Writing — Page 3

Psssst. . . A Sneak Peek at Something Grand!

September 17, 2012 By Diana

Have you ever had a dream?

A crazy, wild, hold-your-breath,

jump-off-a-cliff,

and-hope-and-pray-for-the-best

kind of dream?

One that you’re pretty sure came from God,

but sorta scares you to death?

My friend Deidra Riggs had exactly that

kind of dream . . .

and she is doing something about it.

Beginning October 1st,

Early-Bird registration will open

for a wonderfully-wild-and-wooly retreat designed

to encourage women of faith in the blogging world.

It will be held April 19-21, 2013 just outside of Omaha, Nebraska

This picture header from the new retreat website

doesn’t really fit on my blog page,

but I think it will give you an idea of some of the folks

who are going to be there.

And they’re going to be there in order

to encourage all who come to dream big dreams.

If you’d like to take a peek at the website (currently under construction), just click on this sentence and head on over to look around!

As the website nears completion, here are some important details to keep in mind as you think and pray about attending. Details like – dates, cost, and a peek at the retreat center. Clicking on that sentence up there will let you read about the speakers/leaders and the Big Dream ideas that will be the thematic thread of our time together. I am excited! And I’m honored to be there as a Pastor-in-Residence. Any opportunity to become Real Life Community is a gift. And this one is a doozy.

Early bird registration will begin October 1 and run through October 6.
The retreat will take place April 19-21, 2013.
Early bird tickets will be $249 and will include a retreat pass, two nights lodging, and five meals.
Regular price tickets (purchased after October 6) will be $299.
A day pass will also be available for those who may live nearby and choose not to stay at the retreat center. The cost for a day pass is $99 (early bird) and $139 (regular price) and will include lunch and dinner on Saturday.
Ashland, NE is a 30-minute drive from the Omaha airport. We will provide a shuttle from the airport to the retreat center.
The retreat will be held at the Carol Joy Holling Conference and Retreat Center. Here’s a link: http://www.cjhcenter.org/the-sjogren-center
Optional “Be Brave” activities will include the ropes course and zip line, under the supervision and direction of Retreat Center staff members. Participants can add this activity as one of their breakout sessions for an additional $10.
The event is designed to be casual, cozy, and small — we’re planning for about 60 overnight participants, with a possibility of up to 100 total (including those who choose a day pass)

Filed Under: Blogging, God's gifts, personal journey, Spiritual Formation, Writing, Writing Retreats

Dear Me. . . a letter to my teen-aged self

September 13, 2012 By Diana

Emily Freeman is one of my favorite writers out here in blogland. And she’s just released her 2nd book, this one aimed at teen-aged girls. It’s called “Graceful.” So as part of that celebration, she has invited others to write a letter to their teen-aged selves. Here’s her button – and you can get any one of 17 versions of this over at her site.

We’re all linking up on Friday at Emily’s blog, Chatting at the Sky.

Hello sweet girl,

Somewhere between this fresh-faced 11-year old, on the cusp of the dreaded junior high school experience, the one with the barrettes in her hair and the sweet smile on her face . . .

. . . and this curly-haired (how on earth did that happen??), Peter-Pan-collared, 16-year-0ld high school student who is wearing just a little too much lipstick, I think maybe we lost a few things.

And here, I am, on the other end of this long life of ours, trying to help us find them again.

So to you, my just-barely-pre-adolescent-self, the one in the barrettes, I want to say this: your family moved that year, the year right before Junior High school, you moved to a brand new community, a brand new school. You left behind the only school you’d ever known, the one on Strathern Street in North Hollywood. The one where you had two outstanding teachers who were men. And the one in 5th grade? Mr. Naismith? Yeah, that one. He told you and your mother, when you were both standing there together at the school open house, he said that you were a writer. A really imaginative, gifted writer.

And you didn’t believe him.

You felt shyly proud, but you really couldn’t quite grab hold of it. So hear me, please: believe him. And write like crazy, will you? Because if you don’t, that piece of you will be lost for a long, long time – the imaginative piece. And that, my dear, was one of the best parts of you before that move, before adolescence hit like a hurricane and made you disdainful of all things fanciful.

And you up there, the one with the artificially curly hair? The one in the collar? I see that face that can’t quite look into the camera, and I know how much you hate so many parts of yourself. Really, truly hate them. And that is because you’ve seen how your mother frets over you. And all her worries, her fears, her misguided thoughts, her anxiety-based worldview – that’s all becoming part of you. And it’s going to take you years and years to try and separate yourself from all those pieces of self-hatred.

What you don’t know is this: all that angst you soaked in through your skin, the stuff your mom fairly breathed into you? It was really, truly about her and not about you. It was her own deep-seated insecurities that made her hover and wring her hands and give you home permanents that never worked right, and tell you not to walk like a duck, and drag you from doctor to doctor trying to find a remedy for your congenitally difficult skin, and then when you were sixteen and absolutely perfect (yes, you were — look at the pictures!) she took you to a ‘diet doctor’ and put you on pills, for heaven’s sake.

She never meant it to happen, but it did. You were screwed up for the rest of your life in some ways, sweetie. Metabolism messed with, your relationship to food permanently corrupted, and really life-twisting anxieties taking stubborn root inside.

This is a portrait you had taken right after you started at UCLA at the very tender age of 17 because your actual senior picture from high school was dreadful, even after two sittings. Did you see yourself well when you were this age?

Not very often, I don’t think.

So I guess my number one bit of advice to you at sweet-sixteen is this one: move out from under your mother’s fears and just be yourself, your own weird and wonderful self. Proudly!

You are a smart girl, kiddo. You know that with part of yourself. You’re in the gifted classes and the other kids think you’re a bit of a nerd. And you are.

