(photo credit)

The hum and whoosh of an industrial-strength air conditioner have accompanied every exam I can remember taking. They have laid their strains in an insistent ritornello with infinitely subtle variations, little waves and vagaries of sound that can only be detected in a room dedicated to silence, such as this one. Thirty-one heads bow over laminate desks that gleam dully under the unwavering fluorescence of the overhead lights. A deep breath and, with it, the eternal aroma of the classroom: the blue book, which smells, somehow, like other blue books and like nothing else, mingled with the dry, slightly acrid scent of a photocopied essay prompt.

I am sixteen, and the woman at the front of the room is from the University of California, administering a practice placement exam as part of the college preparatory program. At the back of the room sits Mrs. Juhasz, the steely, sharp-eyed Language Arts teacher known for demanding excellence. She is always willing to help me untangle the perplexities I find in the works of Dostoevsky, Dreiser, and the other companions of my extracurricular hours, and yet she has no doubt puzzled over the general indifference with which I greet her actual assignments. In spite of my stubborn determination to work through a daunting personal reading list, in class I am often undisciplined, uninterested, too self-assured and only occasionally earnest, usually preoccupied with boys and friends and the things I will do in two short hours when the final bell rings. But today the prospect of college, of the first plunge into the waiting world, glimmers before me. My stomach will not stop writhing. My fingers are cold, my ears hot. We are told to begin.

I read swiftly, an excerpt from a Jamaica Kincaid essay about the estrangement of growing up as a black Antiguan under British rule. A story about alienation, set in an unfamiliar world and spoken in an unfamiliar voice. I imagine hot sun on my skin, picture Britons trying to coax shrubs and prim English gardens from the Antiguan earth, remember, through Kincaid’s vivid words, a life I have never experienced.

My fingers crease the flimsy cover of the blue book. The pen feels deceptively light and insignificant. Without knowing what to write, I write anyway. My first words are tentative, my first sentences laborious, my first paragraph a rash of scribbles and hesitant half-words. But soon enough, thoughts are streaming onto the paper and I am following them. The snicks and scrapes and slashes of my pen and the tiny creaks of the paper as it is reshaped by the violence of my outpouring–to my ears, filled with the roar of silence, these sounds are like the leaping voice of the violin. I swim in a sea of words. I gather them in baskets and spread them on the shore to dry. I pause to admire them, triumphantly.

But my triumph is foredoomed. Halfway through the exam, I recognize the hot, shrinking feeling behind my eyes telling me that one of the terrible nosebleeds that have plagued me since childhood is imminent. In helpless disbelief, I leave my exam, leave my words, leave my belongings, and consent to be led to the nurse’s office. My chance to meet with the college evaluator is gone. My own body has somehow betrayed and embarrassed me.

The following week, when the tests are returned and the scores analyzed, I sit sullenly. When Mrs. Juhasz calls me to her desk after class, I slump into the chair, unwilling to meet her eyes. Your exam couldn’t be scored like the others, she tells me, because it was incomplete. I nod dumbly, sure nothing she can say will mean anything to me. But I asked the professor to evaluate it as if it were, she continues, and he gave it the highest mark. You were one of two students in the class to earn this score. You’re a remarkable writer, and he asked me to tell you so. I think you are, too.She looks at me intently, with concern, as if there is more she wants to say, more she wants me to understand. I thank her, gather my belongings, and leave to meet my friends.

I could not absorb her words in that moment. And yet, when I look back from the space of more than twelve years, I can see the powerful influence they’ve wielded over me. I wish I could say that they shook me from my foolishness and indecision, and inspired me to work harder, but their influence was far subtler than that. At a time when I felt muddled and aimless and unsure, Mrs. Juhasz told me I was good at something, and it was a little, tiny thing I could treasure and hold onto.

It has stayed with me, all these years, and that little tiny thing has turned into a career. I remember it, every time I hear the hum and whoosh of an industrial-strength air conditioner, laying its strains in an insistent ritornello with infinitely subtle variations, little waves and vagaries of sound that can only be detected in a room dedicated to silence.

