Eastering.

I think emerging and unfurling might be two of the most beautiful words in the universe. Because in order for something to emerge or unfurl, it has to have been previously hidden away. Before now, the dark was scary to me. But the book When The Heart Waits by Sue Monk Kidd has taught me to see the dark, the time of waiting, in a very real and new way. The dark can mean a time of letting go, a time of abandoning our "false selves" to find the true self – that self which God has created in us.

I finally finished the book this week after starting it a long time ago, because I had to savor it in little bits here and there. One can only take so much soul-changing at a time, you know. But even though I read it so sporadically, each time I picked it up, the wisdom on the next several pages was exactly what I needed for that moment. Sue Monk Kidd parallels our lives with that of a caterpillar entering a cocoon and eventually emerging into a butterfly. At the beginning, she finds a cocoon hanging from a tree during a leisurely walk and can identify so much with this little sleeping creature that she brings it into her house and hangs it on an African violet on her desk. As she babysits the cocoon, something begins to transform in her life too, and she waits in expectation for the day she can emerge from her dark place. She desperately needs that caterpillar to become a butterfly.

I read the last part of the book this week as Easter approached - yet again - in the perfect time. The author says that Jesus' transformation was like "the waiting room of new life. The darkness of death was transformed into a life-giving dark."

A life-giving dark. Do those words remind you of anything? Maybe a womb?

Sometimes it feels like nothing is happening at first. When I originally wrote this post last August, I felt desperate and desolate. I did not want to enter my thirties that way. I picked up this book hoping and praying it would help me change. Today, on Easter, I know I am different. Not yet sure exactly how, but I know I am.

One of the greatest things I've realized through my journey is that to truly grow, we must abandon ourselves to let Christ come in. Self-abandonment is so contrary to what we are taught in this modern world. Abandon self, are you kidding? Today, it's all about us, how to make ourselves look better, feel more important, live longer and more richly. Self-abandonment almost seems like a condition for which you'd need to see a psychiatrist.

But it's not letting yourself go, it's letting go.

I learned something beautiful in this book when it quoted Thomas Merton, who wrote in Seeds of Contemplation that there are two levels in the process of fully surrendering to God: First there is the active work. This is where we go after the conscious, surface things we want and need to change. "At this level we approach letting go the active way, through self-initiatives, will, and work. We begin and begin again." One of these for me is body image, a trial I am s-i-c-k of dealing with, yet it still plagues me on many days. I hate it and know it is so silly in the grande scheme of my life but still have not figured out how to make it stop being an issue. I guess I'm going through this because it is teaching me something much deeper than appearance.

And that's the second level of abandoning oneself that Merton talks about – where we deal with our "secret attachments." Here is where we "let go our letting go." Did you catch that? We stop striving to fix ourselves. God releases us through experiences, encounters, and events that come to us. Oh, here's the hard part and the place most of us never reach - because we're too fearful of being in a place where it is dark and the light - if it's even there - is too far ahead. We actually keep ourselves from finding freedom because we don't let ourselves go far enough in the journey with God.

"When the heart weeps for what it has lost, the spirit laughs for what it has found."
~ unknown

So I guess that brings us to today, to Easter, and to the new word I learned in this book: eastering. Poet Gerard Manley Hopkins said, "Let him easter in us, be a dayspring to the dimness of us, be a crimson-cresseted east." They are gorgeous words. They evoke a beautiful image of dawn, light, new life. Sue Monk Kidd says that " to 'let him easter in us' is to let the Christ-life incubate within the darkness of our waiting." At the end of this time is emergence.

So the darkness does not have to be scary. It should not be, if it is a womb instead of a tomb. We will enter the cocoon and emerge again many, many times in this life.

May Christ be born in us today as we remember the beauty of letting go and (if we would allow it) coming alive again.

California Dreams.

Where have I been lately? In wonderful California, visiting my friend Jen and her hubby and new baby, Ava! This photo is only a preview of what's to come...golden days by the ocean, a luxurious spa treatment, friends old and new, and even a tour of the Sony & Fox lots! :)

The same tree...

