Margaret Philbrick

Author. Gardener. Teacher. Planting seeds in hearts.

Author. Gardener. Teacher.

Planting seeds in hearts.
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I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow.   1 Corinthians 3:6
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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?

Snuggles

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.


Filed Under: Home Tagged With: homesickness, leaving home, new life, United Pursuit

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.  

Filed Under: Gardening, Gratitude, Home, Hope, Seasons Tagged With: growing up, leaving home, love letter, mother's day, moving

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A Minor: A Novel of Love, Music & Memory
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