Inspiration

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

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.

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Thank You Luci Shaw

April 10, 2018 by Margaret Philbrick 4 Comments

Dear Luci,

Happy National Poetry Month! When I heard you were being honored at Festival of Faith and Writing this past weekend and I was not going to be there, my heart lost a sad beat. The last time we spoke in person was back at Festival 2014, but your work sings to me in every season. Some nights I come across your heart and unique poetic voice while reaching for chapstick in my nightstand drawer, but instead I grab Harvesting Fog and my lips dry out as my struggling eyelids give way and your book rolls up and down with my sleeping chest. Or I hear you when I’m running on a trail in the woods, telling me to watch out for, “their blunt ends jutting,” or staring at the rain, waiting for the right word.

I think we knew each other when I was a skinned knee girl at Saint Mark’s Church in Geneva, IL. Or, more likely, I knew who you were. Not until college when I read your Advent collection, Winter Song did your voice come alive in my ear with that special connection that allows us to “know” a writer by her words on the page. We are related by the “word made flesh.”

When you spoke at Festival in 2014, I remember, “I’m an Episcopalian because of the mystery.” I thought, me too! We must be the only two female, Episcopalian (I’m actually Anglican) poetry writers in this world! It’s the mystery by which we connect our disconnected lives to the great mystery of the Incarnation and our words come. “Enkindled, enfleshed, enlightened, they are born.” Thank you for teaching me not to rush, but to watch and listen instead. To listen for the sound of heaving earth and cracking Spring while walking the dog. To take off my parka hood, no matter how cold, to hear the birds and squirrels chattering and chasing amongst last fall’s dry leaves. Their crackle a reminder that what is past is past and to dust it shall return, “humble earth can turn beautiful.” For in the stillness and silence the word can be found and this is a shared secret of writing’s joy. T.S. Eliot told us on “Ash Wednesday” and you reminded me from that big, Festival stage, “In our day we must learn to be still, to wait, to hold our tongue.”

Thank you for inspiring me to teach poetry, every April. Yesterday we visited Seamus Heaney’s “Clearances,” his tribute to his grandmother, “A cobble thrown a hundred years ago keeps coming at me.” Thank you for speaking into the necessity of awareness of memory and recommending the brilliant book, The Geography of Memory. My first novel benefited greatly from Jeanne Walkers’ heartbreaking reflections of her mother’s descent into dementia. I tell my students that poetry gives voice to things we cannot see. Sometimes a sliver as subtle as a glinting shadow stops our breath and Sprit-filled words compel us to capture the holiness of light and shade.

I’m sure that my sweet, writing sister Tammy Perlmutter will do a wonderful job blessing and honoring you this weekend, but since poetry is personal, I can’t help myself. Our crooked letters bump and grind against each other with the discomfort of teenage angst, loves lost and gained, middle age’s menopausal fog (not to be harvested) and later years of sensible shoes, hand knit sweaters and an incising eye that can only come from standing decades in the mystery, with gratitude.

Thank you Luci Shaw.

http://www.lucishaw.com/poetry_possibilities.html

With love,

Margaret

Stop Excommunicating Christians Who Disagree With You

April 3, 2018 by Margaret Philbrick Leave a Comment

In the Spirit of Easter joy here’s some thoughts on how to move beyond just cutting people off who we don’t see eye to eye with. I recently became aware of the writing of Dr. Brene Brown and her talk at the National Cathedral blessed me. If this post convicts you or helps you identify ways in which you or someone you love has cut you out of their life wrongly, not because healthy boundaries were needed to maintain the relationship, but rather just throwing up your hands and walking out, then you also might want to listen to her talk on returning to civility. Linked here: https://cathedral.org/sermons/sermon-dr-brene-brown

This article originally ran a couple of weeks ago in Relevant magazine and it seemed like a good time to run it here as well. Be blessed this Eastertide! Feel free to reach out in comments with any thoughts. I keep the comments private. Thanks for reading.

Stop Excommunicating Christians Who Disagree with You

Almost Spring!

March 19, 2018 by Margaret Philbrick 1 Comment

Looking out my classroom window at the greying hues found in the seamless connection between the sidewalk and the cloudy sky, I hear the birds making an announcement. Despite this week’s official arrival, Spring has been working its way up from the ground since Valentine’s Day. The arrival of the red cardinal up in our neighbor’s birch tree happens right around the same day every year and from that point Spring comes. Some years the Snowdrops break through the crusty, old snow first and others, Winter Aconite is the winner. We live in a part of the country that usually gets hit by unseasonably warm temperatures around Mother’s Day causing just about every person to remark, “Wow, what happened to Spring? We’ve already moved into summer.” Well, it’s been quietly creeping up on you since mid-February. Stop. Take an early look and listen.

