study war no more

I can't talk about brussels. I can't talk about paris. I can't talk about anything involving the word terror, terrorist, or terrorism. no school shootings. no biological warfare. my heart just can't take it.

I just keep singing to myself one of my my favorite camp songs because singing camp songs is what I do when I can't figure out what to do. camp songs or songs from musicals, but desperate times call for the campiest of camp, the oldiest and goodiest of them all.

(ps-have you seen these "playing for change" videos? every single one is awesome. I cry every time I watch one. big surprise, I know.)

I like to think there is no study of war here in my sweet little mountain town, that because we don't have subways or tall buildings we are protected and preserved. I like to think turning off the news on the radio is enough not to study war no more. I like to think that it is enough to be grateful that it wasn't me, wasn't mine, wasn't here, wasn't close. I want to shake my head sadly and move on with my day. it is tricky balance, life in this world. I can't unknow. I can't not feel. but I also don't want to live scared or small.

here is what I know: I don't want to study war no more. I don't want to talk about it, I don't want to glorify it, I don't want it to be part of who I am and what I do. that looks like lots of different things to lots of different people, I know. but for me it means laying down my sword (my sharp tongue, my quick to anger, my need to be right at all costs). but it also means laying down my shield, all the ways I try to defend and protect what I want to hold close. maybe for right now that means not listening to the news or getting caught up in all the "terror" so prevalent in the mainstream. it means being more vulnerable perhaps, but it also means living a lighter life, without lugging around all the ways I am convinced I need to work to keep myself and all I love safe. I'm gonna lay down my sword AND shield.

how do we fight the good fight? how do we keep on charging the enemy so long as there is life? sometimes it feels like our world is exploding just like spring is exploding here. my heart is exploding, too, but I want that explosion to look like the study of things far more beautiful than the study of war. I have gardens to grow, children to laugh with, friends to hug, stories to tell, rivers to swim, mountains to climb, seeds of peace to spread, lives to live. I can't be bothered to study war no more.

In one way we think a great deal too much of the atomic bomb. "How are we to live in an atomic age?" I am tempted to reply: "Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents."

In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented: and quite a high percentage of us were going to die in unpleasant ways. We had, indeed, one very great advantage over our ancestors - anaesthetics; but we have that still. It is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances and in which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty.

This is the first point to be made: and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things - praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts - not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.

~cs lewis 

"If this life is to be so painful and short and so stunning and expansive, maybe I ought to do this differently." yes. and maybe differently isn't so far off from what we already know to do: love each other. live a little lighter. say yes. hug more often. eat vegetables and play outside. dance hard to music in the car.  be kind. even to ourselves. even to each other. even on grumpy days. listen better. talk less. hold hands. sing and sing and sing. and if you don't know the words, I'm happy to teach you all the camp songs I know.

eat vegetables and play outside

I went away last weekend and when I got in the car with my family who had come to pick me up I asked jamin what he did all weekend. "mostly just eat vegetables and play outside." I love this response and I am trying to make it the answer to as many of life's questions as possible. how can I feel fulfilled and learn my true calling? mostly just eat vegetables and play outside. how can I help to combat climate change? mostly just eat vegetables and play outside. how should I raise my children to be the best humans they can be? mostly just eat vegetables and play outside. what would jesus do? mostly just eat vegetables and play outside.

that's really all the quippy, bloggy take on life I have these days. I am working a lot at the bakery here in town and serving as a caretaker for a woman who had a stroke a few years back. my kids are thriving in school. eric is tapping his foot for spring. I have friends dealing with heartache and change. I am trying not to get sucked in to political warfare. I struggle about where we should attend church as a family. I have a jar where I dump my tip money and I taped a list of all the things I want to save up for. the list seems larger than the jar's contents could ever be. we eat a lot of bread. I am equal parts eager for summer and worried about how I am going to manage it all. I am thankful to be healthy and whole and grumpy about being busy and grumpy. I don't always like the way I talk to my kids. I waver between wanting to think about adoption and wanting jamin and cora to move out already. I haven't been writing which feels bad but I don't feel like I have much to say which feels worse. but mostly things are good and fine and boring in the way that only seems boring because this is my daily life and boring can be good. and really only boring people are ever bored.

upon further questioning jamin admitted that there was some coaching (via eric) in his answer about his weekend activities. eric and I laughed about it later. when eric suggested this "mother-approved" statement, jamin was concerned about potential dishonesty so eric just told him he better work hard to make it a true statement. so he did. and knowing the backstory only makes me love it even more. don't we all need a little coaching on what to say in certain situations? and don't we all need a nudge to make the best answer also the truest answer? I think so.

whatever life is asking of us, let's all strive to make "mostly just eat vegetables and play outside" the truest, rightest, fullest, best answer. I can only think of good things happening if we do.