How He Loves (part II)

As I was walking around the block this morning, enjoying silence and trying to appreciate the antithesis of the exciting urban environment I ventured about just twenty-four hours ago, in Cincinnati, before returning to a land of huge manicured lawns, four car garages and electric dog fences, I realized that the background of all of my strange thoughts was the song "How He Loves Us." In fact, I find those words coming to me at the most random moments these days. "He is jealous for me...loves like a hurricane, I am the tree, bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy..." And the lyrics drift through my flesh, my soul, my heart and penetrate the desperate parts of me that question His love... the parts of my that aren't afraid to lay it out to Jesus, to drop the f-bomb while screaming, "Why is this life so *%$#-ing hard?"

We had the crazy privelege of being a part of two communities this past weekend. One is on the outskirts of Cincinnati in a pretty rough neighborhood. They meet in an old Catholic Church and it's beautiful in all of its undressed glory. One of the crosses on the top of the building has fallen apart and there was something about this when we first pulled up that made me know that this was just the place for me. The stained glass was old and beautiful and made me long to be back in Italy...in Florence.

The pastor is in his late fifties I'm guessing...and was wearing a pink shirt...and sounded like a former California surfer. He was simple in the way that I like simple. And he interacted with the community as he spoke. The group was small and I'm sure would be looked upon as a failing community by many large churches... but what I saw in the misfit bunch was life, passion, and a pursuance of true Kingdom living.

I found out later that this community was birthed when three families intentionally moved to Norwood, a desolate and seemingly condemned neighborhood. They constantly met to pray and did a prayer walk and asked God for a large piece of property owned by the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. It was all but given to them for pennies compared to its worth. And they all lived in one house for months until they began buying more properties on the block. I was told they even had a shared purse.

The "church" is comprised of a network of house churches and a gathering in the aforementioned building once a month. They have a coffee shop across from the deteriorating church building where people can meet to do art together, pray together, knit together and so on. And people are pretty open that it's not easy living within a few feet of one another, but the value of friendship, love and accountability outweighs any of it. At one point, as I was sitting outside the building, watching my kids chase each other, an overweight, toothless white man walked up. My senses were heightened as, having lived in Chicago, home of scam artists, I awaited the outcome of our dear friend Laura's interaction with him. She is an Occupational Therapist and works with psych patients and so I figured this was right up her alley.

But what I heard come out of his mouth didn't match his appearance. He opened up to her, sharing that he drank too much the night before. He said he's been trying to get it together and even had a job. Laura encouraged this component and the conversation ensued. He never asked for money, hit on her, or insinuated a self-centered reason for approaching her.

I later found out that he is a part of their home church. This man, familiar with addiction and so willing to admit his faults, is in community. I was challenged by him...by his willingness to be vulnerable. And I was floored at the compassionate and kind response of Laura. She sees value in every human, despite what label modern-day Psychologists have placed on him or her.

Later that evening, after having the privelege of sharing with Laura's home church what we are doing in Italy, we gathered our bags and our tired kids and travelled further into the city, to a neighborhood called "Over the Rhine." I knew we would love it, for our favorite band named themselves after this very district.

Ironically though, the neighborhood is not something off of a CD cover. Its borders house drug deals, abuse, addictions and seemingly orphaned children. One walk to the park had me near tears as I watched two older siblings, responsible for their three year-old brothers, forcing these "babies" to fight. One of the little guys didn't want to fight. I could see he was a peace-maker. His eyes welled up as his brother shouted in his ear, "Hit him back." My heart was breaking. And I wanted to grab him and bring him to safety... but I felt hopeless. Because right next to this scene was another...and another like it. I knew at that moment that the urban nastalgia of a neighborhood with a cool name like "Over the Rhine" wouldn't last a day if it weren't for people heeding God's call in their lives that He wanted them there for such a time as this.

They say Cincinnati has the most amount of racially segregated neighborhoods in the country. And I felt it as we walked through a few different communities. At one point, in broad daylight mind you (meaning that mom, if you are reading this, no need to freak out), a man started following Liz and I, along with our kids. He talked and talked, opening up the conversation on a heavy note: "I just got out of prison..."

