miss wanda pawlowski

lived in this house for many years, and long before i was born.

we found boxes of letters, cards, and newspaper clippings in our attic with her name all over them, addressed to THIS HOUSE that we stand poised to purchase (probably before the new year). the oldest ones are from 1918, and are letters from a soldier named Vincent Davis, who i gather was her sweet heart. the letters were written in the beginning of the year World War I ended. he wrote to her from a New Jersey address. in one of the letters, he was explaining to her why he was NOT a deserter, as he was being accused of.

i know that Wanda was catholic. she received invitations to lots of catholic weddings (some at St. Adalbert’s, two blocks from this house) and even an ordination into the priesthood. she was polish, and some cards and documents in these boxes were written entirely in polish, so i couldn’t understand those ones.

there’s reason to believe she worked as a clerk at Stoll & Son, which was a dry goods store located at 617-619 Bridge Street (i should drive by it this week). that would have been close enough for her to walk to work. once she received a letter “c/o” this business. and in a 1916 neighborhood directory, she was listed as being a clerk at this place. her brother John and Sister Pelagia were listed there, too. as well as a man named Frank who shared the same address, but whose relation to her i’m not certain of (Dad?).

she had two sisters (one named Pelagia) and a brother named John. i pieced this together from a letter John wrote to her from Detroit in 1920, where he was studying, trying to make something of himself so that his sisters and folks would be proud of him, he said. she had sent him some shirt collars and he was writing to say thanks. he also asked to borrow $38 from her next time he was home.

i found little cards with horoscopes and palm-reading results on them. another one predicting her future husband and children. i guess she desired marriage.

which she finally got. i gather that she was married in 1928 to a man named Stanley Kowalczyk  (nope, not the soldier with whom she corresponded previously). they continued living at this house, even in their married life. and continued to receive mail here until 1934, at least. that’s when the letters end.

our elderly neighbor, marge, whose back yard backs into ours, has lived here her entire life, and her family has lived here since the late 1800s, she told me once. this past week she broke her hip, and this may be the beginning of the end, as they say. so that means i need to trot over to see her, these boxes of letters and clippings in tow, and see what she may recall about the people who called this home so many years ago. i would love to know a bit more.

and i do wish i could locate the living family members of Wanda. because i suspect they’d like have a look at these old things, and perhaps learn something about their roots. at the very least, they could have her ice box cookie recipe.

 

jesus places, neighbors, & new churches

places to be with Jesus

we put a little love seat in our bedroom upstairs, in front of the three huge windows that line the north-facing wall. it is here now that i sit in the mornings to read the Word, journal, and pray. t finds his quiet place in the garage, which he’s taken to calling The Shack. he’s equipped it with a chair, a lamp, and a small space heater. there he can pace and pray, as he is prone to do.

neighbors on this end of 6th street

our neighbor next door hunts and fixes stuff and generally keeps an eye on the folks on our block. she comes by several times a week for one reason or another, always optimistically chatting about whatever is going on in her life. sarah is trying to get a bible study going with her, which i hope to join in on. she seems hungry in this way; she reads and watches christian inspirational things and wears a WWJD bracelet (what a throw-back!).

there’s an eleven year-old boy two doors down to the west. he’s taken a liking to tim, coming by nearly every afternoon in search of him, and looking crest-fallen when i inform him that tim is not at home because he’s working until dinner time. i love watching the excuses he comes up with to get some quality time with tim: geometry homework, long-boarding, learning new tech deck moves, or playing guitar. even more than that, i love watching tim love him, engage with him, and become something between a father and a big brother to him.

church planting (what?!)

on sunday we planted  church (how odd a thing to say!). for me and tim, this has felt largely accidental, or at least surprising. the dreams for Stockbridge Mission Church began forming during the year that we lived in Madison. the planning meetings for it we never attended. shortly after we began this ministry year, we all entered into 40 days of fasting in preparation for what God was beginning.

and then, suddenly, here it was! we prayed about it with all our friends at Love Feast. lots of them started to get excited about the idea of a church right here on the west side, that could be walked to and that would feel comfortable. to me, there’s no point at all in planting a church if it doesn’t serve this neighborhood. because there are already a zillion great churches in this city (more churches per capita than anywhere else in the US, you know, and probably the world).

