Twinkling Lights in Willowtown

This picture brings me much delight.  

Warm, bright Christmas lights lining the trees in front of Iris Cafe's eclectic storefront.  The Riverside Houses towering above, River Deli and our Moroccan friends in the near distance.  This little corner of Brooklyn has been our home for the last two-and-a-half years, and we have loved every single moment (well, except for the moments when some of our hei ren neighbors taunted us from a balcony in Building 20, yelling, "Tell your people to stop moving in here!" ... but we get some sort of that practically everywhere, so...).

Living here has been a joy and a privilege.  Wish we could stay.  One day in the semi-near future, we will go and make our home elsewhere.  But we will always be thankful for the all the seasons--particularly the joyful Christmases!--that we had here.

Siiiiigh.  It's been a while since I last reflected.  I have a number of things on my mind this evening.

Moments of Delight.

We've had a number of these lately.  

This afternoon, the Squires ventured out into the freshly fallen snow with two friends from church after eating a very satisfying Brooklyn pizza lunch at Juliana's.  We had an impromptu snowball fight -- husbands vs. wives.  We raced across a soccer field scenically situated on a pier, partially in an attempt to weird out the guy who was cross-country skiing on the field.  We took pictures together.  We went to a nearby playground and I finally got the chance to try out the two big slides there.  They were extra-slippery in the snow, and we flew off the slides at seemingly break-neck speeds, shrieking the whole way.  We became children again, and it was awesome.

We received an orchid from a dinner guest two weekends ago.  It is still alive.  In fact, it is doing well.  This is something of a small miracle in this household, as I am reputed to have a black thumb.  I am delighted that Margherita (I named after Margharita of Savoy for the same reason that the margherita pizza is so named) is thriving. Let's see how long I can keep this up!

The last week has brought several soul-feeding conversations with sisters at church and with my dearest friend at work.  I enjoy a good, deep conversation that surpasses small talk and generalities and really digs in deep to address real issues (good and bad) in life.  I am deeply grateful that work has been incredibly low-key and peaceful for so many weeks.  This has given me the opportunity to recenter my thoughts surrounding work and where I am now, reconnect with many people, and reflect on big-picture stuff.  

Sobering Reminders.

I am painfully aware that I am far too impatient with my parents sometimes.  I am actually nervous about returning home for the holidays for that precise reason:  I haven't seen them in so many months, so I want to make the time really good.  But I know (based on my phone conversations with them) that certain things that they do (or don't do) push my buttons to such a degree that I snap at them or say things that I shouldn't.  I hate repeating myself, for example.  I also hate being interrupted.  I don't like hearing criticisms (they sound like criticisms to me, anyway) about how other children are raised, especially because that makes me nervous that I will also be so criticized behind my back about how I raise my own children in the future.  I grow impatient with hearing about the same medical problems, again and again.  I don't like being asked, "Can you believe it? Are you surprised?" because in some perverse way I think I am somehow above being surprised (at least with them).  All of this is horrible and stupid and embarrassing of me.  I'm quite ashamed, really.  :(  I know that only God can help me be better.  Only He can give me the grace and self-control that I so desperately need.  I have been praying that I will be patient with them throughout our visit; that we will be a blessing and not a curse to my parents; that we will love them and make them feel loved; that we will be willing to do things that we don't particularly enjoy simply because they enjoy it.  And by "we" I mean "I," because in these ways Mr. Squire is a better child of my parents than I am.  Problem is, he's not actually their child, so they don't really care that much about whatever he does or doesn't do.  It's what I do or don't do...and I really need to do better.  Lord, deliver me from evil and help me to be better...

Something happened at work recently that completely rattled me.  I felt very tense and unsettled for the rest of the day, and spent much of the day pondering how the event would or could possibly affect my perceived standing as an attorney, as a female, or simply as an individual.  It was a terrible day, and I felt helpless and unjustifiably attacked.  Things got better as the day went along, but I was still uneasy when I left the office.  I took a long walk toward home, playing Steven Curtis Chapman's songs on my iPhone and reflecting on the events of the day.  I was proud of myself for turning to God early on in the event--praying for my "enemy" and also praying for a right perspective.  But I knew that I was still nursing my broken pride.  I looked up at the moon shining down on me, and I remembered with great comfort who I am in Christ.  For a moment, it was well with my soul.  And that moment gave way to a reminder from the Holy Spirit that the sufferings we endure actually serve great purposes.  God reminded me of other difficulties that He had brought me through in the past:  unfair characterizations in high school; unjustified feedback from a particular employee in a prior job; uncertainty with respect to my professional future at various points in my education and career; rough roads in my personal relationships.  God showed me scenes from each prior thorny thicket.  Then He brought to mind scenes from conversations that took place years later--when I was in a position to share about my path out of the thicket with real empathy and real compassion from a place of genuine understanding.   Second Corinthians 1:3-7 says: 

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort,  who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.  For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ.  If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer.  And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.

