my day lilies and Mary Oliver's trout lilies

For Mary Oliver, it was trout lilies.

For me, it was day lilies. In the field. In the woods. At the end of my street. The same woods I traversed to get to the library, the ones that always left scratches on my legs from sticks and weeds. Where my best friend Hannah wasn't allowed to play on her own because some people lived there from time to time, but I never bothered them and they never bothered me.

I loved my lilies, much like - it seems from the poem below - Mary Oliver loved her lilies.

Trout Lilies
by Mary Oliver

It happened I couldn't find in all my books
more than a picture and a few words concerning
the trout lily,

so I shut my eyes.
And let the darkness come in
and roll me back.
The old creek

began to sing in my ears
as it rolled along, like the hair of spring,
and the young girl I used to be
heard it also,

as she came swinging into the woods,
truant from everything as usual
except the clear globe of the day, and its
beautiful details.

Then she stopped,
where the first trout lilies of the year
had sprung from the ground
with their spotted bodies
and their six-antlered bright faces,
and their many red tongues.

If she spoke to them, I don't remember what she said,
and if they kindly answered, it's a gift that can't be broken
by giving it away.
All I know is, there was a light that lingered, for hours,
under her eyelids - that made a difference
when she went back to a difficult house, at the end of the day.

The grace, rich grace, for her was in the beauty she found outside of her house. The same was true for me.

I explored those woods. I breathed in the serenity of the flowers that grew with no care given to them and determined to grow in the same way. I drank from honeysuckle plants and ate the berries Hannah's mom said might not be safe and sometimes stole oranges off the trees in the neighbor's yard that bordered the woods. I looked more than a little wild most of the time, with twigs stuck in my hair and dirt smudged under my eyes and red lines where the bushes had cut into my skin, but I loved it there.

The safety wrapped around behind our house too, leading to the back of a church. I learned to worship for real there, daring to ask all the hard questions of God that weren't allowed in church.

And then I came home at the end of the day, with a light that lingered for hours under my eyelids.  

Those woods are mostly gone now, replaced by new apartment buildings that can never hold the same mystery or majesty as those day lilies. And for a time, the light that lingered under my eyelids was gone too, as I tried to forget the brokenness of that time which meant I forgot the beauty too. When we numb the bad, we end up numbing the good too. We can't pick and choose, just taking the M&Ms from the trail mix of life and leaving all the rest for some other poor schmuck. 

So now, though the remembering be painful, I'm finding myself embracing it all. The beauty. The brokenness. The wild girl who dared to hope and dream under those trees. The reckless faith she found for the first time there.

More than that, I'm learning that a Light really can shine in the darkness without being overcome by the shadows... and I'm grateful, both for that Light and for the light lingering again under these eyelids of mine.

Join me for a FB book study of Still Life: A Memoir of Living Fully with Depression

Need a place with a heavy dose of real? Gillian Marchenko is a friend and a colleague, and her book Still Life is starkly honest about life grappling with depression as a wife and mom. Seriously, I love this woman and her writing so stinking much, y'all. 

Starting Monday, I’m teaming up with Gillian to lead a book study of Still Life over the course of 8 weeks. We’ll have weekly assigned reading (no more than a few short chapters!). And I've intentionally chosen shorter readings for the first couple of weeks, knowing some folks might not have the book in hand on day one!

(But order yours here so that's not you!)

(And if you already know you want to join without reading the rest of the post, here's the link for that!)

The first week we'll ease in,  but here's the plan for the next seven weeks. Every Monday and Tuesday, I’ll post some reflection questions from that week’s text. On Thursday, I’ll post one or two more personal questions related to that week’s reading, not to force vulnerability but rather to provide opportunities to examine ourselves (so it’s fine to just answer for yourself to yourself instead of answering in the comments) and to – when answers are shared with the group – provide opportunities for “me too” moments. And on Saturday, we’ll look at self care and self compassion, both in examples from the text and in some challenges for our lives.