but if the west side really does need this small church, gathered in the open space of the Tabernacle on Sunday mornings, where shoes get kicked off, and you take a seat on a bit pillow or a carpet square, where you hear testimonies of real honest Jesus-lovers and a true word of God proclaimed in language not lofty, where you can worship and even dance and yell “amen,” where you can come in your street clothes, where you also have loads of opportunities to meet with your church during the week (prayer times, meals, house churches)… well, then let’s do this.

ryan, our friend from Bridge Street House of Prayer, who are co-founding this wee church with us, had a friend tell him that this sounds like a church that “isn’t going anywhere.” meaning not so much that it is a dead-end as that it aspires to nothing more than being right here in this particular neighborhood for these particular people. i don’t know how to tell you just how giddy it makes me to envision Jesus building a church out of west siders (unlikely candidates). indeed, he’s already begun.

t will be leading worship pretty often for this new little church.

 

marriage, motherhood, & ministry

 

walking hand in hand (by www.rejoyphotography.com)

i have the house to myself. entirely. and at least three hours before our 11 year-old neighbor matthew will come knocking the door wanting help with his geometry homework, and then to borrow the long board. and because tomorrow has a couple of non-sabbath-y commitments, i’m taking my sabbath solo today. i’m reading and writing.

i stumbled upon a blog this morning, through another blog that i read, and i’ve been going through it for the last 30 minutes at least. the writer is a mother of seven and a photographer and HOT. her life appears picture perfect* in aesthetics and joy. i had to fight feeling of inferiority and envy as i read; to try to believe that her true and beautiful words about being a wife and a mother are a genuine part of her. but she slammed me with the bits about putting her husband first. she writes that the family started with 2 — he and she — and will be 2 again, once the kids have gone, so put due weight on that relationship.

even without kiddos (yet), i don’t do this well. i do not love tim well. so often i just don’t even see him, let alone let my thoughts and prayers linger over him, asking questions like what would make him feel loved, or communicate to him that i respect and appreciate him? do i brag him up in the presence of others? do i surprise him with extravagant affection? can i even hold eye contact with him in a way that is open and vulnerable? i’m startled sometimes by all the walls i find in myself, erected between my heart and his. this is not what i want. but i sense in myself an intense struggle of resistance, pride, stubbornness, and independence. lots of times the wrong side wins.  it’s uglies. oh, so many uglies.

sometimes i just want to cry at the sort of wife i am. if i am honest, i thought being a wife would be easy and natural, because i had so much confidence in the rightness of my choice to marry him (and the clear and abundant direction of God in leading us together). but that was a lie, i see now. sure, it’s still easy and natural in the sense that i rarely tire of his presence, and i am generally pleased with who he is and this life we’re creating together. but oh, the uglies!: they don’t get eradicated from my personality simply because i’ve married the right man.

walk it out, work it out. that’s what we do in our salvation (phil 2:12), how much the same in marriage, i presume. i’ve received in faith a thing complete, a marriage given by God and received in the taking of vows — but i still have to work it out. walk it out.

in six months we’ll be parents. i think about the urgency, then, of building out of our marriage something solid, hanging on the scaffolding of real relationship with Jesus and one another, a pattern of obeying the direction of the Spirit, and a rightly ordered habit of life-giving disciplines. i’m looking at my life and my marriage, and seeing lack in these places. naturally i want to study parenting and homemaking. i want to make lovely, holistic, “crunchy” choices for this babe and for this household**. i can get real ambitious about the task that lies ahead, and doing it beautifully. but the first things. the first things are that scaffolding.

i think i can feel the delicate maneuvering of His surgeon’s knife entering my heart as i read and reflect this morning. come, Jesus, and have your way. i trust Your knife.

you know what else i can get hung up on? as if it is not enough to be called into holy, surrendered, and sacrificial wifehood and motherhood, we are also called into incarnational and transformational presence in a neighborhood ruled by darkness, plus committed to intentional and deep family-like relationship with the community God has given us to do the work with. truthfully, i’m not sure i can do all of that — and do it well — simultaneously! there will always be someone who loses out — my struggling neighbor, a friend in this community, or my husband and family. i think someone will always be getting less of me than they deserve, and less than i what i expect from myself. and i don’t know how to prioritize it well.