Doing something silly for a church event, because that’s where you always, always were as a 16-year-old – at church, doing all kinds of things. And occasionally, some of them were silly.

But believe me, that smart stuff is really going to work out great for you. Yes, it is. In fact, I’d like to encourage you to relax into it. It’s a gift of God, one you don’t fully appreciate and that your mom is a little afraid of (“The boys won’t like you if you’re smarter than they are.”) But it will serve you well.

There is this, though: being smart is not all there is. In fact, it’s not even the best of all there is. And there is a very big piece of you that knows this truth, too. In fact, that’s why you decided to join all those choirs in high school, even though you had to audition and that scared the bejeebers out of you.

Because in those marvelous choral classes, you got to be one of the singers, not one of the brainiacs. And that was a very good thing for you to experience. So good that you’re going to do it for a whole lotta years and every one of those years will be rewarding and rich and will touch the part of yourself that is creative and artistic. So, sing loudly when asked. Say yes to the duets and eventually the solos. Because it’s really good to do something that requires you to face into your fears. Something that helps you learn just a little bit more about trust.

Because, dear girl, that’s going to be the center of your journey for a long, long time: learning to trust. Learning to trust yourself and your instincts, learning to trust your husband and your children, and most of all, learning to trust that God is for you, not against you. No.Matter.What.

You’re going through the motions so well, dear one. And you’re learning so much in that head of yours . . . so much. You’re a leader in your church youth group, you fervently read your Bible and pray for a long list of people. You help at home and never break the rules. You are a very, very good girl.

But you’re beginning to experience some pretty deep questions about life and about faith, about relationships and about family. And if I could tell you anything, I would tell you this: lean into all those questions. Keep on asking them, without fear that you’ll fall of the edge of the earth and into some sort of cosmic lake of fire. Because this is the truth: God is so much bigger. SO.MUCH.BIGGER than you can think or imagine.

God is way bigger than your doubts, your fears, your inhibitions, your insecurities. And this? THIS is what I truly want to say to you —

God believes in YOU.

Yes, you heard me right. God made you, crafted you with love, calls you by name. God will walk with you through all that is to come – all the great stuff and all the terrible stuff, all the beautiful and all the ugly, all the terrifying and all the satisfying. So . . .

write it all down,

come out from under your mother’s fear-soaked shadow,

don’t be scared of all the Big Thoughts you’re having,

and, most of all,

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart….” for God will “direct your paths.”

And you are going to be SO surprised where God’s path takes you.

Love to you from . . .

YOU, all growed up at age 67

P.S. Some of those pathways God will take you down? They’re going to be grand fun!

FRIENDS: If you’d like to know more about Emily Freeman’s book, click on this line right here to read all about it.

I’m also joining this with Emily Wierenga, Ann Voskamp, and the SDG at Jen’s place, if it’s not too late:

Filed Under: God's gifts, personal journey, synchro blogs/blog hops, Writing

5 Minute Friday – Graceful

September 8, 2012 By Diana

Late to the party, but hopefully, not too late. Lisa-Jo issues a weekly 5-minutes-by-the-clock writing prompt and I’ve loved joining in whenever I can. This weeks prompt has been sitting in the back of my fuzzy, aging brain for 24 hours now and maybe, just maybe, something might come out these fingertips as I let my mind go. It’s always fun to try this, so I encourage you to hop over to Lisa-Jo’s beautiful, encouraging blog and check out the other party animals – there’s a whole lotta them.

GRACEFUL

GO:

I used to think about gracefulness like this:

delicate,

beautiful,

breakable,

fragile,

hold-your-breath-watch-in-awe.

But the longer I’ve lived,

the more people I’ve come to love,

the wider my world has become,

the less those words seem to apply to what

graceful

is really all about.

My husband plays tennis,

really, really well.

And he is graceful when he does.

Strong,

swift,

accurate,

powerful,

concentrated.

My grandchildren play a wide variety of games,

engage in fascinating conversations with one another,

and broaden their thinking and their horizons with

every passing year.

They are

open,

eager to learn,

generous with their encouragement,

quick to laugh,

lit from the inside with life.

So I wonder.

All my life, I have felt entirely graceless.

I am physically uncoordinated,

cannot play a sport to save my life,

am large and carry too many pounds,

and feel like an elephant in

most situations.

But maybe, maybe…

grace is not about how I move

or even how I look.

Maybe grace is about

strength,

courage,

adaptability,

openness,

honesty,

commitment,

being able to laugh out loud

at myself,

at life,

at the wonder of it all.

And if that’s true,

then graceful

is attainable.

Graceful

gift

and

reward.

Graceful

is how we grow in life

in faith,

in wonder,

in delight,

in the fear of the Lord.

STOP

My husband inadvertently interrupted me, so this might have gone about 1 minute over the time…

Filed Under: 5 Minute Friday, personal journey, Writing

Entering the Home Stretch. . . A New Place to Write

September 6, 2012 By Diana

This is where I am who I am – in the middle of my family.

With my partner of almost 47 years, our three adult children and their partners,

and our eight grandchildren, ranging in age from 2 to 21 years of age.

I found an invitation in my email inbox last week.

One that surprised me, pleased me and humbled me.

One of my favorite ‘found’ websites, in these 18-20 months of

exploration, reading, commenting and blog-writing,

is called A Deeper Story: Tales of Christ and Culture.

A variety of people write monthly essays there on a wide variety of topics.

They don’t always agree with one another,

they don’t always write things with which I agree.

But they always write things that I value –

honest, searching posts,

filled with questions,

reflections on the beauties and the pain of life,

honest admissions of failure,

invitations to re-think old patterns and prejudices.

About a week ago, there was a cryptic remark on Facebook

about changes coming to this site.

That made me nervous.

Then I read a little further,

and I saw that there was going to be MORE

rather than less of what I loved.

The invitation I got was to become a part of that more.

