Burnished Through the Years

March 30, 2012 By

What can I say to help you see the man I know? 

That he is funny and smart and loving? 

Yes, that’s all true. 

That he is opinionated and sometimes volatile, gestures wildly while watching sporting events and has been known to yell at the screen (and also at passing drivers when they cut him off)? 

Yes, that’s all true, too. 

But how do I find words to describe how tender he can be? How deeply he adores his children and grandchildren – and me, too? 

How do I tell you how goofy he can be? Wearing silly hats and too-small-butterfly-wings just to make a 2-year-old giggle?

How can I describe his thoughtful wondering about the future, his careful allocation of resources so that we and our kids and our church and our missionary friends and the worthy people and projects that God sends our way can all be tended to, with love and care? 

How can I possibly describe to you what a privilege it has been for me to mother his children, fold his laundry (most of the time!), admire his handiwork in the yard and at the kitchen sink and to see how kind he is, how very, very kind?

Is there any way to put into words how grateful I am to God for each and every day – even the horrible, terrible, very-bad ones – we’ve had together? Is there any way for me to describe to you the inexpressible joy it gives me to wish him a happy birthday this week? This marks number 49 that I’ve shared with him, 47 of those as his wife. 

And this one? 

Well, this one is number 70. 

He has survived pleurisy, a kidney stone that had to be surgically removed, a major blood clot in his lung and prostate cancer. And he plays tennis – singles tennis! – once or twice a week with our son. 

And there is no way that any one of you would ever guess his age without my putting it out here in black and white for you to marvel at. 

No, there is just no way to tell you. There are no words. 

Well.. maybe just one: 

GIFT. 

He is a gift to this world, a gift to our family and most especially a gift to me. Easily the best earthly one I’ve ever been given. 

And I thank God for this gift every day that I breathe.
Joining Lisa-Jo for the first time in several weeks. (This daily devotional posting has been so much fun for me – but wow! It’s tough sledding trying to add anything to that.) This, however, was one I just could not pass up. Join the ever-increasing crew over there and check out what others are saying in 5 minutes flat. I will gladly admit that this one took a few extra minutes.

Filed Under: birthdays, family, God's gifts, Marriage

A Lenten Journey: Climbing to Calvary – Day TWENTY-NINE

March 26, 2012 By
Mark 9:30-37, New Living Translation

Leaving that region, they traveled through Galilee. Jesus didn’t want anyone to know he was there, for he wanted to spend more time with his disciples and teach them. He said to them, “The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of his enemies. He will be killed, but three days later he will rise from the dead. They didn’t understand what he was saying, however, and they were afraid to ask him what he meant.
After they arrived at Capernaum and settled in a house, Jesus asked his disciples, “What were you discussing out on the road?” But they didn’t answer, because they had been arguing about which of them was the greatest. He sat down, called the twelve disciples over to him, and said, “Whoever wants to be first must take last place and be the servant of everyone else.”
Then he put a little child among them. Taking the child in his arms, he said to them, “Anyone who welcomes a little child like this on my behalf welcomes me, and anyone who welcomes me welcomes not only me but also my Father who sent me.” 

_______ 

They are NOT getting it…

…these disciples, these friends of Jesus, the ones who’ve left home and livelihood to join him on the road.  

They’re moving ever closer to Jerusalem and Jesus is intent on teaching them the true meaning of the Kingdom of God. 

But…they’re clueless.

For example: when they’re out there on the road walking and talking and missing the point… 

…they seem to be spending the bulk of their time pushing and shoving and jostling, getting themselves into a heated discussion about who among them will be ‘the greatest.’

Ahem. NOTHING whatever to do with the message that Jesus is preaching here. Nothing.
Which is precisely when Jesus pulls a small child into the circle – into his arms, to be exact – and says, “THIS is what you’re supposed to look like, friends. This is whom you are to welcome as if you are welcoming me.” 
It seems you don’t get to be the greatest by pushing your way there. 

                  You get to be first by…being last. 

And in that time and place, there was no one more ‘last’ than
…a child. 
Bottom of the heap, 
     no legal standing, 
          no status, 
               no authority, 
                    no ‘leadership skills,’ 
               no priority seating, 
          no head-of-the-line,
     no pick-of-the-litter,
no nothin’. 
 
But…
there is this – 
     a small child who is welcomed, 
          received with love, 
               hosted graciously, 
                    cared for, fed and sheltered – 
     such a one is exactly where Jesus can be found.

Not just ‘angels unaware,’ 
     but Jesus himself  
just might show up on our doorstep,  
     grimy and mischievous, 
     laughing or sobbing, 
     looking up at us with those eyes. 
Oh, those eyes. 


So, my friends, here is the big, BIG takeaway for today:

Any investment we make into the lives of small children is the single most important work we can do on this planet. 

