Small

My faith is small, or maybe the way I live my life is small, and ordinary. In small things I find God: his presence, his provision, his orchestration, his glory, his love.

When I recognize God in my life, it usually comes in the form of just enough rice or just enough flour, or sun breaking through cloud before sunset after several days of depressing grey, or a poem just right for the moment, or the colour of a pair of mittens matching a child’s snowsuit I’ve never seen before, or the heart shape of trembling aspen leaves strewn along a creekside pathway. God is in the shade of orange kelp on sand. God is in a small child spinning in a pink tutu. God is. I have come to notice God in all the details.

I believe my Grandfather taught me to see God in this way. When I was very young, Grandpa walked me around his garden on summer evenings, our hands clasped behind our backs, each flowering shrub like an offering, a miracle he had discovered and wanted me to see. “Look at that” he would say, gazing deep into the centre of a Hibiscus bloom “have you ever seen a design like that?” “Rosa, Spiraea, Forsythia, Weigela, Hydrangea…” he repeated over and over until I knew them. Name these plants, see these small miracles. He was the same about song birds. His curiosity and joy of creation spilled over and captivated me. Little things. Seeing small. Seeing God.

Not that I don’t dream big. I love to dream and drink wine and talk about ideas. Not that I don’t dive into big things, because I do. But the dreams and projects and ideas must quickly settle into a series of little steps to realize the bigger picture. And maybe it’s not the big thing that matters as much as the little things that take place along the way. Usually, that means the people, conversations, conflicts, resolutions, and love. Each little interaction, each small encounter, mattering so much more than any end result. God is in the details of people too, I find.

My faith is small, and wildflower and honey bee sized. My faith is my search for tracks to hang gallery hardware on the wall and finding them no more and no less than I needed, and my faith is the width of several old doors that now cover windows, in exactly the right width for the openings. My faith is sometimes the size of these three words…”I don’t know”. My faith is the sound of my daughter’s joy that she drove stick shift for the first time over the winding road to the Pacific Rim, and back. Safe. Back. My faith is light and shadow, juxtaposition of words on a sign against audaciousness of spring blooms. God is in each one of these small and sacred things.

My faith is small.

My faith is small, and simple.

My faith is small, and ordinary.

God is there.

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe said “God is in the details.”

God is.

Lesley-Anne

Homespun

When I was quite young (spoiler alert) my Grandmother used to sew. Each summer I would be excited to receive my “pop top” with matching short set, exciting to me because I was wearing something new and my darling Grandmother had made it with her own hands. She used a pattern, probably Butterick or McCall, and though it was not a unique pattern, each set was made with her choice of fabric and thread, which made it one-of. I felt like a princess in my new summer handmade homespun outfit!

In autumn, I remember collecting leaves and saving them between two sheets of waxed paper, ironed carefully using my mother’s iron and an old pillow case. Or, pressing leaves between the pages of heavy books, which was even more successful at maintaining the vibrancy of colours, albeit leaves were very fragile afterwards. We did this with flowers too.

At Christmas, we often baked using hand written recipes from family members or close friends, meticulous explanations of how to craft welsh cakes and shortbread and empire cookies, and we anticipated then enjoyed every morsel of our traditional treats.

Often, at family gatherings, we congregated in the living room and laughed ourselves silly over black and white home movies, hazy images of mom and her cousins riding a calf or sledding or standing proudly in front of a new family sedan. The clicking sound of the film as it was pulled through the projector and the click clack faster and faster at the very end of the reel.

We led fairly simple lives, I guess, a middle income family with strong connections to our cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents, country roots, and an earthiness that translated into deep pleasure for me in enjoyment of simple things like riding a hay wagon during harvest, or feeding the barn cats a plate of warm milk, or feeling the rough tongue of a calf on the palm of my hand, or watching sheet lightening over the fields on warm August nights. I don’t recall any feeling of competition, or any need to prove what I was doing compared to anyone else. My experiences were just that…mine. There was a lovely innocence to the time, sure I was innocent then, but when I look at my life now I wish for more of that simple way of being, unto myself.

