good pairing

You know how restaurants sometimes pair their meals with a suggested beverage? Well, I can't even begin to recommend a good wine to accompany lobster tails, but I can recommend reading Psalm 84 while listening to This House, by Sara Groves. If it were a menu item, it would read something like this:

This House, with Psalm 84
Savor this sweet, gentle melody while the beautifully-crafted story unfolds with a rare and surprising authenticity. The accompanying psalm brings out subtle notes of separation and reunion, growth and calling, sojourn and homecoming. Indeed, He has withheld no good thing.

Read here. Listen here.

prayer scraps

A few [very] scattered thoughts on prayer...

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prayer beyond communication and into communion
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not simplified to merely thinking about God or talking to God -- prayer as being with God
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for people who depend upon verbal ability... prayers of short and simple truths that sink in deeply
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mental preoccupations becoming prayer
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"prayer is our work and our work is prayer"
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prayer that allows the Holy Spirit to pray in me
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in the midst of chaos, a heart at rest in prayer
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rhythms of life as spaces for prayer
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These scraps of ideas might crystallize before I lead a workshop on prayer as a spiritual discipline next Saturday... or they might not, and that's probably just as well.

If you're in the area and want to spend time exploring spiritual disciplines in preparation for Lent, come to JKPC on Saturday, 2/6, 9:00-12:30 (childcare provided).

they said it

(no reason)
Nate: I'm so brave. I'm not even scared when a snake tickles my toes.

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(just stringing together words and adding suffixes as he sees fit)
Dexter: Can I have the fivest one that I want?

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(at dinner)
Nate: Can I have some more teeter tots?

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(overheard while the boys were playing together)
Dexter: Nate, you're a nice brother. You don't hit me. I like you, Nate.

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(telling Jon about our day)
Nate: We saw the magnolia trees!
Jon: Which ones are the magnolia trees?
Nate: They look like a tree full of uvulas.

Not a bad description...

playing the game

Nate has a game he likes to play at snack time. He holds up a graham cracker (or multiple graham crackers carefully pressed together), and asks "How many graham crackers do I have?" The goal, of course, is to try to trick the other person into thinking you have one when you actually have more, or vice versa.

Naturally, Dexter has to try to do everything Nate does. Here is a video of Dexter trying to play this game with me.



He knows the basic script, more or less. He knows how to hold his hands, when to keep them still and when to move them. But he clearly has no grasp of the underlying fundamentals of the game.

This feels uncomfortably familiar to me.

Are we like this in our worship? We know the script. We know when to stand, when to kneel, when to sit. Do we have a clue what we are doing? Why it matters? If it matters?

My two-year-old is teaching me:

1. Motions and words ≠ knowledge.
2. Keep watching and imitating.
3. Smile and have fun while you try, even if you're not doing it right.
4. The game gets a lot more fun as you grow into it.

dexter prayer

Last night after Jon prayed with the boys, Dexter said he wanted to pray too. Here's what he prayed:

Dear God, we pray for Robenson for the buildings that falled down and for Emily for she can help all her friends. In Jesus' Name we pray, Amen.

Translation: Robenson is the child we sponsor through Compassion in Haiti. We have been praying for him all week and for the whole country. We haven't heard official word about Robenson but we did learn that he lives quite far away from Port-au-Prince, so we are hopeful that he is OK. So, you're probably wondering... who is Emily? Um... that would be Thomas' friend Emily... the TRAIN. Two things near and dear to the heart of our two year old: the situation in Haiti, and trains.

our new adoption blog

We have a new home for all our adoption information and updates: We Are Adopted. I have moved all of my adoption-related posts from the last few months over to that site and will be posting future updates there. I'll keep the half-finished thoughts, stories, poems, and ramblings coming at this site, but now you don't have to sift through it all if you really just want to get info on our adoption.

Peace, and a blessed Martin Luther King, Jr Day to you!

tyrannosaurus dex

There is nothing funnier to me than when my two-year-old is really good and mad. He scowls. He stomps. He lets you know, in no uncertain terms, that he is not happy and you are gonna hear about it. Here are just a few of the things I have heard him say in anger over the past 24 hours:


I will flush you down the toilet!


I will spit you into the crocodile's mouth!


I'm gonna bite your boo-boo!


Thankfully he has not been able to make good on any of these promises...