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Story Editor: Heather King ::: @heatheroftheeo

Oh, January. You are a chilly month.

Yesterday we had the kind of snow that makes mighty tree limbs bow in submission. On days like this I’m perfectly content to spend long hours in an oven-warmed kitchen, and that’s just what I did. Many treats were made; some for the book and some for the blog. I’m still determining where some should reside. After much hemming and hawing about what to make for this entry, I decided to revisit an old recipe.

I made this tart for Thanksgiving 2 years ago, and at the time decided it was a little too heavy (or maybe I was just miserably full after turkey and dressing… I digress). This time, I used part skim ricotta for the filling and replaced the whole eggs with egg whites. What resulted is a light and fluffy filling that is beautifully pale and bespeckled with vanilla seeds.

I feel compelled to tell you that my husband asked for seconds. This man will emphatically ask “what is that?” as he peers over my shoulder at my latest confection. Let’s just say, he’s not a Matcha tea cheesecake kind of guy. But this, he loved.

The mini fruits are painted with meringue powder diluted in a little water. I know many who use fresh egg whites for this, but I feel safer using something pasteurized.

It’s funny how I’ve gone from painting pictures to painting fruit! Life is weird and wonderful.

What I once painted / what I paint now.

I’ve wanted to share my paintings with you for some time, but to be honest, most have been sold or given away. I found this painting of Mary I started over 10 years ago rolled up in the corner of my closet. Many paintings have since been completed, yet she remains an idea. Seeing her again makes me want to pick up a paintbrush and finally finish what I started. Who knows, in 2011, maybe I will!

White Ricotta Tart with Sugared Fruit

Tart shell:
1 cup AP flour
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 stick cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1 egg yolk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp water

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Liberally butter a 11″ tart or quiche pan and set aside.

In the bowl of a food processor, combine flour, sugar and salt. Pulse to combine. Add butter pieces and pulse until fine crumbs form. Add yolk, vanilla and water. Pulse in quick bursts until dough forms a ball. Press dough into buttered pan (flour hands if your dough is sticky). Chill shell for 40 minutes.

After chilling, prick the tart shell with a fork and bake for 20 minutes. Let shell cool completely before filling.

Filling:
4 oz cream cheese, softened (low fat or no fat, if you like)
2/3 cup sugar
Pinch of salt
1 1/4 cups part skim ricotta cheese
3 egg whites
1 vanilla bean, seeds reserved and hull discarded

Combine softened cream cheese, ricotta, sugar and salt in a large bowl. Cream together with an electric hand mixer. Add egg whites and vanilla seeds. Mix at medium speed until combined. Pour into cooled tart crust and bake for 20 minutes.

Sugared fruit:
1 tbsp manufactured meringue powder
1/2 tbsp hot water
Your choice of mini fruits, I used seckel pears, cranberries, crab-apples, and white raspberries.
1/4 cup granulated sugar

Dissolve the meringue powder in hot water. Stir well until no lumps remain. Paint each fruit with a thin coating of the mixture and dip in granulated sugar. Allow sugared fruits to dry on a wire rack.

Decorate tart as desired.

::

Heather Baird is an artist with whatever medium she chooses, paint and dessert alike.
For a printable version of this amazing (it’s amazing, right?!) recipe, visit the original post on her blog, Sprinkle Bakes
Follow @SprinkleBakes on Twitter and Like SprinkleBakes on Facebook
Want more?  Preorder her book, SprinkleBakes: Dessert Recipes to Inspire Your Inner Artist, now from Amazon.com.

::

Featured by Editorial Director, Jennifer Doyle | @playgroupie

(photo credit)

In order to accumulate a soul, you have to suffer.

As if, once enough suffering has tumbled down upon you,
building up like a mountainside,
your second life will begin.

Like Athena you will sprout from Zeus’ head and appear in a ball of light, naked and red.

