Margaret Philbrick

This Bear

December 9, 2019 by Margaret Philbrick Leave a Comment

I Love Him! Yes, my husband and Jesus and Ted D. Bear which is his formal name. In his younger days he went by just Ted until the insane “Ted” movie series came out. This blasphemed and confused him, forcing him to take his formal, full name to maintain his innocent identity. Recently, I found this letter on the chair in our bedroom where he resides, keeping watch over his flocks by night — a small selection of ladybugs who climb through the screens when it first turns cold and manage to stay alive through most of the winter. They keep him entertained, but with the departure of our children he has too much free time on his hands which is probably why he penned this letter.

Dear B.F.F.,

We’ve been together since you were seven and your grandfather picked me out of Hayward, Wisconsin’s only toy store, on Christmas Eve. I remember the exaltation of being chosen and the relief that he didn’t pick the stuffed muskie next to me. I can still picture you flouncing in on Christmas morning wearing your white robe with the long, red ribbons and your matching fuzzy slippers. You grabbed me first and hugged me before opening any of your other presents. That’s when I first loved you too. We went to slumber parties together, at Meg’s house you hid me inside your sleeping bag so the other girls wouldn’t see. I kept your feet warm. My worst moment came when your roommates hung me off the balcony of your fifth floor dorm room at that boiling hot college in Texas. They forgot — I’m a stuffed bear so I can’t die. You forgave them and we’re all still friends. I forgave the big man when you two got married and he banished me to the linen closet, calling me a “dust ball.” I can’t help it if he has allergies! He didn’t know you came into the closet and hugged me during all those years he traveled on business and your kids grew up. I loved those tea parties with Beauregard and all the other bears that came to live with us: Snuffle bear, Grey bear, Dan bear. Now in Wisconsin, I get to sleep with you and that mangy dog whose breath is unbearable. Fortunately, she sleeps at the foot of the bed and I’m still right next to you, only when the big man is gone and I accept that, no hard feelings between us. I can’t help it if he has allergies! The last time we slept together my pillow was covered in crumbly, dried out orange foam. That’s my stuffing and in case you haven’t noticed I have several holes around the seam of my neck. For Christmas I’m asking for you or your daughter to sew me up. If you don’t, I won’t last. I might turn to dust and the big man’s nickname for me will come true! Please, all I want for Christmas is my seams sewed up.

Forever your loving cinnamon bear, Ted D. Bear

He’s precocious and adorable and one of us will sew him up which brings me to the point of all this. There are far too may stuffed animals in the world that end up in landfills and far too few who take their place among the living, like The Velveteen Rabbit. These are the ones who are loved so much, that they become “real.” A lifetime of childhood memories attach to them and to a degree they are more real than the thousands of disorganized, forgotten photos held by our phones and computers. They are tangible, we held them and cried into their fur and if we take care of them, they last. What is hanging around your house or apartment that is precious enough to you that you’ve glued it together when it broke or sewed it up when it ripped? How can we live less disposable lives and truly “cherish” something or even better, someone this advent season? For He cherishes us enough to sew us up and fix us with every repeated fall and failing.

Psalm 103:2

Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits,
who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases.”

Spend some glue this December and mend a relationship that’s broken or at least a favorite bear.

Part two in a four part advent series on the tangible and intangible aspects of life that last.

This Couch

December 3, 2019 by Margaret Philbrick Leave a Comment

A single question, asked on this couch changed everything. Thirty-one years ago today I lived in a tiny apartment in Chicago on Dearborn street, worked in an advertising agency and stopped for groceries at Treasure Island after getting off the El-train. Snowflakes mixed with yellow gingko leaves on the sidewalk as I slushed my boots into 1100 N. Dearborn. I pressed the 19th floor elevator button and checked out my hair in the mirrored glass. We’d decided earlier in the day to go pick out a Christmas tree that evening. After dropping my groceries onto the only counter in my “galley” kitchen, which is a romantic city term for inadequate kitchen, I changed into jeans and a Christmas sweater. This was the end of the 80’s — people wore gaudy sweaters for real, not as a joke at corporate Christmas parties.

Over on Rush street a bar with outdoor seating beckoned commuters, a busy watering hole called Melvins. During holiday season they filled the red-painted wrought iron furniture with Christmas trees beneath multi-colored lights, the old fashioned kind our grandparents hung on their trees with single colored, large light bulbs. The evergreen smell and warm, holiday glow created an oasis in the city rush.

He tucked his gloved hand into my mitten. We found a tree that might fit. I took the top and he carried the trunk. City lights and taxi horns mingled with the “Charlie Brown Christmas” theme song as we carried my first “big” Christmas tree back to my first “big” one bedroom apartment.

“I think I’ll take a shower,” I said. The tree sap pinned my fingers together and I felt sweaty. Radiator heat equals boiling hot, unadjustable indoor temperatures. We’d wrestled the tree into the stand and moved the furniture around to make space for it. “Oh, okay,” he said with a puzzled look.

