"I am a part of all I have read."  ~John Kieran

Once a week I go to the library. Going to the library has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. I went there with my mother as a child and spent countless hours there as a teenager. In college, I had a regular ‘nook’ I holed up in, reading and drinking coffee till the wee hours before heading back to my dorm. When our children were little we began going to the library before they could walk. I have a wonderful memory of our oldest son sitting in his car seat while perched on the counter, my books for the week being checked out by the librarian. As she leaned over to look into the carrier she remarked:"One day you’ll be a reader." And it is true. Yesterday I came home to find him in the backyard reading leisurely in a hammock, a welcome break I am sure from the intensity of college reading.

But my trips to the library this summer are with yet another generation. Our neighbor, a soon-to-be first grader and a new reader and I go weekly so she can return the books she has read and get new ones. She is registered in the Summer Book Club, that stroke of brilliance created by librarians to ensure that children continue to read during the summer months.Much time and creativity is invested in catchy themes, rewards of stars and pizza coupons to get children to sign on to a marathon of summer reading with the hope of returning them back to school in the fall with not too much progress lost. Each week she arrives at our door, book bag in hand, and we head off. Everything about the library is new to her. She asks questions about the computers, what it means to ‘renew’ a book, what a ‘fine’ is, and uses her library card with the pride of an American Express Gold Card holder.

Last night as we turned the corner onto the street of the library, her excited voice echoed from the safety of the backseat:"There it is! I love the library!" How could my heart not fill with warmth and my eyes with tears? Another reader is born. Another reader who will enfold the stories of courage and hope into her life. Another reader who will look up important facts and scan maps and dictionaries for places and definitions. Another reader who will be brought to tears by a story that is so close to her own life it is painful to read or be filled with anger at the injustice of what might happen to someone.Another reader who will learn that knowledge is power.

There is the bumper sticker that says:If you can read this, thank a teacher. True. I would also add:If you can read this, thank a librarian. That other underpaid, mostly undervalued group of people who now do what they do because once they were a part of a Summer Book Club. And from that moment on they knew they had to do what they loved……read.

This weekend promises to be hot, humid and stormy. Perhaps it is time to settle in with a good book. Enjoy!

No man can be called friendless who has God and the companionship of good books.  ~Elizabeth Barrett Browning

"I was there to hear your borning cry, I’ll be there when you are old. I rejoiced the day your were baptized, to see your life unfold."……John Ylvisaker

It seems Regions Hospital in St. Paul was a hopping place yesterday. Sixteen little ones made their way into the world in the course of seventeen hours. As I read this story in the morning paper, I tried to imagine the hallways, the waiting rooms and birthing rooms. I tried to imagine the nurses and doctors and other medical staff bustling about perhaps wondering what was going on. It wasn’t a full moon, it wasn’t a snowstorm, all good predictors for babies being born. It was just a regular summer July day….a little hot, a little humid, a little slow moving….except in the labor and delivery rooms at Regions. A whirlwind of birth was happening there!

I’ve had the blessing to be in the presence of several new babies recently. As I hold them and look into their uniquely beautiful faces, it is difficult not to think of the promise they bring to the world. Who knows but that the one with the funny little smirk on his face won’t be the one who brings laughter and compassion to a world that so desperately needs it? Who knows but that the one with piercing, inquisitive eyes won’t be the one who discovers cures for some of our most dreaded diseases? Who knows but that the one who gently sings under his sweet-smelling milky breath won’t be the one to create the next most longed-for symphony? Each little one….a bundle of promise, of hope, of possibility.

As were we all in the eyes of those who welcomed us to the world. It makes me wonder. What is there yet to be known through me, through you? How is the promise of each of our lives yet to unfold?

This lovely hymn of John Ylvisaker never ceases to make those who sing it well up with tears. As the lyrics continue on through all of life’s stages, it presumes that the Holy and those who welcomed us into the world continue to observe, nurture, affirm and support each of us. If only it were true for everyone who enters the world. If only each child was surrounded by the love the song describes. Of course, we know it is not so.

And yet today our prayer can be, at least for those sixteen who yesterday confounded and surprised the Regions’ medical staff, that they are held as gently by the loving human arms as we know they are by Holy Arms.

"When the evening gently closes in and you shut your weary eyes, I’ll be there as I have always been with just one more surprise."

Last week I caught bits and pieces of a song sung by John Gorka on the Morning Show on MPR. I hadn’t been actually focusing on what was on the radio. Instead I was probably thinking of the things I hadn’t finished yesterday or planning my words carefully for a meeting I was about to attend. When the words "I am writing in the margins" grabbed my attention, I realized it was song of longing and of war. The voice dreamed of being spared in a war he had not prepared for, felt ill-equipped to fight, one whose leaders and intentions he questioned. I would think this probably fits the description of most who have found themselves in that place.