A Deeper Story is now a 3-channel website.

The original tribe continues to write under the original banner,

with the creative and capable leadership of

dreamer-extraordinaire, Nish Weiseth,

and two new groups have been added to the flagship –

A Deeper Church,

edited by Seth Haines.

And

A Deeper Family,

edited by Megan Tietz,

co-author of my favorite new book on parenting

entitled, “Spirit-Led Parenting:

From Fear to Freedom in Baby’s First Year.”

(I’ve given away three copies so far!)

My surprise invitation came from Megan at A Deeper Family.

Since I am undoubtedly a complete stranger to most of this site’s readers, I decided to try and introduce myself with my first monthly contribution.

And the essay you’ll find there today is what

came to me when I tried to think about

who I am right now,

at the age I am,

the stage I am,

the place I am.

I am entering the home stretch,

and this is how I hope (I pray!)

this last part of the journey plays itself out…

You can read it by clicking here, right here on this line.

I’d be honored if you click over and read. . .

Filed Under: Guest Post, personal journey, Writing

The Saving Grace of Work

August 30, 2012 By Diana

This post was originally written almost exactly one year ago in response to an invitation from Charity Singleton for a High Calling Blog Hop. I’m reposting it today for Ed Cyzewski’s week of blogposts on “A Hazardous Faith,” the title of a recently released book he co-authored. This particular post is actually more about a long-term season of struggle in the life of our family – both my immediate family and our church family. And it speaks to the role of my pastoral work as an anchor and strong center during that tumultuous time. Because, let’s face it – LIFE is hazardous – that is just a fact. And following Jesus in the midst of it somehow manages to both add to and subtract from the riskiness of it all. We are never promised sunshine and roses when we choose to place our feet in the shadow of the Rabbi, no matter what the televangelists might tell you. We are not rescued from life and its losses. Rather, we are invited into a relationship that makes those losses easier to navigate, a relationship that never ends and never fails.

2009 was most definitely not my favorite year.

Come to think of it, 2008 and 2007 were pretty rotten, too.

And 2006 and 2005 were not a whole heckuva lot better.

At times, it felt as though we were riding a dangerously out of control roller coaster, careening from side to side, tilting on one very narrow edge as we rounded some treacherous turns and corners.

My dad died at the beginning of this long stretch of tough stuff, a rugged dying, leaving my mom both exhausted from care-giving and desperately lonely for her partner.

My husband was diagnosed with prostate cancer about two months later, enduring painful and debilitating surgery and still in recovery mode during a long-planned anniversary trip to France soon after.

Our son-in-law was applying for long-term disability, literally fading away before our eyes. His wife, our eldest daughter, was beginning an education process that would give her a master’s degree and special ed certification in 12 months. Their three boys were struggling to find their bearings in this new universe.

Our middle daughter’s 3rd boy was born in distress, tiny and in the NICU for 5 days. Our daughter-in-law needed a slightly dicey C-section for her first-born, just weeks after her cousin’s difficult entry into the world.

My youngest brother landed in the ER with a severe leg infection, requiring a long list of care-giving efforts from me, my other brother and our mom. This illness began a long, downward spiral of long-missed diagnoses, homelessness, sober living residences, heart surgery and eventually, sudden death in 2009.

Our son-in-law entered the last year of his life with multiple hospitalizations, serious complications of a wide variety, and a miraculous six-month respite, giving us all some memories that were lovely and lasting. That year, 2008, ended with a devastating pneumonia that took his life in a matter of hours.

And the next year, our beautiful town was hit by wildfires – two times – requiring evacuation from home and church, plunging our worshiping community into emergency mode for months on end.

As I said, it was an unbelievably difficult few years.

And every week, except for vacations and emergencies, I went to work. Many people wondered why. Why do you want to step into other people’s difficult situations? Why do you want to visit the sick? Why do you want to write Bible study lessons? Why do you still want to preach in the rotation? Why do you want to lead in worship? Why? Haven’t you got enough on your plate already?

I don’t know that I can fully answer that question.
But I will try to write a coherent list of possible reasons in this space:

work grounded me;
work reminded me I was not alone;
work taught me about community;
work provided an external focus;
work brought at least the illusion of order
to my terribly disordered world;
work kept me from drowning;
work brought relief from the weight of worry that
was an almost constant companion;
work allowed me to stay in touch with the
creative parts of me as well as the care-giving parts;
work gave me a different place to look,
a different place to reflect,
a different space in which to be me –
the me that was called and gifted and capable.
As opposed to the me that was helpless,
impotent and
overwhelmed.

Work was something I could do,
something I could manage,
something I could control – within limits.
My life was spinning frantically out of control,
at least out of my control,
heading down deep and dark crevasses that terrified me.
Work was more easily containable,
expectations were clear,
contributions were valued.
Work was grace for me during that long,
long stretch of Job-like living.

Work was a gift,
a gift of God to a weary and worried woman.
It allowed me room to breathe,
it provided me with commitments I could keep,
it brought me into contact with people who
could actually use what I had to offer.
And it brought me into contact with people
who could bear me up,
who could tend my gaping wounds,
who could be as Jesus to me,
even as I tried to be as Jesus to those
I loved most in this world.

I did not do any of it perfectly.
Lord knows, that isn’t even possible
and it surely wasn’t true.

My body let me know how big the load had become last year, when it was my turn to enter the hospital and begin round after round of medical appointments.

The end of 2010 brought the end of my work life. I have missed it at times. But I am discovering that even in the lack of structure and schedule of these first months of retirement, God is underneath. And around and in between. Just as God has always been.

I don’t completely understand why this truth is true, I just know this: the gift and grace of work helped me to see and to know God’s presence when the roller coaster was tilting crazily. And somehow, we’re still here, clinging to the sides of the coaster car, doing our very best to enjoy the ride.