She is blooming!





I love how the sun glows between the petals and leaves...

My kids in India.

In January 2005, I took a beautiful, difficult journey to India that changed my life. There, I got to meet Pastor Samson and his wife Prabhukumari and his sons, Wesley and Hudson, and I became part of their family. Pastor Samson runs Peace Gospel Ministries on the India side, and my former boss and friend runs it on the U.S. side.

While I was there, the favorite part of my days was spending time with the orphans at Hadassah Orphanage in Peace City, an area in a meadow outside a small town in South India. Peace City also has some huts and a church with a concrete floor, and it lives up to its name in every way. What a peaceful place it was. I begged Pastor Samson to take me back there each day, even though the road there was so bumpy that I had to hold on for dear life or fall out the window. But I had a smile on my face the whole time, because when I arrived, I got to see this sight: the children flocking to the window to welcome me.


On my last day in India, I returned to Peace City to play with the children and ask them to do an art project where they each drew what "Jesus Loves Me" meant to them. This little boy, Jayaraju, who Jenni sponsors, is a brilliant artist.


His picture says, "God loves all kind of people."

Then, they lined up quietly and eagerly, and one-by-one, they came to me and I prayed over each of them. Most of them probably didn't have any idea what I was saying, but that's okay.


I still keep in close touch with Pastor Samson and his family. Then last week, I heard some heartbreaking news, and I can't get it off my mind. A 7-year-old girl who was a classmate of the orphans at Hadassah Orphanage was kidnapped on her way home from school, raped and killed. This particular little girl doesn't live at the orphanage, but still, it hit me to the core. I saw the road they walk. I played with many of the children who were her classmates. The man who did this awful thing was brought to justice, but sadly, there are many more Dalit "untouchable" children in India whom no one cares about. No one fights for them. Obviously, the children at the orphanage have been scared...

"All of our children at the orphanage have been going through an extremely difficult time thinking about what happened to their classmate. We have been in intense prayer for them and have had our native staff spending extra time counseling and comforting them."

Now that this has happened, Peace Gospel immediately needs to raise $7500 to build a wall around Peace City to secure the children. I wanted to let all of you know about this, because maybe you have something you could contribute. As little as $10 goes very far in India, so even a little would help. All I want to do is fly back there now, as if my going back would do anything to bring back that little girl. It would probably comfort the children a little bit though, to be reminded again that people across the world care about them.

Click here to read the story and donate online.

Spring is coming...

I took a small break from work today to sit on the front porch in the 86 degrees wonderfulness. Spring is coming to Texas. The fresh smell of mulch (perhaps cedar) propelled a sweetness into the air as I peered over the porch railing to check on the flower beds Steven and I have been busy preparing. Our new Blaze of Glory climbing rose has rooted in, and I can't wait to see its tangerine orange blooms twisting around the rails.

The buds on the Bradford pear are gray and fuzzy and preparing themselves to fully emerge into white blossoms, and the hyacinth peeks its head tentatively through the leaves.

It's going to be a beautiful spring, I can feel it.

Home.

[I've had a bit of writer's block lately. So I decided I'm not going to think so much about what to write and just write. And since my blog is called Dreams of Simple Life, I think it’s only appropriate that I talk a bit more about simple life and what exactly that means to me...]

When you grow up in a small town, I think the desire for the simple life always lives in you. It certainly does inside me. And there isn't much I can do to shake it.

This is the home that held the first 17 years of my life. This is where I lived amongst the Italian immigrants in my neighborhood, waking up to the sound of a bat hitting a baseball 9 out of 10 days in the spring, a sprinkler head click-click-clicking in the summer, rainbows of leaves falling to the ground in the fall, the sound of a snow shovel scraping the driveway on a wintry Saturday morning.

It's a home with window-unit AC and radiators because that's all you really need to stay cool or warm in a small cottage. After playing in the snow, we layered our wet mittens and scarves on the radiator until they were dry and toasty warm.