So all you parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends, teachers – oh, please – welcome the child.  
Welcome the child. 
For this is the work of the kingdom – to see Jesus in the least of these. 
_______ 

Give us eyes to see you, Gentle Shepherd. To see you in the little ones we meet, the little ones we read about, the little ones we worry about, the little ones who still live and breathe inside of us, the little ones everywhere. For to such belong the kingdom of God. Oh, my.

Linking up with Michelle and Jen for this one – I think this is the first time I’ve linked up one of these daily posts – not sure why. But hey, there’s always a first time, right?



 
Filed Under: biblical reflection, family, Lenten Journey, Wonderings in the Word

An Early Valentine’s Day (Even Though This Post Is Late)

February 16, 2012 By
Valentine’s Day was a bit of a bust around here.
We were on the road,
tired, cranky, heading home.
Emotional time with my mom for me,
head-warping time with the tax accountant for him.
So we had a tough ride home.
Sometimes the steam collects,
and instead of venting it in small quantities,
over time, it comes out like a TNT explosion,
sending shrapnel bouncing around the place.
As painful as that feels when it happens,
the grace in it is this:
we can get back to center in short order.
In earlier years, that part of the process could take days,
sometimes weeks. This time, we were both able to say, “I’m sorry. That was insensitive of me. I know this weekend has been hard for you.”
So I spent a little time today, while Lilly was napping (finally!), looking at photos from a truly lovely day earlier this month.
It was a good reminder that in and around the tough stuff,
we manage to make memories that are life-giving and hope-filled.
 I started that day with Silent Saturday,
always a healthy, hopeful thing for me to do.
Three hours of centering prayer and reflection,
sitting, walking, thinking, praying.
We were in a different place this month,
crowded out by a large retreat gathering.
Still oak trees of glory,
still room by the creek.
 It was a good time, though I was more distracted than usual.
Distraction is the name of the game some days.
Later that day, I picked up my husband and we drove to the tiny town just south of us, parking on the bluffs
overlooking Summerland Beach.
The same place where I sat by myself  
The view from up there was just as spectacular.
It was later in the day this time, and quite a bit warmer, so we opted to take a long walk on the beach.
 The walkway down to the sand was lined with bright yellow wildflowers, the angle of the light exactly right.
 If you’ve followed my blog at all,
you’ve seen lots of pictures of the bluffs along this stretch of coastline. Rosy gold to rich coral in color, beautifully eroded with striations, even large cave-like openings,
they epitomize central coast natural architecture.
 Single shorebirds showed up at various points along our venture – this curlew, a lone pelican on the water, a cormorant sticking to the rocks even when pummeled by the waves.
The rock formations – above us to the north and sprinkled throughout the water to the south (yes, our beaches face south on this peninsula) – 
are wonder-filled and beautiful.

 

 As we walked back, the horseman we had seen from the bluffs came galloping by us, heading home;
a teenaged boy carried driftwood back to his friends,
busy constructing something wondrous.
 The sun was not yet down, so we climbed into the car and drove a little further south, heading to a favorite restaurant, recently under new ownership, a place where you can eat outdoors, picnic tables and thatched umbrellas spread across a lovely lawn while the kids play in a nearby designer sandbox.
And we relished those burgers, oh yes, we did,
as the sun slowly sank into the sea.
 And that very night, my husband built the fire that inspired 
Who says Valentine’s Day needs to be on the 14th anyhow?
I will join this one with L.L., Laura, Jennifer and Ann. It was a lovely day, a beautiful place and a great memory, too.

On In Around button

 
Filed Under: family, Photo Essay, Wonderings in the World

Waiting: How Long? How Hard?

February 14, 2012 By
 One of my favorite pictures from the last ‘fun’ trip we took with my mom – wildflower hunting in the spring of 2010. This is a little known reserve called
the Carrizo Plain, located in central CA, midway between Santa Maria & Bakersfield.

First, gut-level response?
Step into a hot, hot shower.
Let the water sting and pummel,
wash and re-wash every piece of me,
pounding and prickling, and rinsing it all away.
The sadness,
the creeping sadness, pervasive and thick;
that strange coating I feel as I walk from my car into the house.
A thick layer of 
sorrow,
age,
fragility,
forgetfulness,
anxiety,
confusion,
teariness,
pain.
The exhale that sticks to me with every breath my mother breathes these days.
The one that makes me cry,
“How long, O Lord?
How long?”
The one I know I must get used to;
that I need to learn to feel and endure the weight of,
perhaps even to welcome.
Because this is what is these days.
This is what is.
I do not like what is, that much is clear.
I resist it,
I resent it,
I rant to heaven about it,
I want it to go away.
I admit to ugly feelings of envy when I hear
of mothers who go home to Jesus forthwith,
with little disintegration,
little pain,
no sense of hopelessness,
of being forever lost.

I don’t like these feelings in my spirit.
But I must face into them,
I must acknowledge this shadow side,
this hard wrestle with what is.
And I think,
in fact I know,
that God honors my honesty,
even as God asks for my acquiescence,
my gradual acceptance of this ‘is-ness,’
this hard, steadily familiar reality.
She vacillates between delight at the sight of me
and despair that she cannot remember I was coming.
One minute, smiling and expectant,
the next, weeping and lost.
Appetite declining,
back aching from a fall,
hiding out in her new apartment far too many evening meals.

