Category Archives: Childhood

Who will speak?

11 Thursday Jun 2020

Posted by in Childhood, Racial tensions, Relationships

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After months of COVID-19 all day every day, the murder of George Floyd has eclipsed my thoughts about where I should wear a mask or when I think I’ll feel comfortable going back to work with underlying health conditions.

The masks have come off, figuratively at least, as voices are being heard all over, too many for me to keep straight, yet with urgent tones, calling for change.

And it’s time. Finally. But I have no pat answers of how that change will happen.

The causes are easier. As an old song by The Waiting says, “It’s just as simple as sin.” And the blame falls on all of us.

Who will speak?

I don’t mean which local or national celebrity, which expert on race relations.

I mean you and me.

And when we speak, who will listen?

Listening takes time, and often only comes after earning the trust of the one speaking. Because we don’t often speak from the depths.

I want to speak of some of the impressions and experiences I have had living in the US, in and near a medium-sized city in the North, raised by parents from the South.

My first memories of people whose skin looked different from mine came as a very young child visiting Cherokee, NC. It was close to the town where almost all my relatives lived and we visited every summer.

I loved going to Cherokee, and I was fascinated by the touristy stuff. Giant wooden statues, feathered headpieces, jewelry. I still have moccasins I got there as a young teen.

My dad and both of his parents had darker skin than I did, especially in the summer when they were all deeply tanned, and I always felt that somewhere in our background there was Cherokee blood in us.

I was thrilled with this idea. I had no negative feelings about the possibility.

It sparked in me a desire to get to know more about them.

But at that time, in the 1960’s, when I would ask my Mamaw if she was part Cherokee, she would say no. And have a distasteful look on her face.

She also held some racist views that I could never understand. I remember as a teen having a discussion one summer where she matter-of-factly stated the Bible said black people were meant to be inferior to white people.

I’ve read and studied the Bible from cover to cover many times, and I haven’t yet found this in there. And believe me, I had more respect for my Mamaw than about any other person on earth.

So her words troubled me. And while I didn’t see the same message she did, they did make me wonder how she could be such a godly woman and believe what I felt was a lie.

Back at home, when we lived in the city, I walked seven blocks each way to school. Our neighborhood was a long football bounded by our busy street, the school, train tracks behind everything, and a street that ran under the viaduct and crossed our street.

It wasn’t until summers in the late 60’s that I realized there was another neighborhood on the other side of the tracks. Because there were curfews set in place to discourage race riots.

Our city was segregated by neighborhoods. So even though there was a black neighborhood on the other side of the tracks, my school didn’t have much variety in our skintones.

I remember the race riots. I was walking on the sidewalk with my dad in the evening, and he said we needed to get inside as there was a curfew. When I asked why he said there might be people from “back over there” causing trouble, and he pointed in the direction of the tracks.

My dad definitely had strong opinions about people of color. I’ve never liked the different terms society has found acceptable, and also the purposely derogatory ones said with hatred and disgust.

I heard some of those terms in my house growing up.

Though my dad definitely had some strong prejudices, he also was changed by the one on one interactions he had with black preachers and people he counseled with.

I can remember going to church with him at a black church where he was speaking, and I loved it! For the first time I realized what it felt like to be greatly in the minority, but I also was able to drink in the differences between this skinny little white girl and these new and fascinating faces of all shades of brown.

I don’t like the terms black and white. Shades of brown from dark to light is how I see us all.

I also don’t like the word race. We are all people, all the same inside with different coverings. As DC Talk’s song “Colored People” says, “This thing of beauty is the passion of an artist’s heart. By God’s design we are a skin kaleidoscope…”

But my dad wasn’t as appreciative as I was of the similarities I saw between me and all those darker skinned worshipers.

On another outing he went to counsel a young couple who wanted him to marry them. She was white, he was black. It was probably the early 70’s by then. And they were determined to get married. He got back in the car with me and I think more to himself said, “They can do this, but it’s going to be a very hard road for them.”

If there was a song that has the feel of what it was like for me to live in a definitely segregated neighborhood of a city in the 1960’s it would be “All Along the Watchtower” by Jimi Hendrix, written by Bob Dylan.

