blogs and sisters

The twenty minute countdown to ER is on, so I have to be brief about all this, but I wanted to do something a little unconventional and possibly illegal in the 'sphere. I am swiping my sister's blog entry and posting it here.

My sister started a blog last month, and while her significant other was away in Italy, she hammered out several days worth. She started out with a bang, and I loved reading her stuff because it was my Jannie, the lovely person I know she is, funny, witty, intelligent, and full, full, full of heart. She is, and I love saying that! Not absence (see last blog) but presence. And she keeps showing up as Anne Lamott likes to say. And though it may not always form a cohesive picture, this showing up that she does day after day, it all seems to count most profoundly with the Author of her life. When she defies, even for a moment, the call from certain others or even herself to play traitor to herself, and she shows up and She is, I can honestly say I feel, yes, feel the pleasure of God.

She's going through a rough time right now, and this is my little tribute to her. I want you to read her last blog. She wrote it right before her SO came back from Bella Italia, and she hasn't written since. I want you, reader, to also know how lovely and tender my sometimes missing sister is. Jan, may you discover in the ensuing days, while you're trying to get the wayward Subaru turned around, how truly wonderful She is. I love you.

An excerpt from Jannie's Jumbles:

March 27, 2005

clipping toenails

I just have to say that the best thing about this day was not the fact that my 17, in a few days, son went to church with us this morning for the 2nd time in a year. No, even better, he asked me if I would cut his toenails.They are as hard as rhinoceros nails and he needed them trimmed so that his soccer cleats would fit(don't think too hard about this) This request came from a boy who probably hugs me twice a year and stiffly at that. I got to hold his size 13 feet in my hands and ,as yucky as they were, I wanted to kiss them and never let them go. They were as precious to me in that moment as when I first counted his tiny newborn toes. This was exquisite. There I was,at last, connecting with Drummer boy in the most unlikely way and I took as long as I could to do the job. I felt like someone who'd been trying to make friends with a wild animal and after months it finally lets you pet it and talk to it a little. Of course, I could not let on that I was having this transcendent moment, so I went on about having his bunion looked at and about where in the world he got such substantially thick toenails. Thank you Lord for letting me be awake enough to recognize your presence in the smell of sweaty boy feet.