Sunday Musings

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

what comes next?

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

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

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

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

When did we get so old?

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

But here’s what I’m learning.

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

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

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

He tends this huge yard,

with good professional help. 

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

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

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

 And I tend to family, too.

Ailing mothers, growing grandchildren.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


On In Around button







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

An African Journal – Post Three: A Living Landscape

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

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

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

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

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

Our Bending-Low Jesus

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

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

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

Mine did. 

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

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

Except for this one:

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

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

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

August 16, 2012 By

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

Dearest girl,


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Love you – more and more,

Your older, wiser, creakier Self

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

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

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

Paying Attention: A Prayer with Photos

August 14, 2012 By

Grant that I may I have eyes to see you, Lord.
To see you in the light,
to see you in the dark.

To see you in the rainbow,
to see you in the clouds.
To see you in the new,
to see you in the worn and weary.
To see you in the blessed and blissful details,
to see you in the rougher edges.
To see you in the easy, graceful gifts,

to see you in the slogging, stultifying backwater.

To see you in the immensity of the universe,
to see you in the intensity of a single cell.
Grant that I may have a heart to hear you, Lord.
To hear you in the laughter of children,
to hear you in the slowing of age.
To hear you in the soft sighs of the sea,
to hear you in the harsh cries of the hawk.
To hear you when the joy breaks loose,

to hear you when the sobs don’t stop.
To hear you in a beating heart,
to hear you when the beating stops.
To hear you in the wonder of a well-fed child,
to hear you in the one who starves.
To hear you in the still, small voice,
to hear you in the silence 
of questions without answer.

Even there, O Lord.
Even there.
May I have eyes to see,
ears to hear,
and a tongue to tell
the glory of our God.

Even.There.

The photo of the ‘shoes’ near the end of this prayer is from eastern Europe – 
a WWII memorial sculpture commemorating Hungarian Jews 
who were lined up on the edge of the river, 
told to take off their shoes, and then shot to death.
This reflection was prompted by a post about photography and truth at Kelly Sauer’s blog today. She was pondering old versus new in her photographic style. That got me to thinking and praying about the contrasts in this life; that the light and the dark are often closely connected and reflective of one another; that God doesn’t abandon us when life looks dismal or terrifying. I need eyes and ears that look and SEE and hear and LISTEN for evidence of the Presence of God – wherever and whatever and whenever.
Sometime during the dark morning hours, I realized that this post was also triggered by the powerful WWII story shared by Ann Voskamp in yesterday’s blog post. 
Even in the most horrific of human-devised schemes,
God does not abandon us, God is not absent.
So thank you, Kelly. And thank you, Ann.
I’ll put this one with Michelle tonight, Jen tomorrow, and Ann on Wednesday and Duane and Jennifer, too.

Here is a legend for the photographs.
1. Reflections of stained glass on the stone walls of a cathedral in Cologne, Germany, 2009.
2. Sunlight breaking through the clouds as we flew from Florida home to LAX, May 2012
3. Cloud-covered moonlight over Puget Sound while staying on Whidbey Island, August 2007
4. Layers of color at sunset at the same place and time as photo #3
5. Our youngest granddaughter Lilly on the day she was born – 2/25/10
6. An oversized drawing entered in an art contest spotlighting the homeless population of Haarlem, The Netherlands, 2009
7. Our dining room pine buffet, loaded with my much-loved Fiestaware, taken on the day of my mom’s 90th birthday party, June 2011
8. Silhouetted ruins above the Rhine River, 2009
9. A tableau of bicycle against the stone wall of a local Catholic retreat center, Spring 2011
10. Garbage gathered at the edge of a marina in Miami FL, May 2012
11. Yosemite National Park, summer 2010
12. A birch leaf in our front yard, fall 2010
13. Sunlight through amber windows at the New Camoldolese (Benedictine) Hermitage Retreat Center, near Big Sur CA, December 2011
14. Our granddaughter Gracie, aged 2, laughing at the antics of her cousin Griffin, aged 2, on Whidbey Island, August 2007 (They’re six years old now, soon to turn 7)
15. My favorite centering prayer spot – the beat-up swing that hangs from an oak tree in our front yard, taken in the spring of 2010
16. Hendry’s Beach, Santa Barbara CA (officially known as Arroyo Burro State Beach), sunset, winter 2011
17. A bird of prey overhead – maybe a hawk, maybe an osprey, in British Columbia, summer 2007
18. Municipal flower garden, Nuremburg, Germany, 2009
19. The cross on our back fence that marks the place where my youngest brother’s ashes are buried. Taken in the spring of 2011.
20. Lilly, playing in her tent, Christmas 2011
21. Santa Barbara cemetery on a foggy morning, winter 2011
22. Lilly’s adorable bunny slippers, Christmas 2011
23. A skeletized leaf, picked up by my grandson while we were hiking in the Redwoods near Santa Cruz CA, summer 2011
24. Window angel spotted in a side street of Regensburg, Germany, 2009
25. War Memorial in honor of slain Jewish citizens, Budapest Hungary, 2009
26. Approaching Laity Lodge through the Frio River, the hill country of Texas, September 2011

