The Mystery of Faith…

October 23, 2012 By
There are days when I think that God has an
interesting sense of humor.
Today is one of those days.
I am writing in another space today,
where I write today about the very center
of my call as a pastor.
And, in a way, for me,
it all comes down to one question:
What are you going to do with me?
Maybe I’m oversimplifying,
but somehow, I don’t think so.
Because if you struggle with the issue of women
in ministry, at some point you’re going to
have to do that struggling with a real-life,
flesh and blood, Jesus-loving, Jesus-following human person.
Please click over and see what I mean, okay?

And while you’re doing that,
I also want to encourage you to read
She and I are at very different places on this particular journey. 
Yet I can honestly say that I love her very much, 
I respect her opinion and I welcome her voice.
I trust and I hope that she can say the same about me.
The comment sections at both places are very interesting 
and hopeful to me. If we can keep a civil conversation going,
loving each other, even when we land at different places,
then there is indeed real hope for the Kingdom moving forward.
Do you know what I think?
I think that our amazing God is doing some very wonderful things 
through the vehicle of the internet.
And she has offered grace to all of us awkward speakers, inviting us to share our experiences and our ideas and our points of struggle. My prayer is that the discussion underway at her site and at the various channels at A Deeper Story can be heartfelt, honest, hopeful and welcoming – even when we disagree.
Can I hear an amen??

Filed Under: A Deeper Family, memoir, ministry, personal journey, Women in Ministry

31 Days in which I Am Saved by Beauty – Day 6

October 7, 2012 By
We went to a wedding today.
Being there required driving a long way,
climbing a mountain,
arriving in time to rest a bit
before the ceremony started,
being told the room would not be ready for at least 90 minutes,
sitting in the lobby with all our bags and hangers,
and then making a wonderful discovery:

We had been upgraded to a suite. 

With TWO balconies.
And this is what we saw when we stood out there:
You know, we could have just stayed in our room
and enjoyed the view. 

But we didn’t.
We got dressed,
we went to the lovely service.
And then, while everyone else
ate appetizers and had a few drinks on the lawn,
in the freezing* cold,
we invited Dick’s 90-year-old cousin
and the pastor’s wife to come back to 
our suite 
and rest a bit before dinner. 

I uploaded pictures I’d taken
and listened in
as Dick brought out some old photos
and diaries he had brought,
in hopes that this very cousin would be here.
Can I just tell you how fun it was
to listen to them talk?
She is sharp as a tack,
has great vision,
and was able to identify a lot of mystery faces
in our old photos.
She thoroughly enjoyed the diary excerpts,
adding her own memories into the mix.
Harriet is very short,
very talkative,
and one of the kindest people I’ve ever met in my life.
I don’t imagine that very many people in her life have
ever told her she is beautiful.
But I’m here to tell you,
she was beautiful to us tonight.
She carries around with her
history.
Our history.
And stories of faith and commitment,
a vibrant testimony of God’s goodness over time. 

I think maybe I want to be her when I grow up.

Only trouble is,
I’ll have to figure out a way to shrink
about a foot!

*Please bear in mind that I am a native Californian who has NEVER lived in a true winter climate. I’m guessing it was in the low 60’s. And in evening wear, without a wrap, that is freezing to us. Sorry. I know how wimpy that is. Nevertheless, it is fact, hard fact.

Filed Under: 31 Day Blogging Challenge, Blogging, family, Marriage, memoir

The Long Unraveling: A Deeper Family

October 4, 2012 By
My husband as a newborn with his beautiful mother.

Today is my day to post over at A Deeper Family.
It is such a privilege to write in this space,
where honesty is encouraged,
and going deeper is invited.

The tension in the car is thick enough to choke on. My husband begins his litany of things-wrong-with-the-world, something he’s been doing with alarming frequency of late. It makes me tired. Long, loud sighs begin to whoosh from deep inside, as I sit next to him, at my perch behind the steering wheel. Finally, I decide to face into it more directly and ask, with the tiniest hint of superiority, “Can you tell me one thing you’re grateful for right now? Just one? All this negativity is exhausting.”
Silence.
We pull into the underground parking at the health facility where his mother now lives. She is 96-years-old, very frail, fading away like a mirage on a desert highway.
And this is the truth of it: we are waiting for her to die. There it is, in the harsh light of day, like brown, barren sticks in wintertime – we are waiting for her to die.
Perhaps that explains the litany, the sighs.
Twice each week, we make the 20-minute drive across town to sit with her at lunch, watching her not eat. Some days, we rouse her from a deep, gasping sleep. Some days, she is already awake. Always, we get the walker from across the room, remind her how to stand up, gently comb her hair and very slowly walk with her down the hall to the dining room. . . 


Filed Under: A Deeper Family, Aging, death, family, Marriage, memoir, personal journey

To the Penny…

September 27, 2012 By

Circle round, friends. I have a sweet story to tell.
And that open chest, filled with dress-up clothes 
is what inspires its telling this night.
It’s a bit circuitous, but truly rich with 
wonder and grace
and it happened at –
well, what can I say?
It happened at exactly the right time. 

