Eleanor's First Journal Entry

Recording the memories with a little spelling help from Mom, Dad, and big sister...
IMG_0631b, originally uploaded by jasonchristopherlittle.

Happy Birthday, My Sweet Girls!

What do you do when your almost seven year old says, "Hey Mommy, I have an idea. How about, instead of a kid birthday party, we celebrate our birthdays by spending the night on Mt. Hood?."

You say "YESSSSS!!!" For the same price of one rollerskating party and a bottle of Advil the family instead chose to pack up and go to Mt. Hood to stay one night at Timberline Lodge- a mountain ski lodge built with Oregon timber in the late 1930s. With some new snowshoes from Grampa Bix Eleanor and Rynn literally bounded through the snow on a sunny February afternoon.

see all our photos (click here)

The next morning we awoke to our own PJ party with hot chocolate and fresh snow.

Eleanor - Five years old on Monday

Rynn- Seven years old yesterday

Great Idea my little Rynn!

Mt Tabor

It is a sunny early spring day in Portland, OR, my children are both at school, and I can't bring myself to sit down to memorize all the parts of the heart for Anatomy & Physiology. Instead, with a warm cup of Stumptown coffee and my one hundred pound furry friend Roscoe, I took a long walk along the trails of Mt. Tabor. Mt Tabor is a place in Portland I often ignore, driving by it everyday until the commonplace of it makes it invisible. That is, until mornings like today sparkling with sunshine and freshly blooming cherry trees call me outside.

A travel website writes that Mt Tabor is a "prominent volcanic butte rising above Portland’s skyline and bursting with urban greenery. Where else can you hike to the top of a three-million-year-old volcano covered with a Douglas fir and conifer forest? This 200-acre park is crisscrossed with well-maintained hiking trails, and views from the western summit are stellar" (www.trails.com). Mt Tabor is an air vent for Mt. Hood, 'a big zit' as Jason has called it. Not the best place to be should Mt. Hood erupt with the fiery innards of the earth. Although if the major fault upon which Portland lies decides to shift, Mt Tabor is the place to be. The firm volcanic rock is said to be stable even in a major earthquake.

Today, Mt. Tabor was a place of beauty, peace, and stability for me. Watching my dog prance and leap through the woods as the early morning sunlight cast long rays through immense evergreens, I was deeply content. At the summit of Mt. Tabor I looked East to see Mt Hood rising up from the horizon proclaiming itself the epitome of 'mountainness.' To the West a picture perfect view of Portland glimmered as the city reflected the orange glow coming from the East. I thought, as I watched Roscoe do his air acrobatics in pursuit of a squirrel, how this butte-top view holds the essence of all that Jason and I love about living here. In one direction the mountains which bring so much peace, energy, and balance to Jason and in the other direction the city which inspires my imagination, my hunger for new experiences, and the direction and mission of our church.

I think Roscoe and I agree, we will not stay away so long from Mt. Tabor again.

(photos courtesy of www.portlandground.com)

Bourbon and Water

*On March 1, 2010 Tommie Whitman passed away. We love and miss you, Granmama.

My mom called a few days ago to tell me that my granmama is not doing well, that she is suffering from pneumonia and other complications. She is ninety five years old. Almost a century of ‘spit and vinegar’ as my aunts have said. Three time zones away in Virginia she is far away from me now, but the memories of her have come flooding back in the last twenty four hours as I have reflected both on her impact on my life and the person that she is. Granmama, also known as Granny Tommie, Tommie, and Esther, is one of the last of her generation, a generation that fell in love during WWII, that raised children in the 1950s, that lived in America at a time when America had not yet succumbed to the monoculture that now typifies our homogenous highways and suburbs.

At sixteen I spent two weeks traveling with Granmama from the dogwood lined streets of Virginia, across the West Virginia mountains, through Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, and up to Granmama’s childhood home in North Dakota. It was a trip I will never forget for it was a journey not only across states, and across cultural divides, but back into time and into the person that I only knew as my ‘Granmama.’