i am often plagued by guilt about missing chances to grow in friendship with the intern family, or forgetting to follow up with a hurting neighbor… and i get zealous about doing those things better, because it’s in my heart to do them. and i think it ends up being tim who gets the short end of the stick a lot of the time. why? because he’s a guarantee? because he has to love me no matter what? because somehow it doesn’t seem as glamorous or significant to love a wonderful, healthy man (who doesn’t “need” me) in my own home as to minister to a person who’s sleeping under a bridge or an intern who is feeling lonely and sad?

paul wrote about this: the division of priorities that occurs when you marry. he knew that being married makes you a bit less able to be devoted to the Lord in lots of practical ways. and that’s why he said, “it might be better if you were to stay single!” (i corinthians 7:34-35). sometimes, i feel the ache of those divided interests. because it is true that i could enter more single-mindedly into some of this other kingdom work before i was married. it is also true that my intimacy with Jesus was different in those days — more spouse-like and all the sweeter for being the Only Love. and i miss it.

yet here is another thing that i know: our marriage is to be like a great, spreading tree, with a trunk of intimacy and worship, and plenty of space for birds to make nests in its branches and animals to rest in its shade. this is a picture He gave to us in the earliest days, before we were even married. so, he has purposes for this union, i know. i believe it. and i believe that over time, as we yield to Him, we’ll get to see it worked out in us. and it will be gorgeous. and He will be pleased (indeed, He already is).

it always comforts me to recall:

1. that he is never shocked or dismayed by the uglies in my heart, nor by the particulars of my circumstances
2. that he is committed — to a greater extent than i — to the holiness of my marriage, my motherhood, and my ministry.

meantime, i’m fumbling along here.

i’m want to be real, so i’m writing these oft unspoken things. (thanks to megan, whose blog i “found” today, for risking real-ness, which invited out my own).

——————————-

footnotes:

*her life appears perfect, but her stated position on that matter is this: “There is nothing lasting that is going to come out of anything I can do to try to ‘perfect’anything in or with my children except me being in right relationship, true relationship, with Jesus Christ. Don’t fall in love with those things you think will make your family a better family. Don’t fall in love with the image. Don’t fall in love with those people who seem to have all the right answers. Fall in love with Jesus.”

**the holistic, “crunchy” choices i want to make include, but are not limited to:  bake my own bread, roast my own coffee, plant a garden that will feed us, sew my own linens, wear our baby, read to him/her daily, incorporate many caring adults into our childrens’ daily lives, make baby food, co-sleep, breast-feed, discipline with the wisest methods, give birth without drugs, and give the baby only carefully crafted toys.

he never left his throne

i was blessed by this today. read it.

miracles of the second trimester

A number of exciting changes in your baby’s development occur during the second trimester:

Fourth Month (Weeks 14-18)
Your baby, now weighing about 6 ounces, is growing fast and is about 8 to 10 inches long by the end of this month. The umbilical cord will continue to grow and thicken in order to carry enough blood and nourishment.

During the fourth month you will gain 3 to 4 pounds and start to “show.” Maternity clothes and a maternity bra may now be more comfortable. You may start to feel a slight sensation of movement in your lower abdomen. This feeling is like “bubbles” or fluttering. When you first feel this movement, called “quickening,” write down the date. This date may help the doctor determine when your baby is due.

Fifth Month (Weeks 19-23)
By the end of this month, your baby will weigh about one pound and be about 12 inches long. This month you may gain 3 or 4 pounds and begin to breathe deeper and more frequently. The area around your nipples may look darker and wider as your breasts prepare to make milk (lactate).

Sixth Month (Weeks 24-28)
You are now carrying a fully formed miniature baby except that the skin is wrinkled and red and there is practically no fat under the skin. The baby still needs to grow, since it is only about 14 inches long and weighs about 2 ¼ pounds. The baby may cry and suck on its thumb and you will regularly feel the baby’s movement.

You may gain 3 or 4 more pounds and experience some backache. Wearing low-heeled shoes will give you a better sense of balance and comfort during this period.