I had been at my job as Associate Pastor for about eight months, 
when I overheard an off-hand remark
made by our Senior Pastor,
 a man I greatly admired and
was delighted to be working with in my first-ever
paid ministry position.
And this is what he said:
“Well, all the stats tell you that you’ll know a new
hire is a good hire if you can see that
they have ‘raised’ their own salary
and it shows up in the general budget funds
by the end of their first year.”

Gasp.

Earn my own salary? 
Have it show up in the budget?
By doing what, exactly?
I was scrambling to learn who people were,
how they worked together – or didn’t work together.
I was preaching a few times,
teaching a few times,
making lots of house and hospital calls,
planning small groups,
meeting with individuals and couples for counseling.
How was any of that
going to raise money for the budget? 

And then . . .

One afternoon, a favorite client of my husband’s,
a truly beautiful, older woman who was
self-confident, gregarious and very out-spoken 
called him up and said:
“What’s this I hear about you making a move to Santa Barbara? 
You know I’ve just moved up here, too, don’t you?
Tell me all about this please!! 
Why are you here?“

So he told her.
“Well, you see, it’s like this…
my wife is a pastor.”
“She is what? A pastor, did you say?
Does she preach?”
“Sometimes,” Dick said.
“She’s an associate and she’s part-time, so
it’s just a few times a year.”
“Well!” She bellowed. “I want to know the next time
she’s up in the pulpit, because I’m coming myself
to check her out.”

And come, she did.
All 5 feet 10 inches of Pasadena socialite that she was,
garbed in a bright chartreuse wool cape,
straight from the runways of Milan.
She had been active in an Episcopal parish
in Pasadena but hadn’t yet found a church home 
in this new community.
When she came to hear me preach, 
she walked into the back door of the gymnasium 
we were using as a worship center, 
looked at the beautiful wooden cross 
we had mounted on the long wall 
(between the basketball hoops), 
genuflected, crossed herself, and sat down in the back row. 
Like any good Episcoplian would.
And she did that every single time she came.

That first time, she came up afterwards,
effusive in her praise, just delighted
that her financial advisor’s wife
was a preacher.
She introduced us to a few other people in her social circle,
and went out of her way to be kind and inclusive. 

“Whenever you’re up there,” she said, 
“I’m gonna be down here.” 

And she was.

She called the church office, and got the schedule.
And just about every time I preached for the next 10 years,
she was there, sitting in the back row. 

But here’s the strange and wonderful part.
Are you ready?
That first Christmas, 
on the first anniversary of my very first day of work,
she called her investor guy – that would be my husband – 
and said something like this, entirely of her own volition:
“You know, I would really like my annual gift this year to
go to that Covenant Church where your wife works.
That’s a great group of people over there
and I’d like to support what they’re doing.”

Can you guess what happened?
Her gift, 
to the penny, 
was the exact amount of  my salary –
for the entire year.
And for every year that she lived after that.
Can you imagine how encouraging this was
to a very wet-behind-the-ears,
brand-spankin’ new pastor? 
To this day, I give thanks to God for this
gift of love and grace in my life.
First of all,
for this delightful, loving and faithful woman.
And then for her serendipitous generosity.
Her gift came at exactly the right time,
and was exactly the right amount.

And I had forgotten this lovely truth until one night
last month when we entertained several small girls.
They opened the dress-up chest,
and floating out of it came some of this 
loving friend’s beautiful clothes. 

When she died, I had also become acquainted
with one of her sons – had married him and his wife,
in fact. And one day, as we were driving back to 
Santa Barbara from a time away, my phone rang.
He said, “Mom’s in the hospital, and it doesn’t look good
at all. But don’t come – because I know she would not
want you to see her looking like this.”
Gently, I assured him that I would be there,
and we headed straight to the hospital before going home.
That time of prayer and anointing and farewell
was one of the most beautiful experiences of my pastoral life.
And the two sons who were with her were
more grateful than they knew to have
the prayers of the church prayed over their mom as she died.

After her service,
the son and his new wife brought over a truckload 
of her clothing and costume jewelry,
donating it to a rummage sale we were having
to raise funds for student ministries.
I bought some of her beautiful and brightly-colored clothes,
including that chartreuse cape,
and put them lovingly in the dress-up box for my grand-girls –
who were yet to be born at the time!

Because, somehow, 
I just knew they would love them. 
And every time, they wrap themselves in
one of her diaphanous gowns,
I smile.
Both of our girls are going to be quite tall, you see.
Both of them are blessed with dramatic,
confident personalities.
And one day soon,
I’ll tell them about my friend,
the one who blew through my life
like a gift on the Wind of God
and graced me with her love.

OF COURSE, I’m joining this one with Jennifer Lee’s God-Incidences meme,
and also with Ann, Duane and Emily – whose amazing book releases TODAY.
If you love someone with an eating disorder, this book is one you should have on your shelf – it is terrific. “Chasing Silhouettes,” by Emily Wierenga
 

 




Filed Under: community, family, God's gifts, Marriage, memoir, personal journey, Santa Barbara, Wonderings in the Word

An African Journey: Post Five – The Very Best Part

September 13, 2012 By
There we were, minding our own business,
getting to know this new country,
these new friends,
this new work . . .
and then the world shifted.
Well, maybe not the entire world,
just our tiny corner of it.
And it took a while to sink in, too.
On the 4th of June, 1967, 
I wrote to my mom and dad and said this:
“I have been feeling lousy the last 2-3 weeks.
Attacks of nausea at odd times, extreme sleepiness
and a late period. I am going to see the doctor next week
to find out what the trouble is. Will let you know the results.” 

