Amphibian

"If Jesus had any sins, he would have had to die for HIS sins." I pull at a snarl of nachos, dislodge a chip. Lucy bites the corner of her peanut butter and jelly.

"And we would have to die for OUR sins on a CROSS," Lucy wrinkles her forhead, her cheeks round with sandwich, "and Myra would cry and cry on the cross." She pats little Myra's hand kitty-corner around the big black table.

"Well, you wouldn't necessarily die on a cross," I scoop up a diced avocado, "but you would go to Hell when you die and that's the part that would hurt."

Lucy tilts her head, "And Myra would cry and cry until they let her out." She nods and copies my matter-of-fact eyebrows.

"No, they never let you out. It lasts forever," I say.

She sways her shoulders, "Yeah, it lasts forever like amphibian."

"No, inphibian," Jane calls from the end of the table.

"INPHIBIAN," Jack shouts and jumps off the leather ottoman.

"Infinity," I say.

"Infinibin means forever and it never stops," Lucy recovers.

"Infinity."

"Infinity," she punctuates.

With that we eat lunches down to clean plates and scattered crumbs. The children dicker over what books to bring to the beach and what to eat for breakfast in the car.

I tread lightly, let the current carry us.

Gratitude:

1638. How Myra tries to give me a back rub.

1639. How she whispers, "Love," in my ear.

1640. How Lucy calls the salad dressing BRANCH all one dinner and points to the word, "Lighthouse," and sounds out, "Brrrraaaannch."

1641. How when I ask Jane to bring me my school plan book, Myra brings me my Bible.

1642. Jane's offhand comment as I cut sweet potatoes, "Mom, I gotta tell you something. You're the best mom I know of."

1643. Four children gathered around the oven to watch candied sweet potatoes bubble.

1644. First Tuesday in a month to gather with mom and sis-in-laws.

1645. Lucy's assessment, "The stars looked like little pieces of fire, but they didn't fall. And they didn't burn our eyes. They were really pretty."

1646. Myra sacked out in my lap while the older three work away at their schoolwork.

1647. Jane's observation, "Momma, time flaps its wings so fast." And Jack's, "Yeah, perhaps as fast as an American eagle."

1648. Lucy standing on tip-toe, "Mommy, even though you don't want me to grow so fast, I just go on and grow -- until I'm a grown-up."

1649. Youngest girl cousin a whole year old.

1650. How I pause at dinner dishes and see Jane sneaked away to twirl and hum to Christmas music.

1651. How she calls Craig's mom to see what we can bring for Thanksgiving.

1652. Early Thanksgiving with Craig's side, a feast to be sure, and laughter and sledding, knitting and talk over pie and coffee and how the day stretches and stretches on.

1653. How Lucy draws a picture of the baby inside of me: a bubble of sea-green and azure blue.

1654. Jane almost ready for bed, "I feel like I could only move as fast as a stone could move."

1655. Scrambled eggs and peppermint oreos.

1656. Jack's assessment, "I like learning about the world." And his full examination of our globe.

1657. How we hear Lucy whisper from the car's backseat, "Guys, let's NEVER do bad things."

1658. And her conclusion, "If Jesus didn't die on the cross, we're gonna have to go to Hell, all of us, even our DAD," eyebrows raised. "And," she adds, "it's gonna hurt really bad, and we can never get out, and all our teeth are going to fall out."

1659. The pressure, privilege of doling out a little more knowledge each day.

On My Birthday

"Is that a horse track?" Lulie points out the window, her pointer finger up by her cheek. Wide green lawn swoops by: the cemetery.

"No." I glance at the grid of marble headstones. "It's a cemetery. It's where they bury dead people." I rest my hands on the top of the steering wheel, "The whole ground is just full of dead people under the grass," I say.

"Oh."

I slow for a light at the corner. "Do you know what happens when you die?"

"No." She stares out the window, then grins at me.

"Your body gets so broken," I say, "that your spirit, the part that makes you, you, leaves. If you've asked Jesus to forgive your sins and live in your heart, he takes you home to heaven." I glance at the hot summer sky, "And you get a new body that can fly and do other things, because it will be like Jesus."

"Oh."

I glance both ways for traffic, and round the corner. "If you don't have Jesus, you go to Hell and burn in fire forever."

She furrows her brow, "We don't like that."

"Nope." I glance at her round face in the rearview mirror. "Do you want me to pull over, so we can pray that Jesus will forgive your sins and live in your heart?" I ask.

"Yeah," she nods.