Love is what brings all the suffering.
Love is watching everyone you love leave, die, perish- each person wilting slowly.
Like day old geraniums in a Mason jar that sat on the kitchen counter when I was eight years old.
They dried and mummified like King Tut wrapped in cheesecloth.
Carelessly, I knocked over the glass jar and at once, everything fell to the ground.

Two weeks later my dog died, and I was convinced the falling jar was an omen.
A sign from the other side that death was creeping over into the living’s territory in a dense fog
(like there are chalk outlines dividing space between life and death, war zones, agreed upon plots of land.)

I watched my mother through a crack in bathroom door.
She cried until her entire face was coated with salt, damp and dewy;
ethereal in a way because all her crying made her beautiful.
It said something about her heart.

I imagined a blind man running his stubby fingers over her cheeks, beneath her heavy eyelids, around the curve of her lips, and only collecting a wetness on his fingertips. He would say that he was touching some great satin seashell or a massive, expensive pearl, not a woman’s face wracked with despair and loss.

Watching your mother cry troubles you inside. It is a deep burning feeling, a fire that is impossible to tend to.
It is fingers gripping your stomach, the same squeeze a fist uses in order to draw juice from a tangerine.
It is a silver knitting needle in your plump, pale thigh, sharp and bothersome.

I did not understand death at that time.
I thought it would be easier to cross into some other territory, another world,
once you had spent enough time in this one.
Like sailing to a forgotten island for a vacation,
forgetting to mention to your family and friends that you’d be leaving.

I thought of human beings as being single minded, single hearted,
just one single body holding everything together.

But, we are an assemblage of parts, our hearts are separated into compartments
and our minds have doors behind locked doors behind brick walls.

Pain shakes it all like an earthquake and in the destruction,
how is a soul supposed to ascend from the ground like a ghost rising from a tomb?

**

Mary is a writer of pith and metal.
Find her old-soul here.
Subscribe to her feed here.

:::

Featured by Story Editor –Sara Sophia /@sarasophia

Have you ever been driving somewhere, and, before you know it, you’re there and you have no idea how you got there?

I haven’t been present for a while.

My body was here, and every so often, familiar words would escape from my mouth, but for months, my mind was somewhere else, and my heart was off laying in a mud puddle somewhere while someone poked at it with sticks.

I’m a cutter.

Not that kind.

With my brand of cutting, there is no visible blood.  All the scars are internal.

I was never going to say anything.  I was just going to cut.  Bleed.  Heal.

But, I wasn’t really healing.  I wasn’t clotting.

I was gushing.  Heavily.  And, it was blocking me.

Everything just squatting on my frontal lobe.  Making my words not work.

(I have no idea what your frontal lobe does.  I’m not a professional doctor.)

I have so many things to tell you.  Funny things.  Weird things.  Awkward things.  Just.  Things.  But, for a while, I couldn’t.

Every time I tried to tell you a story, my heart was all, HEY.  DON’T YOU REMEMBER ME?  THIS GIANT ASSHOLEY WOUND?  MAKING YOU PUKEY AND SAD?  LOOK AT ME.  LOOK AT MEEEEE!

Then it got hard to breath, my lips got numb, and my hands stopped working right, and I cried.

At first, it was sad crying.

I was mourning.

Mourning the loss of someone I loved.

Someone that was walking around, still very much alive, his blood the same as mine.

I waited to clot.  I waited to heal.

It turned to rage.

I bottled it and bottled it.  Only pushing against the people closest to me, screaming, LOOK AT ME.  LOOK AT THIS HURT.  THIS GIANT BALL OF SEEPING ANGER.  TAKE IT FROM ME PLEASE, IT’S TOO HEAVY FOR JUST ME.  I CAN’T CARRY THIS ALONE ANYMORE.

I expected help.

But instead, the body count grew.

Until things started to look less like a paper cut and more like a massacre.

Nobody likes complicated.  Nobody likes messy.

I am often both those things.

I used to only use the word hate when it came to silly things.  Like cilantro.  Or The Next Karate Kid.  Or people who hum when they chew.

But, now I use it for different reasons.