Please check out the other posts being offered today in this busy week of commentary on a powerful topic. Here is a link to today’s page at Ed’s blog.
And while you’re there, why not order a copy of Ed’s new book?
He is a great guy, a talented writer and editor and he has a brand new baby boy.
Go on, make his day.

(Sorry, Ed, I couldn’t make the banner work.)

Filed Under: death, Ed Cyzewski's Synchroblog, hope, personal journey, Wonderings in the World, Writing

An African Journal – Post One: Beneath the Surface

August 11, 2012 By Diana

With this post, I am beginning what I hope will be a series of reflections and rememberings about a formative part of my life and journey as a Jesus follower – the two years we spent living in Zambia in the 1960’s. As I’ve noted elsewhere on this blog, one of my primary purposes in writing here is to have a record for my grandchildren, most especially my two young granddaughters, a record that tells a little about who I am and how I got here. I so wish I had something like this from my own grandparents! I am deeply grateful to my grandson Joel Fischinger for scanning our 500 slides from that time so that I can access them for these pages.

The VW Kombi bus labored a bit as it climbed the hill just before the border crossing. Before us spread the great savannah of central Africa, dotted with trees and brush that were strange to our eyes, yet oddly reminiscent of our southern California home.

This label made us giggle. Yes, it was a BIG tree – a baobab tree.

I look at these pictures and think, “We were such babies!” I was 21, he was 24.

“Look! What’s that?” I cried from the passenger seat.

“Honey, don’t tell me to look over there,” my new husband begged, with the beginnings of a quaver in his voice. “I can barely manage to keep this thing in the lane!” After all, he was driving on the right side of the car and the wrong side of the road.

“Just slow down a little bit and look over there to the left,” I continued. “Do you see what I see?”

“Give me a sec,” he agreed, slowing the bus just a little. “Wow! What the heck is that?”

“Look, look, look! It’s a whole tribe of baboons! Slow down, oh, please! Slow down!”

We were too startled to pull out our tiny, square-format Kodak 126 camera when those baboons traipsed across the road in front of us. But here are two unrelated pictures of two different kinds of monkeys we saw at later dates.

And he did, mouth agape, startled to see an entire troupe of 50-60 monkeys serenely crossing the road right in front of us. Mamas carrying babies, larger males, young adults – the whole extended family was there – scampering, to be sure – but unafraid of us or our vehicle.

“Holey moley, honey! We are not in Kansas anymore!”

“You’re not kidding. I can’t believe it! Did that really just happen?”

We had traveled far to be in that van on a sunny Monday morning: California to Brooklyn by car, Brooklyn to Capetown by freighter, Capetown north through Rhodesia in a van to be shared with other missionaries, yet to be met. We were on our way to Zambia, a land completely unknown to us, a land that would be our home for the next two years.

Married just 8 months before, we were young, idealistic and ready for adventure. It was the mid 1960’s and the escalating war in Vietnam brought deep soul-searching for many men of draft-able age. My husband had a unique up-bringing which led to an unusual choice, a choice which took him far away from the jungles of Southeast Asia.

“The draft” had been part of American life since the early years of WWII and the nation was heaving with discontent as the war in Southeast Asia continued to escalate. A saving grace in the draft process was the option to register as a 1-W – a person “opposed to bearing arms by reason of personal religious conviction.”

And that’s exactly what my husband had done. Raised as a pacifist, with family members on both sides vehemently opposed to killing for any reason, he had registered as a conscientious objector (CO) when he turned 18. He knew that meant two years of service offered in lieu of joining the military.

My husband wanted to do those two years somewhere far from home, somewhere that would require an element of sacrifice on his part, somewhere that the cause of peace could be served in a practical, hands-on way. Every 1-W during those years was drafted. Most of them chose to work within the continental US for their two years, but he wanted something different.

The school that would be our home and workplace from 1966-68.

And that’s what brought us to the center of Africa. Working with the Mennonite Central Committee, we would teach at a boarding school in the small town of Choma. The school itself was run by two denominations – my husband’s and one other, even more conservative in both dress code and theology. Given his own life experience, my husband had more than an inkling of what our life might be like.

I, on the other hand, had never heard of a CO before I fell in love with my husband. Intrigued by the idea – and thrilled at the possibility of a cross-cultural adventure – I was eager to unpack, settle in and get to work. Both of us were committed followers of Jesus, we just came to that place down very different roads.

The small town of Choma, about 2 miles from our campus by bicycle or Kombi-bus. I’ll write more about Choma in later posts.

And now we were driving 1400 miles north on the Cape to Cairo road, blithely unaware of what was ahead of us. Two fifty-gallon oil drums crammed to the top with wedding gifts – waiting to be opened and sorted; a campus and a town waiting to be navigated; new neighbors waiting to be met.

And most of those looked a whole lot different than I did.

Our home for those two years – cinder-block to distract the termites, 3 bedrooms and electricity most of the time. FAR nicer than the tiny 1-bedroom apartment we lived in while I finished at UCLA.

“Did you see how many of these women are wearing prayer bonnets?” I asked plaintively as we took a walk around our new, small neighborhood.

“And look at the length of those skirts! Wow, do I feel out of place! Who in their right minds wears long sleeves in weather like this?”

“Well, it is a little more ‘cloistered’ than I thought it might be. On the west coast, we don’t see as many with this sort of Amish look. But relax, sweetheart. I don’t want you to look like these women – I want you to be you.”

We moved into a house that had been inhabited by missionaries on furlough. They planted this HUGE garden, which to my very young and inexperienced eyes looked overwhelming. We managed to keep much of it alive and put up 40 jars of tomato juice our first month on site.

Momentarily mollified, I fingered the pearls at my neck. They had been a gift from Dick on the day of our wedding and I loved them. Somehow, touching them from time to time brought back happy memories of that day and of the courtship that led to it.