With me beside her, she ventures out,
 proud to introduce me to her friends.
Her natural extroversion carries her,
the steadiest, surest her.
It brings her momentarily back to the surface 
and she engages friends well,
using social skills honed over years of practice.
Back in her room,
her shoulders visibly slump,
a loud sigh escapes,
releasing pent up sorrow and fear.

And I wonder,
how long will she be in this never land,
this in-between space of who she was
and who she is becoming?
How long will we enjoy even a piece
of who she was
in the middle of who she is?

And I know the word is still ‘waiting.’
And I still don’t like it very much.
But I’m here, Lord.
Still leaning,
still looking for glimmers of that shine I’m seeking.
But a shower was what I needed tonight.
What I may still need for a long, long time.

I am finding that I need to write about all this inner tumbling, this distress and nascent anger. I am prayerfully hoping that what I am feeling is akin to the ‘indignation’ (sometimes translated ‘compassion’) that Jesus is described as exhibiting several times in the gospel record. Each of those times featured a confrontation with illness/darkness/death and the word seems to indicate the depth of Jesus’ sadness at the results of the sin and brokenness in this world of ours. And the ravages caused by these self-eating brain disorders are surely among the hardest of those results. Kyrie eleison.
I don’t think what I’ve written here is exactly right for joining with most of my Monday bunch. The last two days have surely not been a playdate, nor are they particularly centered on place. Nor are they filled with the wonder of ‘God-Bumps,’ nor are they reflections on Sunday worship. And they wouldn’t fit very well with Ann’s gratitude list, either. So I will link with Jen at the sisterhood and Heather at “Just Write” and leave it at that for now.
Back again on Friday morning, deciding to add this into Bonnie Gray’s invitation to be “Vulnerable” this week. This one is about as vulnerable as I’ve gotten in a while, so maybe it will fit there. I’m thinking this is a topic most people don’t want to read about – it cuts too close, maybe? But believe me, it happens to all of as at some point…and we’re never quite ready for it.

Filed Under: family, Wonderings in the World

In Which I List the Ways That Pastoring is a Lot Like Mothering

February 6, 2012 By

I didn’t ask to be a mom. I didn’t have to work too hard to become a mom, either – at least in the biological sense of that word.

Our first daughter arrived five days after my 23rd birthday. I was 14,000 miles away from home and had no pre-natal care except the advice of experienced missionaries living nearby and the limited resources of a used gynecological textbook from some nursing curriculum somewhere. Yes, there was a doctor – and a good one – but he was stationed at a hospital 40 miles away, over a very corrugated dirt road; I saw him a total of three times before Lisa was born.

This is what I remember: all of a sudden, I was pregnant – and then, all of a sudden…I was a mother.

There she was, in all her amazing perfection and beauty. I had no parenting guides, no clue where to begin, so I just…began. By the time babies #2 and #3 came along, I was once again living in the land of high-tech hospitals, bookshelves lined with how-to manuals and more people willing to tell me what to do than I could count. But I continued as I had begun: I muddled through.

I made a lot of mistakes. I blew it with dreadfully predictable regularity. I yelled too much, relied on television too much, fed them food with too much sugar too often, dragged them around in cars without seat belts, much less car seats. And somehow, by the grace of a faithful God, they all lived to tell about it. Not only that, but they flourished – my myriad mistakes and all.

Sometimes they hated me – I know this because they told me so, one with alarming frequency. And sometimes, in and around adoring them with every fiber of my being, I hated them, too. That was only when I was exhausted, exasperated, confused or frightened, of course, but between those four emotional coordinates, I’d say that was more often than I’d like to admit. And I don’t REALLY mean I hated them – it was actually more like I hated what happened to me when I was trying my darnedest to be a ‘good mother’ to them and it all fell apart in my face.

When my youngest was a senior in high school, I went back to school – to seminary, actually. And by the time I began working in my profession, all my kids were married and I was a grandmother, on my way to eight grandkids. And guess what? I discovered that all that muddling through I did as a stay-at-home mom? Well, it came in mighty handy when trying to pastor a congregation of 350 highly individual individuals.

“How is that true, Diana?” you might ask. “What possible parallels can there be between parenting and pastoring? “  “Ah,” I would say right back to you, “Let me count the ways!”