I emerged in a yellow robe and hair up in a towel, (we’d been dating for six years so this was not a big deal.) Slumping down next to him on the couch I noticed he looked pale, almost gaunt. He gathered my hands in his sweaty palms, “We’ve been together for awhile. We both love family and I want that to continue, to grow. I want us to have our own family someday. I want what we have to go on.” Oh, how I could not believe I’m sitting in a robe with no make-up on at this moment. He slid off the couch onto his knees. “Will you marry me?”

“Of course I will!” I laughed, screamed, and surprisingly did not cry. Being sneaky, he’d tucked the ring box behind a pillow on the couch. After we finished hugging (and of course, kissing) we sat back and stared at each other, he handed it to me. Laughing louder, I opened the black, velvet box and to my shock there was a ring inside, his grandmother’s ring which I knew nothing about. I’d been expecting a cigar band with a cute message written inside, something like, “I.O.U. an incredible ring when I’m a successful lawyer someday.” We’d never looked at rings or even talked about them and he slid his grandmother’s beautiful ring on my finger. My “of course I will” went silent. To this day, it is the most special ring in the world.

The view this morning from this couch is a world of white. First rain, then ice, then snow coated all the trees in our neighborhood and it stuck. Just like his question 31 years ago today. It stuck. In an age of IKEA furniture that ends up out on the curb and disposable Joanna Gaines signs, I hope this Advent we seek after something that sticks, something that lasts. My parents bought this couch on their honeymoon for ten dollars off the porch of the Thorp Hotel in Fish Creek. WI. It still says “ten dollars” in pencil on the bottom. Then it moved to our back porch in Geneva, IL and held many dressed up girls at birthday parties, then on to my studio apartment and down the hall to apt. 1901, my one bedroom and now it’s back home where it began. We changed the color from white to forest green and each spring we take the wicker furniture outside and touch up the chipped paint. My mother and father take naps on the couch they bought on their honeymoon, our friends laugh and cry as we tell stories and drink craft beer around the fire. This couch…his question…the pure joy of something that lasts. And today, “Of course I will, my love.”

Part one of a four part Advent series on the tangible and intangible aspects of life that last.

Thankful? Our New Life – Six Months Later

November 4, 2019 by Margaret Philbrick 10 Comments

We couldn’t wait to get here. A gale force wind seemed to blow us across the Illinois border. Everything fell into place, even our dog loved her new life on Langdon. What dog wouldn’t love finding discarded pizza slices lying on the ground with every morning walk? Today she trotted out a blueberry muffin between her jaws from beneath a tree. Our street, filled with sorority and fraternity houses a.k.a. party row is loud, which means Sunday and Monday are the only nights we don’t sleep with a fan cranked on high to drown out the street noise. We are definitely “not in Kansas anymore,” or “the Shire,” our nickname for our former home and town of 29 years. So how is it going? What have we learned in these short few months?

Adults get homesick – Returning to our condo after a blissful July vacation in the Northwoods, left me standing at midnight in our tiny linen closet searching for pajamas. With no working light, I fumbled around in the dark for the hooks and my familiar T.S. Eliot nightshirt. Nothing felt like it was in the right place, our new home didn’t smell like home. I’d forgotten where I’d put things and nothing owned a designated spot. Were the pajamas in the linen closet or in a box or in a drawer? A sick feeling of longing for familiar places and spaces overcame me. I wanted to see our Portuguese tile in the kitchen, listen to the creak of the stairs underfoot, stand in our tiny shared closet and know that my p.j’s hung on the same hook as my robe. All of our kids lived through homesickness at summer camp and now it was my turn, but this wasn’t camp and home sat on a corner 159 miles south of here.

I don’t like flannel shirts – This city has a penchant for flannel in all seasons of the year. Some people like comfort food — these crunchy folks love comfort clothing. I imagine they sleep in flannel sheets and pad around in flannel slippers with badgers jutting out from their toes. Long ago I slept in my husband’s flannel shirts, but now menopausal Margaret melts just looking at the tried ‘n true plaid fabric. Our youngest son nicknamed me M.P. M.P. (meno pausal margaret philbrick) and my slightly fancy, artsy wardrobe is not in step with the sorority girl shredded black jeans and tied-at-the-midriff flannel shirts. I’ve never thought I looked old until I moved onto this street.

Deck gardening comes with benefits – Our Halloween forecast called for freezing cold and several inches of snow. Yet, our lovely deck continued to burst with red and white begonias and red hot pokers, channeling U.W. colors. My heart wasn’t ready to say goodbye to my little friends. It takes time to make new friends in a strange city, but plants extend a welcome handshake and smile, even when no one on our street makes eye contact as we pass by. So in about 30 minutes I’d carried all our pots inside and filled our kitchen with their life-giving oxygen, but also spiders. In late fall it used to take all day to cut down our garden and put it to bed, now numerous pots nestled throughout our condo in less than an hour.