(source)

we’re having a baby

our babe in utero at 9 weeks

the day before our would-have-been due date with baby cake, i took a [second] pregnancy test, out of disbelief, and it had a little plus sign on it again.

i cried. yup, that’s the honest answer, and was my first reaction. it seemed too ironic and like teasing, the timing of it. and, furthermore, we had decided NOT to get pregnant in that month. we were in transition, we were working on a house, i was still grieving baby cake. i didn’t feel like i could handle the emotional roller coaster of being pregnant again. not now.

but these things really aren’t up to us, are they? not really ever, not even when we feel like our actions directly influence them. my mom always told me that all she had to do was think about getting pregnant and then she’d be so. well, maybe i take after her. and maybe i was being sloppy in keeping track of fertility windows. and maybe Papa thought that this timing was exactly just right (as t said, “it feels like a kiss from the Lord. He sees us.”)

so now…

i’m sitting here 12 weeks pregnant, with one ultrasound, and another doppler heart-beat listen under my belt… and it’s looking good. it’s looking as though, in spite of all my worries and fears, this baby is sticking. many times throughout a week, i lay my hand on my womb and that small, invisible being, and i say aloud, “i bless you, baby, in the name of jesus. you are covered in him. may you grow to be strong and well and whole. you are so welcome here.” and i’ve had friends pray over this baby — war, even, over him/her. we rebuke spirits of fear and of death, and choose to believe that God’s intentions are for Life here (like my little friend Kaia prayed over me back in july, “much life!”).and i have to remind myself that this is now part of the work God has given me to do in this season. to give it priority of time and attention is right.

so far…

i haven’t been sick at all, only hopelessly fatigued and weary of heart and desperately hungry. i haven’t gained any weight as of last week’s check in (i don’t weigh myself at home). so it feels surreal, to be sure. i’m caught in disbelief from time to time. my waistline is thickening, but no one seems much to notice except for me.

we plan…

to probably find out the gender at the 20-week ultrasound. and name him/her at that point, too. perhaps publicly. because i want to feel more connected with the personhood of this babe, even now. and we’ll deliver under the care of midwives in a hospital (not my first choice, but seems most practical at this point… the hospital bit, that is).

estimated due date: may 22, 2011.

please pray that he/she doesn’t weigh as much as tim did at birth (over 10 lbs)!

hope for weary hearts

we can recognize the presence of the Holy Spirit in our desires even in the midst of overwhelming boredom with our service to God, constant temptations, and almost complete inability to perform any spiritual activity with attention much less with devotion. in this state not only do we experience God as distant, but we experience ourself at all levels of our being as moving away from God. often this state is referred to as ‘spiritual desolation.’ this experience can last for days, weeks, months or even years. it is important to be convinced of the fact that as long as desire is present, God is present. for our desire flows from the deepest level of our being, a level deeper than the experience of temptation, boredom and frustration with our spiritual life. we hang onto the desire to love and serve God with naked faith, with no support from the other dimensions of our being. often this state is a prelude to a deeper union with God because it helps us purify our motivation. we learn whether we are loving and serving God for the peace and consolation it brings us or for God’s own sake. as we surrender our attachment to peace and consolation, our hearts are purified and God emerges more clearly as the center of our lives.

– Richard Hauser, Moving in the Spirit, pg 32-33

i remember that i want to be a friend of God.

i want to walk in the Spirit.

i want to be united with Christ.

(these are the deepest desires, unchanging even in seasons of drought, frustration and fear).

the Spirit is holding my desire to God.

and….

pilgrims

pilgrim (n): one who undertakes a pilgrimage, literally ‘far afield’. This is traditionally a visit to a place of some religious or historic significance.

24-7 Prayer Boiler Rooms hold pilgrimage and hospitality as one of it’s six core practices. it’s one of my favorite practices (am i allowed to pick favorites?). you see, tim and i could decide next week that we want to head to Tulsa, OK, and know that there would be people there who would take us in for a while, keep us company, tell us stories of God’s faithfulness, and feed our bellies. because there is a boiler room there, and this is central to their identity, as it is to ours. Conversely, when a group from Kansas City tells us they’d like to head up this way for a visit, we’d move things around to make room for them, and pray that their time here would leave them refreshed and with renewed perspective and a sense of connection to brothers and sisters and to God. you can see why this is one of my favorite boiler room practices.