Filed Under: hope, personal journey, Photo Essay, photography, prayer

An African Journal – Post One: Beneath the Surface

August 11, 2012 By
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”:

On In Around button

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

What Love Looks Like in the Long Haul: a Tribute Post

August 9, 2012 By
This was a story I entered for one of Joe Bunting’s invitations. The theme was ‘love story,’ and this was the one I chose to write about. Most of the entrants write fiction – I do not. However, I will not vouch for accuracy of details and ‘facts’ in this account, which happened over 20 years ago. I will vouch for the truth of emotions, observances, character and commitment which this story so beautifully illustrates.
Lucille is 95 now, twice-widowed and I took this photo about four months ago.
Mentor, friend, 3rd mom in my life, Lucille Peterson Johnston, a woman of valor.

I knocked hesitantly, not wanting to wake anyone who might be sleeping. The morning was bright and warm, typical for southern California in late May. But this was the home of a very sick man and I wondered how far inside the threshold that warmth might carry.
He’d been sick before, this dear old man. Kidney cancer that was controlled and managed for over a decade. But now? Now, there was nothing more to be done and he had come home to die. No one knew how long his journey might take, nor what the detours along the way might look like. They simply told his wife, “Take him home. Love him as you have for the past fifty years. We’ll give you meds to keep him comfortable and a standing order for nursing help if you need it.”
And so she had. She’d brought him home. Home, where their own bed waited, good mattresses held by an antique wooden frame, layered with quilts from the old country. Sweden was where their family hailed from, the cold Scandinavian northlands. Hard to imagine such a place cradling these warm and loving people, but here they were. Proud, hard-working, hospitable, dedicated to God and family, surrounded by pieces of their long story together.
I entered slowly, aware that such times fairly shine with the luminous glow of a thin place, a liminal spot, a wrinkle in time between this world and the next. She led me to the bedroom, talking to him as she walked. “Harold? See who’s come to see you today?  It’s our friend, Diana. Isn’t that nice?”
He was in a fetal position, small beneath the covers, this formerly husky man, who loved his wife’s cooking and carried the evidence with pride.  His eyes blinked briefly, a smile just creasing one corner of his rugged face. No words to offer, but I hadn’t expected any. A smile would suffice, more than suffice.
His wife kept up a gentle patter, describing what I was wearing, asking me how my family was, how I was enjoying my new job on the pastoral staff of the church we all attended. Always careful to include him in the conversation, she was cheerful and genuine, without a hint of self-pity or condescension. They were best friends, these two. Had been for a very long time. They’d raised three fine children together; ran a popular shoe store in the community long past the age of retirement; volunteered in community and church leadership, working long hours for no reason other than the joy of serving.
She had more energy than anyone I had ever known, planning events for women and families, on her feet cooking for hours at a stretch, an expert on anything related to food, needlepoint, child-rearing, entertaining, small dogs, church governance, the encouragement of others. She had seen something in me and called it out, giving me responsibilities long before I thought I was ready for them. We worked side-by-side, she gently teaching, I absorbing, stretching to meet her confidence.  I learned by watching and I learned by doing. And my admiration ran deep and true.
Truth was, I missed her. Both of them were fixtures in our congregation. In their retirement, they had assumed many of the everyday duties of tending a large, aging facility. They cleaned and sorted, set up tables and chairs, kept tabs on the use of our large, beautifully planned community kitchen, a creation of her design. Sometimes, he came across as a little bit cranky, particular, over-anxious. But I knew better. I saw the softness underneath the sometimes gruff exterior, the deep commitment to things of the Spirit manifested through his commitment to the gathered body in our corner of Pasadena. “You know,” he’d say to me. “You look a little like our daughter. And our daughter looks a little like my wife. You could be our daughter, you know.” And sometimes I felt like a daughter.
They were everywhere at church, all the time, moving quietly in the background, checking to be sure things were as they should be, that people were welcomed and comfortable. Newcomers might not always know their names, but they surely knew their faces. And those of us who’d been around awhile? We knew them like we knew our own family members. Because that’s who they were.
I will never forget what she said to me that particular day I went to visit. My friend had been sick for about six months at that point, and his wife was with him every day, all day. I found it hard to imagine how she was managing, how she was embracing this life, the one with such small parameters. She who had been the center of a very busy hive was now in the backwater, tending to the needs of a single dying man.
So I asked her. We knew each other well enough, we loved each other deeply enough. “How are you doing this, my friend? How do you stay sane? Don’t you miss your life, your projects, your contributions? How are you? How are YOU?”
She was relaxed, ready for my question. She looked at me deeply, and with no hesitation said, “Diana, this is a privilege. This is a joy. I cannot imagine doing anything other than this, just exactly this.”
And I knew it was true, true right down to the tips of her well-manicured toes. She was radiating peace and contentment.
“Isn’t it hard to watch him shrivel and disappear like this?”
“Yes, of course, it’s hard. But this is what happens to all of us, you know. We all die someday. And we’ve had 52 years together. Fifty-two years of love and story-telling and story-making. Who else could do what I can do now? This is the last, best gift I can give him. And I am happy to do it.” 