Tending a baby (church) brings joy – My sweet husband often turns to me whenever we walk in the front door and says, “Welcome home.” The problem is, a place that feels like a European airbnb doesn’t resemble home. There is no history here, no roots. It’s like looking at the pretty leaves without the rest of the tree. One Sunday he turned to me and said, “Welcome home” in church and I physically felt a secure, tangible sense of home seeping into my bones. Our barely one year old church plant feels more like home than any other place in this college town. Why? Jesus’s house is our home and when we are there we’re one step closer to our heavenly home. Most of our new friends for the most part attend this church as does our baby goddaughter, who is an angelic bundle of smiling fun. These people in this gymnasium form our communion. Serving this baby plant keeps us supple. Every Sunday we meet new people, every Sunday we bend in new ways.

My different to-do list – A good friend recently shared this illustration with me: “When I was in Rwanda, our guide said, ‘Africa will always be poor because the man who goes out into the country every morning to tend his field stops along the way to talk to a neighbor. They spend about an hour talking about his farm and family and then he walks on. After another mile he stops and talks to another neighbor. After an hour he moves on and arrives at his field about noon. He tills his soil for a few hours and heads back home. He stops and talks to several other neighbors along the way. For the African farmer, life is more about talking to his neighbor than tilling his field.’” As we sat by the fire, I thought to myself, this is my new to-do list…people along the road, not projects. God used this dear friend to illuminate for me the dramatic shift in my to-do list. I’ve been suffering from a dearth of what was normal, i.e. papers to grade, kids to drive, overgrown tomato and basil plants to harvest and turn into pesto and marinara sauce. My friends words brought fresh energy and perspective to the reality that this season in our new city is about people, not projects.

Yes, we are thankful for change and challenges. In the words of one of our favorite worship bands, United Pursuit, “Though the seasons change. your love remains, your love remains.” Without his divine love, we can do nothing.

A Back-to-School Existential Crisis

September 9, 2019 by Margaret Philbrick Leave a Comment

Today I turned the page on a fall tradition, school. No one is in school! After decades of teaching writing, or packing my children’s backpacks, or heading off to school myself, I’m sitting at my writing desk sans school. We live in a new city, in the midst of an enormous college campus and with that move I relinquished the routine of going to Chalkboard to buy school supplies, grade papers, start the fall season fresh and clean, learn an abundance of new names and faces. I confess, this is somewhat of an existential crisis that I didn’t anticipate so what is a writer and a teacher to do? Write about it.

This past —ouch! I just said “past” summer, my spiritual reading centered around Thomas Merton. He and Mr. Oswald Chambers have some pretty wise things to say about what to do when one is suffering from a no more back-to-school crisis, or any obstacle that lands in the way of living life “normally” which we all know doesn’t really exist. A better way of describing it would be a disruption in living a productive life within the design that God has given or allowed over a pattern of time, a life we are accustomed to. Chambers says:

“You can see God using some lives, but into your life an obstacle has come and you do not seem to be of any use. Keep paying attention to the Source, and God will either take you around the obstacle or remove it. The river of the Spirit of God overcomes all obstacles.”

“Keep paying attention to the Source.” Since that’s good news and applicable to my current life situation I wanted to capture it in my journal. I turned the page and discovered to my horror, that I’ve arrived at the LAST page of my beautiful journal. If you journal then you know the sick feeling of attachment disorder at the thought of getting a new one. Loving friends gifted me with this journal for Christmas in 2013. Five and a half years of love, loss, answered prayers and unresolved questions, poems, drawings, book recco’s, quotes, ideas, reflections …all the critically important aspects of life are captured in this volume, soon to be retired. My writing grew tiny, could I make the last page last until at least the end of the year? As Tom Collins, the author of Good to Great says, “confront the brutal facts” —I can’t.

So, I resigned myself to cracking open a new journal which seems fitting for stepping into a new season of life. One of my students gave me a grey, leather-bound beauty with gold embossed flowers on the cover. At the time I didn’t know it, but I’ve saved it for this season, this time of uncertainty and new beginnings. When this end of year teacher’s gift came across my desk, I’d never dreamed we’d be living here, or September would arrive without fresh faced students staring at me from behind their desks. When I told my husband of now 30 years about my crisis he simply said, “You are a writer, write.” Okay then, my new journal begins…

“Stay close to the Source and write” followed by this quote from Thomas Merton which compliments what Mr. Chambers says so well,

“The relative perfection which we must attain to in this life if we are to live as sons (and daughters) of God is not the 24 hour a day production of perfect acts of virtue, but a life from which practically all the obstacles to God’s love have been removed or overcome.”