I didn't know what to say as I was just waiting for him to get to his line that usually goes something like "I went to Harvard. I just fell on hard times. I almost got drafted for the NBA and I know Michael Jordan.... Hey, can I ask you a question? I am wanting to get to Chicago for a job conference and I don't have money for the train... it's fifty bucks to get there...."

Can you sense I'm a little jaded? I would like to say I have been ignorant or patient enough to hear them all... but just when I say that, I find myself sucked into someone's story and handing them a couple of bucks.

So anyway...the guy never got to that part. And I don't really think he was heading there. I mean, you don't normally start off asking for money by mentioning your bail. Just when I was getting nervous, he found some "friends" and stopped to chat. I had the feeling though that he wasn't going to go past "his" block. That is the feel of the city. People know their "place" and stay there.

And yet, that evening, during a house concert at Liz and John's house, serenely nestled and juxtaposed in the ghetto of sorts, after listening to Liz sing these amazing poetic and heart-entrancing songs, we met some other couples who were also living in the neighborhood. These couples all had something way beyond themselves living just beneath their smiles. They all had moved to this area, very intentionally, and like us in terms of Torino, pictured a garden in the desert. One woman, after I had shared about my park experience, said, "I can't make a difference with all of them. But I can love on one."

Ahhhh. Hope alas.

I left Cincinnati with gut-filled peace, the kind you can't fake or forge...the kind that is only found when I'm surrounded by people who are living out community and usher me in, not because of what I do but because of the same Spirit we have within. It was love in its raw and freeing form, like the ocean at sunrise. Like a child dancing. Like Laura's compassion...Liz's voice.

Still, the words from "How He Loves" are drifting through my being. I have so many questions...so many worries and obsessions and lalalala... but those words, like the feeling I drove out of Cincinnati with just last night, wash my insides...and "I don't have time to maintain these regrets, when I think about the way....

"He loves us.... Oh how he loves us. How he loves us so...."

How He Loves

I have been thinking and thinking about Mary Magdalene lately. Thinking about she and Jesus…about how he loved her. About how her presence made him feel. About the special bond, that although perverted by modern-day scholars, gives us a glimpse into the flesh of Jesus, as her name floats in and out of the Gospels, like a pale colored butterfly, blending with the sky, tempting us not to notice, and yet drawn to her by her restrained and delicate scent.

My teacher tells me the heart is so big. So big that if we allowed it to feel the many kinds of love that it is able to feel, it may explode. And as I’ve been reading about those African men, namely Bishop Tutu and Nelson Mandela, who led South Africa out of the apartheid, I keep thinking about that kind of love. The kind of love that revolutionizes people’s hearts and ends civil wars. The kind of love that stands in between enemies, risking its life, in order to demonstrate its power, its pervasive kindness and its gravitational pull to Father God’s heart.

As I lay in bed tonight, rubbing my little sister’s back and holding her, I kept thinking about all that we as humans miss out on out of fear. My stream of consciousness flickered about, like a movie, seeing the faces of those people I love in my mind, as I spoke aloud to my sister, trying to make sense of the heartache she was feeling from a failed relationship. And as it so often does, my thoughts took me to the tender, vulnerable parts of my heart where the image of my father still remains. I have tried to push those parts away, have tried to bury them, psycho-analyze them, mend them…and yet there the broken pieces of our relationship rest on the mantle of my mind, like a vase that is waiting to be glued together so that it can function once again. I am familiar with this broken vessel but I am never sure I want to sort through the glass, as the pieces are sharp and I always end up with eyes full of suppressed tears.

It was no different tonight. Holding my sister, I felt one tear slide slowly down my cheek and land in her hair. And then another. I swallowed hard. I didn’t want this moment to become about me. After all, I am twelve years older than my sister. And this was her moment. She needed me.

I spoke one phrase: “I don’t know why I always start to cry whenever I talk about dad…” and then I lost it. The tears came out of a familiar component of my heart and they always feel the same. The release of the emotions and the sorrow over the loss, or perhaps the non-existence, of a relationship united again like summer and winter, assuring me that there is much unresolved. I continued to fight the tears, all the while allowing my baby sister to love on me, to hold me and speak life into me.

And I received. Perhaps one of the powerful elements of love.

And she gave. And she kissed my dreadlock-covered forehead and told me how much she loved me. How much her dad loved me.