I accelerate to the next block. "When will we stop?" she chirps as I round the corner and ease in next to an overgrown shrub.

"There." I lean into the door and hop out, pull Lulie's door open and grab her pudgy hands.

I find her eyes. "If you pray and ask Jesus," I say, "he will forgive all your sins. Do you want to?"

She bows her head, pulls her hands up by her cheeks. "Please forgive me my sins. Amen."

She looks up. "When they nailed Jesus on the cross," I raise my eyebrows, "it was like he was getting all the spankings in the world."

She arches her brow, "Jesus got spankings?"

"No. It hurt worse than spankings," I stare into her eyes. "They nailed him on the cross." She demonstrates where they pierced his hands and feet. She knows the story. "He was getting in trouble for you," I say, "so when you die you don't have to go to Hell. You can go to Heaven if you've had Jesus forgive you!"

"Oh."

"If you ask him, he'll come and live in your heart." I watch her face. "Do you want to ask him to live in your heart?"

Again she bows her head and tucks her hands at her cheek, "Jesus, please come live in my heart. Amen."

She looks up. We meet eyes. "Now," I say, "he's living in your heart!" I smile into her eyes. "All the angels in heaven are having a party because you get to live with them when you die!"

She blinks. "And they're having a party?"

"Yeah!"

I finally notice the summer hot blacktop radiating up my legs. We smile, and I hop back in front seat, whirl off. Errands suddenly small, I chauffeur a new citizen around in my back seat.

"So how does it feel," I query from the front, "to have Jesus in your heart?"

"She watches the houses skim by. "Just, just good," she answers. We let the moment stretch long. "All those dead people under the grass," she adds, "they went to Jesus and had a party wiff him."

I grin. "Only if they had Jesus forgive their sins," I add. Capitularies of belief snake through new muscle and pulse.

She nods. "Yeah."

And so it is, a new child born into the Kingdom. Faith and understanding grow each day.

Gratitude:

1136. Lulie's prayer for salvation.

1137. Her sing-songy, "You are hugging me, and I am hugging you. I am holding you, and you are holding me."

1138. Jane's date with my mom and how when Jane peppers her with questions about make-up, my mom explains it perfectly: Some women wear make-up so people will notice them, but we wear it as a way of showing respect, like dressing up.

1139. Uncle Peter and Auntie Rosie home safe from Ireland.

1140. Jack's observation, "Jane, if you put your head out the window and close your eyes while we're driving, it feels awesome."

1141. How when Lulie tries to snip baby Rosie's fingers off to see what would happen, it doesn't work.

1142. Yellow Clematis, dug fresh on the farm and hand delivered.

1143. Lulie's comment on setting the table, "I'm moving all the plates to enough room for the elbows we'll have.

1144. Jane's prayer, "Help us all to be long-suffering -- except for Dady because he already is long suffering and single-minded too. Amen."

1145. Morning runs with Jane. And her commentary on jogging, "It's kind of like I get a date with you every morning."

1146. How we pour over the race rag in search of a new race to run together.

1147. New running shoes for me!

1148. Pineapple upside-down cake, caramelized around the edges.

1149. Qdoba queso burrito, steak and mango salsa -- birthday lunch, knee to knee with husband, children at each elbow.

1150. How Jack dead-heads my marigolds and feeds them to the chickens, then pulls handfuls of yellow clover for them.

1151. A roof on the hen house. How Craig shingles it until a migraine hushes his labor and he rests.

1152. How Jack wants to call all the chickens Marigold. Or Poppy.

1153. Birthday cards, phone calls, and messages.

1154. Homemade Thai peanut sauce.

1155. How even though Rosie pukes all over the car seat two blocks from the chocolate store, nothing can stop Craig. He dashes in and emerges with 4 bars -- for my birthday. We drive home windows down and hope no one else smells the stench.

1156. The privilege of bathing and dressing Rose all fresh.

1157. How Craig fields the car seat.

1158. Coffee and chocolate, burnt sugar caramel chocolate, the kind that drips caramel down your fingers.

1159. Sleep.

1160. The foreign feeling of a whole week of full nights sleep. The obvious increase in my intelligence.

1161. Our children's prayers for drought relief in Kenya. How they don't understand when I say people will be dead by Christmas if no one helps. And so they pray.

1162. More sketches and drawing class, daisies and lilies splayed bold.

1163. A visit from my cousin and her four children. How she practically brings a whole farmer's market with her. Deep bedrock kindness, unmistakable, unquenchable.