I had always considered myself to be on the conservative side – modest in dress, wearing only a little make-up, hard-working and committed to my faith.

But here?

Here, I was a wild-eyed liberal, a hussy who colored and cut my hair, who wore sleeveless shirts and skirts at the knee. And jewelry. I wore jewelry.

What in the world had I gotten myself into?

A staff Thanksgiving celebration, near the end of our time there.

“What’s this?” I asked my husband several weeks later, fingering a letter from the local denominational bishop.

“Um…well…,” he stuttered, dreading the reaction he knew was coming. “It’s a list. A list of things you are not to do.”

“A what? A list of laws? Are you kidding me?” And I burst into tears. For the first time in our nearly two months away, I was desperately homesick.

Dick folded me into his arms, sighing into my hair – my short, artificially colored hair – and held me while I sobbed.

Between hiccoughs and tears, I sputtered, “Are they really serious? I can’t wear my wedding pearls, even just to the staff gatherings? I can’t wear ANY make-up? I have to cover up my arms and lengthen my skirts?”

Slowly, I calmed down and began to let the shock dissipate a bit. Dick kept apologizing and patting my back, trying to assure me that I was fine, just FINE exactly as I was.

And slowly, I began to believe him.

“You know what? This is not going to work for me. At all. The jewelry thing – I get not wanting to look ‘rich’ in front of the students. I get that. But at Bible study, off campus, with just staff? I will wear my pearls once in a while, whether he likes it or not.”

“That’s my girl!” Dick smiled.

“And I’ll try to talk to the bishop about what I believe, about how I know and experience Jesus and see if we can maybe meet in the middle. What do you think?”

“I think maybe our friend the bishop has met his match in you. And I’ll go with you to that meeting.”

It was not the most comfortable 45 minutes of my life, but that meeting helped cement in my spirit the importance of being open to a wide variety of faith expressions within the Christian community. We both gave a little space to the other – I would not wear jewelry or sleeveless dresses in the classroom. He would not complain if I wore my pearls to Bible study or dressed more casually at home or in town.

Over the next two years, we lived in community well. A new bishop arrived, one with a few less concerns about dress code. And a few women actually cut their hair short and began wearing lighter-weight clothing, with shorter sleeves and hemlines.

I grew up a little and began to see beneath the prayer coverings and the pinafore-style dresses and sensible shoes. To see the tender hearts and deep commitment of these neighbors who were fast becoming friends.

They introduced me to Pennsylvania Dutch cooking; I introduced them to homemade flour tortillas and ground beef tacos. We laughed, we loved our students, we commiserated over the obstacles in their way and celebrated their accomplishments. We realized that not one of us had it all figured out – and that God loved us all anyhow.

And I was never homesick again.

We arrived the end of August, had that meeting with the bishop in mid-October and celebrated our first wedding anniversary in December. One of our new friends baked us this cake and we had a lovely evening celebrating together.

Because this is an exercise in ‘playing’ with my past story, I’ll be connecting these posts with Laura Boggess’s invitation to a Playdate with God and with Laura Barkat’s In, On and Around Mondays. Also joining with the sisterhood at Jen’s place and a new one to me, Hazel Moon’s “Tell Me a Story”:

Filed Under: An African Journal, An African Journey, Family/Travel, memoir, personal journey, photography, Wonderings in the World, Writing

The TSP Book Club: Taking Heart

June 22, 2012 By Diana

She lied.

It turns out we ARE supposed to read these morning pages.

Well, I’d love to see her try and read mine,

paltry though they may be.

I can’t read them – that’s how bad my handwriting truly is.

We’re talking big-time scribbling here.

Big-Time.

Well . . . I can read . . . a little.

And, as much as it pains me to admit this,

I think she just might be onto something

with these dang pages.

I’m still not very faithful about it.

I am keenly aware that

the Rebellious Resistor is still around.

But . . .

what I can decipher is just the teensiest bit interesting.

It does appear that I have successfully vented on occasion.

And I do see some recurring ideas/insights/areas of concern:

I am distracted by my mother’s health;

I am distracted by the number of interruptions

made by people that I care about a great deal;

I am laden with guilt simply because

I’m trying to listen to that Voice that moves me to take fingers to keyboard and WRITE.

A lot of issues from long ago are rising

and in not very pretty ways.

Things I thought I had already worked through

are making their presence known with a vengeance.

It’s beginning to feel like an epic battle some days:

I struggle to learn more about how to get these words,

these words that are wrestling within my spirit,

to flow down my arms and out my fingertips.

And as I struggle, I find old enemies,

recently revived.

Enemies like these:

assuming personal responsibility

for the happiness of others;

carrying personal guilt whenever

said others are unhappy;

fighting the call of God (and muse?)

to stillness and solitude;

choosing to do almost anything but what I say I want to do;

resorting to ‘loud’ and nasty name-calling inside my head,

about 95% of which is aimed directly at . . . me.

So.

I am slowly working through the tasks listed at the end of chapter 9, the one titled:

“Recovering a Sense of Compassion.”

I’d like to tell you that I’m doing them with enthusiasm.

I’d like to tell you that I’m doing them with alacrity.

But I can’t do that.

Instead, I can tell you that I am,

at this moment,

attempting to do these two things with

sincerity and honesty:

Take Stock.

and

Take Heart.

And I’m also trying to give myself a little bit of credit.

Maybe, if I do that,

that stubborn ol’ Resistor will relent a bit.

I remain ever hopeful.

Only one rose blooming in my yard this week,

but it was a doozy.

I’m sure there’s an application there somewhere.

Adding this to the list over at TweetSpeak Poetry as we’re working our way through Julia Cameron’s, “The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity.”