We talked about the differences in our earthly father’s love toward his girls and I talked about how I fear rejection from him and how even though I try so desperately to keep my dad at a safe distance from my heart, there is always this lingering pain any time I realize how much I still need a daddy.

And I know that Father God is referred to as Abba. But like my husband says, “Sometimes we just need Jesus with skin on.” And on occasion it just seems natural that this flesh-covered spirit would come in the form of my earthly father.

And I do have hope that someday it will…on either side of eternity.

In the meantime, I pray to love well. To be loved well. To understand the danger of loving and embrace it, for it is the power of God in motion. I should not find it ironic that this same sweet sister, while hurting herself, was able to comfort me in an unexpected moment of angst this night. Her pain makes her real. And enables her to love deeply. And I should not think it ironic that she will get a tattoo on her wrist tomorrow, a constant reminder, of this deep love. It will read:

“How He loves.”

And that is really the bottom line. He loves us so deeply, so madly, so dangerously and without boundaries or borders, despite our inward and outward crap.

Oh that I would love how He loves us…

And receive love because

He loves us.

Happenings of Spring

Thomas...because he was feeling left out.



"Lettuce Crudo"... my kids have an obsession with plane ole' iceberg lettuce. This one is for all the doctors who have told me that one of my child's digestion problems is due to a lack of vegetables!!!


Lots of time at the park...


Ali comes to visit


I wear a dress...for the first time in long time...


The morning. Diet Coke and my groggy boy. But my groggy boy doesn't drink Diet Coke...in the morning at least


Striking a pose...


Keziah learns to ride a bike


Boy meets (Italian) car

Inch by Inch

I found mascara on the white pillow in the kids' room today. Stains from my eyes, from crying last night.

It all fell apart around the dinner table, which is actually quite typical. Elias was in trouble for complaining about his school work, Keziah was in trouble for telling her brother he wasn't in trouble. Ezra was painting the table with milk. Thomas was in a mood. I was exhausted. Completely exhausted. Which is where I find myself every night these days. I made an incredible vegetarian lasagna (if I do say so myself...) and I just wanted us to sit and be a family...for twenty minutes at best. Is this too much to ask? Apparently it is.

As the world was falling apart in our home, which included a pouting husband and, at this point, an angry, bitter wife... Elias, who had finally gotten his teeth brushed and V E R Y S L O W L Y slipped his pajamas on (seriously, this kid moves slow... he tries my patience on every level... and I have to admit, I have a lot to learn from him...) turned to me, with huge blue eyes and a face so sad you would have thought someone had died. With big round tears he says, falling to his knees, "I just want to change... I just want a new life."

I melted into the floor, grabbing his little skinny body, holding him tight, remembering the night he was born. I began sobbing. Keziah had many questions. Before we knew it, we sat in a pile on the floor, holding one another and crying. It was a hopeless, yet beautiful moment. A moment where my boy's words went somewhere deep within me. A moment of truth, if you will. "I want to change too..." I cried.

There are those minutes, hours, days, or weeks in life, when I feel so incredibly desperate for Jesus...like a seven year old begging for his punishment to be taken away... And I can't help but run to Him. He was familiar with grief, with suffering... but does he understand my guilt? Does he understand how I daily feel that I am never and WILL never be enough...not to all the many people who are counting on me. And I hear the band-aids of people's well-intended words haunting my subconscious, cramming me further into the cave...further into desperation.

And somehow, He meets me there. With a kiss from my child, with a kind word from my husband...with shared tears that remind me of how needy I am...how needy WE are...and how we WILL make it as a family.

The questions of doubt quickly follow. The mirror of my soul leaves me with questions. And alas, I begin comparing my life. A hopeless trap. One that leaves me unsatisfied every time.

Later that night in bed, as I held Elias' shaking, sniffling body, I watched as he slowly went through a pile of photos. Photos from all the people he loves in Indianapolis. I noticed as he stopped at one photo. The shaking got worse. The sniffling unbearable. My heart hurt so bad. I couldn't make it better and I wasn't about to try. I knew he needed this moment. I asked him who the photo was of, and he said, through sobs, "Katie." It was his Aunt "Katie." He held the picture to his face...stroked her face as if it was an ex-girlfriend. It was so dramatic, but so real in his little being. He kept putting the picture on the bed and then taking it in his hands, gently, like he was holding a seashell, and bringing it to his face.