1164. Pictures from Pete and Rose's wedding.

1165. How we settle and linger and tease the moments out long with family.

1166. How I learn what good, good men my brother are from spending time with their wives.

1167. My sis-in-law's new blog.

1168. How Jane carries a tiny bottle of water when we run in case she gets thirsty.

1169. How Craig's brother is a teacher so they conspire on chicken coop plans and projects all summer.

1170. Cards from my children, letters scrawled out like works of art.

1171. How I stumble across an old note jotted to myself two years ago. I ask Jane how she is going to change the world. "Have kids," she says as if it were as obvious as the sun in the sky.

1172. Me too. My greatest footprint in this next generation is with her. And Jack, and Lulie, and Rose. Influence untold, it's almost too big to see.

Soap

"Hey, are you guys praying?" Jane pokes her head around the Jack's bed post.

"No. We're just snuggling." I squeeze Jack. He pats my hands.

"I gotta tell you something." Janie's cheeks round with grin, "I just brushed my teeth with SOAP." Grin unleashes.

"Oh, no." I chortle in Jack's hair, "How was it?"

Mile-wide grin, "FUN." Her bottom lip flaps as she says, fun. We titter and tehee, split, peal, and giggle. Soap. Fun.

We settle: stories. Egyptian slaves, the escape, the Red Sea, Pharaoh's army, quail, manna, Mt. Sanai. Our evening weaves. The saga unrolls.

We eddy over Moses' tabernacle, the sacrifices. The blood. Blood. Everywhere. A stinky, sticky, ensanguined, mess. Butchered animals. All day long.

The children snug down under fleece covers. I remember how Jane once asked if we would have to sacrifice our dog if we were naughty back then.

"What kind of an animal would you have to kill if you lied?" Jane queries from top bunk.

I pause. "I don't know." We let that set.

"Was it a camel?" I can hear her furrowed brow even in the dark.

"No. I don't know what it was."

"Oh." We mull this over. Cogitate. Steep. We never see anything die these days.

Our story twines and twists. Then it's the cross and Jesus. They picture the details: how they whipped the skin off his back; how they jammed the wreath of thorns on his head; how they nailed through the wrist and ankle; how pinned there, splayed by pain, he suffocated. And still, his last breath, "TETELESTAI." It is FINISHED. Paid in FULL. Finished.

They take it in.

A small detail. A soldier pierces Jesus' side -- makes sure he's dead.

"When he stabbed Jesus on the cross," Jane wants to know, "how did he not get blood on the handle?" And there it is again, the blood, all that blood.

As I tell the stories, I wonder how I ever missed all that blood. I musta just been reading the words.

Gratitude:

700. Lulie washes her hands with soap and a pebble-sixed blob of toothpaste, just to make sure.

701. Momma's suggestion, "Try thyme," and how baked potato soup bloomed creamy and salty and twang.

702. Tuesday with Ceris and Libby and Momma.

703. How Jane reads to the gaggle of cousins and comments, "Logan is a good listener. He just sat by me the whole time and asked questions on every page."

704. Lands' End winter clearance -- fall wardrobe for the Jane and Jack.

705. A laundry accident with borax and bleach and powdered white detergent, only one thing ruined. I think.

706. Wet bag I sewed myself (thanks Ceris) in spring green and ocean blue.

707. Mason jar with dark chocolate chunks.

708. How when I dumped half the jar in Sears, Jane and I plopped all the pieces back in the jar before the 10 sec. rule wore off.

709. How I shared my favorite olives and sourdough cheese crackers at dinner just to practice sharing. And how it was hard and exhilarating.

710. Salted chocolate. The kind that has little crunches of salt. The kind that husband brings home when you have a bad day.

711. First week of Rockie's cast half over.

712. Spaghetti and pumpkin pie birthday on the farm for freckled nephew.

713. Wrestling match we all tromp off to and how nephew wins two out of three.

714. How Jack pops up after praying at lunch, "I was bowing down," he says.

715. How they listen to the stories of Daniel over and over and OVER again.

716. Jane's grin and missing teeth when she gets a dinosaur out of the Goodie Basket for Jack.

717. Selling stuff, so liberating. And money for next year's school books.

718. Jane reading Dick and Jane for fun.

719. Endurance. And the will to go on. The will to finish.

720. How husband tells me, "Think of who you want to be, then decide what you should do."

721. How he hugs me when I'm angry, and I decide I don't want to be that angry person.

722. TETELESTAI. Salvation.