Baskets and a Baby Banner

A Princess Leia slave costume, a Magic Bullet, and a broken-printer-but-working-scanner – the three items I listed on Craig's List last week. Ben and I are making room for the baby. Yes, baby, arriving January 3^rd. Now we can effectively fit him into a storage box if we wanted. (Granted, that slave costume didn't have much to it. Don't ask. It was a bridal shower gift from my baby sister.) As we reshuffle things around our little camp cabin here -selling and giving away things all the while purchasing deals on baby stuff and gratefully receiving hand-me-downs – that concept of “making room” begs to be noticed. Do we live our lives in such a way where it is simple to recognize what needs to go? Or more so, do we live life in a way where there is already room and will always be room for the important stuff? And I'm not just talking about material possessions.

Ben and I have a running argument – mind you, our arguments are more like running jokes – about baskets. When we were first setting up the studio we lived in that first year, I insisted I needed a basket to organize our clothes. He thought it was a ridiculous use of funds. He relented though and I got two baskets as a result – one for sweaters, one for socks. Last week, I came home with a basket and a storage box. Hence, an “argument” over the value of baskets returned. (I have yet to bring up how valuable a basket was in the life of Moses. Life savers those baskets are.) So the new basket holds papers from the desk (which is really an IKEA table that will now find a home in the shed) and the storage box - all my newsletters, pictures and memorabilia from China. And again, that “making room” mantra resounds. As I placed the lid on the albums, it seemed a little too significant, a little too dramatic as I put the China box on the shelf and closed the shed door behind me. But it is moments like these that clarity seems to emerge. All my China stuff was out because I had just been given a chance to talk about my experience with the women's retreats here at camp. I entitled the session, “Three Women, Three Lives, One Story.” The last of the women's lives I shared was my own but I stopped the story simply with my return back to the states. But the women at the retreat knew better than I, know better than I in their years of wisdom. They insisted that I continue sharing, they insisted that the story continue - How did I meet Ben? How did I fall in love?How did we get here? ...

When I put that China box away, I knew that it was not gone, it is not over for ultimately that time is stored up in heaven, but with its placement there I can now make room for the narrative to continue. Here and now. And when Baby Banner Benjamin Maki arrives, there will be much room in heart and mind and soul for that Great Story to go on for it is all apart of the One story, is it not? Naming our boy after the Song of Solomon verse ,“I am my beloved and He is mine and His banner over me is love,” we will always be aware of what is most important. I label the boxes and put titles on Craig's list items all the while under this banner, this knowledge of love. Do I need to make room for Love? The story continues despite the lack of space sometimes (or the pressing need for baskets). It works its way through those cracks we are susceptible to and then it expands and expands till we can not help but to drop nets and sell all we have and live in the freedom of less is more in the Name of Love. 

http://www.ted.com/talks/graham_hill_less_stuff_more_happiness.html