It just occurred to me while writing this that I'm close to having lived more of my life outside of that house than inside of it. I don’t get many chances these days to visit this adorable house on Myrtle, although my parents still live there as if nothing has changed. And you know, not much has. My Cabbage Patch Kid, Carrie, is still perched atop the pink pillows on my bed, waiting for me.

Madison is the picture-perfect-small-town, whose locals gather at the Nautilus Diner every Saturday morning and talk about who’s marrying whom, the new addition that so-and-so put on his house, and how the CJ's Deli team did in Little League last weekend. There's no rush-hour traffic unless you count the long line of cars and vans stacked outside the elementary school at 3:15pm.

Madison is a town that you don't appreciate growing up because it's so small and not much happens and so you go away to college far away, vowing never to return. And then four years later, you can't wait to return to settle down and before you know it, you've been a teacher at the elementary school for 20 years. It's a unique place where I can't imagine my parents not living, and I hope they never move away.


So many memories are hidden in this hometown of mine...

~ Creeping inside my mom’s closet at age 2 and emerging with her high-heels on the wrong feet and a mischievous grin on my face.

~ Watching the Thanksgiving Day Parade every year with my grandfather, “Poppy” and listening to his stories of working in classy New York City in the 1920s.

~ Futile attempts to tackle my (9 1⁄2 years older) brother while he watched WWF, only for him to bust out the Figure 4 Leg-lock or Flying Jimmy Snuka and effortlessly pin me to the floor.

~ My poor parents wrestling with me during one of my many temper tantrums as a child, including the famous time I stuck a piece of chalk up my nose.

~ Many late-night snacks of Entemann’s donuts and milk and toasted peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at the island in the kitchen with my Daddy.

~ My friend Debbie and I spending endless hours building a miniature suspension bridge out of balsa wood for 12th grade Physics, complete with a mini bungie jumper hanging from a rubber band.

~ Mom and I planning our exotic mother-daughter trips during one of our brisk bike rides through the neighborhood.

~ Mourning when our pets Dutchess, Topaze, Chelsea, and Oreo went to animal heaven.

~ Facing my first breakup as I cried on the floor of my bedroom closet.

~ Receiving my acceptance letter to Belmont University.

~ Playing in the driveway many a summer evening - hopscotch, chalk drawings, and my bike with training wheels and streamers.

"You can never go home again,
but the truth is you can never leave home, so it's all right."
~Maya Angelou

More memoirs about my small town here and here.

Today I...

...woke up and immediately walked over to the window in our bedroom to see the sun rising over the wintry backyard.

...made the bed for the first time in a long time, fluffing the pillows and tucking in the sheet corners, instead of leaving it messy and rumpled.

...had a healthy breakfast with my husband at the dining room table instead of on the couch, running my fingers over the table cloth I ironed last night instead of leaving it wrinkly.

...drank my coffee extra hot while sitting on the guest room bed with the sun pouring through the windows onto my face and read a book and the Bible instead of just taking my coffee into the office and starting work too early.

...realized that I have not been believing in truth - I've been wavering from faith to doubt to unbelief and back again, and that is why I have not had peace.

...said "No, thank you," to untruths that tried to invade my mind and prayed this verse over my life: "I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit." ~ Romans 15:13

It's going to be a good day. But more than that, it's going to be good because I choose to believe in truth today.

Oh, the choices...

Oh dear. I keep finding new fabric potentials for the headboard in the guest room. I mean, just look at it! With possibilities like this being discovered every day, how does one decide?

Then, part of me wants to wait until Anna Maria Horner releases her new line, Drawing Room. I have only seen a few swatches, but it looks brilliant! What is a girl to do?

2008...a year of possibilities.

