Category: kids

revisiting and recapturing

Sha Towers on

I just ran into a post that I shared here many year ago and paused to reflect. In it, I mention a tool that i really loved, and which sadly is now gone, but I wonder what suggestions you might have for replacing it? Part of it is just a practice of reflecting and recording, and there are many ways to do that, but the part I treasured was how it returned previous reflections to you (“here’s what you wrote a week ago”, “a month ago”, ” a year ago”, etc.). I would love your thoughts on how to return to this practice and I hope this reflection, which brings up lots of emotions for me and a smile, can serve as a gentle push to you to stop and reflect on a memory of your own that brings you strength, or hope, or love, or even just a tiny smile.

on capturing life

ON CAPTURING LIFE
Sha Towers on July 12, 2013
while i really like the idea of a journal or diary, i’ve never been very successful at it. i’m still not, but i’ve been using an online tool that has certainly helped and has shown me a benefit of journaling: http://ohlife.com/. each evening, i receive an email saying “how’d your day go?” and by replying to the email, i’ve added an entry to my online journal at ohlife. i like the reminder and the ease. sometimes i write a sentence, sometimes more, sometimes i delete it feeling like i’m too busy or my inbox is stressing me out. most times i don’t reply until the next day (who knows what’ll happen latter that night you’d want to write about!) and sometimes (though i don’t recommend it), i catch up on replying to several days worth of emails all at once.

here’s what i really love about this tool though. the “how’d your day go?” email always includes this: “remember this? one month ago you wrote… [along whatever you submitted that day]. the time machine varies, sometimes it’s a month ago, a week ago, a year ago, etc. i’ve even seen things like “800 days ago you wrote…”. pretty cool. but the part i love the most is that i am reminded of really great moments of life, that quickly get lost in the busyness and tedium of life. i’ve realized that often, no matter how meaningful a life moment might be, that it is so easy for it to get buried under layers and layers of other life, and then in many ways, lost. here’s a an example that arrived in my inbox recently that resurfaced the kind of thing i want to remember. to me, this is the real beauty of recording life in a journal.

Remember this? One month ago you wrote…

easy start to the morning everyone in the kitchen eating at roughly the same time. running some errands before our trip. after we got home, carter and I stood in the garage with the door open watching the rain and talking. it was clear it was a moment that I want to remember and cherish. carter was carrying some stuff in from the car and said, “I’m going to take this inside and then I’ll come back and we can talk some more.” 🙂 he’s already not that talkative at age 10, so this was a really great moment.

Like a father…

Sha Towers on

On father’s day, we sang a hymn at church entitled “Loving Spirit” written by New Zealand hymn writer Shirley Erena Murray (b.1931), set to one of my favorite tunes, RESTORATION*, from Walker’s Southern Harmony of 1835.

Full disclosure — I picked this hymn (as the music director of our church). I should also add that I’m not a fan of letting secular holidays or observances horn in on the worship of the church. In my view, Worship isn’t about Mother’s Day, Veteran’s Day, etc. But that’s not what this post is about. It just so happens that this hymn uses father imagery (as well as mother, friend, and lover imagery) to explore the nature of the Holy Spirit. But it did seem particularly poignant to me as I stood in the pew with Ann and our two boys on Father’s Day, that this hymn included this line:

“Like a father you protect me, teach me the discerning eye, hoist me up upon your shoulder, let me see the world from high.”

It caught my attention for a number of reasons– the joy and responsibility that comes with being a parent, that parents are called to protect and to teach. But what really moved me was this idea of helping our children (as well as God helping us as God’s children) to see the world in a different way, from a larger, higher-altitude perspective than a child could on his or her own. The image of hoisting up on our shoulders is beautiful. It also made me sad to think of all the times when Max (our now six year old) has asked me to put him on my shoulders and I’ve said, “you’re too heavy” or “it’ll hurt my back” or “we’re too busy for that right now.” I’m going home after work today and putting him on my shoulders just because I can and to think about what such an act means. I’m also thinking about what such an act looks like with our oldest, Carter (now eleven and almost as tall as me!)– perhaps more figuratively than literally! This act is not just about the mechanics of one person sitting on top of another person’s shoulders. It’s about connecting, doing for others, of partnership, of being a servant, of lifting up another, of sharing an experience and view of life.

