Child Garden

I think that in Nanticoke and the surrounding areas, sweet children sprout up like flowers.

Some of them even floated their way to Bainbridge to have a picnic in my apartment (the table wasn't big enough...).

God's been good to give me so many little seedlings to love, has He not? And just think, these few are just a sampling of the twenty-five nieces and nephews I've got. That's some garden.

It Can't Be Denied...

...time has passed.

It's hard to believe that I'm about to start my fourth year of teaching. It feels like yesterday that I was quailing at the thought of stepping into my own classroom for the first time and trying to have it all together.

Despite the rough patches, that first year was a good one.

Looking back at the few pictures I took, I smile.

The highlight of the year was having some of my kids over to my apartment to bake Christmas cookies.  Some of my students had never done it before.

It's not about having it all together.

It's about loving the least of these and helping them grow to see what life can mean.

Caught By Surprise

Do you ever grin when something utterly ordinary assumes a loveliness you didn't expect?

Because I do.

Isn't She Lovely?

I snapped a few shots before the wedding began in earnest and the last thing in the world I was thinking about was my camera.

The unveiling:

On the way to the park for the ceremony:

She held a Bible in her hands, worn with age. Her mother and all of her mother's sisters had clasped it as they walked down the aisle. Now it was her turn.

I think she was excited, don't you?

And that's all I have. I was too busy Being to take any more pictures. So there.

Married Off: Wedding Words From One of the Maids

"I never know when I’ll cry when I’m speaking about people I love in front of large groups, so I figured it’d be safer to write down the words I want to say before they fly away from me in my hour of need...

I’ve known Amanda since kindergarten. We watched each other grow from little girls in frilly dresses with gigantic 90's bows in our hair, to awkward middle schoolers who didn’t know how big the world was yet, to high schoolers who started to understand that life was full of important questions and that we could look for answers together.

We’ve played sports together and traveled to a different country together and sung together and acted in plays together. We’ve talked until we couldn’t keep our eyelids open and cried until they felt swollen shut and laughed until it felt like our skin couldn’t hold the joy inside.

It has been a beautiful 20 years, Amanda Geraldine.

You’ve been the friend who’s a constant. No matter where our feet took us or how many the miles between us, we always picked up where we left off. We’ve always been able to instinctively understand each other’s nooks and crannies, and I’m so grateful God gave me the chance to have a friend like you. Not all people are given that gift.

I plan to still be laughing with you when our hair has turned gray and we have wrinkles carved like canyons through our faces, if God lets us both live to see those years. Ever since the day I first heard the song 'Old Friends' by Simon & Garfunkel, I’ve had a vision of our friendship as we grow old. The picture they present is a simple one, but it fits us. We’ll be the old friends who sit on our park bench like book ends. I think that’s lovely, because it implies an understanding that runs deeper than words.

Thank you for the bright spot you’ve been for me all my life long.

Kevin, I remember when you first became part of Amanda’s life. Before I even met you, I liked you. I had no choice, really. How could I not like a boy who packed a picnic lunch he made himself to eat with Amanda in the park, a boy who watched for unsuspecting old ladies to leave their cars so he could put a bouquet of flowers on their hood, a boy who had the imagination to come up with a date that involved painting on canvases in the bed of his truck? From the moment we met, you have been such a unique person in the best of ways. From a best friend standpoint, you always made me feel so very clearly that you valued my friendship for both Amanda and for yourself. I’ve often found myself caught in wonderment at your thoughtfulness and smiling appreciatively at your sense of humor and your curiosity about the world. You’ve gained my respect in so many ways, and I count you a good friend and one well worth talking to about the most important things in life. You and Amanda couldn’t fit together more perfectly.

I have a lot of memories with Amanda, and I’ve stocked up quite the stash that have Kevin in them now, too.

You know what, though? I think this memory is going to top them all.  

I know a wedding is just one day, but when you know and love Kevin and Amanda as we all do, you know that, really, it isn’t just one day. It’s the culmination of days and it’s the beginning of days. It’s a declaration that there will be so very many days to come, and that Amanda and Kevin want to keep growing and learning and stretching out together in each one of them. It’s about saying to each other, “I’m not done getting to know you.” It’s about God and it’s about beauty and it’s about the love that makes you clench each other’s hands through hard times.

I am so confident that this marriage will last through as many anniversaries as life allows; that you, Kevin, will care deeply for my best friend; and that you, Amanda, will always find joy even during life’s rocky parts.

This is a marriage that is going to grow straight and strong as an oak, and will reach up toward the highest things.

And I bless you in it.

I love you both."

Friends: Winter

This post only has one photograph in it, but that's because one photograph is all it needs. Sally of Frog-Pond-pickle-barrel-penny-squishing fame not only visits in the summer, but she also visits in the winter. She's tremendous. 

This past Christmas (or was it two Christmases ago?...this is a very old picture that I'm resurrecting...), Sally brought me a tree for my apartment. It was a very special tree.

You see, we had to build it from individual pine boughs.

There's nothing like having a Charlie Brown Christmas tree in one's apartment to give joy.

[Mostly because of the people they're associated with.]

Thank you for making Christmas bright, Sally.

Friends: Summer

These gems are from last summer. They were too good to stay buried in a file on my laptop. So, please. Enjoy a look into last summer with me, and meet my lovely Sally and the wonderful Sarah.

This was Sarah's first jaunt to my nest in Bainbridge, and it was so, so good to have her company. Sarah and Sally were two of the nine of us who lived together in a beautiful old brick house called Brown House during my senior year at Houghton. That was a golden year indeed. Living with such dear folk and loving each other, making each other meals and singing the doxology together before we ate them, going for hikes, learning to appreciate each other's idiosyncrasies, giving each other comfort, laughing heartily, and sometimes crying with as much sincerity... Even just writing such a glancing description of that year makes my heart glow warm. Yes. One of the best years of my life.

Mmmm.

Memories run deep.

Sally was my bosom chum during college. She is one of the loveliest girls you'll ever meet, full of empathy, always thinking, always knowing the painful beauty of the world she was born in. She has a soul as deep as the ocean. Our differences have made each of us stretch to contain the other.

And Sarah? Sarah was our Mowgli, our adventurer. She traveled to Tanzania, to Rwanda and brought a slice of that world back with her. She is capable, confident, but she somehow still knows how to give some of the best hugs you've ever gotten.

I am so grateful for them.

When they came for their visit, we went to The Main Street Grill, the best little restaurant this side of the Mississippi. [If you come visit me, I'll take you there. Visit me!]

We also rambled on down to Frog Pond, a bustling family-owned produce, small livestock, and flower market. It's charming. I don't know how many times I've been tempted to buy a rabbit to keep me company in my apartment. Or a pig. You may laugh, but you haven't seen how cute they are.

Sally was--as you can see--overcome by the pickle barrels.

I made a friend. It's difficult not to be chummy with someone who looks so eerily like you...

When I first moved to Bainbridge as a country bumpkin down to my roots, adjusting to life in town took a lot of time. The sound of the train shrieking its way through town in the wee hours startled me awake. Now I find it a steady sound, a homey sound.

We made good use of the railroad tracks to flatten some pennies.

Bainbridge has the best custard you've ever tasted, and a lovely little park to enjoy it in.

Thank you for bringing me some warm fuzzies as I rediscovered these photos, my friends. God is so good to have brought us to each other, even if time's passing has meant a change in what our friendship looks like.

Godspeed in your travels, wherever you go.