To be clear, I'm facilitating the study and posing the questions, but I'm not posing as anyone's therapist. I'm in the thick of life and struggles like anyone else, so I'd make a crummy guide for this journey. But I can be a companion, processing through the book alongside everyone else. 

Gillian won’t be a full participant in the group, but she’ll pop in from time to time for some planned interactions with us. As her friend, I can say she's a total gem. You'll love getting to know her better, not only through the pages of her book but through the group itself.

Everyone is welcome to participate as much or as little as they’ll like. If your time or comfort level means you don’t chime in for a question, that’s okay! When life happens, I don't expect this group to be your top priority. If you skip a day or a week, you can jump back in with no judgment. I’m not grading anyone, except on a scale of grace. We’re all grown ups, so we can make the best decisions for ourselves.

Interested? Here's the link to request membership. At some point - probably after the first week - we'll close down adds, as I expect it will throw off the dynamic of the group to have more people jumping in midway through. (But y'all know I also work for Key Ministry, and we're entertaining the idea of having this become a regular thing with different books related to mental illness or disability. This group, not officially affiliated with Key Ministry, is serving as a test run, so I'll keep you posted!)

If you have any questions, shoot me a message or leave a comment. Hope you can join us!

7 shows I will binge watch until I die

1. The West Wing

President Bartlet, I love thee. Can we elect you this season instead of our current option? (We’d take Santos too. And probably Arnie. Or Charlie. Or C.J. Or Sam. Maybe even Toby. Or the call girl turned law school grad whose name I can’t remember right now. Seriously, any of you – in character, of course – would be preferable.)

2. Gilmore Girls

I love me some snarky fast-talking women. Did you know that the scripts for this show were often twice as long than scripts usually are because of the conversation speed of Rory and Lorelai? Sure, they hit a slow patch in Season 5 or 6, but I don’t even skip those.

3. Friday Night Lights

Can Tami Taylor be my best friend? I kinda love her.

4. TIE: Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt & 30 Rock

 Comedy. Gold. Tina Fey, I love you and what you bring to this world.

5. Anything by Shonda Rimes

Shonda is a visionary, and her shows are daring and full of heart. Also, her contribution to increasing racial representation of minorities in prime time, in roles that aren’t sidekicks or stereotypes? Ground-breaking.

6. Friends

The one I can watch all the days.

7. Awful teen dramas.

Dawson’s Creek. Pretty Little Liars. Switched At Birth. Make It or Break It. Need I say more?

(I did draw the line at The Secret Life of American Teenagers. Even I have some standards.)

Okay, y’all: Enable my bingeing ways. (After all, Mama's got a lot of laundry to fold, the Olympics are still a couple weeks away, and I'm almost done re-watching all of The West Wing. Again.) What else should I add here? Bonus points if the cast isn’t super white (but no judgment if it is, because, well, see most of the items on my list).

(Final note: Sorry to break your hearts, but I just couldn’t get into Parenthood. I tried. Really, I did. Also, I love crime shows, especially NCIS and Bones, but binge watching those isn’t as enjoyable when you know whodunit... but I'll gladly watch it all the way through one. Oh, and one last thing… I can’t handle violence well – hello, PTSD – so while I could make it through House of Cards, I couldn’t do Breaking Bad or Jessica Jones and I haven’t even tried Game of Thrones or The Walking Dead.)

So, whatcha watching?

9 reasons I’m being more selective about conference travel

In the past week, I've turned down two speaking invitations for fabulous events. I wanted to say yes - oh, how I wanted to! - but no was the clear answer for this time and stage. I even tried to convince myself I could do one, and I texted someone I trust deeply for advice. Her reply? "I think you already know the answer but you don't want to admit it to yourself."

Welp.