What can I say?
I was young and . . . naive? 
Let’s just say it . . . 
I was plain old stupid about the process of reproduction.
Yes, thank you very much, I did know how it happened.
I just didn’t have a clue what happened when it happened.
So . . . stupid?
Yeah, that about covers it.
My mother just laughed hysterically when she read that letter,  
and her diagnosis arrived about the same time the doctor’s did:
you are two months pregnant.
About four months along, sipping a Coke on the Garden Route in South Africa.
My husband’s parents and younger sister came to visit us and took us on a wonderful three week trip to game parks and other beautiful places south of our home. I will write another journal entry about our travels to other parts of Africa while we lived in Zambia.
About 6 months along in these two faded black & white photos.
So. We were pregnant.
DEEP breath.
And so, the thinking and the wondering and the planning
and the gathering began.
My doctor was an American,
a member of the denomination with which we served,
and his work and his hospital were 40 miles away,
over a very, VERY bumpy dirt road, out in the bush.
I saw him three times during my pregnancy.
My everything- you-wanted-to-know-about pregnancy reading was limited, 
to say the least.
A friend who was a nurse had an old ob-gyn textbook,
filled with pictures and descriptions of 
all that can go wrong in pregnancy and delivery.
Lovely.
Fortunately, there were women living in our 
neighborhood who had borne babies before.
In fact, over the next four months,
four other women announced that they, too, were pregnant.
It was an epidemic!
Those of us who were newbies learned from the old hands,
and somehow, we muddled through.
Our baby was due on January 9, 1968,
and I worked as a teacher through the end of the term in
mid-December, grateful for papers to grade,
students to love and exams to prepare.
We found treasures to be repaired and painted,
I created curtains out of fabric bought in our town,
friends sent me maternity clothes and baby clothes
from home, carefully folded into 9×12 envelopes.
Over the next few months,
the reality began to sink in:
we were going to be parents.
Yikes.
January 9th came and went.
January 19th came and went.
My 23rd birthday on January 23rd came and went.
I lay on the bed, weeping, convinced that I would have this oversized basketball in my body for the rest of my life.
At about 6:30 in the morning on Sunday, January 28th,
I woke up with a strong back ache.
I went into our bathroom/laundry room and
sat on the edge of the tub, folding clean towels.
I remember being overwhelmed with
the realization that my life was going to change
forever
by the end of that day.

I was, however, still stupid.
I stood in the middle of the lawn at about 9:30 a.m.,
watching my stomach ripple under my dress,
begging my cross-the-street neighbor 
(who was pregnant with #4) 
to tell me if this could possibly be labor.
She just looked at me and said,
“Diana, get yourself into the car and drive to Macha.”
So that is exactly what we did.
If you ever find yourself wondering how you might speed things along in early labor, I have a suggestion for you.
Find yourself a very bumpy dirt road and drive on it for about an hour.
I guarantee that things will pick up nicely.
We arrived at the hospital about 10:30 in the morning, went to a very nice room with a bath and my husband proceeded to talk to me about our travel plans for the summer, 
when our term of service would be ending.
I think I may have thrown the notebook in his face, 
but I can’t be certain. 
It’s all a bit of a blur.
At about 11:45, they wheeled me into the delivery room. 
Only, it wasn’t really a delivery delivery room,
it was a surgical suite.
The doctor was a thoracic surgeon and he did a whole lot of chest surgery out there in the bush.
They didn’t have a delivery table as such, 
just a surgical table,
and that sucker was hard.
His favorite nurse, who happened to be his wife,
gave me a small mask to put over my face with each
pain, a gas called Trilene.
I had no other medication.
At 12:12, just after noon on a glorious sunny summer day,
Lisa Ruth Trautwein entered the world,
a thick head of dark hair and a great set of lungs
announcing her presence.
And I distinctly remember sitting up on the table and
shouting, “This is fabulous! I want ten of these!”
As I said, stupid.
Sigh.
Winnie Worman, the doctor’s wife and an excellent nurse, holding our 1 day old daughter.
I stayed at the Mission until Thursday, eating in their home. Dick spent the first night with us both and then returned to school on Monday morning to greet his students.
The doctor himself (Robert Worman) with our beautiful girl.
With Winnie and Lisa, outside my room. The government asked them to add 5 private rooms and I got to be in one of them. The entire birthing experience cost us about eight dollars.
We had a rocky first night.
Because my husband was with me, the nursing staff left the three of us alone that night. I very quickly learned how much I did not know about mothering, 
and, once again, how much I did not know about being a woman who carries babies and gives birth.
My baby cried non-stop. Nothing would soothe her.
 And I was more than a little bit weak and wobbly from very normal blood loss that scared and surprised me.
Because, as I’ve said . . . I was terribly uninformed . . . 
Yup . . . stupid.
By 6:00 the next morning, 
I greeted the nurse on duty like a super-hero of some sort. She took one look at our girl and said, 
“Oh, this one loves to suck. I can see it. Try this pacifier.”
Glory be! It worked. From there on, it got easier.
In the picture above, Lisa is about 22 hours old.
I’d been up, showered, shampooed, curlered and combed out, (there were no portable hair dryers in the entire country of Zambia!) and in this picture, I am figuring out how to bathe an 8 1/2 pound human person.
Fortunately, she loved it. . . and so did I.
We brought her home and introduced her to our room and to the space that would eventually be her room.
Dick and I were both ecstatic, overwhelmed with gratitude,
sometimes anxious, but basically simply delighted
to be living with this entrancing creature.
She was, of course, the most precocious child in the history of humankind, smiling at 10 days, laughing big at two months, growing blond hair with dark tips.
Our African students adored her. I think she was the only newborn baby they had ever seen who had longish, straight hair, 
and they loved to touch her, to hold her, to stroke her head.
A Zambian friend loaned me her baby carrier and I used it as a pattern to make this one for Lisa and me.
There were no Ergo carriers in the 60’s.
In fact, American and European parents 
knew nothing about carrying babies on their bodies.
I learned about it from my African friends 
and I used this sling all the time.
From the time of Lisa’s birth until the time we left five and a half months later, I was called Bina Lisa by my African colleagues, most of whose first names I never really knew, as they were always called Bina —- (insert the name of their first-born child). I have been unable to find even one picture of Lisa with our African principal and his wife or with the students who earned pocket money by helping me with my ironing twice a week. (Remember ironing??) They are among a small set of pictures that we haven’t been able to locate as we’ve been scanning old memories into our computer.  But I have strong and happy memories of their warm acceptance of our baby and of the gigantic leap of respect our becoming parents engendered in the attitude of our students toward us.
This was Lisa’s favorite position, hanging upside down, sucking vigorously on that pacifier.
All five new babies near the end of our time in Zambia. 
Lisa was the only girl.
Our next door neighbors, Rosemary and Harry King, holding Lisa at a staff gathering. Harry took the black and white photos you see in this and other of these African Journey posts.