My classes compose Spring themed poems in April because it is National Poetry Month, but also because Spring is about all things new and a poem splashes this truth across the page. Here’s a little one about one of my favorite Spring flowers that you can’t buy in the grocery store, pictured above – Winter Aconite or in fancy circles:

Eranthus

Always in a race

with your neighbor,

the Snowdrop,

pressing forward

out of winter despite

your common name,

Winter Aconite.

Unexpected

ray of ground

level sunshine,

friendly buttercup,

enveloped by

poisonous leaves.

If I eat you

like your friend Digitalis

I’d drop back to

earth, my cardia

arrested.

You like to live

on the edge,

between winter and

spring, life giving

yellow warmth

and icy cold

death.

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Letting Go of Billy Graham

February 21, 2018 by Margaret Philbrick 2 Comments

It’s not easy to imagine life in America without Billy Graham. He served as a comforting blanket of trustworthiness and faith in the highest corridors of power and some of the least visible places on earth. He moved through doors freely and as long as he walked the planet we knew someone important must be encountering God in a potentially life changing way which would hopefully trickle down and impact all of us for the better. President Obama visited him in North Carolina only eight years ago, the last of our Presidents to actually see him. I never met him, but he changed my life.

While sitting on my Grandma’s gold velour sofa, eating a hot fudge sundae at the age of seven, I watched his crusade on t.v. Grandma always let me stay up later than my parents and never guilted me into thinking I watched too much t.v. Like parents today who admonish their kids for wasting precious time on video games, my parents did the same with t.v. But on that night, no time was wasted. Mr. Graham spelled it out so simply, “You are a sinner, but you don’t need to die a sinner. Come to Jesus and he will change your life.” He didn’t try to impress me with quotes from commentators or other erudite sources, just the gospel pure and simple. In listening to his message and watching the endless stream of people walking forward to “make a decision for Christ,” I knew I wanted that hope. I didn’t tell my Grandma or anyone else, but when she tucked me in and turned out the light on her rose colored nightstand I did as Mr. Graham said, I asked Jesus into my life. To this day I remember that feeling of security and peace, falling asleep new beneath Grandma’s starched white sheets.

About thirty years later I was on a call with an evangelist, John Guest and he asked me, “How did you come to faith?” I shared my story of Billy Graham and he startlingly said on the phone, “Let’s pray for Mr. Graham and your grandma right now and thank God for the way he used them in your life.” Never before had someone requested that we pray together on the phone. I felt shy and insecure doing it, but as the memory of that night came back accompanied by the smell of Grandma’s rose scented hand lotion and the rattling of her newspaper while I pretended to be asleep, my heart filled with gratitude. Millions came to faith or were exposed to the truth of the gospel through Billy Graham’s ministry and they are welcoming him into heaven today with a big crown and a choir singing something even better than Handel’s Messiah, but for me on that night in a single bed in River Forest, Illinois it was just me, Billy and Jesus.

Forever grateful.

From Back Patio to Bookstore Shelf – The Journey of a Book

April 19, 2017 by Margaret Philbrick Leave a Comment

Everbloom, Stories of Living Deeply Rooted and Transformed Lives is the new book from Redbud Writers Guild which launches next week. How did it happen? EverBloom_Cover_04 On a sweet summer night in 2015 my hubby and I were sitting on the patio talking about the transforming work God has done in our lives which led to us chatting about how God has transformed the lives of many folks we know. He casually mentioned, “You know that writing guild you are part of must have some pretty incredible stories of transformation.” I thought to myself, yep and it would be fun to know some of those stories. The next night happened to be our quarterly Redbud Board conference call and at the very end of the agenda I threw out the idea that maybe we should do a book about how Christ has transformed us as writers. The response was milky, lukewarm as in “Hmmm, interesting. Let’s think about it.”