I felt substantially better about what happened at work as a result of this reflection.  It may have been unfair, but it will serve a purpose one day.  That makes it worth something, and much easier to accept.  Still hard, but easier.

The Plan for 2014.

God willing, and with the Lord's help, I'm going to become a better writer in 2014.  One comment I received this summer has fueled a fire within me to prove the commenter wrong.  I've resumed the study of a usage book, started a word list, subscribed to The New Yorker, and ordered two desk references.  I will pay much closer attention to how I draft even the simplest of emails.  I will practice, practice, practice.  I am determined. 

Still At Home Sick

Day ten of being sick, and I'm feeling pretty miserable because I'm still in pretty rough shape (slept only two hours last night due to incessant coughing) and tomorrow is Monday.  I went into the office for all of two hours last week, and I have a filing on Tuesday, and I'm interviewing someone tomorrow, so I need to go in tomorrow.  I thought the whole holiday weekend thing would help me recover, but... seems I just got worse! :-p

I digress.

What I actually meant to say is that the side benefit of being sick is being forced to slow down...to stop, in fact... to reflect... to re-evaluate.  To be still.  I appreciate that aspect of illness.  This time around, I've spent a lot of time lying in bed, awake.  Ordinarily I am pretty restless; I like to be busy with things, even if it's being busy doing something relaxing.  Sitting still and doing nothing is not among my fortes.  And yet I have spent MANY hours during this last week doing exactly that.  And in those many many hours, I've been reflecting upon the following:

• This is, in part, what I've been praying for over the last several months.  Things have been going so well and I have been praying daily that even when things start to slip, we will still maintain a posture of gratitude and joy.  God has been answering that prayer.  Of course, we know this illness will pass and there are much greater trials to come.  But I feel that God has used this little hiccup to affirm the value of requests during times of peace for the same strength--and alacrity even--to carry us through times of difficulty. 

• The cross.  The meaning of the Jesus's sacrifice.  How it relates to communion.  How it relates to me.  I've shared before how I struggle with communion.  It's not a very spiritual experience for me, and a lot of times I feel as if I'm just going through the motions without understanding why it is so important, or even how the symbolism really works.  But an "Eat This Book  - Torah" sermon we listened to recently walked us through the whole process of atonement and animal sacrifice in the Old Testament, and it really spoke to me.  Pastor Tim talked about how sin is like our trash, and we can't just let trash accumulate; we have to deal with our trash.  How God deals with trash is by requiring the shedding of innocent blood to cover our sin.  While this sounds violent and gruesome, it just goes to show how serious sin is in God's sight.  In the Old Testament, God allowed a sinner to atone for his sin by bringing a blemish-free animal to the altar, laying his hands on the animal (thus symbolically) transferring his own sin to the animal, and slaying the animal (to pay the debts of the sinner).  The Israelites had to bring sacrifices over and over and over, though...until Jesus came.  As the Lamb of the world, He took away all the sins of the world, for good, with His sacrifice on the cross.  It's not as if I didn't know all this stuff before, but...somehow it makes a lot more sense to me now.  

• The parable of the man who was forgiven a huge debt, but wouldn't turn around and forgive a small debt.  I read this earlier in the week and it really stuck out to me.  I struggle with being judgmental of certain people in my life, and I feel as if God is telling me that I judge them because I haven't forgiven them.  And I must forgive them; after all, I am the man who was forgiven a huge debt! How could I not turn around and forgive a small debt?!  I am still mulling this over, and realizing how much I need God's help to change.

• My husband is more patient and loving than I am.  All week, night after night, I have kept him up with my coughing.  Instead of consoling me during Coughing Bout 1 through 3, then ignoring me in all subsequent Coughing Bouts throughout the night out of annoyance (which is what I would probably do), he consoles me during all of them, all through the night. Every night.  And now I know--yet again--how much more patient and loving he is.  I'm challenged to be better at this wife thing.  Need to outbless my husband!

Time for a nap, methinks.  Or maybe just more lying in bed, with more time to reflect.