T Keller on freedom:

“Disciplines and constraints liberate us only when they fit with the reality of our nature and capacities. A fish, because it absorbs oxygen from water rather than air, is only free if it is restricted and limited to water.

If we put it out on the grass, it’s freedom to move and even live is not enhanced, but destroyed. The fish dies if we do not honor the reality of its nature. - In many areas of life, freedom is not so much the absence of restrictions as finding the right ones, the liberating restrictions.” 

In my younger years maybe I would have balked if you’d told me that restriction and liberation could live side-by-side, and maybe even be mistaken one for the other. Marriage has taught me a bit about it, and motherhood more. Being a grown up is hard, guuuys.

Trading out old dreams for new ones, being able to close doors, choosing and owning something, and following through when it’s not quite comin together as planned... Our culture certainly is not a big fan of restrictions at all, and neither am I, generally But the irony is that by aiming to avoid being restricted, we are restricted in another way. By failing to say the no’s, I miss out on my yes’s.

God, let me see those restrictions that LIBERATE ME every day, let me know and value them for what they are. I want to live in joy with all the closed doors and feel the light streaming through that big beautiful open one that I live under.

Eight years ago today I was with many of my favorite people celebrating the life of one of the most exceptional humans I've ever known, Sarah Anderson Nichols. If you knew her, well then you know why I still miss her so darned much.

I grew up around Sarah, so it wasn’t til later that I discovered what a rare one she was! Deeply profound and really the very silliest, I mean how is one person so wise and powerful and irreverent all at once?! She knocked it out of the park, gave me something to shoot for. Joy-filled and witty and spacious and subtle and more than anything, kind.

I wrote this song for her some years ago, imagining us parked out on her old porch together. It’s just a rough track- a practice tape, although that doesn’t stop Daniel Nygaard Madsen and Jason Stone from sounding amazing on it! I wanted to share it with you today as I sit here missing her, and thinking about the fantastic gift it was to sit by the fire of her life. I’m warmed by it even now.

8 YEARS//

Happy eight to this stick o dynamite!

Her big day was yesterday, but today we sat by the river throwing rocks, watching ripples, catching minnows, the little kiddies harassing each other, crabby after a long weekend, me wistful, tired (okay also crabby). This girl hung close to me for the afternoon, maybe having deep thoughts of her own- after all, she is EIGHT now. Finally she gave a long sigh, flopped herself back against me and breathed, “Mom, ain’t this the life.”

It made me chuckle and changed my tune, as this one often does. Yes my girl, this IS the life- better or worse- and how wild and precious it is! Thanks for reminding me

12 years of loving, of working, of trying, of giving, of growing, of dying/

Of getting- surprises, some wished-for, some dreaded, some marvelously unexpected/

12 years of hoping and scheming and beating the drum, of hurting, burning, vision for some THING, other, more/

Learning, laughing, blood, sweat, tears, disappointments, yes many, but also more important/

12 years of this human condition made sharper, clearer, brighter by friendship/

Companion, witness, presence who sees/

Partner, ally for my soul, defender of my rights to grow, to change, to discover and rearrange the thing that it is to be me in this world/

To navigate, to mitigate, the sharp highs and plummeting lows that come, as they will/

What better way than together? With another soul next to mine/

Who trusts me in our differences and respects me in our disagreements, validates my life/

Honors me in my experience- alike or different than his/

12 years I wouldn’t trade, not for another chance at some other life I could’ve lived alone or with some other/

12 years of growing up into the space we’ve both built and discovered, taming the dragons and planting the garden, growing some extraordinary things/

4,380 days of audacious co-conspiring- hey let’s do this forever.

Cheers to 12, my love ❤️‍🔥

You know you’re a special kind of adrenaline junkie when you fly solo for the first time in years… and somehow discover yourself wishing you had a couple a kids with you 😂😂

And no I don’t mean at the destination, I mean in transit- I’m talkin airport, and even PLANE. I know what you’re thinking, and you are not wrong- I don’t mean to say I don’t still have some trauma to unpack from our many family travels… it’s true. I reflect on the various bouts of in-flight entertainment provided by my many spirited offspring, these ranging through all of the usual unsavory body fluids inevitably at some point breaching containment (it’s not if it’s when), the infamous tiny swaddled baby log-rolling down the airplane isle (yes that actually happened), and mealtime goings-on periodically sending food into the air with such velocity it gives a whole new meaning to in-flight meals

So yes, there’s that. Buuuut, you know what else there is? There’s CONNECTION. You know what happens when you parade a passel of delightfully ragamuffin, unbelievably noisy, unnaturally cuuute tiny people through these masses? They look. (You could probably have a shockingly similar experience if you were somehow able to get a herd of goats in the airport and try to get them discreetly from point A to point B)They gawk maybe, but they also smile. Okay, not everyone is amused, alright fine some are downright nasty, but we disregard those bad apples What I notice traveling WITHOUT kids is that no one wants to look at each other, no one wants to smile, and we work awfully hard to avoid contact.

In a world that’s wasting away from isolation and insulation- God, we need connection. I just love how the little people bring it. What is it about children that is so disarming to us adults? Maybe their honesty (if they’re happy you know it, if they’re mad YOU KNOW IT ), maybe it’s how they don’t judge us, or they do but they just blurt it out and we all laugh, or maybe it’s just how darned cute they are…

Idk, but God knew what he was doing. What a wonder it is to be a parent, what a privilege. Grateful for my tiny tribe of gifted connectors, and for how we are all wired for that connection whether we resist it or not.