She was right. I did. So I wrote the organizer to apologize that I couldn't come this year, and then I found myself doing the same thing again a week later. And I grieved, sad to miss these phenomenal events, disappointed that my humanity means I can't do all the things I want to do, and - to be honest - embarrassed to admit my ego was bruised of not getting to be share about traveling to Seattle and Chicago this year. (Another year, I hope, that will all be different!)

speaking at Bifrost Arts' Cry of the Poor conference in Philadelphia in 2013, still one of my all-time favorite conferences ever

Last year, I traveled all over - Seattle. Charlotte. DC. Orlando. Durham. South Texas. DC again. Nashville. - all while holding down the fort back here in between and beginning some intense therapy work to process through past traumas I had hidden away, hoping to ignore forevermore. (It doesn't work that way. The pain demands to be felt eventually.) So why - after making all that work - am I stepping back now?

1. Writing is my first passion.

Friends, colleagues, and strangers keep asking when I’ll write my first book. I have several proposals I’ve started over the years but then set aside. I meant for this past year, with all the kids in school for the first time, to be devoted to writing. That didn’t happen. I love to travel, but it takes a lot out of me. And I generated a lot of new speaking content this year, which took time. I’ve realized to get back to writing, I need to step back from speaking so much.

2. I need to make space for the personal work I’m doing.

I’ve been open about being in therapy. Given some recent vulnerable posts, some of you can guess some of the topics. Others will never be offered for public consumption.

My therapist is a total Godsend, but there’s no way she can make this process easy for me. Trauma work is hard. I’m learning a lot, realizing a lot, healing a lot, and grieving a lot, all at the same time. I need space in my life to give myself the time needed for this important self care.

3. I’m not convinced ministry breakout sessions offer a large enough impact to justify my travel.

Consider a children’s ministry conference. I’m the special needs ministry guru, often the only one. Every goes to the main sessions, which cover the topics deemed most universal (and, to be honest, which feature the speakers whose name recognition lend credibility to the conference as a whole). Inclusive ministry isn’t a main stage session. It should be, given the stats and the need. The people who come to special needs ministry sessions? They’re mostly the people who already see the need to welcome families like mine and would seek out the resources we provide at Key Ministry, whether they ever met me or not. The people who are still explicitly turning away special needs families or implicitly making them feel unwelcome? They need to be challenged from the main stage.

Because I don’t think it’s worth my time to be the lone disability advocate preaching to the choir in a small back room, I’m starting to say no to conferences unless special needs issues will be addressed in the main sessions. I love being the one to do so, but I’m totally fine if it’s someone other than me. I’m just certain that the impact needed for the continued growth of inclusive ministry means that the topic can’t be an afterthought or sideshow.

(For other conferences, smaller settings work wonderfully, so I'm not opposed to presenting workshops ever. But I'm finding that I must evaluate the impact before I can say yes, especially for longer distance travel. And I don't want to be a token voice on disability issues just so the organizers can say they care about families like mine, when nothing in their main session content demonstrates that.)

4-9. Jocelyn, Patience, Philip, Robbie, Patricia, and Zoe.

One has recently started coming to me, little hands balls into fists against skinny legs, and whispering, “Mommy, I need help. I’m having feelings.” Another crawled into bed with me this past weekend to cry in my arms over the ending of the book Bridge to Terabithia. I want to be here in moments like those. My little people are ages 4, 5, 7, 7, 9, and 9. I already have the rule that I don’t travel on their birthdays. But I want to be around on more of the other days too.

(That said, I think it’s healthy for them to witness the work I do. It matters. But I always want them to rest assured that they matter more. In this season, staying home more does that. In another session, I might be able to travel frequently while still affirming their value as greater. It’s a balance, and this is where I land right now.)

I hope none of this sounds like I’m ungrateful for the myriad of opportunities I’ve had. One glance at my speaker page will reveal that I’ve gotten to go some amazing places with some inspiring people. I’m beyond thankful.

I’m also certain I will travel. Just not as much in this season. God designed me to need rest too, and my kids and writing deserve more of me right now.