Beautiful, Impermanent Things

bleeding hearts, hush, and slow, holy work

The bleeding hearts
have vanished
I meant to notice
and enjoy them more

The baby is a little bird
Open mouth, open eyes
He needs me every moment.
I love him dearly,
and I am tired.

Sitting in a quiet corner,
holding desperately to the hush.
It will not last.

My daughter plays the piano,
and in her song
we share joy and sorrow,
remembering a child
we never got to hold.
She has written the memory
of that secret soul
tenderly,
a melody that hurts and heals
at the same time.

Another daughter opens a book
and gently scoops up
four pressed flowers.

She comes into the room, blooming,
and smiling says,

”I saved some bleeding hearts
for you.”

Paloma’s bleeding hearts that she pressed in a book and gave to me, April 2024.

Dear friends,

I am in the precarious space of learning to live in a new season. It is easy to get overwhelmed by the pace, the laying down of certain desires, the sum-total of a day amounting to humble productivity. Though I am happy and grateful, I confess that sometimes I get weary of the long, slow work of motherhood. The needs come so hard and fast, one after the other. But when I get into this quiet corner of my life and take a breath, I realize that what is happening here is holy. And if I will look for beautiful things, I will always find them. In this season, I am delighting in this baby’s gentle, precious love. And the way he brings out that same sweet love in all of my other children. They adore him. They smother him with kisses. They want to hold him. They want to wake him up so they can see him. (Which is absolutely not okay!!!) They want to show him things. They want to talk to him and read to him and play music for him. We are all waiting on his smiles. We are all learning to be kinder and more patient. To set aside our own desires for the good of another little life.

I love bleeding hearts. They are one of my favorite flowers. I would have liked them even if they had a boring name, but the poetry of the flower with the name hits me every spring. I wanted to paint them or press them or just process my love for them in some artful way (I have always thought that a bleeding heart pendant for a necklace would be beautiful), but I didn’t get around to it. I noticed they had stopped blooming and felt a little sad about it. They are such beautiful, impermanent things.

The next day, Paloma came and told me she had pressed some of the bleeding hearts. She gave them to me. It was a sweet gift and a story to me that even when our hearts are not quite ready to appreciate beauty—when we are too busy or too tired to notice, when we are in a season where we have little time to stop and really see the impermanent gifts that are all around us, we are most often given second chances. To stop and look now, to remember, to reflect, to find gratitude in what we have in this moment… Gratitude is a discipline that can be cultivated in every season. And it is often as simple as a thought—this is beautiful, or a prayer—thank you God for this.

Today I would like to encourage you to make a list of some of the beautiful things in your life. Take five minutes. Write things that are big and things that are small. (There is no wrong way to do this, nothing too small to be grateful for…) A list like this can be its own prayer if, when you are done, say, “Thank you God for all of this.”

Sending love and flowers, pressed when you thought you had lost every last one of them,

Mackenzie

From the Family Archive:

This song carries the same message:

There will be a time for tea and coffee
There will be a time for quiet cafes
There will be a time for reading and writing
And dreaming the day away

But now is the time of pitter patter
And now is the time of what’s the matter
Let me kiss you, make it better
Now is the time of sweet, soft kisses
And now is the time every mother misses
Over coffee in a quiet cafe

(And we’ve been singing this song for 16 years!)

You can also listen to this song on our album on Spotify.

From the Podcast:

Read-Aloud of Chapter 2 of my book, The Sacred Everyday, A Search for the Exquisite Beauty of an Ordinary Life.

“God is doing a slow work in me.  So many days it feels like nothing is happening.  Like my life, which once seemed so useful and productive, is making zero impact on the world.  The days when life was defined by an impressive string of accomplishments are lost somewhere at the bottom of the laundry pile.  There are moments when the words, ‘three meals a day’ can actually strike a chord of terror in my heart.  I can actually see them: hundreds of thousands of meals that I will be responsible for, stretching out into eternity.  Sometimes it feels like all I do is fail miserably at trying to maintain a messy house.  Like the crowning achievement of my life would be to mop the kitchen floor…”  

I wrote these lines in the throes of young motherhood, and when I reread them, I still remember the way motherhood displaced me.  I was not a natural. I often felt lost, unable to define who I was or to what purpose I had been called.  Fifteen years in, I see that motherhood has worked itself into the very nature of my being.  That it has taught me more about the love and kindness of God than anything else.  This week I’m share a chapter called Slow Work, all about motherhood, living into a season, and surrender. I hope you find some words that help you speak your own heart here.

As a thank you to my paid subscribers, I have created The Sacred Everyday Library, a collection of resources from my Patreon and my blog over the years. I’ve split them into two categories—Journaling Resources, which includes my 6-week video journaling course and two personal journal retreats, as well as Creative Family Culture Resources, which includes a 3-week creative arts curriculum for the whole family, a printable of our Paper Doll Club coloring book (made by me and my oldest girls when they were 8 and 6), and a printable coloring and activity book, perfect for aspiring artists, doodlers, and creative minds of all ages. Thank you so much for being here, and for your support.