Next week we finish – if I survive that long! – and do THREE chapters.

I have yet to begin. Oy vey.

Filed Under: Book Club, personal journey, Writing

The Gift of a Good Dad

June 15, 2012 By Diana

We were late for dinner and I was struggling to finish getting dressed to join my husband, his parents and his sister who were traveling with us, each of them now patiently waiting for me to put myself together. I took a deep breath, and quickly pulled out a beautiful crystal borealis necklace, one of my favorite pieces of jewelry during those late years of the 1960’s. As I attempted to join the clasp behind my neck, the thread snapped, sending the beads rolling like wild things, straggling into every corner of our hotel room.

And I burst into tears.

I was about four months pregnant at the time. And I was 14,000 miles away from our home in California and about 1500 miles away from the temporary home my new husband and I had created at Choma Secondary School in Zambia. There are all kinds of understandable, even semi-rational reasons for this sudden outburst.

But the real reason for those sobs was this one: those beads were a 20th birthday gift from my dad, the last gift he gave me as a single woman, as the daughter of his house.

I loved those beads because they were beautiful. But most of all, I loved them because Daddy gave them to me.

He did that every year. For each of the years I lived with my parents, I received a special birthday gift from my father, something that he picked out, just for me. And I always, always loved whatever it was. I remember a sweet, small figurine of a January birthday girl. I remember perfume, and dainty handkerchiefs and fancy writing paper.

And I remember those beads.

But most of all, as this Father’s Day approaches – the 7th one I have lived without my dad here – I remember how much he loved me. The longer I live, the more hard stories I hear, the deeper my appreciation for that central truth, for that gift.

Nearly 50 years after my birth, my dad wrote me a special letter. A good friend had organized what she called a “Clearness Committee,” a group gathered for the purpose of discerning God’s will for another. I had just finished four years in seminary and was seeking the Lord’s guidance about what might come next.

Anita wrote to about 30 people who knew me well, asked them to write me a note of encouragement, noting the particular gifts of God they saw in me. That was a wonderful, humbling and deeply encouraging experience at a time in my life when I felt both exhausted and uncertain. One paragraph out of all those lovely letters stood out for me, a paragraph written by my dad:

“On the day you were born, I took one look at you and learned who God is. If God could give me something so wonderful, He could give me other things I needed in my life – self-confidence, for example, and the ability to face up to life’s challenges. He has used you in my life ever since.”

When these words arrived in my mailbox, I was stunned. My father was a kind, good and gentle man, but he was not what might be called effusive. He was very quiet, seldom speaking. Yet whenever he did speak, everyone listened. He was extremely smart (he co-authored a statistics textbook – yikes!) Perhaps even more importantly, he was also wise. And quite funny, when he wanted to be! I always knew that he loved me deeply, but he seldom told me so with words. Certainly not with written words. So the typewritten note in the photo above is a treasured possession. I took it out today, just to read it one more time.

There is also another letter in the photo, this one handwritten rather than typed, scribbled in haste in my dad’s inimitable quirky handwriting. After Dad died in 2005, his older sister gave it to me. My father had written it to her and my Uncle Bob about four days after I was born.

I want to type it out here as a testimony to the amazing, strong-from-birth bond we enjoyed. I also want to remember, and to note in this public space, who Ben K. Gold was in 1945 – a guy too skinny to be accepted into any branch of the armed services, so he taught cadets at a military academy in San Diego. He brought my mom there after their wedding in 1941 and I was born four years later. This little epistle is dated 1/27/45 and it says a lot about my dad’s personality and the terror and the joy that surround the birth of a first-born child. It also speaks to how times have changed:

Dear kids:

I’ve been trying for 3 days to get to giving you the details but got so behind I just haven’t sat down except to write Mom once.

I was going to wire you but Mom suggested she do it and I let her as I had others to call and was having trouble getting the operator.

I have just come from the P.O. with the bond you sent. I won’t try to tell you how we appreciate both the gift and the thought. It was certainly unexpected and a very thoughtful thing to do.

I am still walking around in the clouds. Boy, there’s nothing like it. Well, I’ll try and give you an outline of last Tues:

9:00 AM I start teaching Solid Geometry
9:20 AM Capt. Parker (who lives upstairs) meets me at the classroom door and says, “You better go home. I think you’re going to be a father.”
9:20:10 I get home.
9:21 I get my wind back and ask Ruth what happened.
9:25 I phone the Doc; he is out so I wait while the nurse gets him and phones back with the message, “Dr. Graham says for you to take her to the hospital.”
9:45              I return home and we get ready.
10:00           We leave.
10:30            Arrive in hospital, pay bill & kill an hour while they get Ruth ready & put her in bed.
11:30             I find Ruth in bed. Now for the wait. No pains as yet. (The signal to go was a slight menstrual flow.)
12:30             I go out for a sandwich. It certainly was uninteresting.
2:30               Pains start slightly every 4 minutes.
4:20               Pains getting slightly stronger.
6:00               I go out for a tasteless bite of dinner.
7:00               Pains getting stronger.
7:30               Peraldehyde administered, Ruth in a semi-coma from now on.
8:55 Nurse kicks me out & Ruth goes to delivery room. I go down hall to waiting room.
9:20 I hear a baby cry & get excited. I hear another & get scared. I hear a 3rd & get panicky. Finally I find out it’s feeding time & they woke up the whole floor.
9:30    I start thinking unimaginable thoughts. Whew!
9:39    Diana Ruth Gold arrives. 8 lb. 12 oz., 21 inches long.
10:00    I am informed I have a daughter & both are doing well.
10:00:01    I practically pass out.
10:15 I see doctor & am assured everything is O.K. First look at Di.
10:20    I find out weight, etc.
10:25    Phone calls.
11:00    Leave hospital with a feeling impossible to describe.