He died six months later, on the eve of my first-ever sermon, an event which they had foreseen many years before. An event which they had prayed toward, and encouraged me to shoot for, walking by my side down the road through seminary and internship. So, early on that Sunday morning, those who had gathered round me to pray God’s blessing on our worship, told me very gently that Harold had gone home, with his family gathered round.  Oddly encouraging to think that both of us were encircled by love as we each stepped out onto a new leg of the journey of life, the journey of death.
And I wept. I wept with the sorrow of good-bye. I wept with the power and beauty of true love. I wept with deep gratitude that my story was interwoven with theirs. I wept because these two friends had shown me what love looks like when it’s old and well-worn and bounded by vows kept, vows honored, vows lived. I wept because of how they had modeled for me, indeed our entire community of faith, what faithfulness looks like. I wept because of the goodness of God paradoxically and beautifully revealed in and through the harsh, sometimes starkly intimate details of a protracted and difficult dying. I wept because my friends were together to the end, and now they were both free.

Adding this to Ann’s Wednesday invitation, Em’s Thursday one (if it’s open) and Duane’s, too.

Filed Under: death, friendship. personal journey, Marriage, personal journey

What Does It Mean to Be Blessed? Reflections on a Life

August 7, 2012 By

My mother-in-law, Kathryn Trautwein, with my mother, Ruth Gold. Picture taken at Easter 3 years ago. Today they are 96 and 91 years old. 

She was sleeping today.
She sleeps a lot.
When she’s awake, she is often unhappy,
confused, disoriented.
But once in a while, when I stare into her hazel eyes,
I see her in there.
I see the Mama I’ve known for nearly 50 years,
the woman who bore my husband,
who welcomed me into her family,
who blessed my children with her loving care.