The Kings were from Virginia. Millie and Dave Dyck, our neighbors on the other side – and the parents of Michael, born 2 weeks after Lisa and pictured above and below, were from Canada. He went on to become the head of the Mission Board of the Mennonite Brethren Church in that country.
Michael must have been teasing Lisa to make her pout like that. 
Mom and babe on Easter Sunday, 1968. Is she not the cutest thing ever?? 
(Until her sister and brother were born, of course. To say nothing of all the grandkids…)
We did take a trip on the way home.
But by the time we actually left in June, that trip
had been shortened considerably.
We spent one week in Kenya, visiting some friends who were teaching there, then about 10 days in Switzerland (pictured above) and Germany, visiting my cousin and some friends from UCLA.
We were so smitten with our girl that we wanted to get her back to the arms of our loving families just as quickly as we could. And she was a great traveler, too . . . until our very last flight. From Copenhagen to Seattle, she cried almost the entire way, then settled down as we made the last leg into LAX. 
That little one was just plain done with airplanes.

We were greeted at the airport by grandparents, a great grandmother and a small horde of aunts, uncles and a smattering of cousins. 
It was a deliriously happy time and
I think we brought home the very best souvenir imaginable, don’t you? 

 Becoming a mother changed me in ways that are profound, 
in ways that I cannot articulate.
Carrying, birthing, nursing and tending three small persons is soul work, 
down deep living-life work, sometimes terrifying, always gratifying heart-work.
Meeting Lisa was my introduction to that work
and that meeting took place a long way 
from the only home I had known to that point.
There is a very real sense, however, that birthing her in that wonderful place cemented in my spirit, 
my heart, 
even in my body, 
this truth:
home is not a geographical place 
so much as it is an emotional space,
a spiritual point of connection and commitment.
All of her life, Lisa has been able to say,
“I was born in Africa.”
And we have been able to say,
“Africa was our home.”
And those two things go together.

I will happily join this long story with Jennifer and Duane:
 
And one week later, this will be my first entry in the Parent’Hood synchro blog, joining through Joy Bennett’s blog:



Filed Under: An African Journal, An African Journey, community, family, God's gifts, Home, Marriage, memoir, ministry, personal journey, Photo Essay, Travel, women, Wonderings in the World

Things Change. . . A Mixed Media Post

August 31, 2012 By
Life has gotten interesting of late. And I haven’t had as much opportunity to join with Lisa-Jo as I’d like. But when I saw this week’s prompt, I went to my draft pile and pulled this one up. I started to write it a week ago, to note what feels like a great, big, massive change in our lives – our youngest grandchild will no longer require our weekly care.
Gasp. She begins pre-school next week. How can this be??
So, you’ll see where I began the timed part of this post – and I surprised myself with where I went from there. Isn’t that always the way with 5 Minute Friday?? 
(Pictures added both before and after the 5 minutes!)
Five Minute Friday

Lilly – one-hour old
About 10 months old.
Feeding the bluejays with Poppy.
Tough girl pose – 15 months.
Playing doctor, 18 months.
Sweetness at 22 months.
Just a little uncertainty, also 22 months.
A series of wild-hair shots. Oh, my – yes. About 2 years old.
At her 2nd birthday party.
Under some semblance of control with Aunt Lisa, just past her 2nd birthday.
Lilly at 2 years, 6 months – how can it be?
A little dress-up play, three weeks ago.
Perhaps a cell phone would have been simpler for this little jaunt??
Every Wednesday since June of 2010,
she has come to our house to play.
And eat.
And sleep.
She was four months old when we began,
and I was just weeks out of the hospital,
and more tired than I knew.
So when nap time came,
I would put her down on the bed next to me.
I’d run the TV softly to create a little white noise,
 and sit next to her while she slept,
my computer on my lap.
During those first months,
I would do email,
research for teaching or preaching,
and wonder what the looming world
of retirement would be like.
Since the end of that year,
I’ve used Lilly’s nap time to
read blogs,
check Facebook,
think about posts,
write posts,
and watch her while she sleeps.

