Naked

Tucker and I were watching Terminator Salvation last night... up waaaay too late for a a school night but folding clothes and hashing out the movie. I plan to marry John Conner and if any of you 1. do not know who John Conner is or 2. Want to give me grief cause he is a fictional character in a movie and does not actually exist, then you can zip it. Zip.
Anyway, Harper comes around the corner and @ the time there is a massive battle and I am folding towels so I tell her to go back to sleep. Those of you who don't know The Harpo need to realize she is a strange little bird. Her nocturnal habits confound me. First, she is a naked sleeper (which will actually be important later in the story though for now it just seems like TMI). She also will not sleep in a bed. She "nests" all around the house. On any given night you will find her with all her blankets a strange collection of precious trinkets in some random corner. The big kids long ago decided they do not like her in their beds but almost nightly she asks if she can sleep with them. Actually Avery got in big trouble the other day for bribing her out of some M&M's with a night's sleep in her bed. Never trade your bed for candy. Giant and profound lesson there but I digress.
So I can't pull myself away from John Conner or my towel folding long enough to deal with Harp's nightly ritual. I just tell her to go to sleep. Tucker and I finish the movie, and talk about waging war with Skynet and what it means to rip out or programming and defy the flesh... I love that kid. Love him and how he can dig into stuff like that with me... and I send him to bed. He comes back around the corner in about two minutes and tells me I need to come get Harpo out of his bed.. He is laughing. So I follow him around the corner and there is her arm. Flopped thru the railing and I can see that she is wearing a coat. Like, a real winter coat. He goes up the steps to the loft and I ask him what she has on, both of us laughing @ this point, and he says... nothing. She is butt naked except a scarf, her purple winter dress coat, and she is unconscious in his bed.
As I picked her up I imagined her... lost in her own mind somewhere.... deciding that pajamas needed to be traded for her coat, and that absolute warmth came not from pants but a scarf, and that the safest place to be... for now was in her brothers bed. I wish I understood the process. As I held her I just wished she could tell me. Not to change it, but because I envy it. I envy that she is not afraid to move to the floor or discard the pajamas or move to a new location when the one she is in offers no comfort. She finds it. She tracks it down. She chooses not to lay in her bed. She chooses a bare butt and a warm coat and motion... creativity, oddness. And in that, she finds comfort.
I could spend the rest of my life trying to make her get in bed and put some clothes on. Trust me I have tried and it's exhausting trying to make someone something they are not, particularly when they are three. I stopped that a while ago when I discovered that the only reason I wanted her to get in bed was because that's where I thought she should be. But what if I serve her better by letting her be where she needs to be? Now all you fruits who want to accuse me of being all lib and having no rules and letting naked coat kids run all over the house and put their fingers in light sockets or sleep in the knife drawer... give me a break. Freedom to choose rests under a blanket of love. The threads of that are understood... protection, safety, common sense, love.... but isn't there room in there just to be naked sometimes? I think sometimes God wants us to move. I think God holds us sometimes, and as long as we are under his beautiful blanket of absolutes, and he smiles as we are uniquely us... who he made us to be. The older I get the more I think that the God who I am coming to know is so out of the box that he might just be cool with a whole lot more than I give him credit for, under the previously described blanket, of course. I just think I made him so small.
Avery, Harper and I were in a big office park waiting for Tucker to finish with an appointment not long ago. It was pouring down rain and the girls wanted to watch it come down so we abandoned the waiting room for the wilds of brick and mortar corporate America. The girls decided that something was chasing us... a game ensued. A game of running down the open areas that were covered in awning. They were laughing and wide open and I was in full sprint behind them. What fascinated me was the varied looks we got. Every tiny office in this complex had a window, some open, some closed. The corners were even giant board rooms with floor to ceiling windows. As we ran I caught looks that ran the gamut from disdain and annoyance to joy and humor. I know the look that says "That crazy lady should control her offspring." I see that one alot. But the one I liked was the lady in her pumps and three piece suit who longingly looked out the window, twirling the cord to the phone receiver, engaged in some forced or mundane conversation about bottom lines or spread sheets, and as we passed she saw us as a breath of fresh air in a gray place...As if we were leaving a trail of brilliant color that would fade seconds after the passing. For just a second I locked eyes with her. Envy. She wanted to run too. I saw it in her eyes.
I can't say what God was doing as we ran, cupping our hands to fill them with rainwater and throwing the contents at each other, laughing, playing, but I think it was probably the same feeling I had as I carted Harp, naked butt and purple coat and all, back to her bed. Joy. Peace. The sweetness of watching someone you love be happy, be themselves, and be unique and comforted. I had to give myself over to the game though. I had to fight the adult in me that wanted to scream out rules. "Be careful not to slip." "Walk quiet by the offices we don't want to disturb anyone." "Don't get wet we don't have a change of clothes and the car can't get wet." "Sleep in your own bed with pajamas on." Why? Can't it get wet? What if slipping in just part of the fun and what if people could use a disturbance and what if the joy of the run is more important than the rules in my head. And where did they come from anyway? It was a beautiful moment. Not of rebellion... but reinvention...re-definition.
My rules come from the God of the Universe, who sent his son to die on a cross for my sins.. Mine. He tells me he came to give life and give it abundantly. And that he made me and I am unique, or specifically "fearfully and wonderfully made". What does abundant look like? What does unique mean? Why do we try to capture those words and put them in a jar... like fireflies? Those are reckless words. Vast and wide words. Pants-less run in the rain words. Praise God he is no where near as small as my box... or bed...or an office park covered in rain and judgement. Praise God for sending my redeemer who gave me salvation I don't have to earn, and for giving me the freedom to run. Merry Christmas to all of you and may you spend the next day thinking over the ways God is calling you out of your box. What could he do.... If you let him out of the box? Here is one of my favorite verses in the whole bible... it's huge. Vast. Put it somewhere special.
Indeed he would have brought you out of dire distress, into a broad place where there is no restraint, and what is set on your table would be full of richness. Job 36:16