and you don’t throw fits!” one more time, will I lose it? And I do lose it. And my children lose it. But there is grace, grace freely given for all of us.

Love keeps no record of wrong. This blog is a record of my life. Think of it as a highlight reel. It’s nothing but the truth, but it’s not the whole truth. Luckily, I have friends who do know the whole truth, who are walking through my life with its chaos with me. And they know I am not wonder woman, and they can advise me when I am lost or frustrated or hurt or I just don’t know what to do. The fact that I don’t often post about those things here doesn’t mean they don’t happen. I just like to remind my readers of that every year or so, of how blogging and real life intersect for our family.

We have DVR with our rental, and the ability to record and watch multiple things on our many channels, without having to watch commercials, has led to some gratuitous television consumption. I am watching way more than I ever have. My excuse is that I cannot read while editing photos. In my head, I cancel this out by also listening to one extra sermon a week. Right now I am into Mark Driscoll’s Song of Solomon series, and I am enjoying it. At least my rationalizations have some fruit!

The Man Who Was Thursday by G. K. Chesterton
Solid Chestertonian fun, with rich comedic value that reoccurs with cyclical hysteria. First anarchism, then fascism, communism, and now terrorism. 7.5/10

Surprised by Hope by N. T. Wright
This is an interesting look at the afterlife, and views on heaven by evangelical Christians. Bishop Wright does an excellent job pointing out incorrect theological views of the resurrection and what our hopes of the future ought to be. At the same time, some of these issues are just not clear and Bishop Wright’s answers may not be any better than some others. Still, a very solid read, though it took me months and months to finish. 9/10

The Silver Chair by C. S. Lewis
This is one of my least favorite in the Chronicles, but it is still worth reading because it takes one back to Narnia. 6.5/10

The Faith of Barack Obama, Stephen Mansfield
I reviewed this here. 6/10

The The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers
I don’t know how I have missed this novel in the Southern Gothic tradition all of my life. It’s an interesting book and very well written considering the author’s youth. Weaving together people in a small Georgia town with the thread of one unusual resident who makes them all comfortable, this novel shows some of the universal aspects of the human condition. I enjoyed it. 8.5/10