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The next day I got a call from Shayne Moore a.k.a. our Redbud founder, dynamo, powerhouse get- it-done kind of gal saying, “Let’s do the book. Let’s you and I write the book proposal.” It took a few months and then we sent it to our fab agent who shopped it around. We waited and waited, for months to hear anything. In publishing, if you don’t like to wait, then this business isn’t for you. A year after our first phone call, we learned that Paraclete Press wanted the book. Insert—— screaming, dancing erratically in the living room, taking selfies with Shayne, more screaming and then the real work began. images

I wrote my poem for the collection while sitting out in a fading September sun. Looking over the finished product, I cried realizing my deep gratitude for a community of women who truly, genuinely love the Lord and desire to serve him with their words. We solicited the whole Guild for essays and/or poetry to a tight turnaround if the collection would launch in the Spring of ’17. A small ocean of high caliber work flooded our inboxes which we took to the giant whiteboard in my classroom and sorted through. We love all these women, how could we say “no” to any of them? Fortunately, the final say comes from the publishing house editor which made our job a little easier. Most of the submissions I read while sitting outside, crying my way through several of them. Submitting to God’s work of transformation is painful. People die. Children get kidnapped. Suicide crosses our threshold. Miscarriages, again. Families break. The broad reach of media brushes these stories across our screens everyday, but when you know all the participants who’ve experienced them, you feel the pain deep down.

In about two months we completed the compilation and editing, then the Paraclete designers brought their art and beauty to the project. We know and trust their work. They designed my website and the Guild’s website and many of our authors’ sites and what is pure joy about Paraclete? They LOVE the arts and they LOVE Jesus. For the first time emails were coming in from “Sister A.” and “Brother B.” people who’ve turned their entire selves over to the Lord exclusively, as sons and daughters for life. Supporting our book with prayer and their talents is their first nature. What a gift.

So here’s a behind the scenes look at the folks at Paraclete Press who made Everbloom come alive and our book trailer . We received gorgeous mugs and complimentary copies of the book, both of which I will give away on launch day, April 25th to the lucky winner who answers this question via my Contacts page or in a comment below. And the question is…..How has your relationship with God enabled you to bloom in a dry and fallow season? Happy Spring!

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Making Marriage Beautiful

April 2, 2017 by Margaret Philbrick Leave a Comment

I often thank God for blessing my life with a joyful, sacred marriage for 27 years. People say that building a strong marriage takes work and effort. In some sense that is true. Self-control is a virtue that I push myself to exhibit when my husband leaves his socks by the side of the bed again. Be the loving wife and just pick them up, right? They’re just socks. But the devil hanging out above my ear is saying, “Are you kidding, he’s done it again and he’s assuming you will pick them up for him, just leave them there.” Usually, I pick them up, sometimes he does and sometimes I leave them. But enough sock talking trivialities.

What makes our marriage beautiful? Dorothy Greco’s book, Making Marriage Beautiful forced me to think about this question and that alone is a worthy exercise. I’m recommending her book here today for anyone who wants to strengthen their marriage. This book, written by a woman with insights from her husband and other couples, focuses on listening to one another and God , maintaining realistic expectations (see chapter, “Not Your Mother’s Lasagna) and how we commit to growing together long term. It goes way beyond the everyday realities of socks and addresses the big challenges found in a life of commitment. I love the book trailer posted here because it focuses on growth and how we have to dig, sweat, and wait for those springtime blossoms, much the same process we follow in cultivating a healthy marriage.

Savor the vulnerable and wise voice of Dorothy Greco as you dig into her story. Ideally read it with your spouse and please leave a review on Amazon when finished reading, Making Marriage Beautiful. Here’s the link to buy the book and the link to Dorothy’s fantastic website. She is a phenomenal photographer and an author, of course. Just being proficient in one art form wouldn’t do. Love and thanks to you Dorothy for helping us and caring enough about marriage to write this book.

Buy the book here:

https://www.amazon.com/Making-Marriage-Beautiful-Lifelong-Intimacy/dp/0781414083/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1491177718&sr=1-1&keywords=Making+Marriage+Beautiful

Dorothy’s Website:

http://www.dorothygreco.com

Book Trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhyKpDLRIHM

Crossing the Road – A Path to Racial Healing

October 11, 2016 by Margaret Philbrick Leave a Comment

This article is running this month in READY magazine, the new brainchild of Gail and Dominique Dudley. They are a mother-daughter team interested in engaging the African American community in transformational living. I’m so proud of these women and the beauty and truth with which they are executing their vision. Here’s the cover with my article listed as ” The Good Samaritan.” 14355152_10210778072310758_2504742666979822756_n

“Then a despised Samaritan came along and when he saw the man lying there, he felt compassion for him. Going over to him, the Samaritan soothed his wounds with oil and wine and bandaged them.” Luke 10:34. Under normal circumstances the Jewish man lying along the side of the road and the Samaritan might run into each other in the market and not speak to each other. Generally, they hated one another because of past political and historical conflicts involving intermarriage. This diluted the power of their race and violated Jewish law. Yet, in this parable the Samaritan, moved by compassion, crossed the road to help. How may of us have crossed the road to help?