START:
Two days ago marked the end of an era for us,
an end to babies.
First there were our own three,
each of them remarkable,
unique,
full of fun and curiosity and determination.
Then those three grew up,
met some pretty amazing partners,
and started having babies of their own.
Three boys from daughter number one –
one, two, three.
Three boys from daughter number two – 
one, two, three.
Loud, rough-and tumble,
some more than others –
wonderful promise of sturdy men to come.
Then, just one month after that last boy,
our boy and his wife had a GIRL.
Glory be.
And nearly four years and one miscarriage later,
another girl.
And now, they tell me, they are done.
Their family is complete.
So.
Will I live to see great-grandbabies?
It’s within the realm of possibility –
our eldest is 21.
But I’m not sure it’s within the realm
of probability.

Everyone waits theses days.
We married young,
had kids while we were kids.
Not so much anymore.
There is education to be gotten,
jobs to be found,
houses to be bought,
lives to be lived.
And that’s all wonderful. . .
but . . .
I wouldn’t change a thing about our journey.
I loved growing up TOGETHER,
hanging on by a shoestring,
having babies before we had the money for them,
and loving every (well, almost every!) minute of it.
So,
change comes.
And we?
We roll with it,
or
it rolls right over us.

STOP.

Maybe I won’t miss this mess every week  . . .

. . . and maybe I won’t miss this weekly menagerie as I tried to get a very sleep-resistant girl to acquiesce . . .

But this?

(at 15 months old)

And this? (last week)

And yes, THIS (two days ago) I will most definitely miss.
She now covers almost the entire bed . . .

. . . and sometimes adjusts herself to make contact, her head on my leg as I type.
Sigh.

Filed Under: 5 Minute Friday, family, memoir, parenting, personal journey, Photo Essay

Sunday Musings

August 27, 2012 By
Just wondering . . .
on a summer Sunday night,
with cool night air drifting in from the door
and sweet worship music on 
the computer.
Just wondering . . .

what comes next?

We’re home this week,
when we thought we’d be gone.
Traveling to the northwest,
to see beautiful country,
and beautiful friends.
But we’re not. 

So here’s a calendar,
suddenly open.
And here’s a body,
more tired than I knew . . .
wondering.

My mom-in-law
began to slip,
 down
and down.
And her daughter had long-laid plans
to be gone.
It didn’t feel right to be gone at the same time,
so here we are.

And really, it’s fine.
We’re relieved not to be packing and unpacking.
We look at each other and wonder –
how come we’re feeling so tired?

When did we get so old?

And that has me wondering. . .
what happens in this culture
as we get old?
We see lots of pictures of
green space,
golf games,
exotic travel,
smiling, silver-haired models
seem to say,
“It’s time to relax,
to enjoy the fruit of your labors,
to remove yourself from the world of work.”

But here’s what I’m learning.

It’s truly difficult to do that.
I love to travel – I do.
But not all the time.

And I love to relax – I do.
But not all the time. 

So, we put our hands to what we find.
My husband, gifted with finance and investing,
sits on boards and committees,
and he manages the money he so carefully
invested for us,
for our moms,
for other family.

He tends this huge yard,

with good professional help. 

He invests himself completely in our grandkids
when they’re around. 

And I?
I sit in my small study which needs sorting.
And I meet with those who are seeking
more of God.

And they teach me far more than
I ever teach them.

 And I tend to family, too.

Ailing mothers, growing grandchildren.

I make spinach salad for 50 at our
first-Sunday-back-to-college student lunch
after church today.

And in, around and through all of that,
 I try to write.
But I’m late to this game,
really late.
And I am also way past the age of most
of my compatriots out here in cyberspace. 

Most of the time, I’m okay with that.
But tonight, I’m feeling out of place,
out of sync,
out of my element.

I’m sure this wondering phase will sort itself out.
And I’m talking to God about it,
in my usual, on-going conversation
with this One who seems both near and far,
surprisingly small,
yet immense.
And right this minute,
I am listening to the song I wrote about 
And the beauty of it pierces,
it pierces through all the wondering,
all the melancholy,
all the feelings of uncertainty 
and ego-centered angst.
Because THIS is the truth – 
and a woman who lived many centuries ago*
wrote these words,
in another tongue,
another place.

But her words, her insights
speak to my soul this night, in this place:

I cannot dance, O Love, unless you lead me on.
I cannot leap in gladness, unless you lift me up.
From love to love we circle, beyond all knowledge grow.
For when you lead, we follow, to new worlds you can show.