Reasons that are less sad and hurty, and more empowering and self respectful.

I can’t stop people from saying things about me that are horrible and untrue.

But, I can stop giving their disgusting actions so much weight.

I can’t make the people I loved see the truth or the hurt.

But, I can stop feeling so alone.

Because I’m not.

The surviving pieces of my life are my treasures.  My family are my bones.  And, I happen to have the very best friends in the world.

Wait.

Not friends.

Blood.

Sisters.

Some near.  Some a bit farther.

But, what’s distance when it comes to wine, laughing and singing along to Glee, right?

You aren’t in my life right now.  And, I just have to be ok with that.

I’m clotting.

I can write again.

And, I have the funniest thing to tell you.

Photo credit

: : : : : : : : : :

Brittany is the author of The Barefoot Foodie.
Subscribe to her blog in a reader so you won’t miss her serious, funny, brilliant thoughts.
Connect with her on Twitter and Facebook.

Discovered by Story Editor, Robin Dance @ PENSIEVE :: @PensieveRobin

Inland was warmth and sunshine and days of summer stretching wearily. The coast, however, was 20 degrees cooler and worked in so many shades of gray. The sky fell into the sea and the waves rolled across my cold feet before running up the stairs to take their place at the end of the line. Clouds waited patiently.

The rocks in the ocean were the size of ships, and ships were the size of small birds flying off in the distance. There was a cave on the beach and in it sat a family around a campfire. Their dog ran free and happy, a green ball held tightly in its mouth.

She stopped in mid-sentence, her words lost beneath the beat of a tide rolling in. I hadn’t been listening. I was writing poems in my head as I am prone to do, and then promptly forgetting them as that requires much less effort than actually writing them down. Most of them were rubbish, but one may have been damn near perfect. I watched her watch the ground. She was brilliant against the sepia shore.

She bent down and picked a drop of red out of the surf-trodden sand. It was a ladybug, caked in grains and left for dead. Suddenly, the beach was alive with polka-dots in reds and yellows and the polka-dots were, in turn, covered in dots of their own. We sat on our knees in the sand and dug ladybug after ladybug from their collective coastline grave. Our shoes, which had long ago left our feet and become something meaningless to hold on to, became the soles of rebirth. It was on the bottom of my left flip-flop that one ladybug found breath and another was once again able to crawl. It was somewhere opposite where my big toe would be that a ladybug shook the sand from its wings and flew away home.

It seems that they live in the trees that tremble from the side of steep ocean cliffs, and when certain winds blow the way that certain winds do, the ladybugs are pulled from whatever life they have known and dropped without warning over deep waters and hungry fish. Assuming they don’t drown, are not eaten or lost at sea, they are marooned on beaches not 50 feet from the trees on which they started. But they are pounded with ebbs and flows, and they are forgotten amongst shells and bits of seaweed. All in all, it’s no way to treat a lady.

And so we gathered those that we could and we carried them on flip-flops covered with newfound meaning to a piece of driftwood just below the tree line. The ladybugs wandered aimlessly and probably thought things about mortality and what to make of second chances.

Every so often one of us would say how much the boys would like this while the other would nod, skip a stone or stare out at the sea. They were on a different beach in a different state looking over the same nothingness and the endless everything. Our day was a glass half hollow, half lined with romance. We played the percentages.

Then we walked back across the beach, our shoes once again empty, our feet still cold and bare. We passed big rocks, small ships, a family around a fire and a dog with a ball and the constant need to wag. Our car was waiting for us, and beyond it a green forest and blue skies and something pretty on the radio.

We got sand everywhere.

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Story Editor: Heather King :: @HeatheroftheEO

• • •

Alyson is a mother of four and former California girl living in New Hampshire. She shares gorgeous pictures and words on her blog, New England Living. Alyson is newenglandliving on Instagram.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Color Bleed features images captured on mobile devices (phones, iPods, iPads) and shared via social networks (Instagram, twitter, twitpic, Facebook, etc.). Story Bleed consistently insists that art is made and shared online every day. Often casually. Phone photography consistently reveals itself to be breathtaking and insightful.