This passage follows the question asked by a religious expert in the law, “Teacher, what should I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus knows that this man already knows the answer so he answers him with a question, “What does the law of Moses say?” Rightly, the leader answers, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus affirms him and offers and encouraging charge, “Do this and you will live.”

We all want to live in peace with our neighbor, but who is our neighbor? In our neighborhood our next door neighbor has the annoying habit of cutting the grass just as we all sit down to eat outside. The smell of gasoline wafts over our salmon salad, but this neighbor works two jobs, nearly around the clock to provide for his family so if that is the only time he can cut the grass then we deal with it. In the Greek “neighbor” means “someone who is near.” In America today if we are going to contribute to the healing of our growing racial divide the definition we use for neighbor needs to be extended beyond the family next door. We, like the Samaritan, must cross the road to the neighbor that others pass by and extend a hand of grace and love that is out of our comfort zone. unknown

A pastor in our church was sent out to start a movement of church multiplication. He came back to the home church at a recent conference and told a story about how things are going. One Sunday morning he felt “moved” to cross the road and attend the African American church service taking place in an auditorium. Afterward he introduced himself as the pastor who led the congregation across the street and offered their church as available for any needs True Freedom church might have in the future. In a simple meeting he extended his home to the pastor next door. The following week, the pastor found himself locked out of his building so he crossed the road to use the phone. After several calls the person with the keys could not be reached. So the pastor said, “No problem, your church can just meet here in our building today.” Thus began a deep friendship between a white Anglican congregation and a community of African American worshippers. These pastors crossed the road.

For about twelve years, I’ve wanted to go to Africa. It started with the notes we exchanged with our World Vision child in Rwanda. Then our church became deeply involved in building the work of God in Jos, Nigeria. We’ve hosted many people from Nigeria in our home for dinner and they’ve lived in our basement. My sons became fascinated with the idea of climbing Kilimanjaro and then friends of mine made the climb and I listened to their tales of overcoming fear and pain to get to the top. This only increased my desire to go, so I prayed about it. When I pray about things I usually get answers in God’s word, in a dream or in the bizarre “it can’t be coincidence” repeating circumstances of life. When asking God to get me to Africa, he kept giving me the unromantic answer I didn’t want to hear, “You need to learn how to go to Africa at home.” Then we met Jessica.

A logical way to learn how to live missionally at home presented itself in the form of a refugee housing complex in the town next door. Cool, highly educated twenty-somethings from our church lived in an intentional community among the refugees and they needed help with their
kids clubs on Sunday evenings. I found myself in a circle of about ten middle school girls with African or Burmese names so unfamiliar and difficult to pronounce that it took about a month to learn and remember them. We made chicken noodle soup swimming in Siracha sauce, think pink chicken noodle soup, we played “high low.” What was the high of your week and the low? We journaled and studied the bad girls of the Bible together, and the good girls too. The apartments were hot, dirty and reeked of unfamiliar spices simmering all day on the stovetop. Some days I forced myself to go. Spending my Sunday evenings in my perennial garden was a selfish pleasure I set aside. As the months ticked by I fell in love with one girl in my group from Liberia. She had a quiet, confident wisdom that my own kids didn’t possess when they were fifth graders. It wasn’t book smarts, but “the wisdom from above that is first of all pure. It is also peace loving, gentle at times, and willing to yield to others. It is full of mercy and good deeds. It shows no favoritism and is always sincere.” James 3:17. Her words intrigued me and captured my heart. How could this refugee girl without a mom, living in those conditions, with a father who didn’t work, know the things she knew?

On a freezing winter night we all sat in Burger King and she announced that her dad was moving to Boston and she didn’t want to go. My guts began to churn with that dangerous feeling of compassion which means your life is about to change. All the girls came up with different scenarios which would allow Jessica to stay in our community. None of them seemed likely. After a miraculous God given dream, (which is too long to tell about here, but you can read on my blog at www.margaretphilbrick.com) Jessica moved in with us. He dad went to Boston, married a lovely woman he met on-line and Jess is now an integral part of our family, read “integral” not “integrated.” Jessica is important and loved by us. She is integral.