"Little children don't have more to celebrate. They just celebrate more things. They don't win more often than adults. They just act like winners more often. It leaves me wondering: Which comes first in life,
the victory or the celebration?"
~ A Childlike Heart by Alan D. Wright

It's 75 degrees on January 6th. To commemorate this special event, I took a bike ride on my SS Cruiser through a neighborhood that is slightly confused whether it should burst forth in full spring bloom or continue to hibernate in its winter starkness. I steered up and down hills and felt the wind blow against my face. On my way back home, I paused at the stop sign at King's Highway and Clinton and saw a cop passing through the intersection slowly, watching me. I smiled at him nervously, wondering if I would get in trouble for not wearing a helmet. But he just smiled back and said, "I like your bike!" and went on his merry way.

Back home and nestled into our red hammock, I opened an old book I had read several years ago, A Childlike Heart by Alan D. Wright. Flipping through to re-read a few passages that I had underlined, I saw this...

"Something happens between childhood and adulthood that changes our mind-set from 'I wish this day would never end' to 'I'm glad this day is done.'"

That got me thinking about the new year and how I'm the kind of person who will write a list of things I've already done just for the satisfaction of crossing them out. But I'm going to try something new in 2008: instead of trying to rush and accomplish, I'm going to make a list of possibilities. A person who is childlike has possibilities. So, off we go...

1. Start enjoying red wine. I never thought I liked wine...that is, until I tried Avalon Cabernet Sauvignon on Friday night. I've also realized that wine labels are works of art, as simple or ornate as they may be. This one reminds me of letterpress.
   
2. Make every recipe on Sara Snow's website.
   
3. House stuff:
1. Guest room: Paint walls ocean green & re-upholster headboard (current headboard fabric ideas: Surf & Sand Starflower, Surf & Sand Medallions).
2. Butler's pantry: Paint walls Tuscan reddish/coralish color & get cool fabric for curtains (current curtain fabric ideas: Veronique by Alexander Henry, Sofia Butterfly Garden, Basil Vine Sofia).
3. Guest bathroom: Paint walls purply-grey & get shower curtain that actually goes all the way around pedestal tub & doesn't spray water all over floor.
   
4. Office: Paint walls calming blue & cover walls with inspiration wires like Jenni's to showcase international photos from India & Africa & Italy.
5. Cool iron table: remove rust, spraypaint white & make mosaic for top with colored tiles from Bay of Naples.
   
4. Work harder on photography so maybe, just maybe, I can get a Canon Digital Rebel.
   
5. Watch more classic films.
   
6. Get rid of all my CD jewel cases and reorganize into giant books. (question: What do you do with your old tray cards? I feel bad just throwing them away...)
7. Travel to a new country. Because of my job, I could easily go back to Africa, yet I keep having dreams that I'm returning to India. And there's still the burning desire to visit Central or South America. Finally, I should prolly mention that I got this fortune with my Spicy Korean Chicken at Pei Wei: You will step on the soil of many countries in your lifetime.
   
8. Finish the following books:
1. Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
   
2. Battlefield of the Mind by Joyce Meyer
3. In Pursuit of Peace by Joyce Meyer
4. Dancing Shoes by Noel Streatfeild (from You've Got Mail - a gift from Suz!)
   
5. When The Heart Waits by Sue Monk Kidd
9. Keep riding my bike as long as I possibly can without a helmet. Start wearing a bike helmet so I live to see 2009!
   

Happy New Year from The Baileys!

A Christmas To Remember.

Friends who feel like family...late night laughter...rewarding work...lots of white twinkle lights...and joy. That's exactly how I will remember this Christmas 2007.

Steven and I started a new tradition of giving each other one gift each morning for 3 days leading up to Christmas. My amazing husband got me a shiny red tea kettle, some delicious teas from Tempest Tea (including a luscious Chocolate Mint Rooibos-mmmm!), a subscription to Rachael Ray Everyday Magazine, and wildflower seeds to fulfill one of my dreams - a wildflower garden in our own backyard!