*Here’s a link to an organ arrangement of the tune by Herbert Colvin, who was my music theory professor during my undergrad.

IMG_1188

on capturing life

Sha Towers on

while i really like the idea of a journal or diary, i’ve never been very successful at it. i’m still not, but i’ve been using an online tool that has certainly helped and has shown me a benefit of journaling: http://ohlife.com/. each evening, i receive an email saying “how’d your day go?” and by replying to the email, i’ve added an entry to my online journal at ohlife. i like the reminder and the ease. sometimes i write a sentence, sometimes more, sometimes i delete it feeling like i’m too busy or my inbox is stressing me out. most times i don’t reply until the next day (who knows what’ll happen latter that night you’d want to write about!) and sometimes (though i don’t recommend it), i catch up on replying to several days worth of emails all at once.

here’s what i really love about this tool though. the “how’d your day go?” email always includes this: “remember this? one month ago you wrote… [along whatever you submitted that day]. the time machine varies, sometimes it’s a month ago, a week ago, a year ago, etc. i’ve even seen things like “800 days ago you wrote…”. pretty cool. but the part i love the most is that i am reminded of really great moments of life, that quickly get lost in the busyness and tedium of life. i’ve realized that often, no matter how meaningful a life moment might be, that it is so easy for it to get buried under layers and layers of other life, and then in many ways, lost. here’s a an example that arrived in my inbox recently that resurfaced the kind of thing i want to remember. to me, this is the real beauty of recording life in a journal.

Remember this? One month ago you wrote…

easy start to the morning everyone in the kitchen eating at roughly the same time. running some errands before our trip. after we got home, carter and I stood in the garage with the door open watching the rain and talking. it was clear it was a moment that I want to remember and cherish. carter was carrying some stuff in from the car and said, “I’m going to take this inside and then I’ll come back and we can talk some more.” 🙂 he’s already not that talkative at age 10, so this was a really great moment.

halloween tradition

Sha Towers on

great post-halloween tradition this morning at breakfast: listening to David Sedaris’ “Us and Them” a hilarious tale of weird neighbors, television and trick or treating gone bad (chapter one of Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim)

It’s fabulous to hear him read it, but as a consolation prize, here’s the transcript of this story. stop whatever you’re doing now and join the celebration!:

http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/2004/jun/sedaris/usandthem.html

halloween report and memories

Sha Towers on

the boys were super excited and hyper about halloween. two of carter’s friends (paul and jeremiah) came over and ann and diane took max and the crew trick or treating in the neighborhood while I welcomed treaters to our house. this was max’s first time to trick or treat “old school” where you actually go around the neighborhood on halloween night. it’s funny how many other trick or treating opportunities there are these days. we always trick or treat at the baylor dorms the week before halloween and then max’s daycare has trick or treating. the last couple years we were at zoo boo (a party at the waco zoo) on halloween, which is fun, but not really trick or treating like we knew it as kids. the boys had a lot of fun going house to house and also answering the door at our house. we were afraid we wouldn’t have many kids at our house, but glad we prepared, we had about 25 or 30 by nights end. I enjoyed watching how excited the boys got about treaters coming to our door.

there were lots of cute treaters. one tiny transformer (maybe two feet tall) showed up and commenced with show and tell, holding up all the different kinds of candy he’d received so far. when i bent over with the bowl to place some candy in his pumpkin, he quickly went to work hand selecting for himself from my bowl enough to equal his weight in sugar! another favorite was a group of elementary school girls, who as they left, one said “I love your spiders, they’re very cool, AND your roses are growing beautifully! 🙂

As I got ready for the treaters, I recalled a memory I had in elementary school where I raced home from school, got dressed and headed out even before dark (back in the days when it seemed safe to head off on your own without parents watching carefully from the sidewalk). I went to the next door neighbor’s house (who didn’t have kids and clearly wasn’t prepared for treaters — especially before sun down!) he didn’t have any candy, but quickly improvised and offered me a coke (back when they were in glass bottles!). in honor of that memory, I sipped a coke (zero) as i sat on the front porch with a bowl full of candy, waiting for the first trick or treaters to arrive.