In many ways the taste and color of our lives has completely changed. I was the only white woman at the Liberian wedding of her dad and new mom, also the only one not wearing a HUGE metallic colored hat. We watch black t.v. shows which I didn’t know existed. We eat HOT food if she makes it, as in chicken feet and goat meat stew. We hang out at other refugee housing communities where her friends live. They come over and jump on our trampoline. Because there are significant gaps in her education we read great young adult fiction together, right now the Crispin series by Avi. I thought I was done with these books after taking our three other children through them, but God is a God of surprises. There is nothing heroic about welcoming someone into your home, but there are adjustments, growing pains and joy with spicy laughter.

It may be an oversimplification and I’m well aware that people have spent their lives studying this, but if America is going to heal the racial divide then we all must cross the road and extend our hearts as neighbors to people God has for us to love. It might cost us our comfort, our to-do list and a sacrifice of self, but if we do this then then we will truly live. Luke 10:27.

Avoid School Year Stress With Sacred Space

August 31, 2016 by Margaret Philbrick 2 Comments

Last May a friend who recently moved from Texas stopped me after a school concert to ask, “Why is it so crazy where we live? When I lived in Texas it wasn’t like this.” She’s right. It is crazy in our neck of the woods so here are a few strategies to combat that choking, stressed out feeling of back-to-school.

We live in Chicago’s western suburbs. Here, like many other affluent burbs, parents can drown themselves and their kids in a thousand productive and good activities which will shape their kids’ future. In a single day dozens of “opportunities” float across my computer screen enticing parents to sign up. Everything from knitting clubs, piano lessons, in-home baking classes and the ever expanding list of club sports all of which are beyond the regular after-school offerings. Parents want their beautiful stars and starlets to step forward into the next arena of dawn until dusk development. In our world, this is what good parents do. They provide experiences for their children which will hopefully capture their hearts and minds, enhancing focus and direction for the future. Overloading schedules can result in burnout with mom or dad in the drivers seat from 3:30 until 7:30. Dinner ends up being an already baked chicken from the grocery store and mac an’ cheese. No veggies, except for mini-carrots (which are packaged in chlorine F.Y.I.). I’ve lived this routine. Our daughter used to eat her dinner in the car on the way home from ballet at 9:00p.m., shower and head up to her room for hours of homework. Not exactly family time.

Another reason why it is so “crazy” here is that we live in America. This is an achievement driven culture that thrives on crossing off the to-do list and winning awards. If we are not doing then we are dying and I’m not talking about death to self. Yes, we are all dying but the doing somehow allows us to disguise the dying part. In our beautiful, green suburban enclave this is keenly felt. Almost every parent I know posts photos of their child’s current accomplishments on Facebook or drives them around on their bumper. “My child is an honor student at Hadley” the sticker reads. What is with those white stick figures that people put on their cars? Mom, Dad, eight children and four pet stickies which scream I AM SO BUSY. If we aren’t doing and now thanks to social media, PROCLAIMING to the world, we must be living dormant worthless lives. How can we stop the suburban spin and get off?

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I spent summer mornings were spent running or biking in a variety of forest preserves. Along the trail I’d stop. Taking a pause in the middle of my run, I’d look out at a vista and pray there. Right in our own crazy neighborhood, a quiet, morning beauty. I was running, but also resting. Seeking out spaces without cars, just crickets and birds. Saint James Farm overflows with giant oak trees, pastures, hidden creeks and trails. Along one of these gravel paths lies the Horse and Hound cemetery. Mr. McCormick, the creator of Saint James, loved his animals and laid them to rest amidst etched crosses reflecting an era all but gone in our county. This is a great fencepost legacy to lean into. Loving animals. Creating sacred space. Allowing others to partake and enjoy the bounty. Just a place to thank God for the day we’ve been given and all the people who’ve gone before us to make our lives more beautiful and rich.

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If running isn’t your thing, take a walk and grab a Starbucks. Sit by a fountain with your journal and make a list of all the things you are NOT going to do this fall. Close your eyes and drink in the spray mixed with the waning sun on your face coupled with that burned coffee bean taste of your latte. Resolve to seek quiet, seek beauty, rest in faith. The less we succumb to our external realities the more space we create for cultivating our internal reservoir. Remember to tell your children as they gulp down their mac n’ cheese how and where you found your quiet, holy order today (which hopefully spilled over into theirs.) We can resist the crazy culture of overload if we give value to cultivating sacred space and sharing it with those we love. Sacred according to Merriam-Webster means “dedicated or set apart for the service or worship of a diety.” Churches are a blessing, but what other sacred spaces are in your own back yard? Go there this fall and breathe.

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