A letter to Scott about why community is crucial

Dear Scott

From time to time we take you to the barber. We love your crazy blonde curls but if we leave them for a couple months you resemble the wild toddler of Borneo.

So today you endured the taming of the locks. It happened like this.

We park outside the barbershop and you say, ‘I still don’t like it!’ I’m calm-on-the-outside and even-keel, coaxing and cajoling. They see us coming –the two girls who work there – and I know they’re mentally preparing. Inside the shop you start screaming. It takes two of them to get me-with-you-clinging into the chair. They put one of those gross shower-curtain hairdresser-cloak thingies over me – a black one – and you – funky jungle theme – but you claw it off and claw at them. I grip you like it’s the days before anaesthetic and they’re about to hack off one of your limbs. You are scarcely breathing from hysteria but you manage to scream unnervingly and unremittingly. And loudly. One of them – the slightly more hardcore one – fires up the clippers [insert sound effect: chain saw] and attacks the luscious flaxen thickets. The other one tries to distract you with her blue bling manicure. The scrum collapses several times and we have to regroup. Eventually it’s a flailing loose maul except there are no gum guards though there probably should be.

When the whistle blows there’s less hair. More snot. I clean you up though we’ll both be itchy until we’ve showered and changed.

And you look gorgeous. Cherub-like. Tiny handsome little man with the smart new haircut. You promptly cheer up. Because the ladies always give you a lollipop when we’re done and we go to the Wimpy for chips – standard Reyburn haircut treat.

But they’ve run out of lollipops. They are mortified! Apologetic! You are nonchalant in a sort of I’ll-be-the-bigger-person way. You forgive and forgo the sucker without frenzy. Possibly you’re just suffering from post-tantrum exhaustion. (You later describe the haircut ordeal to Cammy with animated head gestures: ‘Lady shooting me!’)

I’m getting you back into the car with some groceries when the hardcore one runs out with a cherry fizz pop. She went and bought it for you. She says she hopes you don’t hate her. I give her a hardcore hug.

So this all made me think.

I’ve been given the amazing opportunity to do a course through Regent University on spiritual formation, under the gracious teaching of Dr Corne Bekker. He talks a lot about community and the essential, inevitable role it plays in making us more like Jesus.

It’s like, if I hadn’t taken you to the barber, we would have passed a peaceful Wednesday morning in the playroom. You would have been angelic and engaging and curious and busy and full of kisses. You wouldn’t have had cause to unleash your indignation when your security was threatened. But we can’t live in the playroom. We live in a community. With hair clippers.

Dr Bekker points out that whenever I say ‘Yes’ to any community – church, family, friends, marriage – God will send people my way to reveal things about me. Communities make me bump into all sorts of folks but mostly I just bump into myself. I don’t know the dark depths of my character or my intuitive reactions until I’m backed into a corner or challenged or annoyed or envious.

And the key to being transformed as I live and move through the big and small Venn-diagram communities that make up the patterns of my life is humility.

Which means, as Dr Bekker puts it, that the posture of my heart should be so kind, so honouring, that every handshake or hug or casual ‘Hi’ should say, ‘You’re more important.’

So my bear, the privilege of living in community is that all sorts of people show up to give us a short-back-‘n-sides and almost always it’s when we really don’t want it. And almost always it shows us how much we need Jesus. And almost always it’s a sparkling opportunity to choose a response that will show the world a bit of Jesus. It’s how they will know we are his.

I love you with my whole heart, soft sweet brave child of mine. I’m unspeakably grateful for the privilege of living in community with you. You’re a game changer, my Scott-Scott.

Sleep tight now,

Mom

xx

For Cam: A gross poem about snot

I wrote this today for Cam. He thinks it’s cool so I’m hoping it works on him. You’re welcome to use it if you have a small person in your house already plotting a career in mine engineering…

The story of Jeremy Jot and his green slimy snot

This is the story of Jeremy Jot:

A small sweet boy who ate his snot.

It wasn’t his fault, he told his Mum,

The fault was his fingers, though seldom his thumb.