On Christmas Eve day, I cruised the surprisingly sparse freeways of Dallas to finish my Christmas shopping, and then it was time for the other 2 couples in our community group (Craig & Bonnie and Jason & Erin) to arrive for our Christmas Eve feast! They came toting gifts, their dogs, dog crates, and piles of pillows and blankets for our Christmas Eve sleepover! Greta led her doggie friends out the back door to their play yard, and the humans began constructing the feast. Pots and pans flew all over the place and every cutting board was in use as all 6 of us pitched in. When it was time to sit down and enjoy the fruits of our labor, we paused to be thankful for such an abundance of food, and friends to share it with. The joy and freedom we have in our marriages and friendships can only come through Christ, who walks through our struggles with us and brings us through them with peace, if only we will trust Him.

Our Christmas Eve menu:
Turkey slathered in herb butter and cooked in a brown-in bag
Orange-scented green beans
Prosciutto & Asparagus salad
Prosciutto & Melon salad
Green salad with pecans
Twice-baked potatoes
Corn Fluffs (a Bailey special-occasion staple)
Kahlua Rum Cake (Erin's specialty)
Chocolate Pie (Bonnie's specialty, made with Rapadura instead of sugar)
Talenti Gelato in Tahitian Vanilla Bean (made in Dallas, delicious!)
Chocolate Yummy Cookies (made with chocolate pudding instead of our traditional butterscotch)

After dinner, we opened our gifts to each other, and I put on my new apron from Erin, another Anthropologie gem! It goes well with my red tea kettle, don't you think?

Then, the boys piled wood into our firepit, grabbed their guitars and cigars and headed out to the back yard. Bonnie, Erin, and I fixed dessert and coffee. As I poured the cups, I paused and thanked God for giving us exactly what we have wanted for the last 3 years: community. Friends to hang out with, be silly with, just do nothing with. Friends who give us a chance to be to them what they are to us.

We joined the boys in the backyard, and for the next several hours, we sang every favorite 80s song from "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" to "More Than Words" at the top of our lungs. We've been kept up many a night from the dog barking and thumping bass noises in our Oak Cliff neighborhood and felt zero remorse for making a racket on Christmas Eve :).

Craig & Bonnie

Erin & Jason

The Baileys :)

After staying up until 3am (probably due to all the caffeine and sugar we consumed!), we slept like rocks and awoke at 9:30am for Christmas morning brunch. Erin and I made sugared bacon, omelets, and coffee while I reveled in the scents of my Christmas candles and the sounds of our Christmas music mix in the background. Making breakfast for a full house of people is one of my favorite things to do in the entire universe.

After breakfast, the guys prepared the back yard for our Christmas Day project: building a shed and laying our wildflower beds. Erin used to be the manager at a tree farm and didn't hesitate to start hauling dirt in the wheelbarrow while I finished laying the bricks and raking in the soil.



Here are the guys laying the shed foundation...


Partially assembled brick wall and wildflower bed...


Hot dang. Ain't nothin' like a man with a cigar and a power drill.


Greta already found her new "spot" next to the brick wall :)


Resting on the hammock after a long day of manual labor...


I have a quote framed on my desk that my dear friend Christina gave me when I moved away from Nashville. It says,

"I do not wish to treat friendships daintily, but with the roughest courage. When they are real, they are not glass threads or frostwork, but the solidest thing we know." ~ emerson

When I left Nashville, I thought I would never find that kind of friendship again, and God has surprised me. Our friendships are real. We speak courageously. We haul dirt with each other. And we love our spouses better today because of this group of friends. So this may not have been the "traditional" Christmas, but it was the perfect one. I can't think of a better way to honor Christ's birth than by spending time with people who consistently and courageously point us back to Him.

"It has to cost you something."

A little over a week ago, I returned from a pre-Christmas trip to Nashville. I left Dallas on a Saturday morning and trekked 600+ miles in my VW Rabbit with my new Colbie Callait CD as company. The best part about the drive was that the entire state of Arkansas smelled like burning wood. I opened the moon roof and inhaled the luscious scent for a good 4 hours. Heavenly.