Achievement obstacles, back-to-school expectations, impatience and impertinence that my design for my life isn’t what I expected, “practically all the obstacles…removed or overcome.” When I get to heaven, I’m going to ask Merton what he meant by, “practically all,” but for now, there’s Source-filled works to write with a purifying fire by my side.

What Are You Reading This Summer?

August 5, 2019 by Margaret Philbrick Leave a Comment

During our Fourth of July family time, between nighttime firework explosions of “Opera Man” and “The Japanese Flower” we talked about summer reading. I well remember the days of trotting the kids off to the local library and signing them up for summer reading challenges. Some years we accomplished our goals and others were hijacked by Berenstain Bears who took over our entire list. Ahh, the endless fascination with bratty Sister Bear.

Our oldest son reads widely, often business books about entrepreneurship. Ray Dalio’s book, Principles: Life and Work is his current favorite. Our daughter is into Brene Brown these days, Daring Greatly. She’s a fine speaker, but I haven’t read any of her books. Our youngest son, who is a music major and often on the road is struggling to get into the rhythm of reading (haha, no pun intended) so we dusted off one of our old collections of short stories. How I miss Raymond Carver and John Cheever, but that is one the great truths about books, we can always go back and hear their voices. Those who have left us, remain. My husband tried to read a biography of Bonhoeffer, but he said the writing quality was too poor to stomach so he moved on. Last night he read to me the Bible story of the four lepers from Second Kings. If you don’t ask your spouse or Alexa or significant other to read to you, then ask them. Their voice late at night might sound comforting, settling, relaxing. If you have trouble falling asleep, this is preferable to drugs and works better. Maybe, not Alexa, a cyborg nighttime reader sparks a strangeness that might actually keep you awake.

I read four different genre of books in July, which is a more diverse list than I usually read in a month. My highest recommendation goes to Anthony Doerr for All The Light We Cannot See. I’m late to the party on this book, but the party is STILL going on! Five years later, this book continues to thrill new readers and that is saying something. A number of years ago at Festival of Faith and Writing the lecturer, Brett Lott, presented to us what he called the “perfect” sentence and challenged us to explain why. I remember it was from Richard Brautigan’s Trout Fishing in America, a book I succumbed to reading in college, not by choice. Well, with all respect to Mr. Brautigan, he’s got nothing on Anthony Doerr and the notion of a “perfect” sentence is ridiculous. Nontheless, here is one of my favorite sentences from Doerr’s book which will hopefully entice you to read it:

Behind a fourth floor window on the Rue des Patriarches, a miniature version of her father sits at a miniature workbench in their miniature apartment, just as he does in real life, sanding away at some infinitesimal piece of wood; across the room is a miniature girl, skinny, quick-witted, an open book in her lap; inside her chest pulses something huge, something full of longing, something unafraid.

Recently I culled our library in an attempt to downsize, pulling out about 25 books which makes for a failed effort, but I came upon a book my mother gave my father with the inscription, “A reminder of many happy memories and well lived days. Christmas, 1965.” A touching inscription since they’ve been divorced for 30 years and this suggested a time when they lived happily in love, so I decided to read Old Peninsula Days by Hjalmar R. Holland. This book, published in 1959 took me back to a hungry place in reading where the Last of the Mohicans left me. A place where just eating coffee grounds might satisfy and you dream about fresh oranges because you are starving alongside the characters. What those French missionaries endured settling the Door County Peninsula during the late 1600’s sent chills through me on an 85 degree beach day.

“This must have been at or near Horseshoe Bay. Here they consumed the last of their provisions. Being in November, the air was filled with rain, snow and sleet, and they were unable to make a fire. Utterly discouraged, starved and chilled to the marrow, they decided to return to the village on Sturgeon Creek where they had but one desire, to be warm before they died.”

A friend came over for dinner in June and brought us four books, recommending we read all of them. Why do people think it’s okay to do this? The guilt, the guilt if I don’t read them is real! So, I skimmed three of them, which actually means, mildly skimmed. This is a true confession, but I read AND highlighted, Roadmap to Reconciliation by Brenda Salter McNeil. The subtitle of this book is “Moving Communities into Unity, Wholeness and Justice.” McNeil puts forth real solutions to the divisive place Americans find ourselves today on matters of race, gender, politics, morality. Along with Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy everyone should read this book and ideally read them together and discuss them in light of each other.