He found that those fingers, so nimble, so quick,

Would creep up a nostril – and then have a lick!

‘Gross!’ shrieked his mother. ‘That’s horrid!’ she cried.

‘You keep eating snot! Now you must decide!’

‘Decide?’ asked Jerry, ‘Decide about what?’

‘Decide between ice-cream and pizza, and snot!’

Jerry turned pale. What was he to choose?

Which one of those delicacies could he lose?

He slunk out the house and climbed up a tree

Where he sulked and ate snot, with no one to see.

Just before supper Dad gave Mom a wink.

Then he loudly announced, ‘We’ll have pizza, I think!’

Pizza appeared! Dad was magic that way.

There was chicken and pineapple – ham – hooray!

But on Jeremy’s plate? Not one cheesy slice.

Just: ‘Sauce with your snot, or maybe some spice?’

Jerry frowned at his family. This wasn’t fair.

Snot sounded lousy, with pizza to share.

‘Um.’ He said softly and thought for a while.

‘I’m giving up snot,’ he declared with a smile.

‘It’s filthy, not filling, and doesn’t smell good

(Though right up the nose, it definitely should.)

From now on I’m keeping my ten fingers clean –

No slime, no snot, no grime, no green!’

He kept his word, did Jeremy Jot;

He never again went digging for snot.

Instead he ate sausages, yoghurt, beetroot,

Raisins and porridge, carrots and fruit.

And just now and then, just for a treat,

Dad would bring pizza and ice-cream to eat.

So when your fingers creep close to your nose –

Stop! And choose what Jeremy chose!

Cam and Scott teach Mom her ABCs

A is for Accountability

I’m driving to fetch Cam. Scott Backseat-Driver Reyburn is strapped into his toddler seat behind me. There’s a traffic circle and another car and I’m not great with following distance and I brake a little hard. Silence. Then soft rebuke: ‘Careful Mom.’

B is for Balance

Cam wants me to play hiking-hiking. This involves imaginary trails and untold dangers and snacks and river crossings on the lawn. I tell him I’ve got varsity assignments to mark. I’ll be around but I won't be able to play much today. He goes all fists and fury and says, ‘You never hardly ever often play with us anymore!’ So we have a conversation about the wooden spoon. He gets polite again. I play hiking-hiking. The marking grows insidiously on the dining room table. Somehow it gets done.

And I’m astonished again by the hefty weight carried by time and focus and non-measurable results and intangible achievements and immediately unconstructive though eternally fruitful activities involving small growing people, on life’s heaped-heavy swaying-precariously scales of balance.

C is for Comfort

I’m in church at the back with Scott who doesn’t want to go to Sunday School and is cavorting wildly. I start crying during the worship because a close friend is really sick. I pull myself sort-of together because I don’t want to be that woman who weeps during worship. My eyes are sort-of dry and Scott climbs into my lap and cups my face in his chubby hands and says with all his soft heart, ‘You feeling calmer now, Mom?’

Five years ago today

My Cam,

This mad birthday week – you then Dad then me – kind of wipes me out (in a good way) because there’s always too much cake too close to Easter when there was too much chocolate but the wonderfulness of birthdays feels more wonderful to me every year and I didn’t want your 5^th one to pass without a blog post though I should probably be marking UNISA assignments which will hopefully pay for the car to be fixed as it’s still in the Eastern Cape and what I definitely should not do is have more caffeine.

I find myself staring so hard at you lately. I want to remember you just as you are – your dark intense gazing into life and your crazy silly spinning and giggling and your freckles and the way your hair stands up in the mornings and your angry tantrums and your lidless exuberance and your tight tight tight hugs and how you say random, amazing things with professor-ish eloquence and how often you tell me how much you love me.

Just for your record, here are some of the super cool things you’ve said or asked over the past couple of weeks:

*

‘Now that I’m five I’m a tiny bit further from the floor. And the tiles look smaller ‘cause I’m further away from them.’

*

‘Mom, if we were playing a baby Jesus game, what gift would you give him – gold, frankincense or myrrh?’