I was anticipating this trip to Nashville more than usual because it meant that on Sunday I was going to be reunited with an old friend, Regan, who I met in the summer of 1995 when I had just graduated high school. Regan was from Alabama and was the cool, older summer missionary who worked with our youth group that summer. We were intrigued by her accent and vice versa. She and I were both creative types and immediately kindred spirits. I was 17, and she was 19, and we stuck together that summer driving to the Jersey Shore in the big 'ole hooptie that a church member had loaned her. She invested in me and was the first person who helped me realize I didn't just draw or paint, but I was an artist.

So I left for college, we kept in touch when we could, and then 10 years ago, we suddenly lost touch. I wondered about her a thousand times since, not only because she is a uniquely beautiful person, but because her very presence in my life was a turning point that God used to completely form my future. "If I hadn't met Regan, then _______" - insert about a million things that wouldn't have happened if not for her, leading me all the way up to this day, sitting in Dallas as Mrs. Bailey. But mostly, I missed her and wanted to find her again in this life.

I'm not sure what it was this past May that finally prompted me to Google her name. But in two clicks, I had found her, where she worked, and her email address!! That day, we reconnected over email and were simultaneously shocked by how amazing/scary the Internet is and the incredible timing of our virtual reunion. As I poured out the summary of the last 10 years and explained how much she has contributed to my life, tears filled my eyes. We vowed to meet up the next time I was in Nashville.

And we did! This trip! We reunited at Fido in Hillsboro Village with a long hug and exclamations of,"Oh my goodness, you look the same, but different!" Then, over egg breakfasts, we shared our real 10-year-stories of both joys and struggles. It didn't take long to realize that after all these years, we were still us, just seasoned, a little bit changed. Since the last time I knew her, I have realized that the cookie-cutter Christianity I once thought was real, actually wasn't. And as I finished sharing the struggles I had walked through the past few years and how I had learned true faith and surrender through those things, she said something that impacted me deeply: "Well, Christine, it has to cost you something."

It has to cost you something. Wow. How true that is. I sat there for several minutes drinking it in. Of course it does. True faith, true authentic faith has to. Not until many of my dreams were stripped from me, until I had to give something up, did I find the peace that can only come without them.

Then I realized how ironic it was that I was having this conversation in a coffeeshop in Nashville, because my life there was the very epitome of "easy" and "ideal". Nashville has cost a lot of people I know "something". For me, things were so good that it skewed my reality and raised my expectations so high that it was hard to deal with "normal" after that. For others, it has cost them years of dream-searching. For others, years of waiting for the right man while they continue to get jerked around by the non-committal "Nashville guy." However, I'm not saying cost is bad; I'm saying the opposite - it has to be that way. Thank God for the cost - I wouldn't be where I am today without it.

So, Regan and I left Fido and spent the rest of the day as if no time had passed, eating lunch, shopping, and strolling the Belmont Campus. Without a doubt, it was worth the wait.

The rest of the trip was filled with more incredible times with old, dear friends...

This is where Suz lives in downtown Franklin. Can you say "Family Griswold"? :) That's her cute apartment balcony on the top right...



Suz is a total stud-ette. A few days before this photo, she broke some boards with her fists and a sidekick at her martial arts class! I love how feminine she looks in this picture, and then with her bad-a** busted lip!



Me, Suz, and Christina before the lovely Christmas concert of one of my favorite bands of all time, Over the Rhine at the Belcourt. I'm not ashamed to say we all had crushes on Karin Bergquist, along with every other guy and girl in the room.


Then it was off to the enchanting Opryland Hotel for my yearly tradition with Angela & Christy, and her two adorable kiddies, Caleb & Emily! In 12 years of knowing each other, we've only missed one Christmas!




Even though it's sometimes hard to return to you, Nashville, you are still good to me.

Greta in her Christmas shawl.

I can't tell if she's feeling sophisticated or totally mortified. What do you think?

I love this picture.

This is random, but I found this photo from a May '07 shoot that Threads Media did with Steven and I for a "Profiles" project this past fall. The photo was taken at Portland Brew in Nashville in by the extremely talented photographer & designer, Micah Kandros. I just love how it captures both of the Baileys so well!

I'm off to Nashville for a few days! I'm sure I'll have lots of photos and stories to share when I return!