1.    Authenticity

Now here’s a paradoxical/oxymoronic statement for you to chew on as we begin this counting thing: Even when I haven’t known who I was, I have still managed to be the real me. From the time they were itty-bitty babies, I have talked to my kids like I talk to my friends like I talk to the people I meet almost anywhere. God has been in the process of forming me/shaping me/changing me – sometimes with a great deal of reluctance on my part – for a very long time now. Since I was about 11 years old, in fact, and went forward at a revival meeting in my home church in downtown Los Angeles. I’ve gotten detoured, lost, overwhelmed, discouraged and embarrassed multiple times along the way. But I’ve always been who I was at any moment in history – not any more than I was, but not any less, either. And I’ve always talked about the processing going on as honestly and openly as possible. For as long as I have known them, I have loved to be around my kids, loved to talk to them, to show them what’s going on in the world around them, to invite discovery, to laugh and to cry when things were appropriately wonderful or terrible. And while I did all that, I pretty much let it all hang out – the flaws, the overwhelm, the not knowing. Also, the thirst for knowledge, the eye for detail, the quick sense of humor, the willingness to work hard. What they saw was what they got.

2.    Encouragement

I never had the looks or the coordination for the job, but I coulda been a GREAT cheerleader. I believe in encouragement as a force for world peace, reconciliation between warring tribes, the solution to global warming. I cannot think of a single negative thing that comes from encouraging someone else on their journey of life. Not one. I was a huge fan of each of my children – still am, as a matter of fact. They are, without a doubt, the most brilliant, kind, compassionate, creative, loving human persons who have ever graced the planet. Well, other than Jesus himself, of course. And their children are following right along in their parents’ footsteps. I believed in my kids, even when I didn’t know if that was the smartest row to hoe or not. They were not perfect – but then, neither am I, neither is their dad. But those kids came dang close, I’ll tell you. And when they had a down day, I was there to tell them it would look better in the morning. And generally, it did. It really did. Encouragement is the name of the game. And I think the apostle Paul – and yes, Jesus himself – would agree with me on that one.

3.    Nurturing

At the risk of sounding like a particularly sappy Hallmark card, this is what’s at the heart of mothering, is it not? Protecting those chicks, even when they’re bigger than you are. Providing a safe haven, a cozy nest. Paying enough attention to know when they need a ‘mental health’ day off from school but not so much attention that they feel suffocated. Packing lunches (or double-checking the cash reserves for the cafeteria); baking birthday cakes (or buying exactly the right kind at the corner bakery); knowing what they like and what they don’t like – for dinner, in their closet, coming out of your mouth; knowing who their friends are, praying for friends if they don’t have any (or if you think they need a little broader selection).  Paying attention and being there – pretty much sums it up.

4.    Listening

I’ve already mentioned that I spent a lot of time talking to my children when they were young. But I spent a lot, a lot, a LOT of time listening to them as they got bigger. Some of my kids were better talkers than others. The one who is male clammed up at about age 12 and I had to carefully figure out ways to continue the conversation. This is what I discovered: if we were in the car, where we did not have to make eye contact, my son would open up like he used to before the hormones began flooding his lanky frame. (In two years, he grew ten inches and gained about fifty pounds of big bones and solid muscle). Sometimes I didn’t like what I heard, but I kept on listening, trying not to react, cringe, frown or otherwise shut down the flow. Making space for the other person to talk, even if that talk is painful confession or emotional outburst, is really a requirement for any kind of meaningful human relationship, don’t you think?

5.    Teaching

This might seem to be the facet of mothering with the most direct carry-over into the pastoral life, and in some ways that is definitely true. But maybe not in exactly the ways you might imagine. From the time my kids were about 18 months old, I invited them to make choices about their lives, starting with the small stuff. What would you like to wear today? I’d ask. And that made for some fascinating fashion statements at times. As they got bigger, I’d gently comment that maybe we could choose pants OR the skirt, or perhaps both of those busy prints might look more restful if they weren’t worn together. But initially, they wore what they wanted, even if people thought I’d pulled their outfits out of a dumpster somewhere. And I applied that principle across the board. The encyclopedia, the dictionary, the daily newspaper, the Bible – all of these became rich resources in my efforts to help them become their own persons, with their own ideas. If I knew something about a topic they were interested in, I talked about it or I showed them how to do it for themselves. They all got reasonably good at doing laundry, cooking a basic meal (although I was never a good cook and they are all far better at it than I ever was), doing basic household chores. They also learned how to read and to write critically and well, how to wrestle through hard ideas and issues and how to take care of one another. You know, the basics – the essential skills needed to live life in a sometimes crazy world.

6.    Releasing

This was the hardest part of mothering for me, bar none: letting them go. And I had to begin doing that when my eldest was a lot younger than I wished. She got married when she was 19 and she basically shifted her primary focus to the man she married when she was just a slip of a girl at 16. The Lord and I wrestled hard about all of this for each of those three years and I continued to wrestle with it for a lot of years after she was married and gone. I had never asked to become a mother, but once I was one? It became my primary identity and mission in life. I loved every thing about it, even the hard and ugly stuff. But what I learned during those years of wrestling was this so-important truth: my children were not mine. They were entrusted to my care, they were among the greatest of God’s gifts to me, but they did not belong to me. They were their own unique selves, gifted and shaped not to become mini-me’s but to become Lisa, Joy and Eric. And for that to happen, I had to do a whole lot of work up front and then get my mucky hands off. I had to stand back and watch them move out into the world all on their own. They made mistakes, they fell down – hard, sometimes – but oh my, what magnificent people they are! Each one of them an individual of irreplaceable giftedness, heart and finely crafted personality.

