{By Robin from PENSIEVE}

I’m sure it all started with visions of sugar plums, dancing ’round my head like Coyote’s stars after Road Runner smacks him in the head with a cast iron skillet.

At some point in Christmas Past, these were my illusions of grandeur:

Children (freshly scrubbed, neatly dressed and mannerly) joining my husband (dressed in a crew neck Christmas sweater and slacks) (yes, slacks, that’s kind of important) and me (pearls and a June Cleaver dress, bosoms unnaturally pointed and waist the size of Scarlet O’Hara’s-let’s be realistic-after giving birth to Bonnie Blue) decorating tree and home. Efficient and precise, my husband, would string the lights as the children tenderly unwrapped each ornament, taking time to recall memories or giver attached to each. Aussie, head resting on crossed paws in front of a fire’s roar, would gaze sleepily upon our merriment. I’d stop long enough to serve hot chocolate with mounds of whipped cream and offer home made cookies, each a Martha Stewart masterpiece. I’d hesitate with intention to capture the moment, wanting to catalog the scene in my heart and mind, not daring to interrupt the feng shui with camera and flash. There’d be much laughter and story telling, and one of us would eventually find our way to the piano, where we’d all join in a hearty performance of the “12 Days of Christmas”. They’d always let me sing “Fiiiive…goooolden….riiiiings!” because they know it’s my favorite.

Well, buckets of rain on my delusional Rockwell-esque Christmas parade; the Road Runner must’ve smacked ME upside the head with a skillet! When all is said and done, I’m pretty much the one who does it all.

{Originally published on Pensieve}

She will haunt me, this I know.

“I am happy,” she says, and she means it. Even if she did not speak those words, her countenance belies this simple truth: She is happy.

Kiran invited us to her home today, a 4′ x 6′ shoebox in the heart of Kolkata’s slums, blocks away from the glow and lure of proverbial red lights and painted women. Girls, actually, some even younger than Kiran. Simple math tells me 175 of her houses could fit into mine.

She is the only Compassion International sponsored child we visited this week who didn’t have a parent home with her.

{Originally posted on P E N S I E V E}

In its 15th and final season, hospital drama ER resurrected the dead: Anthony Edwards reprised his role as Dr. Mark Green last week in a series of flashbacks by Angela Bassett’s character, Cate Banfield.

When ER debuted in the Fall of ‘94, I had an infant and a two-year-old, and I’m sure escaping into TV melodrama was a welcome respite from the “storms” my little ones ravaged. I remember lying on our sofa nursing my son-right side, left side, right side, left-through ER, the news and then late nights with Leno and Letterman.

During the episodes leading up to his death, Dr. Green takes his daughter to Hawaii, to teach her “important” life lessons-how to drive, how to surf…I really don’t recall much else.

Except a last admonishment to her, one that has haunted me in the ensuing years.

“Be generous. Always.”

It struck me as odd, then, that a parent’s dying words would speak to generosity. It was unsettling for some reason; I judged those words as somehow falling short. In my mind, as a believer, I felt like he should have offered some great spiritual insight, something with eternal value, something … more. Of course, I realized it was television after all, and the series had never before offered anything substantively spiritually enlightening; but still, I saw it as missed opportunity.

{Originally published on PENSIEVE}

I did something yesterday I hadn’t done in a long, long time.

It was quite by accident, I wouldn’t have planned it, and in fact, had I known what I was getting into, I would’ve done whatever I could to avoid it.

Under cotton ball-dotted blue skies during the afternoon rush, I walked into the grocery store. A full shopping cart and an empty pocketbook later, I walked out into unexpected gray and gloom; not just rain mind you, but furious pregnant drops defying gravity with a sideways pour.

The parking lot had been crowded when I arrived, forcing me to park at the far end. “It’s better for me, anyway” I remember thinking.

There were no two ways about it, I was going to get wet.

Person after person in the same boat as I made a run for it; it’s funny to watch someone make an umbrella out of a bag of dogfood. It’s also entertaining to watch people dancing and dodging to avoid the inevitable-this was a deluge, THEY WERE GOING TO GET WET!

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Originally posted on PENSIEVE.

You would think becoming intimately acquainted with Jesus-getting to know Him, learning to love Him-is as simple as reading the Bible’s four gospels.

Until you read them back to back, and on the surface, see four portraits of the same man. Four very different portraits of the same man.

Because I never before read all four gospels in succession, a while back it occurred to me that immersing myself in these “biographies” would give me a clearer picture of Jesus. Rather than read them in the order they appear in Scripture (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John), I read them John, Mark, Luke, Matthew; random, yes, but going from John to Mark paints a p.r.e.t.t.y. interesting picture.

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