While walking along Lake Michigan, I came upon one of those little, brightly painted library kiosks that sits out in an earnest person’s front yard. This curious reality of our culture causes me to wonder if they exist on Chicago’s west side? Where are these kiosks coming from and why? Are they in the inner-city? Who oversees the stocking of books? Do people ever return the books? Most often they’re filled with Danielle Steel which is depressing. If these kiosks represent what America is reading then they are a fascinating research study for someone to take on. However, reflecting in the glinting morning sunlight I found Thomas Merton’s No Man Is An Island. I’m still reading this book because it requires about four minutes to soak in one page. I love this book and especially his chapter one on Love. This chapter should be required reading and discussion material for every high school, college student and adult because we’ve all departed from living, let alone even discussing Merton’s ideas. Perhaps, seminary students still read him, I don’t know. One profound thought from that chapter:

“‘Iniquity’ is inequality, injustice, which seeks more for myself than my rights allow and which gives others less than they should receive.”

Merton led me to read the book of Amos because he quoted it frequently and I’ve never read it and dear readers biblical literacy is a real thing. An ancient book, i.e. the Bible, can challenge our thinking and change our hearts. It may even inspire us to make a difference in the lives of another person. Inside those leather covers are some of the greatest narratives ever written. My favorite pithy quote from the prophet Amos:

“A trap doesn’t snap shut unless it is stepped on.”

August brings the distant scent of crisping fall. Leaves are brittling. Last night, I saw darkness by nine p.m. Physical darkness after another breathtaking summer sunset. Yes, the days are lengthening their shadow. In a few short months we’ll be nestled back inside and reading by the fire. Our new home has a gas fireplace which requires the flick of a switch to turn on. This equates to blasphemy for my husband whose nickname is “The Firelord”, but deep down in our hearts we all long for convenient fire. No mess, no paper, no lighter fluid just fire by the lifting of a switch. My dad literally (his literacy comes from spy books, Tom Clancy etc.) keeps a plastic bottle of toxic lighter fluid right next to his burning, actual fire. This is convenient fire, but terrifying. I’m waiting for the call that comes telling me that his house has exploded. He needs a flick the switch gas fireplace to read by more than we do.

Cozy on up to these last days of summer and resolve to read something excellent, then write to me and tell me your recommendations. I just received a text yesterday saying I need to read, We Are Not Ourselves. Anyone read it? What did you think? Enjoy the long days growing shorter and read on.

A Mother’s Day Letter to our Children (on the eve of losing their childhood home)

May 8, 2019 by Margaret Philbrick Leave a Comment

Dear kids,

Sorry, but we are packing boxes and probably annoying you with photos of random pieces of art accompanied by, “Do you want this?” May 24th is coming and then we’ll stop.

We bought our little french cottage in February of 1991 and when we took your great-grandmother to see it she said, “Oh what a lovely little bungalow.” We thought it was a mansion and pretended we weren’t insulted. Every room except our bedroom (painted a disgusting shade of dark brown) was light blue so we came out to the suburbs on the weekends for two months, ate Dominoe’s pizza on the patio and fixed it up. Our first Valentine’s Day dinner was spent in an empty new house, eating asparagus pasta salad by candlelight on the floor. We tried to make a fire, but didn’t know how to open the flue. We smoked out the interior and ended up wrapping ourselves in a quilt after opening every door and window to air out. Of course, we drank champagne, but it was cheap champagne, Freixenet, which is actually a Cava.

Your dad and I count it an unbelievable blessing that we raised you on this humble and beautiful corner in a God-fearing town that hasn’t changed much. We still have the same neighbors who adore you after 28 years and ask us about you each time we cross through their Liberty Drive gate. Your “kids club” in the backyard still has the red, white and blue picnic chairs inside the center of that hollowed out trinity of trees. And now it’s time for you to make your own homes without the safety net of this faithful corner. I know a permanent displacement is hard, I still drive and walk by my house on the Fox River where I grew up at least once or twice a year. So, as you grow into life without your pastoral anchor, here’s some intangible truths that you’ve learned for safe keeping in your hearts:

Plant a garden – Two decades of spring have passed with seeds sprouting on windowsills which we hardened off and ultimately planted in your “kids garden.” Getting your hands dirty is a virtue, watching the earth embed into the cracks of your index finger so deeply that you can’t wash it out means that hard work should yield a harvest, but some things will forever be beyond your control. Don’t let those unexpected forces get you down, devilish squirrels and August storms are a part of life and the sun comes out again, a new day is made and fall Kale tastes as good a spring sugar snap peas.

Dream big, live small – Live where you can hear the floors creak, where you know when each other gets up, goes to bed, flushes the toilet, creeps downstairs in the middle of the night for a glass of water or microwave popcorn. Intimate living where the rhythm of life is shared in the sacredness of the everyday equals closeness. We know Jessie spent nights up late organizing her closet and dancing pique turns across the wood floor, so we called her the “night-stalker.” We know Nathaniel couldn’t stay up long past dinner and always went downstairs to play drums when the dinner table “conversation” became too heated and Caleb constantly stayed awake looking at his globe late into the night wondering, “Where is Afghanistan?” or, “When will I climb Mount Everest?” All of you grew up empowered by your dreams and we shared those dreams close in, with all their sorrows and joys and we will keep doing that even when this home belongs to another family.