As someone who is a perpetual student, I am always writing in the margins of books I am reading. Sometimes these words are questions or arguments I might have with the author. Other times there are words of agreement usually accompanied by exclamation points to show I have found a voice that shows I have found a kindred spirit. On occasion there is a note to look something up or check a fact or source. Writing in the margins allows for only the short, pithy thought.

"I am writing in the margins, notes to you and me, because the pages are all filled up, with what is yet to be…..I am writing in the margins getting closer to the edge….I am writing in the margins this day all I need to fix…." These are just some of the lyrics of this song filled with pain and yet such hope.

I expect we have all, either literally or figuratively, written in the margins of our lives. We make a mental note in the margins of our days to make a call to a family or friend we’ve lost contact with. We write in the margins of our hearts those little moments we don’t want to forget…..a child’s first step, a partner’s sweet word, the tender touch of a compassionate caregiver, a fleeting moment of hopefulness. We write in the margins of faith the prayers for the ones who are struggling with illness, fear, anxiety, injustice, despair.

Writing in the margins……not big, lofty thoughts. But the ones that really matter.

"Never have we pushed so many children on to the tumultuous sea of life without the life vests of nurturing families and communities, caring schools, challenged minds, job prospects, and hope."
                                                                              ~Marian Wright Edelman

I have several friends whose grandparents lived with them when they were children. Three generations in one household. I believe they are better for the experience. I believe those cultures where this practice is still the norm have something to teach us, we who ‘have it all’, we who maintain our ‘personal space’. I am reminded of their stories of a grandmother’s wisdom when a parent was too close to the conflict, too tired to really listen.The stories those grandparents told were woven daily into the fabric of the young people’s lives not simply caught at the once-a-year Thanksgiving dinner table.

It continues to be one of my beliefs that, as a culture, we have done ourselves a great disservice by segregating our generations in the ways we do. There is somehow a notion that each generation only wants to ‘hang out’ with their own kind. Of course, there are experiences I want to have with only people my age but the fullness of my life needs the wisdom of those older and those younger to hold up the mirror so I can more clearly understand who I am, what my life is about.

Our churches can be the place were this kind of segregation happens most intentionally and to the greatest loss. We segregate our children out to classes and away from worship because ‘they will not understand’. We relegate our teenagers to the basement and wonder why when they emerge as young adults,they do not feel welcome.We allow the wisdom of our elders to go unnoticed, untapped by all the other generations who so need their life knowledge. How did this happen?

As I have continued to read the Book of Exodus over these past months, it is clear to me that those nomads needed the ‘whole people of God" to make it through the wilderness. So do we. We need our tribe that contains the storytellers of the history and traditions that have held us. We need the rebellion and questions of our youth to propel us toward the future and to keep us honest. We need the awe and openness of the children to keep us living with joy and hope and a playful spirit.

How are you spending this day? Will you surround yourself with people ‘just like yourself’, from your own generation? Here is an invitation….even a challenge. Spend some time this day with someone older or younger and see what gifts might be waiting in that experience, in their presence.

"Everywhere, true elders will appear within the human community. Neighborhood by neighborhood, they will build bridges across the chasms of ignorance and intolerance that separate us. Thus they will take their rightful place among the young and once again define the terms of passage into adulthood. The children will be given a way to reach adulthood and the spirit of nature will be enriched by a fully human maturity. The ancient dreams of those who have gone before will be empowered in the councils with such visionary insight that the people will survive. So be it." Steve Foster, The School of Lost Borders

"When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free."
        ~Wendell Berry~

It is that time of year. The time when one needs to shake loose the stuff you’ve carried, the work that will not be easily finished, the thoughts that need time to ruminate. It is time for a northern renewal. Here in Minnesota that often translates to:"I’m going to the lake."

Our family leaves tomorrow for a few days at ‘the lake’, taking time to be with family and friends and a celebration of years of tradition surrounding the Fourth of July. It is an anchor of the year, one that is thrown out and grabbed with relief by hands and hearts that need to sit by the water, listen for the sound of the loons, and allow the cobwebs to clear out of a too-full mind. We will allow the presence of  towering pines and  white-washed  birch to work their healing magic and will return to the city ready to resume the work at hand. Computers will be unplugged, no-wi-fi there, only the slosh and slap of waves on the dock, only the presence of the stars that are only visible as city-weary eyes become accustomed to the night sky.

For the next few days I will ‘rest in the grace of the world’ as Wendell Berry writes and will resume writing here on Monday the 7th of July. May these days find you resting in the grace that is your world and taking time to mark the freedom of these glorious days.

Blessings…………..