I see brief glimpses of the 
quiet feistiness that empowered her
to stand against the strict requirements of her
family’s faith.
She kept her hair short.
It was easier, she liked it and she didn’t 
want to deal with the prayer coverings 
that all the women in her family wore. 
She shared their faith – she lived that faith
every single day of her long life.
But she did not share their restrictive way of
expressing that faith.
So she went her own way,
without angry words,
without an ‘I’m-right-you’re-wrong’ attitude,
without open rebellion.
She simply made quiet, thoughtful shifts on the inside
that began to show on the outside.

She took me clothes shopping before we left for Africa, 
so many years ago. 
We were going there to live and work for two years,  
teaching school in a small Zambian town. 
She very carefully and gently advised me on 
skirt length, sleeve length, 
the best kind of shoes (closed toes), 
the simplest kinds of fabrics.
She knew.

She knew that I would feel woefully out of place
 and would wonder why on earth 
I had come to serve with people 
who looked and lived so dramatically differently 
from anyone  I had ever before encountered 
in my Christian life. 

She did not advise me to change who I was – 
she was far too wise for that.
But she did advise me to be more aware,
to honor those with different lifestyle values
while still being true to my own.

Mama was not one to offer advice very often,
preferring to keep most of her opinions to herself.
But she found us our first house to buy.
And she outright put her foot down when we got ready to
move from that house to another, 
 one where the entire backyard was a swimming pool.
She never learned to swim, you see.
And we had two toddler girls and a baby on the way.
No way, José. No way.

Even when we moved here to Santa Barbara,
our kids all grown and married,
she carefully let us know that she preferred  
one house we were looking at over another.
Always subtle, gentle, non-intrusive.
But there was steel there.
The good kind of steel.
The kind that holds things together.
The kind that adds form and shape to life.
The kind that stands firm when the ground shakes,
or the wind blows,
or the fires rage.

She is 96 now and suffers from dementia.
She’s fallen twice in the last four days,
her speech is suddenly very slurred,
her appetite way down.
Maybe the end is beginning.
I don’t know.
I just know that today,
as I stood in front of her recliner chair,
watching her sleep and dream,
I thanked God for her.
I prayed the blessing of Aaron over her.
And I wept at the memory of her laughter,
her generosity,
her kindness,
her lifelong faithfulness.

You ask me what it means to be blessed?
I’ll tell you this:
to be blessed is to have a second mother
who loves you no matter what;
who doesn’t always understand you, 
but who always, ALWAYS supports you;
who lives Jesus day in and day out,
mentors younger women,
leads Bible studies,
keeps your little kids at a moment’s notice,
adores her children and their children, 
understands why her husband reacts to life the way he does
and loves him like crazy anyhow.

This is blessing to me today.

This woman of God,
this mother to my husband.
This woman who came to tea one day long ago,
driving 40 miles across town, 
sitting in the living room of the house where
I lived while attending UCLA,
and letting me know that if I was serious
about her boy, then I was welcome to his whole family.
And I was.
Other than the family I was born to,
this has been the greatest of God’s gifts to me.
I am blessed.
And I am grateful.

Joining with Em’s synchro-blog today. You can find other entries here:
http://www.emilywierenga.com/2012/08/what-it-means-to-be-blessed-synchroblog.html
Also with Ann and her gratitude linky:

and with Jen and the sisterhood.





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

Learning from the Humming Birds: A Photo Essay

August 4, 2012 By
It’s been a wild ride the past few weeks – a major writing project to complete, followed by two weeks living in community with the charismatic Benedictines, wonderful friends who think deeply 
about life and spirituality and who teach me so much – with their words and with their wisdom. 
Our last evening together (in each of the two 2-week school sessions over the last two summers) is spent sharing stories, skits, reflections and laughter. This year, I put together a slide show with a narration. 
And I promised my friends there that I would post it in this space. 
It will not show up as a slide show here, but what I can do in this space is interweave the narration a bit better than I could with the time constraints of a 4 minute Chris Rice piano version of “Come Thou, Fount.”