Invite others to inhabit your world, share – Probably more than ten people lived in our home and basement: grad students, our foster daughter, aimless college grads wondering what to do with their lives, those who fell on hard times. With one bathroom upstairs this wasn’t always easy. You sacrificed your precious teenage shower time and if someone who didn’t know better flushed the downstairs toilet during your shower, screams echoed through the walls because somehow flushing the cold water meant you lost the hot, (why? I never figured this out.) You grew up in a family of extroverts so maybe that made sharing our small space easier, but now you all LOVE people. I see a burning compassion in your eyes for the person on the street with nothing. I remember recently eating lunch in an outdoor cafe on Michigan Avenue and a homeless man approached our table, leaned over the canvas barricade and asked one of you for money. You reached into your pocket and gave him everything you had, $20.00, without blinking an eye. Keep living and loving with that kind of fearless abandon and say “yes” to pets. My old friend Ed Homan from the Danada horse barn always said, “You can tell how a man is gonna treat his wife by how he takes care of his animals.” Based upon how your dad has treated our animals, that is true.

Be faithful and find space to take deep breaths – Life gets hard, tax bills increase, pneumonia threatens our Nutcracker ballet performances, cramps shut down our State Cross County meet winning aspirations, flu attempts to overtake our final season in the high school musical pit orchestra, (another evening wrapped up in blankets and gutting it out:), but God is faithful. Keep trusting in Him and his boundless love. You are never alone. His plan for your earthly home may change, but his eternal definition will always stay the same; “Jesus answered him, ‘If a man loves me, he will keep my word. My Father will love him, and we will come to him, and make our home with him.’”John 14:23. Wherever you live, find the space that is your go-to for recharge. A forest preserve, a river, a prairie view from a bridge, a tall sand dune— nothing fancy, but a vista that’s real, set apart, and imprinted on your mind. Breathe in this place and know that home resides there as well.

You are grown up and the world desperately needs your gifts, your light, your spark. No longer do you exist on “blue box” mac-n-cheese. Today, you are literally calling me on the phone asking how to cook ratatouille for a gathering of ten, (say —what?) We’ll keep making home together, but now you’re equipped with everything needed to create your own. Store up in your hearts what you’ve learned on our cozy corner and if you don’t, well, count on me to write it down for you:)

Peace and always, love…

Mom

Nathaniel’s fifth grade Mother’s Day present, a tissue paper covered bottle vase.

p.s. While typing this, our neighbor kids are practicing their marching band competition routine in Nick’s backyard to the BLASTING strains of “God Bless America.” Despite all the swirling, twittering fury that is America today, kids still play baseball in the street and parents do tuck their kids into bed at night. Never lose hope, because this country is your home too.

Believing in New Shoots

April 4, 2019 by Margaret Philbrick Leave a Comment

Something new is springing up; we’re moving to a new state, getting to know a new town, rooting into a new community and while it’s exciting there is a bittersweetness. We’ve spent 29 years walking these creaky, oak floors and sharing one shower upstairs, boiling glass baby bottles and drying them overnight on these counters, watching each child come around the upstairs hall corner in footsie pajamas, just a little bit taller with each passing year.

We removed the corkscrew willow tree (which was dying) and put in a gigantic perennial garden marking each plant with an identifying stake. Our kids grew their first tomatoes and basil while the squirrels traversed the fence and ate all our corn. Even in their twenties, our sons climbed to the top of the gigantic Norway Spruce trees and cut out the branches so they could take in the view of our entire town. One summer afternoon, the boys coaxed me up there and what did I see? Nothing but a green canopy. Everything, even the houses and streets disappeared from view, except for the trees. With a mere seventy foot climb my entire perspective changed. All concrete and cars, gone. I’d spent over two decades taking in a myopic, street level view. Little did I know the freedom lying in wait at the top of those trees for those willing to take the risk. I’m thankful for people who push me to reach “further up and further in” and that gets at the heart of what’s hard about digging up roots, it means saying goodbye to the other plants in our garden, our people.

There are a handful who’ve brought out the best in us and sat beside us in our worst. They challenged us to live with meaning and purpose. They gave us their loyalty and love, their already overextended hearts. Our next- door neighbors came over the day we arrived home from the hospital and held and admired each precious new addition to our family. Our pastor and his wife were the first people we called when my husband lost his job. Our wine drinking friends commiserated with us and celebrated teenage trials and triumphs. Our travel buddies loved our daughter and even came to see her dance in her new city with her first dance company, who does that? We’ve laughed until we cried about summer camp experiences, our kids getting lost together and backpacking their way through homesickness and swarms of mosquitos. These are people you actually want to spend your summer vacation time with. Why would we leave them?