I’m not sure if what I’ve written here exactly fits into the category of ‘practices of parenting.” Nevertheless, I am contributing them to Sarah Styles Bessey’s Blog Carnival of ideas and suggestions. She’s issued a wonderfully warm invitation and many of us are joining the party. Come on over to her place and check them all out. I will also add this one to the new meme forming to help cover the absence of Emily Wierenga for a while. I’ve done her “Imperfect Prose” for almost a year now and so enjoy the company of that place. But Emily’s life is over full just now, so Kim at “Journey to Epiphany” has stepped in with a temporary community gathering space called, “Painting Prose.” Thanks, Kim!
EmergingMummy.comJourneyTowardsEpiphany

 

Filed Under: family, Marriage, memoir, personal journey

I Do: Long-Term Love

February 6, 2012 By
He comes in regularly and stirs the fire.
And every single time, 
I am struck with gratitude and wonder
that we chose each other so many years ago.
It’s such a simple thing, stirring those logs around,
just a few moments of time.
But I know this – it is an act of love, this fire-tending, 
an act I deeply appreciate.
An act that is emblematic,
representing the story of who we are somehow.
Not all of who we are,
but kind of a meta-picture,
a summary statement.
Because the truth of our story is this:
we grew up together.
We were so young, you see.
When we met, I was seventeen, he was barely twenty.
When we married, I was the 20-year-old,
mid-way through my senior year at UCLA.

That summer, we moved to Zambia for two years,
traveling by freighter over a choppy Atlantic Ocean
for eighteen long days.
The sunsets were glorious;
the storms terrifying.
Not a bad description of the next 25 years or so, actually.

We had so much to learn – beginning with ourselves.
Raised in ‘traditional’ 1950’s Christian homes,
we had a whole lot of firmly held opinions 
about what marriage and family should look like 
and we did our darnedest to live up those.
I put together our wedding liturgy (I loved liturgy, even then),
and I searched for the old wording to be sure and include the word ‘obey’ in my vows. Those who know me at this end of the last 46 years 
might be surprised by that small piece of trivia.
But they would probably not be terribly surprised to learn that it was my husband who first chafed at the thinking behind it,
that it was he who began to call out my gifts as a teacher and leader.
I was too frightened at the prospect of ‘messing up’ my marriage 
to go there for a very long time.
Together, we’ve changed up the dance,
trading places – both literally and figuratively – as time and circumstance demanded.

We’ve hit a few rough patches along the way, that’s for sure.
We went to a counselor for a while at about year 25,
when I was in the midst of seminary and carrying a couple of part time jobs and we both felt confused and angry and badly disconnected.
The best thing that came of that experience? The last twenty years.
Somewhere during that time of counseling,
we looked at each other and said,
“We’ve got a good thing going here; let’s make it better.”
And, by God’s grace, we have.

We are very different people – different politics, different temperaments, different favorite-times-of-the-day, different tastes in television 
(except for Downton Abbey!).
And guess what?
We are never bored.
Yes, we can get snarly sometimes.
We can get our feelings hurt and our feathers ruffled.
But we make each other laugh louder than anyone else we know.
We have spent so much time together that we seldom have to guess 
what the other is thinking.
We each think the other is the finest person on the planet.
We adore our children and our grandchildren.
We are committed to faith and family above all else.
And most of the time,
we really, really like each other.

We’re even learning to do this thing called retirement,
which for a couple with very busy schedules 
for very many years, was a somewhat daunting prospect.
While I was pastoring, my husband was commuting 
for three-day stretches away from me every week while he continued to work in southern CA.
During those mid-week days, I grew to understand the deep dividends of solitude.
For the first time in my life, I was spending time alone –
and I was loving it.
How would we manage being together 24/7?
Well, one way is this:
in the evenings, he watches sports in the family room;
I write in the bedroom.
And during the winter months,
he builds me a lovely fire in our bedroom fireplace.
About every 90 minutes or so, I hear him coming down the hall, 
to peek in and make sure
that fire is performing as a properly built fire should perform.
And that small act tells me what I most deeply need to know:
my husband values who I am and what I do.
In this quieter season of our life together,
it’s an echo of sorts,
an echo of what he said to me when it began to look like we’d be moving to Santa Barbara so that I could take a job.
“Honey, for the last 30 years, you’ve built your life around my career choices. You’ve supported me through all the twists and turns my professional life has taken. Now, it’s my turn to adjust, to let you flourish and grow and become more of who God designed you to be, just like you’ve always done for me.”
He values who I am.
He values what I do.

I value who he is.
I value what he does.
Even now, we want 
to keep learning, keep growing,
keep leaning into Jesus and one another.
We want the fire to burn bright,
so we’ll keep tending,
keep stirring,
keep enjoying the light, the warmth, the beauty.
Even when he’s in one room,
and I’m in another.



