Family Night Trampoline Time

A 10 Minute (or 11, 12 Minute) Reflection on the Community of Family
Shared with Calvary Baptist Church of Denver, Vision 20/20
Rev. Brenda J. Goodman, Mom, Chaplain, and More…

May 16, 2016

A few years ago, our family collaborated to make space for one night a week where we come together to intentionally spend time in some sort of spiritual practice, whether it be a devotional,Bible reading, or poetry reading, an activity with art or music, and a time of sharing. Nathan came up with the idea to meet on the trampoline, and so we gather there for some jump time, too. Some nights all we do is jump- jump away the days’ anger, frustrations, or jump in celebration, or we lie on our backs, gazing at clouds while sharing, or we move into some other activity for the night. Winter nights, we don’t get to meet on the trampoline, but it’s still Family Night Trampoline Time; it’s just what we call it now. Even if the trampoline time begins with rolled eyes, or sighs, it always ends with connection, and profound insights, shifted moods. Some weeks, we skip it. And that’s okay…the community of family needs grace. Here’s snippet of what a typical, plenteous day might look like in my family:

It’s about 6:15am, and I awaken to the sound of heavy, black, punk boots walking down our wood stairs. This is usually my first “alarm clock” of the morning. Thankfully, I don’t hear my 16 year old daughter’s actual alarm go off which happens at 5:30am- way too early for a teenager by the way, but the battle of trying to convince a school district to change start times for high school is another story…Taylor is up, tromping down the stairs to grab a piece of fruit (hopefully) and then to catch the 6:20 bus to school. My alarm is set for 7…sigh…my eyes begin to slowly close, and I drift into a snooze…

At 6:30am, my 12 year old’s alarm goes off, and because he doesn’t turn his alarm off, my eye’s lift open again to the sound of jazz from Denver’s radio station KUVO, 89.3 FM: Nathan’s preferred sound to wake up to. I smile, turn over in my bed (and wonder why I even bother setting my own alarm). As the piano riff from the radio blends with morning bird chirps, I turn over on my side, and because his side of the bed is still made, I am reminded that my husband will soon be on his way home from work, having worked all night as a deputy sheriff. Then I recall one of the other ministries I do (second to the ministry of motherhood), and I think of the other family I sat and prayed with at 11pm last night at the hospital where I work, in the sacred space of chaplaincy, as a witness and companion to their grief and deep love for the one they unexpectedly lost. I wonder what their 10 minute snippet of sharing about family might look like. And I realize that so many family stories are being holy-woven into time. As I rise to dress and slip on my running shoes, I realize I only had about 4 hours of sleep last night. I wish I could rewind back to 8:45pm, when I was singing Blackbird by the Beatles as my son rested his head on his pillow, and my daughter flipped through her studies. Thankfully getting only 4 hours of sleep doesn’t happen every night. But even when I’m not on call for work, 9pm to midnight or so, is a kids-are-finally-in-bed, night owl, introvert’s dream!

As the morning moves on, and after grabbing a banana, watching my son pound down a bowl of cereal with the spoon going from mouth to bowl in a circular blur, I hear a soft half-bark from our docile fur baby, Daisy the greyhound, gently reminding us that we neglected to let her back in when we let her out to do her business 20 minutes ago. I place the harness on her, remind Nathan to grab his trumpet and lunch, and to put his helmet on as he puts on his back pack, buckles his lunch box strap to one of his pack’s straps, slings his soft carry case with trumpet in tow over the top of those loads, and goes out the garage door to hop on his bike for his 2 mile ride to school. A click of his helmet buckle, and a push down the driveway, and he’s off. “Love you!” We exchange. A few minutes later, my husband arrives home, and I quickly thank God he didn’t fall asleep at the wheel, beside the fact that he returned safely from the pandemonium of the law enforcement world. We high five each other, exchange a few words, and he’s off to shower and sleep.

Since he works 12 hour shifts, 3 and 4 days alternating, we won’t see JohnE until his work week is over since he is either sleeping or working. I take our dog Daisy out for her two mile sniff…I mean, walk…and then get home to get myself ready for the day. As I walk past the kitchen: depleted pantry shelves, unopened mail, and unread school handouts stacked on the counter, remind me of chores to be done, bills to be paid, calendar dates to be added, sorted, negotiated. The next hours of the day either involve hospital visits, perhaps a meeting with my colleagues, or a continuing education event, or errands to be run, a verbatim to write for peer group supervision, and yes, even days with just a book, or a laptop to write, or a hike, or just me, myself and I at a movie theater, because I refuse to be too busy (or for my children to be!), as much as I can help it in family life.

The community of family needs grace.

