Education:

I love that Giuliana is still so young. I love how she comes upstairs at night in one-piece footed pajamas with her hair wet from the bath. I love that she wants to sit in my lap while we watch American Idol, and I love that she wants to eat peanut butter toast with Cracklin' Oat Bran for dinner. I love walking upstairs and seeing her Pillow Pets dressed in aprons and chef hats having a tea party on the kitchen floor.

One day, after getting dressed, she asks me, "Carolyn, do I look sassy?" I ask her, "Giuwels, what do you think sassy means?" "Fabulous!" she responds.

We are driving in the car one afternoon, running errands, and she pipes up from the backseat, "Evan wants to marry me!" "Oh really? Do you want to marry him?" She shakes her head, "No." "Why not?" Her nose wrinkles as she makes a face and says, "You know how boys fart? Well, he farts a lot!" Trying to keep a straight face, I ask her who she does want to marry, and she tells me, "Vinny. Because he's so funny! But don't tell him."

One night, after going to see Bugsy Malone and eating at Rocky Cola Cafe, we're driving home, and Vinny is reading the signs off the stores we pass. "Party supply store...music supply store..." he calls out as we drive past. On the corner is a lingerie shop with lots of lacy undergarments displayed in the front window, and Giuwels cries out, "Boob supply store!!!"

The family went to church for Cheryl's birthday on Sunday, and on Monday at lunch Giuwels reminds me that we need to pray. I ask her if she would like to pray, and to my amazement she says yes! So we bow our heads and her tremulous little voice begins, "Thank you, God, for our wonderful food and for the fun I have at Ella's house, and for giving....uhh, I forgot what I was going to say...That's all...Amen." And I am sitting in my chair trying not to cry because I've never heard her pray before, and because even though she's probably praying for the first time in her young life, she's actually teaching me how to pray.

Giuliana is learning not to say "Oh my God." She tells me that "Oh my God" is a bad word, and I try to explain why: Because God is a person and we want to say his name kindly because we love him, we don't want to say his name rudely, as if we don't care. She asks, "Carolyn, do you like God?" and I say, "Yes, I love him." She grins and says, "I bet God is smiling right now up in the clouds at you and me!"

And I know in my heart that Giuliana is teaching me about God in a way that all my Torrey books and theological treatises never could. She approaches God without all the baggage of fear and guilt that I've accumulated over the years, and through her childlike faith, I experience the certainty of God's warmth and love, and the assurance that God, yes even God, likes us and is smiling right now at you and at me.

For the Life of the World

I've been thinking for awhile that I need to start a blog. A blog that I will love, and actually write in. And I will write in it because it is important. I had a LiveJournal all through high school, and half of college. Then I fell into a horrible depression, and lost not only the desire to write, but the ability to enjoy life. Thankfully, that period of time has passed. Too much time has passed since then, and so many things have happened. Now I find myself on the brink of graduating from college and getting married, and I find myself in awe of the beautiful little things that happen every day, and I need a place to record all of it.

Of course, all the little events of each day matter. And why? In a rather fortuitous turn of events, I picked up a book this very day that put into words why life, the world, time, space, and ordinary events matter. Alexander Schmemann, the great Russian Orthodox theologian, writes in his book For the Life of the World, that the dichotomy we have created between the spiritual and the secular is entirely false, and ultimately a result of the Fall. There are no separate categories for the sacred, and the profane...Rather all that is about us, all that fills the world, all that we know in physical time and space have been created by God to bring us into communion with him. All that surrounds us is whole, is Love, is a divine gift, and it is through this knowledge that we worship God. I like it. Not only does it sound like good theology, but it resonates with everything I have ever known to be true at the deepest level of my being. It appeals to my intellect, but it far surpasses my intellect and penetrates the essence of all that is. Of course, I can't say it even half as well as Father Alexander, whose words I have underlined in bright red ink because I will never be able to say it as well as he has (and I do not need to), and because I stand in awe of people who are able to put truth into just the right words at the precisely right time. Surely, it is an act of grace, a gift of God.

But I do not believe it to be a coincidence that the book I decided to start reading today provided, in essence, the mission statement of my writing: to know God, to thank him, praise him, and bless him through the world that surrounds me. To do this requires great strength, and I am at best a weakling. To know, see, and experience God in everything, at every moment is for now a distant dream to me. It is much easier to slide through life on a lazy river, paying little attention to what surrounds us, and giving even less thought to the meaning of all that we see. So, to put it plainly, this blog is to build muscle. It is to be a daily exercise in truly seeing, and truly appreciating the world which God has to given to us in order for us to know him. I hope that given time I can strengthen my eyes, my heart, my soul to see more and more of the glory of the Lord.

So, it's a start. A very meager beginning. But a humble beginning is better than a brilliant nothing.