"You miss her, huh?" I asked.

"I just feel like I'll never see her again. I want to go back to Indianapolis." He bawled.

"We'll be going back soon..." I offered.

"No, it's more than 60 days and that's a long time."

I didn't have much to say to that. How do you compare adult time with child time? Sixty days IS a long time to a seven year-old.

"I just don't like how I act here. I'm mean. I am in trouble all the time." He continued sobbing.

It always makes me laugh a bit when he pulls this one out of his hat. He really thinks this is true, not realizing that if I was over 30, I'd probably be completely gray because of him. He is so strong-willed and stubborn and has been this way since he was a toddler.

I lay silent. Holding him.

"Do you want to call Aunt Katie?"

He perks up and we reach for the computer, searching for her number.

We dial. She picks up. She asks all the right questions.

And I hear him in the other room, and I know he's smiling. And I can see his dimples in my mind and I know that when I can see his dimples he is happy....from his gut happy. And I feel relieved.

Today I have heard his words over and over... "I just want to change." There's a song that he sings for school that goes "Little by little, inch by inch, by the yard it is hard but the inch what a sinch..." And I reminded him that change happens little bits at a time.

But how can I tell my child this and believe it for him if I am not believing it for myself? I grow desperate again. And I hear the words of Isaiah running from my mind to my heart, leaving their footprints all over, so that I will again have hope.

He was "a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering." (Isaiah 53:3)

I know that my child's sadness... my sadness is familiar to Him.

And I know, inch by inch, we'll make it.

Waiting in line at the Shroud of Turin...







Picture taken by me at the Shroud. I inverted the second one, which is how they originally discovered the detail in the Shroud. Notice the image of his body laying horizontally on the left side and the slight image of his backside on the right. I'm still a skeptic, but the more research I do, the more fascinated I become. While it still takes deep faith to believe in Jesus' life, burial, resurrection and HIS REASON for coming to earth, I find the Shroud to hold an unsolvable mystery in it. The more technology we have, the closer we are to the truth of the Shroud.







Chasing Pigeons at Piazza Castello...










Our wonderful balcony...

Keziah Psalter

She came out with a homemade gun, handcrafted with a clothespin and an elastic headband. The idea was perhaps brilliant, as she has been quite the little artist as of late, making doll clothes by cutting up her old dress-up attire and fastening them together with scotch tape. This time, though, I didn't squeal in delight over her new idea. In a moment of ardent anger, my five year-old sneered at me and said in a devilish voice, "I'm going to shoot you." She had spent the prior fifteen minutes hiding under my bed, saying things like "I just want out of this house..." followed by "You don't even care about me..." followed by "STOP saying it in ITALIAN!!!" as I read "1000 Words in Italian" to her little brother.

Lashing out at the girl has never worked...and to be very honest, her fits have NOTHING on her older brother, so keeping my cool is always pretty easy with her. So I simply said, in my sternest voice..."Keziah, I better NEVER hear you say you are going to shoot ANYONE again. Do you understand me? You need to go in your room and think and pray about your attitude."

This sent her into a complete other tirade as somehow I "scared" her with my uneven tone and she became quickly "scared" of her room, using this as her excuse to go to round three in tired, angry five year-old land. Things carried on for a few more minutes as I went about finishing the book with her brother and thinking in my mind how much she reminded me of my little sister Ali, at this same age. In my mind, I smile in those moments... because Ali, all grown up, is so dear to me... and yet, I can still see her as a little girl, scrunching her face up, running off to her bedroom....me following close behind, knocking on her door and being allowed entry once I stated my identity. I would lay next to her and comfort her in an attempt to fix all the things that were somehow not fixed in myself at her age.

And I blink. And I'm here. On my couch. Staring at my DAUGHTER...and feel as if I just finished hugging Ali and telling her how beautiful she is and how "...they didn't mean it like that... they love you Ali..." When all of a sudden, there she is, my sweet Keziah, staring at me...and in a final attempt to prove indeed she is right about the world being against her, she states, face still scrunched, bottom teeth out to look very serious and mean: "You don't love me." Here's where what I am really good at comes into play. Because I had years of practice on Ali.

"Yes, I do Keziah," I say, staring at her, helping her understand the seriousness of it all.

"No you don't." She says it, hoping to stay angry but desperately wanting to hear my next words.