Well, that’s it, Bob. There’s nothing like it.

Diana is without question the prettiest girl in the hospital and the smartest. She will be a mathematician. Look at her birthday 1/23/45. (Note the sequence).

Ruth was in the middle of the dishes & I still haven’t had time to finish them. She is at the Mercy Hospital, Room 518. I think they will be home next Friday.

I have seen Diana for a grand total of about 2 minutes, & for 1 3/4 minutes of that time she has been improving her lungs. She has a slight amount of brown hair, is fat faced & long legged. Ruth’s roommate thinks she looks like me so I’m happy. I can’t tell much yet but once I thought she looked a little like Mom, & again like a Hobson. I’m anxious to get her home & get acquainted.

Well, I’ll sign off. As you can see, I am quite a doting papa.

Thanks again for the bond & the card which is very cute. Too true though.

Love,

Ben

Thank you, Daddy, for your unconditional love for me for 60 years, for your faithfulness to Mom, for your commitment to our family, for your deep and searching faith, for modeling for me so beautifully the Father love of our God, for your encouragement of my journey all along the way. As you know, I never did become a mathematician! And now my hair is almost all white – just like yours. Today my granddaughter Gracie graduated from kindergarden – how I wish you could know her and her little sister! But then, I see a whole lot of you in their dad – so maybe…if they’re really blessed, they know you very well indeed.

Happy Father’s Day.

Joining this one with Emily, Ann, Jennifer and maybe with Duane, because I’m blessed that my dad showed me the unconditional love of a father, putting flesh on the promises of the gospel.

Filed Under: family, Family Portraits, God's gifts, memoir, personal journey, Writing

Becoming Who We Are

June 8, 2012 By Diana

I want to tell you a story today. It’s a good story – at least, I think it is. It’s a story about young love, and mature love. About fear and overcoming fear. About unlearning and re-learning. But mostly, it’s about grace, grace writ large, grace first, last and always.

First-born children – yes, they were each first-born children. Raised in similar families, too. Conservative, loving, happy, Christian homes. With dads who went out to work and moms who stayed home to work. With church as a staple source of encouragement, fellowship and teaching, some of it in words, lots of it as subtext.

And they both learned the same things about love and life and marriage, and about the ‘right’ way to make choices and the ‘right’ way to live into those choices. So when they married – she a blushing bride of 20, midway through her senior year of college, he all of 23, finishing his MBA at a grad school across town – when they married, they knew what choices to make.

They made them happily, heartily, easily. She even researched their wedding ceremony, hunting for just exactly the right one, one that would include the word ‘obey’ in her vows – because, after all, that’s what the Bible says, right?

They learned early to become a strong unit, connected to one another firmly as they discovered more about life and marriage while living far away from home for two years. And when they came back, they brought a tiny baby with them, the first of three…in four years.

And they knew what to do, you can be sure of that. He would go off to work every day; she would stay at home and take care of those babies. And that’s what they did.

It worked pretty well, too.

Oh, there were those niggling thoughts for her: “Is this what life is really about? Is there more that I should be doing? Is it enough to be at home with my babies all day?”

But most of the time, those thoughts would flit into her head and then move right on out again, replaced with her mother’s voice, “Yes, of course this is what you should be doing. This is what all good Christian women do – they stay at home, they keep a clean house, they cook nutritious meals, they keep their children safe. This is what life is about.”

And she really did love those babies of theirs. Yes, she really did. She did her bit at the co-op nursery school; she started a women’s group at church as the kids got bigger; and she began to read a little about the changing views on the role of women in the church.

And her heart was stirred.

She remembered that once-upon-a-time she had been a good student, that she loved learning, that she had some talent as a leader and a speaker and a writer. So she did a whole lot of reading. She went to a conference or two – after her children were in school all day, of course. And she prayed a lot and she talked with her husband a lot, and she wondered. “Maybe there IS more for me to do in this life. I wonder what that might be.”

It wasn’t easy getting there. She was so full of fear that she ignored what became an increasingly clear call from God to go to seminary. For five years she ignored it, convinced that if she did something so radically independent, her marriage would be over.

Sadly, she didn’t trust either her husband or her God enough to know that the journey she was on was a shared one, that her husband was beginning to re-think things, too. So they got a little professional help, to sort it out, to unlearn and to re-learn. And they made a great big leap. Yes, indeed. A great big one.

She enrolled in seminary when their youngest ‘baby’ was a senior in high school – and she was 44 years old and only two years away from being a grandmother.

He said, “The time has come for my shirts to go to the laundry – no more ironing for you.”

And then the doors of their hearts began to open wider and wider, allowing the fresh Wind of the Spirit to blow through, to change things, freshen things, renew things. While in seminary, she had a direct call to pastoral ministry. Nothing like that had happened to her before. Nothing. “What,” she wondered, “do I do with this?”

She and her husband talked and they prayed and they wondered. One day, he said something amazing to her, something she could scarcely believe she was hearing:

“You know what, honey? For thirty years, you have supported me in everything I’ve done, both professionally and personally. You’ve raised these great kids, you’ve created a good home for all of us, you’ve been a rock and the center around which the rest of us have orbited. So you know what I think? I think it’s my turn, now. It’s my turn to support you. So wherever God calls you, we’ll go together, okay? We’ll go there together.”

And that’s exactly what they did. Three years out of seminary, they moved 125 miles from home so that she could take a pastoral position. That meant that he commuted that distance – every single week. EVERY.SINGLE.WEEK for ten years.

Without one complaint.

Because that’s what partners do, isn’t it? They support one another. They take turns if they need to. They encourage the best use of the other’s gifts. They live the truth that each half of their union is a whole human being, created, called and gifted. They pool their resources, they look to God together, they seek the welfare, health and wholeness of one another and of their joint venture, too.