*

On holiday, Dad took you for secretive slow drives through dark valley streets hoping to see bush pigs before bedtime. One night you said, ‘Dad, I have a message from Jesus in my heart. He says we mustn’t look for the bush pigs because they are scared.’

*

‘Sometimes my eyes have a disability.’

*

‘What does integrate mean?’

(I give a lengthy explanation about groups and slotting in and feeling comfortable and being part of a bigger whole…)

‘So then what is disintegrate?’

*

‘Why is helium called helium?’

*

‘Do you really get force fields?’

*

Scott put his feet on the table at supper so I told him to take them off.

He did, and added with sincere, sublime charm, ‘Don’t worry, Mom!’

Then you said, ‘Don’t worry about anything, Mom! God is always with you so how can you worry about anything?’

I really didn't have a comeback. I really just wanted Scott to take his feet off the table.

As for Scott, he follows you and copies you and loves you fiercely. He digs his finger into your chest and says, ‘Jesus loves – you.’ (Sometimes he also bites you.) He counts when you play hide-and-seek (‘One, two, seven, eighteen! Coming, ready or not!’) What a gift you both are, each to the other. You play pirate-ships and scuba-divers and you go on space-rescue-missions and medieval-castle-drawbridge-manoeuvres and army-helicopter-fire-fighting-expeditions and no baddie is safe in our garden. The way your brother-hearts are knit together – it’s what Dad and I have prayed and prayed and keep praying – that for each other you’ll fight off bullies and be wing-man and best-man and best friend when you’re old and we’re long gone.

Precious, precious child. May the eyes of your heart grow clearer every day of this next year.

How proud I am of you.

How great is our God.

Happy birthday.

Love Mom

xx

 Mt St Cameron. Sparklers for the explosion. Then you and your friends did strawberry syrup lava and coconut ash.

Treasure hunt for gold nuggets scattered by volcanic activity...

 Playing pass-the-volcanic-rock

 Food. Silence.

 Ash.

 More ash.

 Lava.

 More lava.

 Cake.

 More cake.

Pyjama sunrise and other stories

Boys skimming stones

The sun dips low behind the mountain. We’re in soft shadow on the riverbank – near the bridge – where it’s deep and tranquil – a little way from the gurgling. From here the pass winds steep through forest. Scott sits with his feet in the water and his heart and soul unquestionably fully in the moment. Intensely at ease. Throwing pebbles into the quiet rippling amber. Cam hurls with fervour anything he finds – gravel – boulders – tar washed down with the floods. Murray throws stones clear across the river – countless schoolboy hours on cricket fields bearing fruit in the unmitigated awe on the faces of his sons. Then he skims stones and the admiration swells with every light skip of rock walking on water. I pick up stones too and I throw like a girl. Plop. Murray says nice things about my throwing anyway. No one is hungry or tired or cold or bored. I’m still and I know He is God. 

Pyjama sunrise

God’s mercies are new every morning because Scott’s clock doesn’t have a holiday setting and he’s still up at 5:00 but the blonde curls and the wide blue pools of earnest and eager are irresistible all over again and I’m dragged happy to the lounge. Cam joins us – woken by sleepy stories half-read and intermittent dinosaur noises. He’s drowsy in wild loud spaceship pyjamas. Scott hurtles to hug him. I decide to redeem the ludicrous earliness by putting on slippers and sweaters – whisper to Murray (still in denial) we’ll be back – take them to the beach for sunrise. We’re all fighting flu and I forget the tissues so there’s a lot of sniffing but the cold sand and the dawn are quite bewilderingly beautiful under shreds of torn grey sky masking the pink of morning rising in a whisper against the relentless crash of foam on shore. The mountains roar of glory. It echoes back from endless blue.