"Keziah, I love you more than ice cream... and cake and Hot Tamales...and..."

"NO YOU DON'T!" She shouts, still holding on for the ride... "You hate me."

"Keziah, I love you...I don't hate you..."

"Tell me you love me. Tell me." It's getting really dramatic at this point... and I'm thinking this girl could easily be making some serious money on the big screen.

"I love you." This time I motion for her to come to me. She has so desperately wanted to come to me this whole time...I've seen it in her eyes. But she had to get this mad...had to...just to see if I'd still invite her to come to my lap, even when I've seen the ugliest parts of her.

Her face morphs and I recognize the sweetest little girl I've ever known...she comes and sits next to me, blanket in hand, thumb in mouth. I hold her. I coddle her and let her be the baby she needs to be in this moment. I ask her if she wants some water and she follows me to the kitchen and then to her bed.

Later on, while laying next to her in bed, after giving an unprompted apology, she begins to tell me how much she loves Jesus... and how he lives in her heart...and we talk about forgiveness and I confess how I was mean to her daddy today and how every day I have to ask for forgiveness too. I tell her what a big thing she did by saying sorry. She asks me if I love her all the time. "Haven't I told her this a million times?" I think to myself.

"Yes, Keziah, I will always love you... there's nothing you can do that will make me stop loving you...ever." I hear my mother's words echo in my mind as I say it. And I understand her words more than I ever have.

I spend a majority of my thought life in guilt mode...thinking of all the things I could be doing for my kids, with my kids... all the ways I have probably messed them up in some psychological or physical or spiritual way. But tonight...perhaps tonight was a glimpse into the way Jesus cares for me and perhaps this is why when I understand my depravity, my desperation, my utter sinfulness, I come to Him so easily. Because He's willing to receive me. He's willing, even when I'm flailing about in my mind and in my heart, to take me into His arms and hold me, dispite my words or deeds...dispite my five year-old wants and complaints and fits. When everything is going well, as it was for my daughter until that moment this evening, I don't sense my need for grace, my need to hear that I am loved unconditionally. But as I lay in bed tonight next to Keziah, I couldn't stop thinking about these parallels...about her heart and how exposed it was and how she allowed me to see that and how Jesus, in this proliferation of sorts, wants to see my heart. How He hears me out when I throw a fit and when I'm finished welcomes me to His table, to dine with Him in peace and in the security of knowing that I am His child, His beloved daughter.

The Morning...

While having mentioned it before, I feel the need to express again just how much I abhor mornings. I awake in a tizzy, hearing my name in my dreams…whiny voices all around, like a house of talking mirrors… and then suddenly I awake with harsh taps on my sleeping arm to find someone, a person around three feet tall, staring at me, demanding that I get out of bed at an hour that I once thought only professors of a ridiculously early class could require of me… and even then I had a choice whether to get up and go to class or not… settle for a C or strive for an A. And even if I was striving for a D- in parenting, little people still wake up. They still need to be fed. Of course Go Diego Go is something to be grateful for at a ludicrous hour, but when I’m up, I’m up. Thomas can somehow stumble to the couch and fall peacefully back asleep, ignoring his ardent little ones, dozing in and out of talks of Cocoa Wheats and school snacks and homework and un-brushed teeth and untied shoes. But not me. The weight rests heavily on my already aching shoulders as I carry a little person to the toilet because he is about to pee his pants and has successfully waited until the last possible second to tell me before his bladder explodes into the only clean pair of pajamas I could dig up the night before.

And while on the weekends there is no set schedule or place to be at 8:30 a.m., it’s almost worse. I wake up with ADD, pondering all the possibilities of the day: Should we go to the market? The mountains? Ikea? The mall? Oh, maybe we could stay here and paint Elias’ room. Perhaps I should make a nice breakfast and we could sit down together as a family. The bathrooms need cleaned. The laundry needs done. Oh…everything is closed on Sunday and today is Saturday. Maybe I should get groceries…

And then, added to my rat-like skittishness, are my children. They begin fighting. One is tired. The other won’t eat his eggs. The other keeps saying, in a very, very whiny voice, “Will you please have alone time with me in the bedroom…. and watch me make stuff… and have tickle time?” This is the true test, as I am now guilt-ridden and unable to please anyone, and still am running around like a headless chicken in my mind. And of course the “one” isn’t going to handle it well when I try to rationally explain just why locking ourselves in a room won’t go over so well with the other two, namely a certain two year-old who screams at the top of his lungs when not getting what he wants WHEN he wants it. Did I mention we live in an apartment building? In Italy? And that our neighbors underneath us have comically mentioned hearing “the scream?” While they say the don’t care if they do hear us, I don’t think anyone enjoys waking up to a screaming child, especially one that isn’t hers, on her only day off in the week.

