A few years ago I hired a young graphic designer for help with updating and possibly renaming this blog.
“What do you like to write about?” she asked.
“Oh, really just personal narratives, stories about daily life and marriage and parenting, more than anything this is a collection of essays for my children and family.”
I asked, “What do you think of the name? Lift My Noise – it’s kind of silly, but I’ve used it for 15 years.” I explained how I’d come up with the name when the kids were little, stemming from a mispronounced word in a praise song.
“Yeah, I think you should really reconsider a new name. Simply having “Noise” in the title conjures up and idea of friction, and what people want these days are solace.”
I nodded, taking in her feedback and recognizing that she had a point. The last thing I want to add to the internet is chaos and friction. I decided to chew on it for a bit before making any major decisions. Perhaps my hesitation was grounded in sentiment, but it just didn’t seem right to change the name.
Fast forward a week or two, and a summer Sunday evening found me snuggled deep into a comfy chair with a long-awaited book. All of the kids were settled and our home was quiet. Bran and Hud were gone for the summer, Basden was just home from Kenya but catching up on much needed sleep, and Essie was living her best life at Kanakuk for a couple of weeks. Not only was I about to enjoy a quiet evening, but I was looking into a quiet week! I remember thinking, “Nothing can stop me now.”
Until literally a moment later’s text, “Have you seen your email?”
Kanakuk made the difficult decision to shut down their high school camp – immediately – because of positive Covid cases, which led to a flurry of activity and looking into flights and coordinating with friends. The short story is that we landed with a house full instead of a house empty, including two positive Covid cases among our group. We started by social distancing and treating the first Covid case like a leper, but about a day in decided we weren’t going to roll that way, so we just embraced the whole thing with a quarantine party. For the next ten days we cooked, ate, played games, swam, watched movies, and somehow avoided spreading Covid to the entire household. It was a sweet, even if confining, couple of weeks of friends, food and summer fun. All of that “fun” of course also included lots of cooking, meal planning, grocery deliveries, constant conversations, and entertaining active teen girls without leaving the house. Sweet AND full.
The whole experience served as a timely reminder that this is the life we live – a noisy, full life, even if we’re planning for the opposite. I feel like one of the fundamental parts of walking with the Lord is offering up a sacrifice of our time and expectations – the biggest challenge for me is in the initial opening of my hands.
So back to the blog name… my prayer is that everything I record here, all the good and hard, would provoke peace rather than friction, solace over noise. But life is full and messy and unpredictable, especially if we say “Yes, Lord.” May our words and actions demonstrate an attitude of worship – which often does not come naturally, and requires a lot of practice and encouragement from the people we live life with. But like anything we practice, it does become more automated. And it’s those noisy, messy “adventures” that make a meaningful life!!
Thank you, Basden Joy, for your lovely three-year-old version that has affected my life in such an unexpected, meaningful way:
I love you Lord, and I lift my noise… to worship you, O my soul, rejoice
Take joy, My King, in what you hear, and let it be a sweet, sweet sound in your ear.