Granmama left North Dakota during WWII to become an X-Ray technician for the Navy (after traveling to Montana and even Washington). What possessed her to take this course that would forever change her life? Was it adventure, restlessness, or a sense of duty that motivated a beautiful, stubborn, independent Midwestern Lutheran to leave North Dakota? In the Navy she met William Rush Whitman, a son of Virginia aristocracy of sorts. In three months of courtship and one ‘Dear John’ letter home to a fiance, Tommie married my Grandaddy, a genteel Virginia surgeon whose family line included chaplains at Virginia universities, founders of Yale, and even some of the founders of the New England colonies. The mysteries of time and place are many- where we are born, where we move, and the relationships that are forged in those moves that forever change the course of our lives. A North Dakota beauty becomes a Southern doctor’s wife in 1940s Virginia and a new generation is born. With an elegance and gracefulness that seem so distant in our time, Tommie raised six children- five equally stubborn daughters and a son. Pouring her favorite cocktail of bourbon and water, she toasts life with a contagious zeal. She is stubborn like bourbon and smooth like water, a woman both of her time and yet slightly outside of her time.

Our journey together to North Dakota was a journey into womanhood for me. For the first time the comfortable boat of my sheltered, pampered Atlanta upbringing was rocked as I drove across the country in another boat- Granmama’s big white Cadillac. With each exit we logged our miles and meals in a tidy spiral notebook. I touched the cornerstone of a Lutheran church in Iowa which her uncle built. I drove across the same plains that she crossed when she left her home for the East Coast, innocent of the turn of events which laid before her. I sat by her, listening to stories of friends, family, and growing up in Minot, North Dakota, while she drank three pots of coffee with her cousin. My eyes were opened. Who was this woman sitting beside me? Much more than my grandmother. She is a sister, a daughter, a lover, a friend, a dreamer, a woman who loves her family, loves beauty, and loves me. In many ways the beginnings of my grandparents’ lives betray the ones they desired- Granmama, a stylish, social people lover born in Canada and raised on the plains of North Dakota and Grandaddy, born to a doctor to become a doctor while inside longing for quiet, for the lake, and for the farms of VIrginia. Perhaps they saw in one another a piece of who, deep down, they were themselves and in that union found a wholeness. Grandaddy, we miss you. Granmama, we love you. Thank you for the stories of which you are a part and the ones that you began.

Granmama with her parents and four brothers

A Navy courtship

On the left side of the table...out on the town

Grandaddy

Modeling Hats

Starting a family with a bang- a set of twins!

and then four more wild ones to make six (Billy...where are you in this picture??)

Wimbledon, anyone?

*Thank you Jane for all these wonderful photos!*

School Days and Swimmin' Daze

My very own 'Pinkalicious'

Happy Valentines' Day!

my wee little lass in the BIG, BIG pool!

a Roadtrip

I left yesterday for a road trip. Armed with some music, a book on tape, my camera, and my own thoughts I had more than enough to keep me entertained on my three hour drive to Redmond, OR. Leaving the temperate rain forest of Portland, I drove East heading up into the mountains, across the high desert plains of Eastern Oregon, past logging mills, and across cow studded farms to meet up with seven other women who were all ready settled in at the Eagle Crest Resort. The occasion was an Oregon pastors' wives retreat, a gathering with delightfully no agenda other than drinking wine, watching movies, sitting in a hot tub, and enjoying all around relaxation. With six hours of blissful solitude on the road I became lost in my own thoughts and the grandeur of the rapidly changing Oregon landscape. This precious time alone was combined with the sweet fellowship of women who, though all quite different and unique from one another, were brought together by our common experience of being married to pastors.

It struck me, as I drove the three hours home, how little opportunity there is to be bored in this life as long as you have the infinite depths of the riches of other people, the internal life of your own mind, and the wonder of God working out His redemption in the context of these broken vessels. I was struck, in the short evening and morning spent with these women, by the incredible beauty, complexity, and uniqueness that make up each of our beings. Each woman there brought together by a shared experience of mothering, of being married to men who are shepherding a flock, of having our own dreams, desires, and passions stirring within and waiting to burst forth.

What beauty lies within each individual made in the image of God? What story lies behind our smiles? And when those stories begin to break through, when desires bubble up, what miracles can happen?