Your love the music round us, we glide as birds on air,
entwining soul and body, your wings hold us with care.
Your Spirit is the harpist and all your children sing;
her hands the currents ’round us, your love the golden strings. 

Play me a medley,
play me a song.
Lead me, I am yours.
I cannot dance alone.

O blessed Love, your circling unites us, God and soul.
From the beginning, your arms embrace and make us whole. 
Hold us in steps of mercy, from which you never part,
that we may know more fully the dances of your heart. 

I cannot dance, O Love, unless you lead me on.

*Our Director of Worship Arts, Bob Gross, wrote a lovely melody to go with these powerful words written by Mechtild of Mageburg in the 13th century. This translation was done in 1991 by Jean Wiebe Janzen, but the words in bold are Bob’s addition and serve as a beautiful refrain throughout the piece. Since I first wrote about this beautiful, haunting song, Bob has included it on #5 in a series of self-produced CDs taken from our Sunday worship services. And if you would like to listen to it, follow this link right here and scroll down to number six on the list. Hit the play button and enjoy. (If you use the contact addresses on the home page, you can order CDs for yourself. We are a congregation of about 325 people and apart from Bob, everyone you hear is a volunteer – vocalists, string players, acoustic and electric guitars and bass, piano, wind instruments, percussion – all from within our own community, many of them college students. We are so blessed. SO blessed. Please remember, these are not studio sessions, but live worship recordings.)

I’ll join this with Michelle, Jen, Duane, Ann’s Monday gratitude group – because I am grateful, even for the melancholy times – and maybe with Laura and Laura, though it’s not particularly playful nor is it about a physical place so much as an emotional one.


On In Around button







Filed Under: memoir, Music, personal journey, Sunday Reflections, Wonderings in the World

An African Journal – Post Three: A Living Landscape

August 25, 2012 By
Where we are teaches us a lot about who we are.
I am a Californian, born and bred.
Oceans, mountains, deserts – 
these are in my blood,
part of my psyche.
Cycles of wet and dry,
hot and cold,
sail-filling winds and
soul-slowing stillness –
these are part of me now,
not to be separated out,
placed on a shelf somewhere
like a seldom-read geography tome.
The real geography of this place is part of my soul.
Perhaps that’s why the geography of a different place,
a faraway place,
never felt alien to me.
I ran to it, embraced it, let it fill me up –
as much as a 21-year-old is capable of such rapture.
It was dusty and dry much of the year.
And as a Californian, this look I knew.
But anything short of jungle could grow there,
and grow it did, all over the savannah.
 And all around the edges of our small neighborhood,
with its dirt roads and driveways,
its brick houses, wide-open sky views, flat-topped trees
and all that red clay, just beneath the dust.
Grasses of all kinds flourish in this climate,
turning brown in the dry season,
but bright green when watered by seasonal rains.
The cloud formations were breathtaking,
the ground fog during ‘winter’ was not.
Much like California, we enjoyed three seasons
in Zambia rather than four:
Hot and dry,
warm and wet,
cold and foggy.
 When we first drove onto the campus, we were flabbergasted
to see tall poinsettias – and they bloomed every year,
bringing spots of bright color to the green and brown.
The shady side of our new home encouraged calla lilies and 
coleus in every color combination.
The front yard featured a row of bright coral-colored
flowers I had never seen before –
gerbera daisies,
always twisting toward the sunlight.
 Our campus was completely flat,
making it an ideal space for soccer matches –
a sport new to us in 1966.
My husband learned it well enough to coach it;
neither of us learned to love it.
 We lived about two miles off of the Cape-to-Cairo road,
a main thoroughfare going north and south on the continent
of Africa. Our town of about 2000 was a delightful place,
where something interesting was always bound to happen.
 There was a hospital, a small elementary school,
two general stores,
a butchery,
a bakery
and a small book store,
run by the church we served with.
 Acacia trees graced the southern entry to Choma,
sheltering the post office at that end of town.
And the train stopped in Choma, too.
A steam train – just like the picture on the sign below.
And we rode that train about twice each year,
sleeping overnight,
waking with cinders in our hair and on our clothes.
It was in our local train station, the first week we arrived,
that I had one of the most profound experiences 
of my young life. 
My husband and I got separated for a moment just as a train pulled up. Surrounding us was a veritable sea of Africans,
waiting to meet friends and family 
or to board the train for a new destination.
Every single face around me looked 
different from mine.
Every one.
And like a shot to the gut,
I had just the tiniest inkling of what it feels like
to be the minority – for the first time in my life.
This is an insight that simply cannot be bought,
or even taught,
and I am grateful for it.
The bus stop was right outside the bookstore, 
across the street from the bakery.
Bags and babies hung from every window,
from every baggage strut,
and the energy of a newly born country
poured out into the street.
This is the local police,
and this is the fire department.
There was one house fire in the two years we lived there,
and this team successfully extinguished it.
One of the two banks in town, about to have its
name changed as the nation of Zambia was four years old
at this point. Any reference to its former name 
(Northern Rhodesia) was being eliminated.
Note the drug store next door – called the Chemist.
As a former colony, many Britishisms remained.
A young mom, baby on back, getting ready to cross the street.
I don’t think she had to wait long.
Every once in a while, a touring car would
whiz by, making a stop for supplies or refreshments.
This was a highlight for the local community.
We met Australians, South Africans, Germans 
as they were heading either north or south on the transcontinental highway.
At the other end of the transportion spectrum,
we sometimes saw this coming down the main street.
Cattle were visible signs of wealth in Bantu society.
The Tonga tribe was the main group living in the
southern province, and despite the fact that it was 
officially against the law of the land, 
brides were bought and sold . . .
with cattle – lobola must be paid.
These gentlemen are the tribal elders
and it was their primary job to palaver,
to meet and talk.
Every day. All day. About anything and everything.
I never did get used to that as a know-it-all
20-something.
Looking back as a knows-very-little-indeed 60-something,
I believe this constant communication 
contributed to the well-being of both the 
tribe and the family.
Things got thoroughly talked through
before hostility developed.
This nice looking man was proud to be the owner
of a rifle and he asked me to take this picture.
I was happy to oblige.