“Oh I haven’t taken my medicine. Maybe that will help.” I down 10 mg. of Lexapro and a glass of Diet Coke and think about the easy days--- about the days when I had one child and had the time every morning to read my Bible and ponder philosophical and theological ideas. Time to write in cute little homemade journals… time to read a parenting book here and there… time to pick my nose, twiddle my thumbs, clip my fingernails…without the demands of children filling my subconscious brain at all times. It’s not just their voices…and it’s not just in the morning… it’s just the idea of three people depending on me…sinful, immature, self-centered me…at all hours of the day. I understand why women keep their full-time jobs. Losing one’s identity in mothering, while it is made out to be such a harrowing thing on the covers of Parenting magazines…and such the morally “right thing” in Christian circles…is not exactly my idea of fulfillment.

Do not get me wrong. I have these moments when I truly see the fruit of my attempts at parenting. I see my son care for his little brother in a way that I know has somehow, between all the yelling and screaming and bickering that his parents do, been emulated by our underlying abundant love for him. I hear Keziah in the kitchen, spinning in circles and singing about Jesus and about how much she loves him (and about Satan and how she wants to kick his butt…but that’s another story). I see her bring me her misfit toys and tell me that they are for “Africa people.” And then there’s Ezra. And God love him, the two year-old kid is so incredibly wrapped up in his own wants and desires it isn’t even funny. But even when he’s innocently squeezing the life out of our pet bunny, I see love in his eyes and a desire to do what is right.

And I have to say that while I may struggle with depression at times, especially when in the midst of change (like now…just for example), children bring a certain joy that is unexplainable and strange. As completely cheesy and unhealthy as it sounds, they give me a reason (albeit not always the reason I want) to wake up in the morning. I know. I know. I should WANT to get out of bed. I should WANT to be joyful in every situation and so LOVE life that I desire to hop out of bed like Snow White and skip down the road to tell people about Jesus’ love for me. After all, I’m in “full-time ministry,” whatever that means (Insert Record scratching here).

But the reality is that I’m in a new place, enduring culture shock and a new language and no cheap fountain drinks and no Target…which have slowly found their replacements in yummy cappuccinos and the American-like mall…but still…

And then there are those actual important things in life—like relationships…and in this new home, in this new country, there are not those things that are familiar…like my mom and dad, my sisters, my friends… you know…all the things that give one a sense of identity and recognition

A pity party is not in order. Really. I chose this. At the end of the day, I love this. I’m always learning to embrace change, to try to have a good attitude toward life and its challenges. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. (After all, I am living in ITALY!) Following God is fun in that He truly does provide what we NEED. Perhaps not what we want always, but His provision is immense when we sojourn with Him. Sure I’m tempted to give up some days. And if it weren’t for my kids, there would probably be those days that I wouldn’t get out of bed.

Redemption lies in these moments, wrapped up like the gifts under my tree right now. These moments are change and the gifts are my children. While their demands suck every last bit of energy from me, I don’t know what I would do without them right now. They give me a glimpse of the past, as I remember their small helpless bodies juxtaposed against the individual creative and passionate (and completely stubborn) little people they are becoming. And they give me a peek into the future, as I try to live accountable for their knowledge of grace. I love watching how God uses all of this change to shape their lives…to help them embrace the difficulties that come with missing friends and cousins and grandmas and grandpas. And I have the opportunity to parent them through it all…to give hope even when I don’t necessarily feel hopeful.

My house is quiet now. Ezra is watching Thomas the Train on the computer, Elias is making a card out of magazine cutouts for our teammate, and Keziah is busy creating something with scissors and tape in her room. Dinner is on the stove (thanks to another teammate who has become like family to us)… and the smell of cider apple candles engulfs my senses. All is calm. All is bright.

Until the morning, that is.