Crossing the pass up to Timberline lodge and veering East...

to cross the Deschutes River

and enter the dry, dessert like landscape of central Oregon

A Crossroads

...a moment with a barn...

passing a paper mill industry plant

crossing the 45th parallel- half way between the equator and the North Pole

and being greeted by Glenda...with some flaming Spanish coffees. For some reason, the blue flame didn't show up in the picture, but it looked mighty cool.

the rest of the crew (minus me behind the camera and Glenda)

from left( Gretchen, Davina, Ardis, Jerilee, Rhonda, & Amy)

As I drove and listened to my book on tape I got to thinking a lot about creativity, about our creative urges, those desires welling up inside of us to make, to do, to create, and yet how those desires seem to kick against those other parts of ourselves that want to just 'be,' to rest, to know peaceful contentedness without the inner drive. I begin to think about writing and how it is a lot like, well, singing in the shower. You sound so good to yourself as you belt out that tune in the steamy shower. In the same way, words can flow forth in the imagination and seem so eloquent and insightful until the pen touches the paper and they seem strangely stilted and limited. How is it possible to bridge the "shower gap" in the creative process? How do we bring to fruition those voices that are in our heads in a way that the world can see or understand? Perhaps, therein, lies the journey.

Lost with LOST

Fellow LOST fans, we are in the final season and I must confess I'm less than overwhelmed. Jason would disagree. He says they are on their way to answering all our questions. I'm doubtful. Frankly, I'm a little annoyed with the whole 'temple' thing. Do we really need to watch our beloved characters captive AGAIN??? Come on, already. And who needs the John Lennon dude and yet another scary mystery "others"? Jack is getting a bit more likeable, though, and Sawyer's character is pretty darn great. I want to see more Ben and what about Locke? After all, aren't the complex evil (or is he good?) kind of characters the most fun to watch?

It was five years ago that Jason and I started watching these characters. I had just given birth to Eleanor when from my hospital bed I saw Claire have her baby on the island. I feel like I have to see this show through to the end, but I fear expectations might be too high. We've been to the past and the future with these characters, and this season is taking us into some kind of sideways time. Hmmmmm..... we'll see. Of course, even if the story falls apart, you can always-as I heard one commentator say- put it on mute and watch the beautiful scenery and people. I might start saving up for one of those nonstop flights from Portland to Hawaii. Maybe there I, too, could get that salon perfect windblown hair.

Just some more Stuff

This past Sunday Jason preached on Psalm 18. He spoke of how David, in penning the Psalm, understands the context of his own life in the context of the bigger story that God is bringing to completion in the world (you can listen to this sermon or others of Pat and Jason's at www.hopeportland.org). When I think back on the past two and a half years we have been in Portland I am amazed and surprised at the story that God is writing in our lives and the great privilege of being able to serve Him. Today Pat Roach, our friend, pastor, and fellow church planter, came over to talk with Eleanor about taking the Lord's Supper. My eyes teared up in the kitchen watching Jason holding our daughter in his lap and Pat lovingly talking to her about Jesus. I asked Eleanor later if she was scared having Pat come over to which she replied, "Scared? Why would I be scared, mommy? That would be like being scared of Jesus! And I love Jesus!." I feel overwhelmingly thankful today for the blessing of being here, for the experience of church my children are having, and for the story that God is writing in our lives as we live out the mundane routine of making a life in this world.

Part of the joy of watching my children grow up is the privilege of being a part of their communities. While our church community is increasingly becoming more and more dear to us, there are other communities being built in our little corner of Portland. Through the girls' friends and relationships our relationships are expanding. Today Eleanor and I joined her preschool class and many parents for a preschool skate with 'Chipper.'

...where Eleanor did the hokey pokey with some friends...

and we ran into -by surprise -a fellow Hope member Tricia and her little man Seth...

And earlier this week, over the weekend, we enjoyed hosting a potluck for several families from the Japanese Immersion Program who live in our neighborhood. As the months pass, these relationships, brought to us through Rynn and her community, grow deeper and more special. I wish I could have caught a picture of her to post, but she was in constant motion that night...LOVING having people over..for a while anyway. She echoed her mommy's sentiment by saying, as I tucked her into bed, "Mommy, that was a little crazy. That was A LOT of kids."

Some Richmond Elementary parents, Ann and Dexter, flash some smiles.

and Jim gets a bit crazy

while full out mayhem ensues in the basement with 19 children under the age of 2nd grade. Egads. Our basement is worth every penny...concrete walls, concrete floors. Ahhh, an ode to unfinished basements everywhere.

...and relative calm upstairs.

The Shoe Pile- a Portland phenomenon

So, here is another thing I love about living in Portland. People take their shoes off at the front door. I've never lived in a city where it is so natural to take your shoes off. Perhaps it is living in a muddy, wet climate or maybe it is the West Coast Asian influence, but I kind of like it. Check out the pile of children's shoes by our front door. And the amazing thing to me is that they all did it without parental instruction.

...and more mayhem trying to get all those shoes back ON their feet.