Fourteen days ago, I drove myself into the parking lot
of this beautiful retreat center, 
exhausted from too many deadlines and too few hours. 
I was not exactly ‘conscious.’*
Fumbling for words, dropping things, overwhelmed by the kindness of friends, 
I took a deep breath,
looked around at the curving architecture,
the quadrangled green space,
and thanked God that I had made it.
My room welcomed me to smallness and quietude, 
and I began to feel the almost imperceptible movement
of muscles unclenching, stomach settling 
and spirit stretching. The foggy mornings helped to slow the pace, 
gently covering all the sharp edges of the landscape – 
the one around me and the one inside me, too.
Morning walks helped point me to beauty –

light and shadow;color and texture and shape; pinks and yellows and purples and reds.

circles and oblongs and heart-shaped buds;

Afternoons found me tucked away in a small side garden, where leaves,
 backlit by the western sun, 
shimmered and shook with glory.
Water soothed and stilled me, running off the edge of a nearby fountain, 
abundant and nourishing. 
A deep-seated thirst found quenching.
Surrounding the gentle circles of water was a sea of deep blue lilies, 
held aloft by long stems moving in the afternoon breeze. 
As I sat and soaked it in, those blue spires began to dance
without the help of wind,
stirred instead by fragile wings,
wings that beat 2 to 3 thousand times a minute.
Tiny feathered flyers ducked and swiveled, 

hovered and darted,

 

long, thin beaks dipping deep for nectar in each periwinkle bloom 

To my right was one bright red feeder, and hanging far above my head, another. 
Sometimes one feisty bird at a time, they sipped and rested – gathering nourishment for the next few minutes of fevered flight.
And sometimes, they came in gangs,
dive-bombing one another to find a seat at the table. 
One small trio shared well and drank deeply.

And so did we.

I will remember these two weeks for many reasons –
for good conversations, for stellar teaching,
for the nourishment of worship and eucharist.

But I will remember the hummingbirds, too. Tiny carriers of creation goodness, reminders of the need to inhabit my own smallness.

For to see these glimpses of glory, I, too, must become small – small enough to sit still,
to be quiet,
to listen well,
            and to trust the goodness of God.

*The word ‘conscious’ in this context was an inside ‘joke’ (very feeble!) based upon much of what we learned together about becoming persons who can be more fully present to others and to God. Learning to be increasingly aware of ourselves and our own struggles/issues/shadows is often called ‘coming to consciousness.’ It is hard work to become more consciously aware of all the stuff that churns inside of us, often causing reactivity, defensiveness, projection-of-our-own-crap-onto-others. But the kind of work we strive to do with others in spiritual direction requires us to do our own work first. Much of what we learned together over these two years was directed at helping us become increasingly aware of when, where and how (and how frighteningly often!) we are not aware, not in tune with our own spirit or with God’s. I feel like I am just beginning some days! 

I will join this with a few friends over the next day or so – most likely Ann Voskamp, Laura Boggess, L.L. Barkat, Michelle DeRusha, Jennifer Dukes Lee and Jen Ferguson.

On In Around button

And with Cheryl Smith, too – if this linky works –

 


Filed Under: Birds, community, personal journey, Photo Essay, Spiritual Direction

The Pulse of a Church: Faithfulness

July 10, 2012 By
 Yesterday was one of those days for me.
One of those puzzle-clicking days,
when the pieces come together
and lock into place,
creating a picture that is both
recognizable and beautiful.
 It’s taken about 24 hours for me to begin to see
how that happened in my heart, in my spirit.
And I’m not sure that I can find the words to tell you about it.
This much I know.
It wasn’t about the building,
although I love that place
and am grateful for every inch of it.
 It wasn’t even about the worship service,
although some pieces of that service helped
the picture to come together with focus and intention.
Mostly, it was about the people.
ALL the people of the long, interesting,
sometimes exhausting day that was yesterday. 

Our pastor is back from vacation and that’s a good thing.
And he brought a word that he’d been pondering 
for many weeks.
And that’s a good thing, too.
And part of that word was definitely a piece
of the lovely jigsaw that has been coming to life in my heart.
Reflecting on a brief sojourn in Egypt,
he said this about the Christians he met there:
“The future depends on their faithfulness.”
And I thought – YES!
This is the age-old story of our faith,
this is what Jesus kept saying to us,
in parable and story and miracle. 
This is what God modeled for the people of Israel,
this is what the epistles urge the burgeoning
movement of Christ-lights to remember:
Be faithful, even as God is faithful. 
Learn to listen well, and to do good.
Learn to lean into love.
Learn to care for one another.
Live as though every single thing you do matters
in the Big Picture of life. 
And teach your children all of this.
As I listened to that word, I took a look around me. 