Simply complex, strikingly ordinary. Submit your mobile work to Color Bleed at Story Bleed Magazine.

Featured by Story Editor Heather King ::: @Heatheroftheeo

It’s okay to be quiet.
You don’t need to give the full report just yet, you may not need to give it at all.  Reporting requires understanding, and sometimes you just need to follow the path and see where it leads before you know where you are.

It’s okay to be quiet.
You can declare your hope in a loaf of bread you bake by hand, you can put unnecessary things on the stoop as an act of faith in future provision.  You can let the apple pie you’re making invite company, and the space you’re preparing for friends invite joy.

It’s okay to be quiet.
You can say all you really need to say with one look, with one touch.  You can express your gratitude for his love in the way you smile when you see him come into the room. You can let them know how they melt your heart in the tenderness of your kiss on their foreheads.

The words are the last thing to arrive, but the love is here all along.

**

Jen Lee inspires me to live.
Read her perfect life words here.

Featured by Story Editor Sara Sophia/sarasophia

School starts in two weeks. I could not be more thrilled.

I love school. More importantly, I love being a student. Having the undeniable permission to pay attention, soak in, look around, experience, and learn. I’m good at it.

Lately I’ve been reflecting on how I generally feel from day to day. It’s easy to sidestep talking about depression when you aren’t actually depressed. If you believe in hocus pocus, you fear that talking about it will bring that black fog back into your life. If you’re easily overwhelmed, you just want to focus on each day. If you’re medicated, you often don’t care to talk about depression, as long as you have relief from the physical effects of it.

If you’re all of these things, it’s hard to sit down and reflect your emotions via the written word.

I’m not depressed. I’m not experiencing anxiety from the monumental task of getting out of bed and looking each day in the eye. I’m not exhausted from insomnia, forced awake by the constant worry and sadness. I don’t curl up and weep in the shower, on the kitchen floor, in the car, in bed. I don’t unplug the phone, ignore email, forget friendships. I don’t look at babies and think “What a shame to bring that kid into this pitiful, bleak world”.

I haven’t thought about quietly, unobtrusively killing myself in nearly two years.

Yet when referencing depression, either internally or externally, the only thing most of us can think to say is that we suffer. We suffer from depression. How can I be suffering from depression when I’m not actually feeling depressed? It’s a linguistic accusation.

I no longer think of myself as someone who suffers from depression. I experience depression. I acknowledge that yeah, I have the chemical version of the devil’s advocate living in me all the time. While I hope that it won’t rear it’s ugly head ever again, there’s no way for me to be certain. Things that come naturally for most people require a lot of thought and internalizing for me. Sometimes I need medication to help me…to help me. Help me get going, help me get on, help me get through. I spend a lot of time kicking my brain’s ASS.

This last time around, I was able to turn my depression into the impetus for making a big, tangible life changing decision. I had to plug in the phone, answer the email, say “yes” when I wanted to say “no”, persist when I wanted to take a nap. It took a team of loving, dedicated people to give me back my life. To get me to a point where I could open up a world of options for myself, be brave enough to try something new, make connections and new friendships, rediscover my creative life.

I’m not suffering.

And I’m not merely alive.

I’m LIVING.

Danielle calls herself a narrative non-fiction writer, and I call her a triumphant voice for and of women. The original post on her blog, Knotty Yarn, which she has recently retired after nine amazing years. Now you can find her here. Bring a change of undies. For reals.

Story editor – Shannon / Mr Lady

photo credit: Sean Hubbard/@seanhubbard

I look at him through red rimmed eyes. He wipes my cheek dry with one thumb and asks, Are you happy?

Yes. No. Sometimes.

Yes, when I’m focused.

No, when I falter.

Sometimes.

We sit in the center of our bed like our three children often do. Our room is large but this space in it is small. Our toes touch. Our voices conspire.

He is loving mixed with worry. I am anxious laced with anger.

Anger because he dared scratch beneath the surface of what I want seen. I am faltering.