The answer lies in trusting the underground work and the above the treeline vista. We’ve lived many springs and we know that the hyacinth and daffodil do not fail. We know that snowdrops bloom the last week of February, regardless of the weather and we hear the first cardinal summoning his mate right around Valentine’s Day each year. We can trust the unseen worker for new friends, a new job, our new place in this world because “He is making all things new.”

I bought a bouquet at Christmas with corkscrew willow branches as an accent. After the amaryllis flowers died I went outside to throw the bouquet away, but noticed that one of the branches generated roots. All that work going on inside the vase as we opened our presents and entertained our guests with Door County Cherry Bounce cocktails. Long after Christmas returned to basement boxes, I planted the new tree in a pot and here on the cusp of spring I own a new tree. A piece of home to carry to our new home. We cut down a corkscrew willow over 25 years ago and now we leave with a new one. New life, new adventures, new hope in what we may find out there on the lake…

“I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now…Come further up, come further in!” ― C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle

Healing Blossoms in Winter

February 12, 2019 by Margaret Philbrick Leave a Comment

Last weekend I fell on the ice twice. Who didn’t? Despite my trusty Bearpaw boots, the thick layer of fresh powder disguised the ice rink beneath. Slam…Ouch! Move all limbs, check for broken bones, breathe a sigh of relief. I’m walking, but currently find myself holed up inside facing yet another “Winter Storm Warning.” If you live in a place that keeps you screaming at six a.m. “Not another school cancellation!” consider indulging in one of the greatest blessings of winter…fresh flowers.

A rainbow miracle amidst the grey comes to us every year from Hausermann’s Orchid Farm in Addison, Illinois. During late February and the first weekend of March, you can breathe 90 degree humidified air and feast your eyes on blooming phalenopsis extending to the horizon (at least to the six acre under glass horizon.) Periwinkle Vandas, orange Cattleyas, fragrant Miltoniopsis will assault your senses, confuse your internal compass AND give you the groundhog reprieve in only about two hours rather than six weeks. We make pilgrimage to this place every year to relieve our sinuses and restore our marriage. This isn’t an overstatement. One year we faced a significant financial crisis and found a safe place to reestablish our lines of communication in-between those mossy aisles of arcing color. The orchids helped bring healing to our frayed hearts. Here’s Miltoniopsis also known as the pansy orchid. It’s hard to grow without significant humidity, but well worth a try.

With Valentines Day upon us, a gift of flowers may be predictable, but also glorious. My husband gave me one of my most favorite birthday gifts ever last year when he surprised me with a bouquet of fresh flowers delivered on the first Monday of every month—for a year! These arrangements in their clear cellophane wrapping take my breath away each time the doorbell rings. Here’s February’s mix of lisianthus, magnolia leaves, lavender roses, eucalyptus and stocks. Also, this shop flings their excess rose petals on the snowy sidewalk in a startling display of luxury topping frozen slush. Also check out my friend’s gorgeous flowers at Gatherings. She and her husband do literally everything creative with flowers a person could possibly think of, even disguising a basketball backboard with ribbon and fabric and adorning the hoop with a floral crown for a gym wedding reception. They don’t use grocery store flowers which are short lived, they buy direct from the wholesaler. Lisa can also design and deliver a monthly floral arrangement for your beloved if you ask her. Many of us love to play, plan and party with flowers, but she is a true artiste des fleur.

Over the years potting narcissus bulbs at Thanksgiving for Christmas blooms and amaryllis in December to keep blooming through February fills our home with foreshadowings of summer. This holiday amaryllis variety, which I skeptically bought at Home Depot, is one prodigious bloomer. The first stalk of all four flowers opened in January and the next one of four flowers started in February and continues to grace our kitchen window with red-tipped warmth. A sturdy stem of four open flowers brings a peaceful symmetry and unity, but this second stalk actually contained five flowers! Kind of like finding a five leaf clover under a mat of wet, fall leaves.

If you’re looking to jump start your spring gardening with more than seed trays on windowsills then a trip to the Chicago Flower and Garden Show at Navy Pier this March should do the trick. Wander through 21 gardens and demonstrations by local food growers, topiary artists, arborists, hardscape architects, and perennial experts all ready to engage your imagination with grand plans. Be careful about the grand part, start with one manageable area this spring and add to it a bit each year or you’ll find yourself overwhelmed. Remember, more gardens = more flowers = more weeds.