In fact, every time I see the movie “Forest Gump” I feel like I’m reliving the pivotal times in my own life through all the songs.

During the race riots and curfews of the late 60’s my dad tried to explain to me how people were angry about lots of things, about civil rights and people getting killed. There was a feeling in the air that “Watchtower” brings right back to me. Tension and vigilance and fear of what might happen.

We moved to the country in the summer of ’68, though we were in the city several times a week at church.

And the atmosphere was so different.

The fear was missing.

I have never forgotten those days, the sense that lots of people were talking, but not many were listening.

Because it’s hard to listen when you know what you want to believe about someone else before they ever get a chance to speak.

So I want to change that. And I can’t decide that for anyone else, but for me, I’m still the same little girl who looks with wonder at people, whatever shade of brown they are, and tries to see in them the same hopes and dreams and passions I hold deep inside myself.

I want to earn the right to listen to their stories.

So we can all speak for ourselves.

Time to Grow

02 Thursday Apr 2020

Posted by in Childhood, Pandemic

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Three weeks.

Twenty-one days, just over 500 hours, which is just over 30,000 minutes.

That’s how long it’s been, and ticking, since our family started sheltering at home, the day our governor urged everyone to do so while this pandemic runs its course.

Time.

We have exactly as much of it as in any other three week period, looking at the numbers.

But when your options have narrowed it gives you a whole new perspective on time.

One day we were running normal errands, taking Baby Girl to the chiropractor then dropping her at AWANA at church. The next day Dear Husband and I have a two hour adventure at the grocery store to buy what should have taken us half that much time, seeing the panic and confusion on every face.

Our clothes and dishes stay washed up. I’ve been slowly doing some spring cleaning (not usually an annual thing at our house!). We’ve binge-watched all kinds of things. Our games have been getting used.

And there is still time to spare.

Baby Girl has been toying with the idea of growing a garden this year. I bring this up because I think it’s a great idea for lots of people to do.

I personally do not have a green thumb. I’ve told you that I love to dig in the dirt so it may be stained brown, but the only thing I grow well and consistently is weeds.

But thinking about it, many people have the time it takes over the next month to start some seeds and remember to water them. To set them in a sunny spot for the day and take them back in for cold nights. To transplant into bigger pots or rig up a mini-greenhouse for a small garden plot with old plastic and wire coat hangers, or whatever you have on hand.

We’re going to the store way less than normal, but I’m betting the seasonal area of our grocery would have a pretty full rack of seed packets, and with a little research we could have some cool weather vegetables out in the ground or pots by the time three more weeks have gone by.

The date I’m hearing to stay mostly at home is now June 1. And I want to give a plug for your friendly local greenhouse growers, because they have acres of plants already growing long before we started hearing about coronavirus.

Thirty-four years ago I was working at one. Growing up one of our family’s closest friends was the owner of a greenhouse and farm, and I spent a lot of time out there as a girl. Once I was married I quit my job as a maid at a hotel and was looking for something less full-time. My mom reminded me of the good times she’d had working at the greenhouse years before, so I called.

That year I spent January to April planting seedlings in flats, then worked the sales floor watering, fertilizing and restocking the plants through summer and fall, and then hefting Christmas trees before having a few weeks off.

The next planting season I ran the table, which involved punching holes in all the flats using a treadle-type machine invented by a man in my town. Then I’d send them down the middle of the planting table where eight women would take out a new flat and plant the seedlings, then put the full boxes onto carts. I got to move the carts around, find the next seedlings, get the picture stakes to put in the cups.

That year I got pregnant with Oldest Son, and after the planting season was done I retired.

It was probably my most fulfilling job ever.

Those plants didn’t make it into my ground, so I didn’t have to keep them alive all summer as they grew bigger. But I still love the day I go out to the greenhouse each spring and make the selections of what I want to grow.

Or at least try to grow.

And this year I intend to do the same.

It will be different than other years, most things are right now. I’ll go earlier in the season than normal to avoid being around many people. I’ll probably make one of my famous lists, and try to stick to it. I’ll need to be deliberate about what I really think we’ll be able to plant over the next few weeks and not spend more than necessary. And unlike other years I won’t be able to make multiple trips to pick up things I forgot.