TheHighCalling.org Christian Blog Network

This essay was written at the invitation of Jennifer Dukes Lee and The High Calling. I am joining the community writing project at THC by signing on with Jennifer’s weekly meme. Ann Voskamp is also encouraging essays about love this  month, so I’ll put it there as well. And with all the sisters at Jen Ferguson’s place, the soli deo sisterhood. And, at the end of the week, with Bonnie’s discussion on Love Unwrapped.
 



Filed Under: family, Marriage, memoir, personal journey

A Grandfather Pastor? I Think So.

January 26, 2012 By

He walks quietly across the lawn,

laden with fallen palm fronds,
 speaking softly to the small person who follows in his wake.
She is busy, looking at flowers,
discovering sour grass,
looking for birds.
They are content together,
the two of them drifting slowly towards the driveway. 
She squints a little,
facing into the sunshine.
And then the smile breaks and I hear her laugh.
He has asked her a question –
who knows what it is.
And she laughs and says,
“I no know. I no know, Poppy. I NO KNOW.”
Ah, but I do.
I know that this man is a good man,
a faithful one,
and an earnest and committed follower of Jesus.
And he happens to be gifted with children.
He always has been,
especially small ones.
And anytime he’s with a toddler,
or a pre-schooler,
or even an elementary student,
he gives them undivided attention.
He delights in their presence,
their growing intelligence and understanding,
their open-heartedness.
And he lives the gospel when he’s with them.
As I have reflected on Sunday’s sermon, 
I have thought a lot about this man.
This good man who happens to be my husband.
We’re in the midst of a series called,
“What Time Is It?”
And each week, the topic for the morning follows 
that introductory phrase,
“It’s Time to…,”
finished this week by “…Repent and Go Fishin'” 
We were in Mark 1 on Sunday,
that scene where Jesus sees some men fishing and
challenges them to come away 
from their nets for a while.
He calls them to repent, to follow him,
and then…
to go fishing –
fishing for people, 
not just sea creatures.
They’re in for an adventure, these fishermen,
an adventure that begins with who they are,
and where they are.
And Pastor Jon just nailed it.
There were several lovely points woven through his narrative,  but this is the one that stuck with me the most,
the one I’ve been ruminating on as I watch my husband 
in this second year of our shared retirement:
Not one of the people that Jesus called to follow him
was a religious ‘professional.’
Every one of them was called
in the context of what they were already doing.
And that’s where the adventure began.
Where it begins for each of us.
Nothing is secular,
everywhere has the potential to be sacred space.
We are all called,
every single one of us.
If we follow after the good news of Jesus,
we are called right where we are.
Every job is a mission field,
every person we meet is a gift of grace,
every word we offer has the potential
to be gospel good news for someone, somewhere.

Here is the takeaway quote for me this week:
“Jesus is not calling us to church work;
Jesus is calling us to follow him in our work,
whatever that may be.”
So, if you’re raising babies and toddlers,
and able to stay at home with them –
there is your good news platform.

If you’re in an office, behind a bank window,
standing in front of a classroom,
driving a cab, rising early to bake bread,
serving food in a restaurant,
or moving into the new rhythms of retirement –
wherever you are,
there is where you are called,
there is where YOU are a pastor.
So I watch my husband pastor our granddaughter, 
as he has every one of our children and our grandchildren, 
as well as many of the children in every church 
we have ever attended.
And I thank God that he has heard the call of Jesus
so clearly;
that he has responded so obediently;
that he is living the good news…
right where he is.

How about you?

Joining with Michelle and with Emily and with Bonnie this Wednesday night:
Filed Under: family, Photo Essay, Sunday Reflections, Wonderings in the Word, Wonderings in the World

Five Minute Friday: Vivid

January 21, 2012 By

Late again for Lisa-Jo’s weekly invite to write it out without worrying about whether it’s ‘just right’ or not. This week’s prompt is skittering around this brain and I’m not sure where it’s going to land. Hmmmm….

The prompt this week is VIVID

 Yup. That’s what I thought about all this stuff that happened! Are you kidding me??

GO:

When I was five years old, my mother took me shopping. This was a rare occurrence, as we lived on a school teacher’s salary and didn’t often shop for anything other than groceries. She took me to a department store, to the toy section and led me gently to the row where the dolls were located.

“Choose anyone you want, honey. It’s a special gift, just for you.”

So I did. I chose a sweet Betsy-Wetsy doll, the one who wet her diapers if you inserted a small bottle into the perfectly shaped hole in her mouth. I was delighted with my new friend and thanked my mother profusely.

However, just a few short hours later, I was far from grateful. I was terrified. The doll was meant to help me get through a coming tonsillectomy – something I did not understand in the slightest when my parents told me about it.

“We’re going to have the doctor cut out those things in your throat that are making you sick all the time, Diana. You’re going to feel so much better.”