Cam

We’re afternoon snoozing. He comes into the room. Furtive smile amidst freckles. Climbs on the bed. Burrows between us. He’s all serious business and chuffed and feeling the privilege of this warm space. Says, ‘I want to talk to you two about a few things…’

Scott

He tells me wide-eyed, ‘Whale spat Jonah OUT!’ [Aggressive spitting actions] Then he sings – head cocked cherub-like – chubby arms wrapped round his middle – say to the Lord I love you… Then he’s marching – ‘Come guys! Follow me!’ – arms swinging legs lifting whole face beaming. Brandishing brave pirate sword – ‘Aaargh!’ He insists on grownup cutlery. Takes his plate to the sink after meals – ‘Nuff. Thank you lunch Mommy.’ He still sometimes calls me in the night – hugs tight and rambles sleepy about baby cows or the beach. Blue skies or drizzle he announces daily, elated, ‘It’s a lovely day!’

 (Cam took the above photo of Scott)

A letter to Cam, because he’s wonderful.

My Cam,

So many things make you wonderful.

You’re wonderful because I can pretty much trust you to shower and pyjamarize all by yourself. I discovered last night that I can also trust you to spray linen mist in your armpits.

You’re wonderful because today you designed an underwater lake. Access was through a secret tunnel in the floor near the dining room table. A special design feature included a super-tube into a pool, ‘for people who follow Jesus and want to get baptised properly.’

You’re wonderful because you stop whatever you’re doing to let Scott hug you.

You’re wonderful because you helped Dad make the broom cupboard.

You’re wonderful because you’re totally into Gummi Bears and you preface your statements with, ‘Behold! I shall magically slice my mango / pass you the shampoo / get Scott out the bath, etc.’

You’re wonderful because today you spent an hour at the Pretoria Eye Institute enduring a battery of up-close-and-personal bright lights and cameras because the pressure in your left eye is worryingly high and you’re a glaucoma conference paper waiting to be written. You were quite excited to be there. And patient and cooperative. Exhausted by the end of it but unwaveringly polite. Uncle Jacobus (Dr Pauw) and Dad agree that you’ll have to have another examination under anaesthetic, so they can check out your optic nerve. But they are pretty optimistic that the raised pressure is because your corneas are much thicker than normal – a normal result of cataract surgery. Still, the whole thing left me flat and sad and like I don’t have the energy to face the fears anymore. And you’re wonderful because you made me pretend-pretend tea in the plastic cups in the waiting room.

You’re wonderful because I got impatient with you this afternoon when you were colouring in a bunny for Teacher Karen – badly. As in, you’re not trying your best come on now blah blah. Then I asked your forgiveness because I remembered that we’d dilated your pupils at the Institute so of course you were battling to see more than usual. With characteristic cheer and irrepressible optimism you said, ‘It’s ok Mom; I forgive you. My eyes are just a bit blurry but they’ll clear soon!’

You’re wonderful because you are wonderfully made – wondrous – wonder-filled – always wondering. And a living God-glory echo of the psalmist: For You are the fountain of life, the light by which we see. (Psalm 36:9)

All my love to you, sleeping child of mine,

Mom

Xx

Friday afternoon madness involving formidable quantities of icing and hundreds and thousands of hundreds and thousands…

Of truth and grace and boys and blade runners

At breakfast we talk in grownup code. But Cam cracks it and says he remembers Oscar. He ran a race on the TV. Did Oscar hurt himself running too fast in a race, Cam asks. Murray explains about legs and blades and things. Cam is all wow and smiling like there’s kindred congenital defect comprehension. I say how actually Oscar is in jail because something terrible happened and he shot at his girlfriend and they are trying to find out if he did it on purpose or if it was a mistake and either way we need to pray for Oscar because either way he needs Jesus and Jesus forgives and there’s always truth and grace. Cam screws up his eyes – looks hard through the air. Because he’s into goodies and baddies and black and white and this is a tough one.

At supper there’s a lot of tomato sauce and silliness while the world stands still to hear the verdict of bail or no bail and the nation is reeling and accusations fly and support bolsters. And all I can think is but for the grace, but for the grace go I and these boys so little-innocent and so deeply afflicted with the human condition just like their mother. I’m wet-cloth wiping the supper mess and praying quite desperate that these boys of mine will live life the way they want it tweeted and that these tomato-saucey fingers will cling to truth and grace, truth and grace.