When I’m focused, I see a straight path to my treasure. The obstacles along the way are simply tasks to complete.

But inevitably, I falter. I falter. It is my own undoing every single time. I steal my own confidence. My own vision. My own focus.

I hide these treasures somewhere deep inside until they are no longer visible. And I replace them with ugliness. Fear. Insecurity. Jealousy.

What makes you happy? He asks, leading me back.

The kids, you, writing. I list my gems one by one, keeping track on my fingers. I try to hide behind my words, but I can’t.

I slump and put my counting hand down. I need a break. He smiles, because this he can fix.

We talk quietly. Share days. Make plans.

I tuck my children into bed again.

I take advantage of a hot shower and soft fleece.

I ignore my multiplying to do list and spend time with a friend.

Wine and laughter soothe my soul. I share my writing goals. They are big and seem far away.

I’m scared to try.

You’ll be great.

When I falter, kind words wash over me without making the tiniest of imprints.

When I’m focused, I open the door, gently unroll each one, and welcome it in. Believe in it and allow it to restore me.

I have a choice to make, a task to complete. Let go of my stolen treasures and continue down this spiral or consciously stop. Refocus. Reclaim what is rightfully mine.

I come home and softly make my way through each sleeping room.

I breathe in the stillness at each stop and place one hand on each rhythmic heartbeat just for a moment. Careful not to wake, ready to summon the goodness back to me.

I tiptoe downstairs and melt into the large green chair. I wrap myself up in the sheer yellow blanket, open my laptop and begin to type.

Each tap of the keys is a claim: These treasures are mine. I see them, and I am taking them back.

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Story Editor: Heather King ::: @HeatheroftheEO

The first time I saw him he was walking on a treadmill. A blond starlet dressed like an old-west prostitute posed seductively in a country music video on the television screen suspended in front of him. But he wasn’t watching the video. He was looking around at whomever or whatever, not furtively, but with blatant curiosity.

When our eyes met, I understood.

Some might call the expression vacant. As the mother of a brain-injured son, I saw it more as open. Unmasked. He had dark eyes, and black hair curled around his ears, and I guessed he was probably somewhere between eighteen and twenty. A slender, silver-haired woman walked beside him. His mother.

The world has labels for people like him. Damaged. Deficient. Broken. Unproductive. More than anything I was struck with the stark contrast between his unaffected expression and the video starlet’s heavily painted facade, and I wondered with more than a hint of irony how many people in that gym would laugh at the notion that his contribution to society might be more valuable than hers.

The encounter touched a deep, knowing place inside me, but it was a seeing and moving along. I soon forgot.

That was several months ago, and I hadn’t encountered the pair again until last Friday, when I spotted them in an area off to the side used for free weights and upper body machines. There were plenty of other things going on. In addition to the general hustle and bustle of the gym, heart-breaking scenes from Japan filled a television screen nearby, and another a few feet away aired clips of a defiant Gadhafi, and on yet another some poor guy rushed through his busy day carrying around a beaker full of green liquid that I’m pretty sure represented the acid in his stomach, but my attention kept returning to mother and son. I didn’t mean to stare, but the more I watched them, the more everything else faded into the background. World events, whirring machines, even my own physical exertion. Soon I was completely enthralled with the interaction of the two.

The mother’s long thick hair was swept back and twisted up, the ends forming a silver firework atop her head, like a diadem. Her exercise clothes revealed a lean, toned frame, not beefy but gracefully athletic. As I watched her work with her son, I wondered if her motives for staying fit are as mixed as mine. For me, having a forever child — one with a permanently broken wing who will never fly the nest — compels me to remain strong and healthy as long as possible. There’s also the biblical mandate for stewardship of the physical body. Then there’s the addictive, endorphin-induced stress relief, the increased energy and sense of well being, a myriad of reasons (including simple vanity) I want to look attractive, and mixed in with all that, I suspect there’s a grasping for control, or at least the illusion of having some.

