Learning to Pray

I learned to pray as I learned to talk.
I did not learn to pray because "if I prayed God would give me blessings."
I did not learn to pray because "good people pray."
I did not learn to pray because I hurt God's feelings when I didn't pray.
I didn't even learn to pray because I would hurt my parents' feelings if I didn't pray!


I learned to pray because I love God.
I learned to pray because I know He loves me.
I learned to pray because I know I can tell Him anything and everything and He will still love me.
I learned to pray because I know these things.  Every single morning of my life, if I cared to get up that early, I could peek into my parents' room at 4:00 am and see my mother kneeling up against her too soft chair, audibly pouring out her soul to God.


I know she loves Him.
I know she knows He loves her.
I know she knows she can tell Him anything and everything and He will still love her.

Hanging out the Laundry

The few dead leaves rustle back and forth in the wind.  Neglect has caused the line to bite into the tree as it's bark folds around it. The smell of soon to be damp dead grass kisses my toes.  My feet, unintentionally tearing the dry covering, make a love path of exposed dirt.  The ball of my  bare foot digs into the not quite softening earth, as my weight shifts, baby and all, from basket to line to basket to line, lulling him with my slow deliberate rhythm.  The dark frozen earth gives calm peace as it rubs onto my bare skin.  The almost sharp wind caresses my face through my tangled hair, and the smell of last years apples finally looses it's grasp on the tree.  My fingers are just cold enough to know I am alive as I hurridly shake them to give myself a little more time to complete my task.  The ridges of my face taste the cold they are exposed to, and the baby snuggled deeper in his pouch.  The dead grasses make patterns on the ground that only living things can breathe, as the wind blows a longer strand against my bare ankle and life down my throat.  Mischievous eyes drink in the open world, safe in my presence, as the kids peek out from the hammock they have made out of an old sheet.  Little eyes exposed to the wild of the wind, as hidden bodies wiggle in the constant movement that is a child.  As my fingers burn with the coldness of my task, I feel the peace of working in the closeness of my children under the open sky, and the calmness, that I have carelessly trod on in the rush of life, washes over me like the wind.

How I Learned Geography

How I Learned Geography

Another absolutely perfect book:
Family relationships in the midst of fleeing from war are portrayed so well here.  But it is a kids book - nothing really about war, just that it put them in the situation.  The value of knowledge.  I guess I love learning - I love watching discovery and when a person wants to learn something and their natural thirst for knowledge urges them on - and they learn so well in their own time and way.  The sacrifices one is willing to make for knowledge, it is so beautiful!  I guess I relate to it in a small way when a book is so much more important than food or sleep.
"He wrote in silence, but, oh!  How loudly he chewed!"