In the middle of one of these daily happenings, I might see a phone call come in from…
Nathan’s school, let’s say. “Oh, please let it not be the dean again…
Oh no, it is the dean again!
Okay,” I think to myself, “He’s either making silly noises in class again, or…
…he’s being bullied again.”
But addressing the epidemic that bullying is, is another story…

In the meantime, my 16 year old texts me to remind me she’s staying after school for creative writing club, and that she lost her cell phone charger, and one of her books, and that her boyfriend broke up with her. I suggest some places to look for her lost items, I give her some encouraging words, remind her to breathe, and then I remember that she’s taking that dreaded test in chemistry today. She replies with the good news that she lettered in speech and debate! “So at least there’s that,” she texts with a half-smile emoji. She asks who is driving in tonight’s carpool to the Colorado Childrens Chorale rehearsal, and I remember that it is me. “Oh wait,” I think to myself, “Tonight’s Nathan’s first baseball practice of the season. Oh, whatever, I’ll figure that out later…” (Perhaps a favor for my parents to help with, and thank God for them!) Taylor and I text a bit more about when we might find an hour or two for her to drive so she can get her required hours in for her driver’s license…

…and then I wonder how her day’s experience will affect her socially, and emotionally, this precocious, bright, and sensitive one. So we’ve gone through about half of what a typical morning might look like. We’re at about 10-10:30am here when the phone call from the dean comes in.

Feeling full yet?

Well, I won’t narrate the rest of the day, but let’s shift to a Sunday, and see what that looks like. Thankfully, my kids do not have games scheduled on Sundays, which I know is a reality for many families. We commute on a 20 minute drive to church (because Calvary is worth it!) connecting and experiencing worship from 9am-noon, unless we came early for the Common Table Common Life chapel service, if it’s my Sunday to lead, which would make it 7:45am-noon, and if John’s working nights (he rotates every three months), then the kids have to come with me at 7:45. Thankfully, they are budding little musicians, and can participate in the chapel service, learning leadership, gaining confidence, finding purpose in their have-to, early Sunday rise.

After church, we grab lunch before going to piano lessons at another church about 25 minutes north of here, unless there’s a meeting after church, then we might leave early or skip a piano lesson (which might be good anyway, if it’s a week where practicing slipped a little…the community of family needs grace.) By the time we get home after piano lessons, we usually have about an hour before the kids leave to come back for youth choir and youth group. Good news for me though! JohnE is awake, after having slept most the day, and he’s off work on Sunday, so he takes the kids to church while I enjoy a space for a good evening run, or a chance to connect with my two best friends who are also mothers, and we laugh, cry, commiserate, and hold each other up.

It’s a challenge to balance family life with work, church, and play. But the blessings that surface in the beautiful messiness of it all fill my heart with the paradox of aching joy. It’s this little things, you know, like singing “Blackbird” and then being inspired to write a poem about singing lullabies to my children.

It’s nights where things don’t always follow the routine, like when I’m talking with my kids before bedtime, and right after I say, “Okay! Bed!”…we start talking about something else, and it repeats, again and again, until I’ve lost count of how many times the, “Okay! Bed!” behest has been hopelessly sandwiched between bizarre subject matter. Rich, silly, and sweet, and I am once again in awe of the wisdom filled, fresh-hearted reflections my children share. It’s things like Family Night Trampoline Time, when by what seems a miracle, all four of us sit together in a holy circle of sharing time.

It’s the moment I support my teenager who has unique struggles, and I remind her of one of my favorite quotes from a movie (Phoebe in Wonderland) I resonate with as a mother…it says “At a certain point in your life, probably when too much of it has gone by, you will open your eyes and see yourself for who you are, especially for everything that made you so different from all the awful normals…and you will say to yourself, ‘but I am this person.’ And in that statement, that correction, there will be…love.”

And I get to mother her through that hopeful revelation. It’s when my son in the middle of learning struggles, and grief over not wanting to grow up, being bullied, and the angst of middle school in general, takes time out of his afternoon of lego building to put a gift box on my desk with a folded up copy of a sacred painting he received in children’s church here at Calvary…along with a rubber lizard…just because he thought I would like it.

It’s watching the pure joy of grandparenthood gleam in my parents eyes, when their son-in-law, JohnE, or granddaughter Taylor with quick witted humor makes them laugh, or they smile at the homemade card (always homemade!) that grandson Nathan gave them.

It’s the comments about the Sunday morning sermon, or church school discussion, as we drive from church, revealing that my kids were actually listening, and the energy of church community begins its weekly infusion into the in-between Sundays of family life.

It’s seeing that marriage and family have taught me abundantly about God, about patience (something I really thought I had!) and about how my children, my little theologians that is, remind me of what’s precious about living. Our family, and so many communities of families are creating meaning in every space of challenge and delight, sorrow and discovery, in every day balancing, living and loving. It reminds me of Jesus’ prayer to God as he prays for his believers in John 17:26- it is Jesus praying with a parent heart, with maybe even a motherly heart, when he says, “I have made your very being known to them — who you are and what you do —and continue to make it known, so that your love for me might be in them exactly as I am in them.” It mysteriously makes sense.

And so the wonder of messiness, purpose, and sacred revealing in family life continues in God’s grand, Family Night Trampoline Time.

Jump! Or simply relax…

Thanks be to God.