School Started: How Loud Is Your House?

Our house is crazy loud all the time. I find myself needing to escape the din and the noise and retreat to a room full of silence at times. But not this morning.

Today is the first day of school. Ethan started 1st grade. Jon and Matty went to preschool where they will be enrolled full time for the first time ever. So my home this Monday morning is silent.

I sat down with a cup of coffee and my Bible. I put some music on as I read and I drank all of it in—the quiet, the contemplation, and the caffeine. I like it, but I don’t want to get used to it.

Our house is usually what I like to jokingly call a “happy bag of chaos”. It’s always, always, always, full of crazy frenetic energy. Until it’s not.

This morning it is not.

And, while the peaceful moment is momentous I don’t want so many of them that it becomes the norm. Like many parents I wonder at the sanity of trusting my children to strangers during their formative years while at the same time being intensely thankful for the people who often lovingly and sacrificially give of themselves to better our kids.

My house is quiet, but my heart is not. I relish this moment to reminisce, but I am already ready to see my boys again. I’m already ready to fill this house again with the sounds of legos, and fighting, and boys at play.

Not all noise is great, but when it comes to the kind of noise arising within a house filled with life there can be no better sound. This is a rare moment. Next week I’ll go back to school myself and then my house really will be silent.

But our house is not our home. It’s just the place we experience the joy of togetherness most often. Where our noise is where home is. Even as I bask in the ever fleeting silence I miss it.

Walking the Line

My wonderful grandpa's birthday is today. Much of my stubbornness and compassion came from him. I talked to him on the phone earlier and shared with him the name we have chosen for our second son, Jonathan Eli. At Thanksgiving he had announced to the family, pretty much out of the blue, that he had been thinking of that name. Today when I told him that we had in fact chosen that name for our son he said, "I know. I just told my sister Ruby on the phone." He was touched but not surprised.

Apparently he really did know. It was one of those inexplicable knowing by faith kinds of things. A measure of the movement closer to God I have seen in my grandpa's life in very recent years. The power of God's love has been hard at work in the lives of my mom's family. Prayers that were prayed for decades have been coming to pass in the wonderful work of God's mercy and grace. The culmination of a passage from the Psalms that has been really moving to me lately...

I'm finding my way down the road of right living, but how long before you show up? I'm doing the very best I can, and I'm doing it at home, where it counts. Psalm 101:2-3 MSG

My Papa has been an incredible example to me in my life. Not because of his perfection, because I have never been under such a false assumption where he was concerned. In fact, I have long since felt that his many flaws were so well known as I grew up that they always pushed me in an authentic direction. I struggled to actually be authentic much of the time, but the example was there. I never felt that he tried to be someone he wasn't. I never felt that he pretended. He was never fake. He was always himself. And he never apologized for it, perhaps another series of traits I inherited.

Like the classic country ballad his nephew Bob helped to make famous my Papa Wootton has always Walked the Line. Not perfect, but dedicated. Dedicated to his family. Dedicated to the things that matter. When I grow up I hope I can be just like him.

Happy Birthday Papa & Happy Valentine's Day to the rest of you.

Thanks for reading, Nate

Life in the Blue Light

Lying here in bed I see past the dimlit borders of my iPad to a cascading forest of shadows all around this room. It's late. We're sleeping, well they're sleeping. Me, my wife, my son, and one of our three cats are all piled up in our bed, bathing in the luminescent azure haze of Ethan's baby monitor.

His teeth are starting to come in, and it hurts. So he cries, and he doesn't understand why he hurts, so he wants mommy. So sleep only comes to him in the presence of his parents. Here in our bed where he can snuggle close between mommy and daddy, safe in the blue light.

The blue light is mostly for us. It's a nifty little light that is part of his baby monitor. Usually we leave it beside his crib but tonight he sleeps with us, and I want the blue light here so we can easily see him if he wakes. I need it. He is mine and how can I watch him if I can't see him? So here we are living life in the blue light.

God shines His light on you too if you let Him. Like an eternal watchman, He casts His gaze in your direction, and like the light of our blue baby monitor, the Great Father of Lights watches over you as you snuggle close. He comforts and cares when you hurt, and when you fail. You are His and how can He watch you if He can't see you? So here we are living life in the blue light.