In addition to vegetables and herbs I’ll also get some flowers for the family graves. Those will definitely wait until after May 15 around here to get planted in the ground, but I can keep them alive for a few weeks. I hope.

The hardest part of the whole thing will be staying six feet away from the people I’ve known and loved that still work there, my friend who took over for his dad as he got older. His family that was young and growing when I worked there so many years ago, now adults with their own kids helping in the family business.

There are lots of things that could be done with my time over the next month. Friends are making masks for health-care workers. Others are checking in with various people, making sure they’re okay and stocked up with supplies. Some are tackling projects like painting and other home improvements. I know someone who has ordered a keyboard and is planning to learn to play it over the next few weeks.

So this is just another idea, in case you don’t like any of the things you are hearing about, or have already done them all and need a new project.

Start with something easy, like leaf lettuce. Buy a packet of seeds, planting medium, an empty flat and cups. Plant them, water them gently and set them in a sunny window and in a couple of weeks you can put them out in the ground or a bigger pot or whatever you have to grow them in.

One of the many benefits of keeping even a small garden is the time you get to spend with your hands in the dirt, weeding and coddling and eventually harvesting.

And less time needed shopping for fresh produce in the stores.

You know, while I’m spring cleaning, I may even find some unusual containers to hold my plants.

That’ll save me time later, when I don’t have to take the containers to Goodwill.

Not a Germophobe

26 Thursday Mar 2020

Posted by in Childhood, Pandemic, Relationships

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I’m not sure if it puts me at a higher risk in these pandemic days, but I’m not a germophobe.

I confess, I haven’t gone over every surface in my house with something meant to kill anything living on them in the past couple of weeks.

I actually have cleaned more than usual for me, but mainly because my husband is now four weeks past his hip replacement and it wouldn’t be a good time for him to pick up an infection of any kind and need to go to the hospital.

There are many places I could lay the blame, if necessary, but the reality is that I just don’t care that much about cleaning things.

I grew up having the most fun playing in dirt piles or sand, fashioning “buildings” out of branches and leaves, stirring up mud puddles and mixing up different things just to see what could happen.

I still love spring, sticking my hands down in the dirt, squeezing the lumps out of to make a smooth path for the roots of the plants I’ll put in my barrels after the 15th of May has passed.

Or pulling out the weeds that I let go the year before as they emerge young and fragile for a few weeks before really digging themselves in. I can spend hours just working through the soil with my hands. It’s very satisfying to me.

And when I finally need to clean up, there is always a nail brush and a sturdy bar of soap to get the job done.

So for me, I don’t get too excited about cleaning things. When I can see the dirt, it’s time.

And I am puzzled by my friends who clean obsessively. Since this pandemic started I’ve seen lots of Facebook posts about how much/often/vigorously people are cleaning.

In my mind I don’t see the need. I’m not saying we shouldn’t wash our hands often and well. But our reality is that we are not out and among other people hardly at all. We have been staying home, and when we do venture out we wash up good when we return.

I will clarify by saying I do know how to clean. And when I do it I do it well. The two and a half years I spent as a maid at a hotel taught me a lot about deep cleaning, so it isn’t lack of knowledge. Just personal preference of how I’d rather spend my time.

I don’t like to clean, but I like making lists about cleaning. I could write lists for a living. I love breaking things down into the component parts. And I can see that in order to get from point A to point B in a project things 1, 2 and 3 probably need to happen. And I can include all those details that will get the job done well.

I actually have wide-eyed hopeful lists of cleaning chores I wrote when I was brand-new married. They are something to see! (Yes, I kept the notebook I wrote them in, it’s somewhere in a box in a closet.)

We had just built our house, it wasn’t quite finished on our wedding day, so everything was fresh and new. I had lists of daily, weekly, semi-weekly, monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, and annual cleaning chores to be done. Even a few five to ten year things like painting.

I sure had my work cut out for me.

It wasn’t until we’d been married ten years that my husband told me something I’d never ever known about myself.

He said I was a perfectionist.

Well. If that were the case, wouldn’t I have been able to complete all the tasks on all those lists?

