home

" [You can not] steal quietly away to heaven, in Christ's company, without a conflict and a cross"

Amy Carmichael

How I long to steal quietly away to heaven. To live life where relationships are always easy, where giving is what you WANT to do, where loving is the first choice instead of the thing you always find yourself fighting for.

For years, now, it seems I have been living in a spiritual no man's land. Like being trapped in the redwood forest and never looking up. Just trees, trees and more trees.

Traveling has a way of moving your imagination, getting out of the forest, so to speak. It has a way of opening up and frustrating places that have grown cold an weary.

I needed a little frustratin' if you know what I mean.

The other night I was looking around the house for some Flannery O'Connor and instead stumbled upon a book that a friend had given me. And it was like the light came in, in that forest. My heart felt warm again, hopeful that God was not so far has He has seemed for so long. I had not lost faith, but I tell you, I was getting tired of the distance.

The first chapter had this quote, and it strangely comforted me.

In Christ's company, I will not steal quietly away to heaven.

I was not so far away as I thought.

This past Sunday, we landed at a church that we feel can be our home. We've been longing for beauty for so long in worship, and it felt good to be in its presence again. 

This has been quite the journey, here in Tulsa. It continues to be. It helps to let some light in though, and I am thankful for words to remind me to just look up.

summertime

Hi friends out there! Summer has been amazingly mild and we've been soaking it up.

We just returned from a jam packed week in Colorado. That place is AMAZING in the Summer. I hope we get to do that again one day. Josh is a mountain man, and I love the beach, but I can tell you- I was impressed.

Life is busy and slow all at the same time. My brain keeps ticking away and we have some exciting things brewing. My heart continues to ebb and flow through my ever sweet reminder of (thank you madeleine l'engle) that I am living the "tired thirties". 

I find myself jumping in and out of blogs and social media these days. I think about hanging it up all together, and then I read something that actually helps and encourages, and feel thankful for the access. Been thinking more about hospitality and praying God begins to use that longing again. Some people remain wonderfully hospitable with small kids, but I have found the days to be long and energy scarce. With that said, I am hoping for some new beginnings as we continue through our lazy Summer and enter into the Fall Season. I don't know much these days except that God loves me. and you. The theologians may scoff, my call my theology weak- but over and over, love seems to be the only thing that really inspires, heals, quickens, and changes me.

So, here's to meal sharing and hope.

and some summer pics.

love, 

brooke

hello summer!

Hello out there! Summer FINALLY made it to OK and I have been relishing in the warm afternoons in the lounge chair, watching the kids laugh and giggle in the slip and slide. The heat will oppress soon enough, so I am enjoying those bearable moments of Summer right now! Life slows down for us this time of year, which always takes us a few weeks to unwind. We head out on the road soon! Some dear old friends of my family offered their Colorado house to us for a week, so we are packing up the van and heading to the Rockies! Later this Summer, we'll trek to the deep South and spend some much needed time with my family....I also love Summer because it feels a bit more communal. People gather and eat and play. I love the rhythms of Season for this reason, and always find this part of the year restorative. Hope this finds you enjoying YOUR Summer....

another quote

If you are interested in the notion of home, place, and identity- read no further than Wendell Berry. He talks extensively in both his fiction and non fiction about the notion of home, having a place, being from a place. I first started thinking about these things when I moved to St. Louis. It was the first place that I lived that was so culturally different than my world. I would have days where I just missed the South so much- and I had equal days where the South was unveiled to me, and I saw things that I didn't like- but at the end of that journey, I really embraced by "place" and owned it- and knew that being from Georgia was in me, as familiar as my own heart beat.

Oklahoma has been similar in a lot of ways- it is actually culturally fairly familiar- almost a hybrid of Southern and midwestern- but it's the landscape that has taken me so far from my home. In St Louis I never felt so "far" from home. But for the first years,I would drive around like a person in a Walker Percy novel, not sure of where I was. I think another thing that has struck me here, is that people LOVE Oklahoma. They love this place. This has been in a strange way alienating and comforting.

This Summer we will have lived here 5 years. I can't really get my head around that, but I will say, that I am- like this quote- learning to be at home. I suppose all this longing for home is rooted in things that we cherish, things that shaped us, things that made us feel safe. I think about Macon, I have no idea what is north, south, east, or west. I just know how to get from here to there, because every road is so familiar. As you grow older, you long for familiar roads. I think I will always remember Oklahoma as the place that really got a hold of my heart, and shook it to its core. I think it will be the place where I arrived at the ground of my own feet, and learned to be at home.


* and by that I mean, to accept and embrace that it is God who has ordered our steps, led us to this place at this time.