our last week has had a pilgrim theme. in four parts:

1. tim’s old college pals, sara and kelley, came over from milwaukee to stay a mere 24 hours. but in those hours, we told stories about what God is doing in our cities, elicited one another’s dreams, and remembered shared experiences from the past. when they left, they said they felt refreshed and renewed in their vision, which is exactly what i would have hoped for. but the gift was mutual. because, for me, something in me came back to life as i walked with them around our neighborhood and told stories about the origins of the boiler room, the things God is teaching us here, and the friends who fill the houses on these streets. i’ve been feeling so disinterested and unaffected by life here, lacking in zeal and perspective, but as i started to tell the stories, i began to remember that this is good, that God has brought us here, and that He is moving. and then came the joy. i’m grateful to sara and kelley for giving me a chance to remember God’s story. and now i will be tracking their unfolding story of finding a place to call home in a broken milwaukee neighborhood with heightened interest.
2. sarah w, who is from here, but who has been living in LA and KC for the last two years, found herself “stuck” back here in GR for a couple of month with health concerns and no clearance from the Lord to move on. she is my most transitory friend, a pilgrim in the truest sense. sometimes she doesn’t even have a place other than her car to call home, but she moves with the Spirit. i’ve learned to hold loosely to my time with her, because i understand that He could call her onward again at any time. that’s how she rolls. but for these two months, when i was freshly moved back to GR, sarah and our friend kely and i got together nearly every week. the Lord surprised us with this sweet fellowship, prayers for one another, sympathy of spirit, commonality in friendship…. and all so timely. it was like a well of living water refreshing me each time. sarah stopped by the other night, on her way out of town to KC (yup, He’s moving her onward again). and as we prayed together she thanked God for the gifts in short seasons.
3. mary (not her real name), the 80-year-old polish woman who lives next door to the boiler room, who persisted in beautifying her yard with flowers when no one else in the neighborhood cared for their own, who baked us pączek by the dozens, who celebrated my marriage, who came over for dinner sometimes, who caught squirrels and made us drive them to a park to live somewhere other than her garden… this dear woman had a stroke last week. and yesterday morning she passed away. we got to visit her in the hospital last week. though she wasn’t conscious, we talked to her anyway, and laughed at memories with her, and told her that we loved her. and i believe that she heard us. the sweetest thing, though, was being able to say good-bye to her with confidence that she was going Home. she has longed for it, and she was ready. i don’t think that she was afraid. before we left her room danmike prayed over her “I myself will see him with my own eyes–I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me! (Job 19:27)” and he added, “i’m jealous.” so though this neighborhood will be void of several bright slashes of color because mary isn’t here with us, and though my throat tightens with threatened tears as i write this, my heart is so happy that she get to see His face. at last. and her leaving reminds me that she and we have never been anything other than pilgrims here.
4. trent sheppard and nathan chud came through last night for the God on Campus tour. it was tim’s relational connections with nate, and his organizational ties with Campus America that led to us initiating a tour stop here in GR. before this, they had just come from madison and lacrosse, bringing news and stories of our mutual friends in those places. the bridge street house of prayer hosted it at their Pavilion and there were students from about 5 different campuses present. beforehand, Trent and Nate and Nate’s brother Aaron joined the boiler room core team for a family dinner at the boiler room. i got to cook for us all: black bean and butternut squash soup with a green salad and warm bread (one of my favorite ways to love on pilgrims is to feed them!). and sitting around that table, laughing, telling stories, connecting, speaking kindly to one another… later tony said it was like meeting some great cousins you didn’t know you had. i never cease to be gratefully astonished at the similarity of DNA that God has put in His kids, and how much like family it really can seem when we are together in one place. the God on Campus event was great (so very good, so very much inspiring to lean into the dreams of God for students and campuses), but it was this time to just be with each other that really warmed us all, i think. we found ourselves wishing that their stay could be longer, and our conversations more enduring. but this morning they took their leave. they are pilgrims, too.

to welcome pilgrims is a rich, rich blessing that i would not forgo.

to be a pilgrim, journeying and then taking refuge in the hospitality of another, reminds us of our true nature.

we’re all headed Home.

 

ps: jenn wrote about mary today, too. and you should read it.