But the reality was that I hadn’t.

And the context in which Dear Husband shared this truth with me was in talking about the household chores and how we split them up between us.

I thought about this new idea. Was I a perfectionist?

Well, I certainly knew in my mind exactly how I wanted things done. And I could see every step that needed to be taken to get the outcome I envisioned. But I had lived life with other people for so long that I had learned a basic fact.

If there is a way for things to stop your plans from being realized, it will happen. In my case someone else’s needs usually came in the middle of whatever I wanted to accomplish.

It wasn’t that their needs were more important than mine, just that they were important. They needed to be taken care of. So I learned to let the things go that really didn’t matter as much as I thought it did all those years ago when I made those starry-eyed lists.

So I don’t clean like I could, maybe even like I should. It’s more hit and miss than I’d like.

But in these times when things aren’t going the way they normally would, when grocery shopping has become an opportunistic hunt and work is slow coming in, when everyone is home and tempers flare and we all are more needy than normal, I’m okay with it.

I’m fine not being a germophobe. I have more important things on my mind.

No Experience Necessary

27 Thursday Feb 2020

Posted by in Childhood, Relationships

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It happened again. I missed writing my blog last week, but I have a good excuse.

A sewer pipe cracked in our crawl space.

So for our second night at a hotel I had quickly grabbed my laptop to give you a harrowing play-by-play of our saga of methane gas and uncooperative insurance adjusters.

Except I forgot my mouse. And I can’t turn the built-in pad back on without the mouse. I worked the next two days, so once again a week went by without a post.

It always could have been worse.

The pipe got replaced and the system is back up and running. Clean-up IS actually covered by our insurance, so at least that will be happening soon. And the smell is now mainly in the garage by the access to the crawl space.

Our minds have definitely been distracted from other more important things, like Dear Husband’s hip replacement surgery that’s happening tomorrow. (Not ready to talk about that yet, but I’m sure you’ll hear more soon.)

As I write this it’s almost the end of what would have been my dad’s 88th birthday. And all day I’ve been thinking about how he would have handled our little emergency.

If he was at all able physically he would probably have at the least spread some lime under our house like they used to do when the outhouses of his youth got too toxic. Or headed down with a shovel and bucket to start digging up the contaminated soil where dirty water had spread over about half our crawl space.

There were many projects Dad tackled that were far beyond his expertise, but that never stopped him. He was always willing to pitch in and work hard at any job that needed doing, in our home or for a neighbor or church member. If it could save someone some money he always felt it was worth a shot to try. No experience necessary.

Our current situation reminded me of two of the most distasteful jobs he ever tackled. Because of course when he started in on a project he expected us kids to help him. We worked cheap.

Like the house my family lives in, my childhood home had a septic tank and leach field. The house was built in the early 1900’s and the tiles in the leach field were made of clay. After many years the effects of tree roots and the pressure of many feet and lawn mowers and the occasional car or truck driving over that part of the yard had broken down tiles somewhere in the labyrinthine system.

If you’ve ever had a septic tank, you know that it is actually not hard to tell where the leach field is. It’s the lines of greener grass that snake back and forth across a yard. I do not remember him letting me in on his strategy, but I assume Dad looked for the green line to suddenly end because the waste water could no longer work its way through the pipes.

Or maybe not. Because it seemed like we dug all over the back yard!

Dad actually did most of the heavy shoveling, then us kids had to help him replace broken tiles and scoop gunk out of the rest. We filled buckets with thick, smelly sludge, and I think we then dumped it over the fence into the field behind our property.

Natural compost.

Along the same lines, I’ll never forget the day I got home from a two-week camping trip to Wyoming with the neighbors in 1976. I was done with being a wanderer and dying for a home-cooked meal that did not involve hot dogs or lukewarm lunch meat. I had presents for everyone, souvenirs from Yellowstone/Grand Teton or the Black Hills, the Badlands, and Buffalo Bill Cody’s ranch. I had rocks from every state we traveled through.

I had written a script in my mind that involved dramatic expressions of how much they had all missed me and how they couldn’t wait to pamper me.

So when I walked over from the neighbor’s driveway with my bags I was shocked to hear Dad’s voice coming from under the house. “Throw some old clothes on and help us here!”