It wasn’t easy – good things seldom are. And it was very good indeed. They rode the road together. Through the tears and the fears, the laughter and the struggle, they believed in one another and they believed in the God who made them, named them, created and gifted them and called them to be exactly who they are. Exactly.

Joining this one with Rachel Held Evans’ synchroblog week, “One in Christ – A Week of Mutuality.” I decided to eschew the technical/biblical/rhetorical approach to this topic in favor of a very personal story. Because I do believe it is in sharing our stories with one another, that hearts are changed, lives are enriched, and God is honored. And besides, I’ve spent the last 30 years or so making the biblical and exegetical arguments and I am DONE with that part. Kudos to Rachel, however, for taking it on so beautifully this week.

And a peek at those babies all-growed-up with their own babies, many of whom are also all-growed-up. Sigh. The baby born in Africa is the woman on the far right.

Our middle daughter is in the middle of the photo and our son is in front of me.

This is a photo of a photo taken by Rich Austin of Austin’s Photography in Arroyo Grande, CA, and I apologize for its blurriness.

Filed Under: family, Marriage, memoir, personal journey, RHE Synchroblog, women, Wonderings in the World, Writing

A Letter to My 8-Year-Old Self: The TSP Book Club

June 8, 2012 By Diana

At 6.5 years old, they’re not quite 8 yet.

But they are amazing creatures, full of curiosity, eagerness, spunk and just enough vinegar to be really interesting.

They are cousins, born one month apart at a time when our family needed reminders that life is constantly being renewed as well as ending. Writing a letter to myself reminded me of just how precious this time is – and how formative.

I am beginning to fall behind on our readings for TweetSpeakPoetry. We’re wrestling through Julia Cameron’s wildly successful artistic-recovery-handbook, “The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity,” doing two chapters each week.

That is a whole lot of chapters.

Because each one is filled with projects/assignments/self-reflection.

And all of that takes TIME. Time which I haven’t really had a lot of this week, what with graduations, traveling with my mom, and the demands of daily life. Which may well mean that I will not have a contribution for next week – I’ve still got one chapter to read from THIS week.

So…for today’s response, I will post one of the assignments from the chapter entitled: “Recovering a Sense of Integrity.” (By the way, the main ‘ask’ of this chapter is something that is IMPOSSIBLE TO DO when you’re reading 2 chapters per week and this chapter is the first one – we were asked to undergo a week-long reading deprivation. Uh-huh. Like THAT’s going to happen. Clearly this book was written LONG before internet activity took over the living of life.)

This is a letter written to my childhood self. And I will grudgingly admit that this exercise – and much of what we were asked to do for this chapter – stirred a lot of stuff. And may, in fact, be at least partially responsible for two posts written earlier this week that I feel are among the strongest I’ve ever put here. (The first one can be found here, and the second one, here.) But…that’s just me. Being grudging.

So…forthwith, a letter to me…many years ago.

Sweetheart,

You have no idea how remarkable you are or what kind of life is ahead for you. None at all. Enjoying 3rd grade, walking to school with pride and a growing sense of independence, embarrassed by how tall and ungainly you believe yourself to be. And the skin problems? Don’t even get me started about how constricting that is for you.

But here’s the thing, honey. NONE of that is going to matter at all. Not.at.all.

I know, I know. It’s tough to believe that. Especially when you carry around all your mother’s anxiety about yourself. I know your heart, young one. I know that you believe you are both ‘too much’ and ‘not enough.’

Too tall

Too smart

Too bossy

Too duck-footed

Too strong-willed

Too different from what your mom believes you could/should be

AND, at the same time…

Not graceful

Not coordinated

Not picked for the playground sports endeavors

Not pretty like Sylvia

Not popular like_______(fill in the blank with any of about a dozen names from that era)

Not mold-able, at least on the inside

Please hear me when I say this:

You are exactly who you are supposed to be…

…and that is a glorious thing.

Glorious, do you hear that?

Yes, indeed. Glorious. Full of curiosity, a daydreamer and dawdler who takes the time to both look – really look – at the world around you, and to imagine all kinds of worlds in that head of yours.

You imagine that the milk bottles left in the rack on the back porch are a family, that they have names and they carry on quite the conversation after the household has gone to bed.

You believe that if you just dig deep enough, you will end up in China one day.

You write a short story about peas in a pod – and the interesting family life they lead.

You are affirmed by teacher after teacher for your creativity with words and ideas – yet – you don’t believe them. You don’t treasure those words. Why is that?

I think it’s because your parents, good people and loving and generous – I think it’s because your parents are so deeply afraid of your getting a ‘big head,’ of thinking yourself worthy of acclaim.

They deliberately play it low-key when you get good grades and kind remarks. They are proud of you – yes, you know that they are. But they are cautious, circumspect, sincere in their belief that flattery is a tool of the devil and never to be trusted.

And you are a very good learner, especially…especially when it comes to intuiting the feelings and moods of others. So you soaked that fear of theirs down deep into your pores. Even at your tender age, you don’t trust anyone who says something nice about you.

So, if I can just say this to you right now, with all the love I can muster for how tender you are at this age, how malleable and open to wonder – if I can just say this:

You are totally unique – one of a kind – none other in this world is exactly like you. And YOU, dear girl, are God’s gift to this world in a way that no one else ever has been or ever will be.

You are not your mother and you do not need to be like her. You are not your father and you do not need to be like him. You can learn from them – and you will! – but YOU are the only Diana Ruth Gold on this planet. The only one that looks like you, thinks like you, dreams like you. And that is pretty great, kiddo.

That is pretty darn great.

With lots of love and gratitude for who you are right this instant,

Your older and more seasoned self.

And I can just imagine that YOU might make this very face at me about now.

Oh, how I hope you would. Because I LOVE this feistiness and I’d like to think it’s a generational gift.