We lived at an elevation of just over 4000 feet and it was suggested that at least once a year, 
we travel to sea level to take a break, 
get a little richer oxygen and basically rest up. 
We did that exactly once.
My husband’s parents and younger sister 
visited us the second summer we
were there, and the five of us took a wonderful trip 
which I will write about sometime soon.
But one place we could get to in an afternoon
was about 120 miles south of us.
 From this angle, a peaceful river.
 From this one, a glimpse of why the local people called
this place, “the water that thunders.”
Victoria Falls, one of the wonders of the modern age.
Astounding, spectacular, magnificent – words fail.
Completely fail.
My husband took a truck load of students there on 
a field trip one year.
Not one of them had ever seen it.
Not one.
One hundred and twenty miles.

It is the landscape of a place that gets in under the skin.
The contour of the land,
the shape of the sky,
the colors of the plants and flowers,
the presence – or absence – of water.
And this is a landscape that fed my soul,
that invited me to grow,
that gave me hope,
that taught me about time and seasons 
and hard work and good rest.
This is the landscape in which I became
an adult,
a wife,
a mother,
a more careful critic of the church,
a searcher after God’s deep truth,
and a whole lot less of a know-it-all.
I am grateful.

Joining with Jennifer and Duane, if he’s open this week, 
Emily, if she’s open and Ann’s Wednesday group.
Better late than never, right??

Filed Under: An African Journal, An African Journey, God's gifts, memoir, personal journey, Photo Essay, Wonderings in the World

Our Bending-Low Jesus

August 20, 2012 By
“Our Bending-Low Jesus”
I used this phrase at a friend’s blog today
and somehow it bloomed up in my mind
and came out my mouth 
during my evening walk tonight.
I so easily forget how powerful our story is,
how remarkable.
Maybe it’s the reflection I’ve been doing 
on the Cosmic Christ
the past few months,
 courtesy of my Catholic brothers and sisters.
Maybe it’s the contrast of that image – 
the one I can hardly grasp,
the one that speaks of grandeur,
and Beyond-my-ken,
and Ground-of-Being hugeness –
the contrast of all that
with the picture we have of Jesus
in the pages of the gospel.

Jesus, who bows down in the dirt
and writes grace with his fingertips.
Jesus, who spits on that dirt
and packs it into blind eyes.
Jesus, who gets hungry,
and impatient with the ravages of sin,
and wonders if his friends will ever get it.
Jesus.
Who bends low for us.

My mother is with us for a few days.
And as I walk in the evenings,
I beg forgiveness for the many ways
I miss the mark when I am with her.
Impatience simmers,
sharpness surfaces,
tension rises until the air is heavy with it,
stagnant and fetid.
I am exhausted in ways I can’t even describe – 
weary with worry, I suppose. 
I give her the thrice-a-day medicines,
I make sure she eats and drinks,
I do her small amount of laundry.
Yet so often,
my spirit is twisted,
almost angry about what’s happening to her.
And I do not want to be angry.
She likes to walk out to our side yard,
to the spot where 
I watch from a polite distance,
as the grass is bumpy and she is unsteady.
She bends low, holding her knees,
speaking with words I cannot hear,
touching the metal angel I have placed there,
to mark the spot.
That simple movement is one of the
most achingly sad things I have ever watched.
Mothers should not have to bury their children.
Yet so many do.
So many do.

Mine did. 

Really, Lord?
So much loss!
Her husband, 
her grandson-in-law,
her vision,
her son,
and now . . . 
her mind, too?
How long, O Lord?
How long?
How much, O Lord?
How much? 

There are no answers to these cries,
none that suffice.

Except for this one:

Our bending-low Jesus.
And so I spread all the ugliness out there on the driveway
as I walk in circles in the deepening dusk.
I rue the words just behind my teeth,
the ones that don’t come out,
but want to.
I offer them up, 
I beg for grace and then,
I see him.
Bending down in the dirt, 
he writes my name,
with the words 
forgiven,
forgotten.
And I am bent low.
Pictures:
1. The Risen Christ, on the wall of the chapel 
at the Monastery of the Risen Christ,
San Luis Obispo, CA
2. The angel which marks my brother’s burial site.
3. A station of the cross in the chapel at the Mission Renewal Center,
Santa Barbara CA

Offering this at Michelle’s place, Jen’s Sisterhood and Ann’s gratitude link-up. 
I may not count like she does, but I am deeply grateful nonetheless.
Filed Under: family, memoir, personal journey, Sunday Reflections, The Journey with Mom, worship

An African Journey – Post Two: A Letter to My Younger Self…

August 16, 2012 By

 Standing next to an ant hill somewhere in central Africa, approximately 1966.