Very sentimental.

They were inside the cistern, which is a concrete room under the house where the water from the downspouts collected. We used that water for things other than cooking and drinking. I’m really not sure how the pipes were connected, but I knew there were times we had the cistern “turned on” and other times the well was on.

After many years all the leaves and bugs and whatever else washed down in the rains had decomposed and settled into the bottom. I’m guessing it had built up high enough that it was impeding the flow of water out of the cistern through the pipes.

It was time to muck it out.

The only way a person could get in or out of the cistern was to take the small window out of the foundation. And crawl in.

Fortunately for me there were already enough people inside the underground room, shoveling the muck into buckets. They needed me to pull them up with a rope, then carry the buckets to the fence and dump them in the field.

Are you noticing a theme with Dad’s projects?

And I’m sure they were the same buckets.

In fact, I think I have a couple of those buckets in my garage or barn.

And I sure wish Dad was still around to laugh about this latest bump in the road in my life. He’d get a kick out of it. And I’d love telling him all the details.

It wouldn’t take him long to hunt down one of those buckets and a shovel.

And I would love nothing more than to tackle another filthy job, side by side with my daddy.

The Master Stroke

13 Thursday Feb 2020

Posted by in Childhood, faceliftbook journey

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The women’s bible study at church is working through I Corinthians, and this week, once again, there was a phrase that sang out to me in The Message paraphrase that I’m using right now. It came after Paul reminds the people of Corinth that they’ve been cleaned up by Jesus, and that they have gifts and benefits given straight from God.

How often I lose sight of that. I mean, I am very sure of my salvation. I believe that God’s promises are true. But I don’t always act like I recognize his gifts and benefits to me.

For me it starts with knowing him. It’s a work in progress. One step at a time.

You might think that would be a simple thing. Just pray for God to reveal himself to me.

But I think it would be absolutely devastating to see God fully, all at once. I like his way better, giving me one glimpse at a time of new facets of who he is.

What gets me, once I “get” something I never could make sense of before, is how obvious it seems now that I recognize it. Why couldn’t I see what was right in front of me?

The Bible also says that the reality of God can’t be denied, that he is revealed in his creation all around us.

But that doesn’t mean I realize how it points right to God as the creator of it all. Sometimes I refuse to recognize the obvious.

When I was a girl there was a wildly creative and artistically talented woman in our church, Sister Dorothy. (Every adult was Sister or Brother to me.) If Pinterest had been around then she would have been the queen. In my eyes she could do anything you could imagine.

I loved going to her house and seeing peeled apples drying to become the faces of old men and women. At Halloween she would dress up as a witch and sit on our front porch in a rocking chair, totally still. Until someone walked up and she’d creak the chair.

I still have some of the Barbie doll dresses she made for us girls, with rickrack and sequins and rich feeling fabrics.

But my favorite thing Sister Dorothy ever did was what we called a “chalk talk” at church.

My dad was the pastor, and occasionally he’d ask her to do a chalk talk during his sermon. She would set up her easel on the organ side, and as he came up to preach she would pick up her chalk pastels.

I paid more attention to those sermons than any others. No surprise when I finally figured out I’m a very visual learner. I was engaged in listening because I was always trying to figure out what the drawing would be. She usually tied it in somehow to the topic of his teaching, and I wanted to be able to guess before anyone else.

She didn’t make it easy. It wasn’t obvious as she got started. Just nebulous blobs of color, never starting at one side and moving to another, but some here, some there, with no rhyme or reason I could see.

After the first layer of color, Sister Dorothy would build them up, one on top of another. I would suspect a sunset maybe, or a forest, but it was all still undefined, no recognizable shapes emerging.

As the sermon progressed, she would add shading to show light and darkness, maybe a hint of whether it was morning or night, indoors or outside.

And still I waited eagerly to find out what it all meant, what it was going to be.

But the thing is, it already was, before she put it down on paper. She had thought it out, knew how she wanted to draw it, had an order she followed, and could see the finished product before she ever touched chalk to paper.