Yeah, right.

The surgery was done in the doctor’s office, which included a small area for this ‘simple’ procedure. I remember the ether mask coming down over my frightened face.

And then I remember waking up to a splotch of bright red blood on my pillow, and anxious whisperings all around me.

“We can’t control this bleeding, Mrs. Gold. We must get her to Our Lady of Angels Hospital immediately. Yes, we’ll call an ambulance to do it.”

The ambulance ride was a big disappointment. They refused to turn the siren on! What kind of an ambulance ride is it if they don’t turn on the siren?

I was placed in a crib with high metal bars all round. The nuns glided by, bringing me constant bowls of…cream of rice cereal. Bleargh. And it was impossible to eat anything anyhow because…they staunched the flow of blood by inserting into the back of my throat….two very large…TEABAGS. Yes. Teabags. Apparently tannic acid is a coagulant. Who knew?

I spent one week in that scary place, alone in my crib, with my parents allowed near me only a few short hours each day. And then I had to go and stay with my great aunt for TWO WHOLE WEEKS because my own home was too far from the hospital for after care.

What good is a Betsy-Wetsy doll in that kind of world?

This is my most vivid early memory, an event which shaped my life in profound ways, some of which I am still unwrapping.

But that’s for an entirely different kind of post, isn’t it??

STOP. (2 minutes extra)  

Filed Under: family, Wonderings in the World

David Brooks on What Makes Us Human: The THC Book Club

January 14, 2012 By
She’s sleepy, and fighting it – hard.
I take her back to the bedroom and open the computer,
dialing up iPhoto so that she can look at ‘pichures, pichures.’
As she looks, and identifies each person she knows, 
her hands begin to snake their way up my sleeve.
This is a favorite sleep aid – the touch of human skin, 
the skin of those who love and care for her.
It’s a repetitive behavior pattern that we’ve wondered about a little, 
as parents and grandparents sometimes do.
Now, thanks to some fascinating input 
from the latest book selection at the Book Club over at The High Calling, 
I have a little more insight into why this works so well.
She has discovered a primary source of self-soothing, has our active, charming, I-won’t-sleep-unless-you-absolutely-force-me-to granddaughter.

And then there was touch…As Harry Harlow’s famous monkey experiments suggest, babies will forgo food in exchange for skin…They’ll do it because physical contact is just as important as nourishment for their neural growth and survival…Human skin has two types of receptors. One type transmits information…[about]…objects. But the other type activates the social parts of the brain. It’s a form of body-to-body communication that sets off hormonal and chemical cascades, lowering blood pressure and delivering a sense of transcendent well-being. pg. 33

 Smart girl, our soon-to-be-two Lilly.

Rife with tidbits like this, David Brooks’ new book, “The Social Animal,” is a fascinating, often hilarious, always insightful collection of a lot of different scientific information gathered together in an engaging story-telling format.

Brooks takes the results of research – from biology, neuro-science, psychology, anthropology – and skillfully weaves it together in and around the history of a fictional family. What I am discovering is that the data is ‘sticking’ with me far better in this format than it would in a scholarly article. 
My particular brain seems wired for story.
And I’m guessing we just might find some evidence for that in the data that is still to come in Brooks’ collection.
The introduction and first three chapters are filled with the basics of human partnering, relationship-building, baby-making, and knowledge gathering.  (There are only a couple of pages dedicated to the actual physical act responsible for babies; there is much more emphasis on developmental issues, all of which are intriguing and often bring an ‘aha!’ moment of recognition).

What has been most interesting to me thus far is the number of parallels between what hard science is discovering in laboratories and guided studies and what early psychologists – most especially Carl Jung – discovered early in the 20th century by doing lots and lots of talk therapy. These words from page 32 sound an awful lot like what Jung called the ‘collective unconscious:’

The truth is, starting even before we are born, we inherit a great river of knowledge, a great flow of patterns coming from many ages and many sources. The information that comes from deep in the evolutionary past, we call genetics. The information revealed thousands of years ago, we call religion. The information passed along from hundreds of years ago, we call culture. The information passed along from decades ago, we call family, and the information offered years, months, days, or hours ago, we call education and advice. But it is all information, and it all flows from the dead through us and to the unborn. The brain is adapted to the river of knowledge and its many currents and tributaries, and it exists as a creature of that river the way a trout exists in a stream. Our thoughts are profoundly molded by this long historic flow, and none of us exists, self-made, in isolation from it.

 At the end of this week’s assignment, a lovely, and by far, the most poignant small piece of story-telling in this volume, came from Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 
So sweetly, these words served to underscore that ‘aha!’ moment I’d had earlier about our Lilly and her need to be skin-to-skin.

Coleridge’s three-year-old son once woke in the night, 
begging his mama to come in and touch him. 
Perplexed, his mother wondered why.
“I’m not here,” the boy cried. 
“Touch me, Mother, so that I may be here.“

You are here, sweet Lilly.
You are most definitely here.
Thanks be to our good God for that wondrous truth.