I know nothing about the other mother’s situation, but whatever her motives are, it didn’t take long to see in her a beauty that goes much deeper than a sculpted figure. A love story played out before me, and I had front row seats.

I watched as she helped her son lie down on a bench, placed two eight-pound weights in his hands, then lay on the bench next to his with her own hand weights. They turned their heads to look at each other, which gave me a clear view of his face. I’m sure she was speaking, but I doubted I would have been able to eavesdrop even if I’d been much closer. I imagined her voice as soft, calm, soothing. She seemed the embodiment of quiet strength, peaceful authority, and regal grace. I was captivated by her, and her son appeared to be as well. He never took his eyes off of her face as they raised and lowered their weights, side-by-side, him mirroring her movements, his expression a picture of cooperative concentration.

When they finished that exercise, she helped him sit up and carried their weights back to the rack — all her movements fluid elegance, purposeful and unhurried, as though completing this work out were the only event on her agenda and she savored the sweetness of each moment with her son. When she stepped away from him for any reason, he remained in his place, quiet and still, patience personified. Even a casual observer could see there was a lifetime of knowing between them. He had no reason to doubt her return, so he waited, fully present in his waiting.

And again, I understood.

People who’ve read our story often ask me what Jacob is like today — if he grieves what he’s lost or has goals for the future. For a long time I wasn’t sure how to answer. I’d tell them that nothing seems to upset him for long, and his default setting is happy, but — other than the mercy of God — I wasn’t sure why. Then one day when I was trying to explain Jacob to yet another person who’d asked, it all suddenly made sense. Jacob is content because he’s fully present in whatever moment he’s living. He doesn’t mourn or regret the past, and he doesn’t anticipate the future. He lives in the now with pure, childlike faith. I have no idea if the young man in the gym was born with his “deficiency” or if it was a gift of God’s severe mercy like Jacob’s, but I saw in him the same restful, trusting contentment. And, perhaps even more stunning, I saw this contentment in his mother as well.

What happened next made me catch my breath. The young man sat on a weight bench, staring out at the central part of the gym. As his mother walked past to adjust a machine behind him, neither turned to look at the other, but she placed a hand on his shoulder in a gesture that was like a benediction — intimate and so full of grace and tenderness, I almost felt I should avert my eyes. But I couldn’t. I was mesmerized. Awed by beauty. And deeply convicted.

I’m ashamed to admit how often I get frustrated with Jacob’s pace or resentful of the impact his limitations place on our choices. Everything about this woman’s body language and behavior communicated not only peaceful acceptance but love, joy, and genuine gratitude. And her son responded. When she spoke, he listened and obeyed. When she placed her hands over his and guided him through the use of a weight machine, he submitted without resistance, his trusting eyes fixed on her face.

The whole scene was so beautiful, so stunning and other-worldly, I lost track of time and everything else, and when I pulled myself back to my own reality, my heart was full to brimming. A multitude of emotions swirled inside me — admiration, gratitude, inspiration, awe — but there was one feeling conspicuous in its utter absence.

Pity.

Talking heads and defiant dictators still paraded across TV screens, and starlets still sold their souls for digital glory. I glanced around at harried people, squeezing in a slapdash work out before rushing off to the next pressing thing, and I wondered if anyone else in that room knew they were in the presence of true greatness.

What the world calls damaged, deficient, broken, Jesus names beloved, beautiful, redeemed. What the world would throw away as useless, He honors and exalts, making the least into teachers of compassion, possessors of radiant faith, living parables of His truth. What the world considers great, isn’t. Not in the eternal scheme of things.

Become as a child. That’s what Jesus said. Do as I have done to you. Wash one another’s feet.

I shudder to think how often I miss God’s gifts — so busy am I scrambling for significance, laboring to make myself feel good about myself. But God still gives and gives, and when I’m present in the moments of my life, I see.

I watched a mother with a silver crown serve her prince of a son, and I heard a Voice whisper.

“Well done.”

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Jeanne weaves and spins words at The View From Here.
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Featured by Story Editor Robin Dance | @PensieveRobin