At the end of I Corinthians chapter 1 Paul tells us that for those of us personally called by God himself that Christ is God’s ultimate miracle and wisdom all wrapped up in one.

He thought this up, from start to finish, how that sin would enter the world because people make wrong choices, but even so God wanted us to be with him forever. So he made it possible for my sin to become invisible to him when he sees me through the blood of Jesus – a miracle. And then he lets me have a close and very personal, intimate relationship with Jesus, who leads me and teaches me every day to take hold of the wisdom he offers.

But looking at it with my little girl eyes I never could have grasped all he had done, all the things that already were and that I could have for the asking.

It has taken me all these years to be willing to ask and ask again, what else do you want me to see? Where am I looking and not recognizing your hand, God, in everyone and everything around me? What am I missing?

The scripture that blew me away always sounded a little corny to me, until God brought Sister Dorothy to mind as I read through it last week.

I Corinthians 2:1 – You’ll remember, friends, that when I first came to you to let you in on God’s master stroke, I didn’t try to impress you with polished speeches and the latest philosophy.

What does that even mean?

I’ll tell you the picture that I saw in my head.

Sister Dorothy would have all this color, the different shades and values meeting and blending and flowing on the pad of paper, and I could almost begin to see it. But it wasn’t until the last few minutes that it all came together.

It was the master stroke.

She would pick up a black pastel and suddenly make a line, usually long and curving or circuitous, and I could see it! A stream, or a house, or a barn. A boat. A man. A tree.

A few more well-placed lines and the whole scene came together, and you could hear people all over the church catch their breath when they saw it. It had been there the whole time. We couldn’t see it without her master strokes at the end.

It hit me that God is like that. Laid out right in front of me, everything that is necessary. I just need to look for the master stroke, the detail that suddenly defines so clearly what God has been speaking to me in subtler ways for so long.

Or maybe I’m listening to the polished speeches and latest philosophies when I need to lift my face and look at the person God places in front of me today.

So I ask again. Where do I need to look today, God, to see your master stroke?

Celebrating the Day

26 Thursday Dec 2019

Posted by in Childhood, Christmas, Redemption

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Blame it on Thanksgiving being late, or having too many major home repairs, or the flu knocking everyone off their feet for a week, but Christmas has come and gone way too quickly this year.

We didn’t beat last years record of six hours to unwrap our presents. We only took four. Although today we’ll finish up with Oldest Son and his girlfriend and we may come close.

Life moves too fast. The first semester of Middle Son’s college career, the holiday season, the clock ticking until Husband has a hip replacement next month.

Where can I find time and space for Christmas?

It’s not an easy thing. The world doesn’t value slow.

Yet I find I need quiet and stillness to receive the information I’m wanting, I’m needing to know exists. Because if I can’t get out of the rush that has been this Christmas season I may totally miss it.

I’m one of those odd birds that doesn’t like Christmas music, so listening to the radio has gotten tedious and irritating. The rare surprise is a handful of songs that DO stop me in my tracks and make me think about why we celebrate Jesus’ birth every year.

One in particular, and a poem that starts running through my head in the odd moment of quiet and calm.

This year it came together for me as I sat in the packed service of the church where I attend Celebrate Recovery. On Christmas Eve.

I’m a visual person. There was a powerful light and sound show depicting the incongruity of God, in his immeasurable pervasiveness, making himself so small as to zoom in to our universe, our solar system, this earth, and become a human like me.

If you can fully grasp that, try to explain the logic of it to me, because I cannot.

In the 2000+ years since that event happened, the world has written myths and folk tales of gods and superhuman heroes that we idolize. Just look at the top-grossing movies in recent years.

Heroes in stories have had humble beginnings only to at some point step into their places as the true leaders they were meant to be.

Jesus was born in a stable, laid in a feed trough, and died on a cross meant for the worst of criminals.

It’s hard to wrap my head around this. I mean, I’ve studied the Bible and I get the need for Jesus to die for the sin of the world. What I shake my head about is the means. The actual meanness of the place he was born.

The lack of a super power making clear he was Messiah, Emmanuel, King of Kings and Lord of Lords to everyone he met.

I have to ask myself, why did God allow his son to be born like this, among farm animals?