About 275 people were gathered in the same space,
people of all ages, from newborns to folks in their 90’s.
A group of six led us in worship –
a father and his 16-year-old daughter on guitar and vocals,
a pastor’s 16-year-old daughter on vocals,
a professor father and young-adult son on piano and guitar,
a former staff member on bass.
The last number of the opening set was an a capella 
version of, “Down to the River to Pray,”
and when those two young women
and two middle-aged men joined their voices
in gorgeous 4-part harmony – 
a small window to heaven opened before me.
And a piece of the puzzle clicked.
Then our Moment for Mission was an interview 
with a son of this church and his gracious, articulate wife.
They gave up lucrative jobs in Orange County to
use their gifts in computer science and music,
working with Wycliffe in Texas.
Their report was wonderful, encouraging, humbling.
And another piece fell into its slot.
I listened to one of the most beautiful prayers 
I’ve heard in months, 
offered by a man who moved here 
about a dozen years ago to retire. 
He has jumped into ministry with both feet – 
music and tutoring and working with our littlest children.
Click.
Then I watched this happen.  
 Every week, the kids are invited to come and sit on the steps,
where the pastor has a special word or project just for them.
Yesterday, this beautiful ‘welcome wagon’ 
was wheeled down the center aisle.
 It was built by hand as an Eagle Scout project – 
and an act of gratitude to the church – 
by a recent high-school graduate, 
a kid I’ve watched grow up since he was three years old.
And then builder and pastor and seven little kids
laid hands on that cart, and dedicated it to the
service of the Kingdom of God. 
By now, I’m just beginning to catch a glimpse of the
design taking shape inside my heart.
 
We rushed home from church to welcome our small group,
this month including kids, lunch and swim time.
My husband is 70, Iris is 2, the rest of us fall
somewhere on the spectrum between those two extremes.
We had a grand time together –
sitting in the shade, enjoying one another’s company. 
Two of the women in our group have endured
brain anomalies; two of the families have
weathered tough problems with their kids;
all of us believe that the single greatest task
to which we are called is the care and tending
of faith and faithfulness in ourselves and in our children,
followed closely by serving others in the name of Jesus.
I had to leave our gathering a little early,
and I had to leave for a hard, sad reason.
Another son of our church had recently died,
tragically and too soon.
His mother and dad are among my favorite 
people on this earth – gentle servants who set out
communion month after month,
who greet folks when they arrive on Sundays,
who share themselves quietly and humbly.
I wanted to be there to remember their boy,
to offer words of prayer and committal,
to acknowledge that sometimes,
the circle is broken too early, too early.  
This, too, was a piece of the puzzle –
a darker piece, but an important one.
Last night, and again this morning,
I thought through that entire Sabbath day.
I reflected on the many facets of the picture
taking shape inside my heart,
and I began to see it for the soft yet strong,
slow-growing but sturdy,
sometimes weary but always winsome
picture that it truly is,
and it looks a whole lot like Jesus.
 
Sometimes it is easy to be critical of the church –
I will readily admit to frustration, impatience
and disappointment 
with how slowly things change, 
with how stuck we can sometimes get.
BUT…
Yesterday was a quietly unfolding gift to me,
all of it – 
the lovely stuff and the terribly painful stuff.
It became a deep and personal portrait reminding me that
 faithfulness sometimes looks like this:
the generations standing together,
singing together,
working together,
giving together,
mourning together. 

In fact, I guess I’d say that’s exactly what
faithfulness looks like. 
And it is beautiful.

Joining this tonight with Michelle and Laura,
tomorrow with Jen and Jennifer and Wednesday with Duane:

Filed Under: community, hope, personal journey, The Church, worship
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