Dearest girl,


That’s what you are, you know. You don’t realize that, but I do. Looking back across these years, I see you. I see how very young you are. Twenty-one, newly married, recent college graduate, thrilled to be living your life, to be planning a cross-continental move, to be moving on, moving out, moving away. 

You’re a little bit full of yourself and your university education, especially those three courses in African studies you took that last semester, in preparation for moving across the sea. Three college level courses does not an expert make – believe me, it just does not. But then, you learned that within the first six weeks of moving there, didn’t you? Yes, you learned it the hard way. I guess that’s how all good learning comes, sweetheart. It has to hurt a little to be real.

I look at these old pictures and I know you’re a bit nervous about all that’s happened to you in the last few months. I see a smidgen of uncertainty, a frisson of anxiety. But mostly what I see when I look at your face is this wonderful truth: you are just plain gob-smacked with the freedom you’ve found in being married. 

You and he are on your own – and that feels grand, doesn’t it? You can go anywhere, do anything, be anyone. Of course, there are limits to that, aren’t there? Limits of morality and common decency, which you both hold in high regard. But more than that, there are limits of believing and belonging, limits that you share, that you value, that you try to live. 

Following in the footsteps of the Rabbi from Nazareth has always been part of who you are, for as long as you can remember. Suffering growing pains as a 4-year-old, you told  your Mama one night, “That ol’ Jesus is down in my leg tonight and he’s hurtin’ me!” And you believed that with your whole, small heart. Jesus was there, living your life with  you. 

And walking down that center aisle of the old brownstone church in downtown Los Angeles, late on a Sunday evening the year you turned 11 – saying ‘yes’ to Jesus in front of your community of faith – that was important, significant. And you felt it deep down inside you as you drove home in the backseat of your parents’ car, staring at the street lights. You were filled with wonder that night – and so many nights since. 

Your heart was true that 21st year, this much I know. But I also know that your heart and your mind had a lot of traveling to do in order to communicate well. And then there was the matter of getting what you knew and what you felt to travel down your limbs to your hands and feet. Living what you knew, what you believed, what you began to allow yourself to feel with the truer pieces of yourself – that took years and years, and still isn’t done. No, not done yet.

Our once-a-week dinner with the students at Choma Secondary School.

But here’s what I want to tell you, oh, brave younger self. Here’s how I want to encourage you. You will break out of the mold as you get older and wiser. And you will make a lot of mistakes in that process. But you will also learn and stretch and grow and change and enlarge your heart and your mind and your spirit . . . and it will be wonderful. Difficult, painful, anxiety-filled, marked by loss, watered by tears and tears and tears . . . but wonderful.

You will push three living beings out into the world and love them fiercely. Those three will form you in ways you cannot even begin to imagine now, but count on it – their mark on you will be indelible. 

And while you’re at home, raising them and learning more about that Rabbi you love, you will begin the hard work of questioning much of what you were taught about who you are as a daughter of God, a sister to Jesus. And you will find answers from good people, from faithful people, people who’ve walked the road ahead of you. Some of them will be contemporaries; many will be much older saints, long gone to be with Jesus. 

If you could see me across these years, you might be surprised, maybe even shocked. Life has this way of getting both more complicated and more simple as time passes. Layer upon layer of love and responsibility get added as your family and friendships grow. But at the same time, much that is extraneous and unnecessary gets stripped away, leaving the bare bones beauty of truth, faith, hope, peace, love. 

You cannot see what’s ahead – neither the joy nor the heartbreak. And you can’t really see what’s behind you at this point, either. That takes time and work and self-care and you’re nowhere near that at age 21. You’re too busy living your life to look at it carefully. Give it a little time, however. You’ll start looking. And what you’ll find will surprise you, bring you to tears, fill you with thanksgiving and make you wonder about a lot of things. 

It will take time and scrutiny to understand the impact of an alcoholic grandfather on your mother and her parenting of you. It will take time and patience to look at the steely-eyed pressure your grandmother put on your father and how his reaction to that made a difference in you and your own family circle growing up. These things take time, they take maturity. But you’ll get there. You’ll always be getting there, honey. Count on it. 

Because that’s what this life is about. Truly, it is. We’re here to become human, to become the person we were designed and created to be – in a word, to look more and more like Jesus. And back then, you only had glimpses of all that, which was exactly how it should have been. Now, at this end of these years, I can say with gratitude that goes deep as the Marianas Trench – it’s all grace. Because it is, dear one. It is.

Love you – more and more,

Your older, wiser, creakier Self

Waiting for the bride at my nephew’s wedding, April 2012

Delighted to be re-joining Bonnie over at Faith Barista, whose prompt this week was a letter to our younger self. I’ll also check in with Emily at Canvas Child.

Filed Under: An African Journal, An African Journey, family, God's gifts, memoir, personal journey, Wonderings in the World
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