Filed Under: Book Review, family, Wonderings in the World

Christmas Reflections

December 27, 2011 By
The church is full on Christmas Eve. Elbow to elbow, friends and family nudge in to make space for late-comers. A trio of angels surround the Advent candle circle, gleaming in the soft light of early evening. 

In a lovely piece of encircling grace, the same family whom I wrote about way back when lit the Christ candle for this first Christmas Eve service in 20+ years where I have no role to play. That year they were new to our community. This year, he is the new associate pastor and his little ones are almost all grown up.

That final singing of “Silent Night” is always moving to me, watching the light spread throughout the room, reminding me

each time that the smallest candle can light the way. Just the smallest of flame, in a sea of darkness.

The next day, I watch from the kitchen as the morning sun lights up the soft honeyed-hues of the hardwood floor, bouncing off the ornaments on our fully-loaded tree. Just three of us for Christmas breakfast – my husband, my mother and me.


She comes to the table shivering a little bit – she always shivers when she comes here, even if it’s August – because at 90, she is always cold. But we’ve turned on the small gas fireplace near the breakfast table and she soon warms enough to smile and sit down to eat.

I’ve made pumpkin waffles – made them on her small waffle maker which I just moved from her house to mine. She is nearly blind, needs hearing aids, and is so forgetful that cooking is getting to be hazardous, so we’re moving her into an assisted living apartment the first week of 2012.

To see her like this causes me physical pain. Always bright, charming, funny, beautiful, my mother is now a worried, frail, confused old woman. And she knows it. She is frightened by it and frequently in tears.

But breakfast is good – she eats 4 squares of waffle, adding whipped cream and fresh berries to a couple of them, and seems quite content. This is the most she has eaten in several days and it gives me a strange feeling of comfort to be able to give her something that suits her, that makes her want more.

There isn’t much room for ‘more’ in her life just now. She can barely manage what is. In fact, the tension surrounding this move has made every symptom worse and I wonder – will settling into this new space bring improvement? Stability? Less worry for me and less fear for her?

We spend much of Christmas day doing quiet things – napping for mom, computer work for me. I open the back gate so that she can go out and wish my brother a Merry Christmas. My youngest brother, the one who died two years ago and whose ashes are buried beneath a fledgling oak in our side yard. My brother who had no life when he died – housed in a sober living residence, loving AA, dealing with a severely damaged heart. He died in his sleep one early October morning and my mother has not been the same since that hard day.
We drive to my daughter’s home in the late afternoon sunlight, admiring the crystal clear view of the Channel Islands as we cruise down the 101. It’s beautiful out there, and beauty brings its own kind of comfort, reminders of goodness and life and Something/Someone bigger than we are.

The children are wild and wonderful when we arrive – glad to see us, making us feel welcome and loved. My small mom, who had dissolved in tears almost immediately after speaking with my remaining brother by phone earlier that afternoon – she breaks out in a sunny smile, clapping her hands to see the energy and liveliness of my grandchildren as they play together.
After the food, after the crazy-making ripping through paper and ribbon and box and bag, we all help mom out to the car that will carry her home through the night. She has trouble navigating the uneven flagstone walkway, so a son and a son-in-law both offer cell phone flashlights, I offer a strong arm, my husband goes ahead to open car doors. I help her up into her seat – she is shivering again in the frosty night air – and I buckle her seat belt. There. She is safely stowed for the last leg of this long weekend journey.
But really, is my mother safe? No, I don’t think so. There is nothing safe about the fragility of her life, there is nothing safe about slowly coming unraveled, there is nothing safe about losing yourself, piece by agonizing piece.

“God alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress where I will never be shaken,” the psalmist sings out.

Perhaps there is safety there. Yes, I will choose to believe that. In every way that truly counts, my mother is safe, she will never be shaken. 

Even when she stumbles, even when the tears come, even when she forgets who I am, even when she forgets who she is.

Even then. 

Even then…

I am more thankful than I can possibly put into words to be heading out of town for four days with my husband and our oldest daughter and her family. We need a spell away from these concerns that hang heavy so much of the time. I may find time to write while we’re gone and I may not. We’re bringing some projects to work on – I got a new scanner for Christmas and my eldest grandson is going to help me figure out how to use it. Because, you see, I have literally THOUSANDS of old photos/negatives/slides that need to be digitized and stored. And we’re bringing some watercolor supplies. Dick and I don’t ‘do’ art, but Lisa and her crew? They’re all gifted and love to spend time just dinking around with simple instructions and basic art supplies. So we’ll try it – maybe we’ll like it! I am posting this today with quite a list of friends because I don’t know when I’ll post again this week. And then the next week, I move my mom. So, those of you who know me enough to pray for me, I’d appreciate your thoughts over these days, both the restful ones and the stressful ones. I will, as always, carry you with me as I go.

On In Around button

Filed Under: Christmas, family, Wonderings in the Word, Wonderings in the World
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