Even a single stem brings joy and unlike following Marie Kondo’s kamikaze method of tidying up, this one won’t be painful to throw out when it’s life is over, unless it’s from your first Valentine and then you should dry it and keep it forever. When our daughter was born her daddy brought me roses in the hospital and I dried them and saved them in this Valentine box for a special occasion in her life someday. They still look beautiful 24 years later as they wait inside that tissue paper nest!Happy Valentines Day with much love and don’t forget the one who made all this flowering love possible,

“We love because he first loved us” 1st John 4:19

“It All Goes Back in the Box” for a New Adventure

January 11, 2019 by Margaret Philbrick Leave a Comment

John Ortberg tells this story of playing a board game with his grandma and at the end of the game she waxes poetically about this truth, “It all goes back in the box.”* As our kids returned to their respective post- holiday lives, we sat amidst piles of dry pine needles and a coffee table covered with ornaments and packed up Christmas. We’ve all done it. Gone are those carefree, clueless days when we obliviously trotted back to school while someone else at home put Christmas away. It’s a bummer reality of January, dragging the tree out to the curb and staring at its lost glory, accentuated by all the other forlorn friends waiting for the mulch maker.

But this is 2019, the year of throwing things out and packing treasures back in the box for a new adventure, we are moving! Yes, we are leaving debt-dripping, tax-crippling Illinois for the pristine Wisconsin lakes. The main reason for this uprooting after 27 years in our french country cottage? The church which we’ve been nourished in for 21 of those years is planting a new church and we get to be a part of it! We’re already investing in flannel shirts and wool skirts, the ones they wear with patterned leggings and heavy tread construction boots. How does one describe this outward bound, earthy look? Our kids are calling our new home 221b Baker street because they say it looks like where Sherlock Holmes and Watson live, and a condo means — no more weeding!

Most people stare in shock and say, “How can you leave?” as if our corner of the world is paradise found. In many ways this green tree corridor of Dupage County is a paradise of a place to raise kids, but we’re nearly done with that process (you’re never really done), and the parents are longing for a new challenge and the joy of seeing God work in wondrous ways in new lands. There’s a cool pilgrim-explorer ethos about it, leaving the beloved and familiar for unchartered territory. Our hope is that we’ll love the one who’s leading us even more deeply and the people he puts around us with abandon. If we’re lucky we’ll also write some compelling stories, songs, poems and maybe even a mystery in 221b Baker Street. Stay tuned and if you’re dying for a French Country cottage with a red tile roof it goes on the market in March. Happy New Year!

Found in John Ortberg’s book, When the Game is Over, It All Goes Back in the Box

Choosing Hope

October 30, 2018 by Margaret Philbrick Leave a Comment

The commuter train traveled the usual route on schedule October 18th, until the young man with the devastating smile decided to step in front of it. The whirring of helicopters overhead usually tips us off that it’s happened again. Another person chose to end their life by stepping into the path of an oncoming train. But, this time, this young man grew up in Wheaton and graduated from the same high school class as our oldest son. Why did he do it?

A week later a memorial continues to grow at the busy intersection. I walked our dog past it yesterday afternoon and took time to study the notes scrawled on the fence in silver and gold Sharpie ink. What can someone say or do in response to such a choice? He had a beautiful girlfriend, a loving family and a three year old son. Laying a bunch of grocery store roses or a CD of his favorite music is a kind gesture, but we all know it’s too late to make a difference.

“Research by Northwestern University professor Ian Savage found that 47 percent of railroad-pedestrian fatalities in the Chicago area were apparent suicides, versus 30 percent nationally. One reason, Savage explained, is simply because the Chicago area has a greater prevalence of tracks and trains. The city is the largest rail hub in North America and is served by all six of the major Class I freight railroads, as well as by Amtrak passenger trains and Metra, one of the nation’s busiest commuter rail networks.” (Chicago Transportation Journal, 2016)

Our home is two blocks from the train tracks so we are painfully aware of this problem. Metra recently launched a suicide prevention effort in keeping with those of other rail dependent cities. Suicide hotlines are posted at stations and personnel are trained in what to look for and what to do if someone is spotted exhibiting the about to jump signs. But this wasn’t enough to save the 25 year old father of the three year old boy.

Last night, I grabbed a scented candle and drove to the sight to light it and say a prayer for his family. As my husband and I climbed out of the car a woman wrapped in a fleece blanket, face streaked with tears asked us, “Did you know him?” We explained that our son did. She said she was “his girlfriend and the mother of his child” and “was hoping someone would come.” This simple statement tells so much. “Hoping someone would come.” I asked why he did it and she said, “depression and drugs. He wanted help and and tried to get it, but it was hard for him to accept it.” We wrapped our arms around this broken-hearted woman and prayed for her, staring into the frosty blackness illuminated by ground level candlelight. She told us that the Sharpie markers were given to her by the Metra train conductor who encouraged her to make them available so people could write messages. She tried to take their little son to the memorial site, but he didn’t understand.

Waking up in America these days can feel overwhelming to anyone. All the drugs, the political vitriol, the hate bombs, synagogue and school assault rifle slaughters. But the answer is still the same. Be reckless in loving someone today. Stand with them. Make yourself available. Pray and hope, always hope that our little efforts will be multiplied by Him who is “able to do immeasurably more than we can ever ask or imagine.” Ephesians 3:20

There is always hope.

SaveSave