Today there is an insidiousness about social media that has me wondering what we are doing, and why? Even as I type this blog post it feels like more of the same thing…writing, which I do love, but then I will cast my thoughts upon the internet waters in hope of…what…that you will click “like” or follow my blog, or like me? Rather than living unto myself I often live unto others.

My access to these ways of sharing myself, my pursuit of connection, wide connection, (I do enjoy the contact with those who live far away, family members whom I seldom see) encourages me to craft my life into something a little larger than it is were you sitting beside me on the couch right now, sharing a tea and a story. I post photos to Facebook, share my joy, but I wonder is my joy better served by turning back to those who have created it within me. And I wonder does social media serve me, or does it master me, subtly, yet clearly, and to what greater good?

I am beginning to pay more attention to how I present myself, and how my online virtuality spills over into my reality, affected by every single friend that rolls through my news feed. I see trends, new norms, creating expectations which are both unrealistic and burdensome at times, because truth is everyone else is tweaking their image a little bit too.

If I were to spend too much time on Pinterest, for example, I admit my homemade cookies would beg for a better design, my Christmas decor would never match up, my photos would be carefully edited prior to posting, and photo shoots would be required for a myriad of occasions I never thought necessary before. I love design, so research on Pinterest can be really fun, but it can also be overwhelming to see the finesse and extreme excellence of every craft and upcycle and undertaking. I am exhausted with the thought of meeting this pimped out status quo before I begin my own DIY. The stakes are too high!

I think we (sometimes/often) need to leap off the virtual bandwagon and rediscover the power of simple homespun imagination…unplugged. Which is very hard to do…maybe impossible? No, it is possible. Yes, it is!

Because sometimes I get a taste of it, and it is good. Like last night I watched a very sweet unpolished video of a bunch of kids dressed up in homemade costumes, telling a story in the form of a play. It was that tickle trunk dress-up my kids used to do when they were little. The lady who made the video said, sorry about the audio…but it was fine…it was more than fine…it was extraordinary. It allowed me to…breathe…to laugh…to enjoy the silly wonderful way of mistakes and imperfection and sweet innocence of those kids doing their play oblivious to any need to be…better…or slicker…or more excellent. It was pure. It was perfect.

And so I wonder, in this virtual world, with everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, available to me at a few clicks of my keyboard…can I find a way of being without all that, or with just a little bit, or sometimes? I really don’t need to know everything. I don’t need to do and post photo shoots of my Christmas crafts or cookies. I just need to know a few things, and give myself over to the pleasure of each new experience, in the moment. I need to trust  who I am, with quirky imperfections, uniqueness, imagination, my way of being and doing, is…one of…and good enough. I can be the homespun version of me and create an authentic life. And maybe I won’t blog about it either.

Slow down, log off, focus, breathe…

I wonder…

LA.

 

 

 

Sunday and still here…

I’m sitting on my couch and the sounds of dishwasher and kids playing ping pong and dog snoozing are all I hear. I didn’t go to the church with walls and ceiling today. Instead, I stayed home and made banana pancakes for my two sons. We talked at the table. It was very good. Why not celebrate God is Love right here and now.

I’m reminded of Mies Van Der Rohe, of his “less is more” approach, and how I’ve got to be reminded of that over and over again when Spring hits and soccer and must do’s overwhelm my preferred life of simplicity. Personal time, family time, down time, meal time, is all affected. I have to seize each opportunity as it comes. Rather than live by obligation or should do’s, do what my heart says. See the beauty in the moment, like the inside of a cabbage I cut open and discovered the beauty above.

I also found this… a reflection I wrote a while ago on an old blog… but think I needed to read again today. For permission. For confirmation. For grace. For the reminder that;

I’m also a simple woman with a sphere of influence that starts at my own kitchen table.

Yes,

Lesley-Anne, SDG