As a girl a farmer who raised sheep would use space in our big barn during lambing season. There are smells and sounds, a density to the air made up of animal body humidity and dust, muddy floors, fresh hay and buckets of formula with long nipples attached to feed the rejected lambs, layers of straw for bedding hiding the slickness of urine and manure.

This was the stable of my youth. What was that one like?

More importantly, what purpose did this serve, for Jesus to be born in this place, in this way?

How unlike a hero story the birth of Jesus was. He didn’t swoop down and single-handedly wipe out the evil forces threatening to destroy our world.

Or did he?

Because when I read the Bible I find that the goal isn’t to save the world. It’s to save you. And me. To make us impervious to the evil in this world.

Out of the stable of our lives where we nose around like sheep for a bite of something that appeals to us, choosing to ignore the filth we allow to fall around us, seeping into the ground or drying in the warmth of the day until we’re so used to our sin we forget how badly we need to be made clean.

And yet Jesus took us on. Took on our lowest, meanest places, literally at his birth. And in a more real and eternal way than I can imagine when he offers to come and live inside me, inside my heart, in this filthy, inadequate stable he calls the temple of the Holy Spirit.

So I read the poem “Let the Stable Still Astonish” by Lesley Leyland Fields, and I hope you will read it, too.

Slowly. Word by word. Sinking in deep.

“Let the stable still astonish
Straw — dirt floor, dull eyes
Dusty flanks of donkeys, oxen;
Crumbling, crooked walls;
No bed to carry that pain
And then, the child,
Rag-wrapped, laid to cry
In a trough
Who would have chosen this?

Who would have said ‘Yes,’
‘Let the God of all the heavens
And earth
Be born here, in this place’?
Who but the same God
Who stands in the darker, fouler rooms
of our hearts
and says ‘Yes,’
‘Let the God of Heaven and Earth
be born here –
in this place.’

Let this sink in – this truth, this injustice, undeserved mercy, pure love looking straight at MY darker, fouler rooms and stepping in before I realized how much making me clean had cost him.

Even though I know Jesus conquered death, I tend to accept it as if I somehow deserve it.

So here’s the song, the one that always breaks me to tears.

As you click I pray you, too, will slow, taking a quiet moment to listen until you see it.

See the reason.

“I Celebrate The Day” by Relient K (written by Matt Thiesen)

And with this Christmas wish is missed
The point I could convey
If only I could find the words to say to let You know how much You’ve touched my life
Because here is where You’re finding me, in the exact same place as New Years Eve
And from the lack of my persistancy
We’re less than half as close as I want to be

And the first time
That You opened Your eyes did You realize that You would be my Savior
And the first breath that left Your lips
Did You know that it would change this world forever

And so this Christmas I’ll compare the things I felt in prior years
To what this midnight made so clear
That You have come to meet me here

And the first time
That You opened Your eyes did You realize that You would be my Savior
And the first breath that left Your lips
Did You know that it would change this world forever

To look back and think that
This baby would one day save me
In the hope that what You did
That You were born so I might live
To look back and think that
This baby would one day save me

And I, I celebrate the day
That You were born to die
So I could one day pray for You to save my life

All I want for Christmas

19 Thursday Dec 2019

Posted by in Childhood, Christmas

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We’re less than a week away from Christmas, and I feel like I haven’t had a minute to just sit and think about it.

Yes, there have been hours spent searching for a relatively few number of items online compared to most years, but that’s been about the gifts I want to give, not the reason why I love to give them.

And if you read last year’s Christmas post I’ll give you a little spoiler: our time spent opening presents won’t be as crazy long this year, because we are skint and need to pare down on the buying.

But will we still be celebrating Christmas? And what is it that we are looking for in the boxes and wrapping paper? Whether giving or receiving, there’s an internal motivation that drives us to take time away from careers and schedules and gather with family and friends.

I cannot speak for you. I can only speak for me.

Because at its heart, Christmas is a deeply personal celebration.

As a child the cold weather always came first, the short days. Visits to Santa at some shopping center, and eventually Christmas Eve when we would open one present each: handmade pajamas from one of our grandmas.

Then all the rituals of Christmas morning. Sitting on the landing of the stairs while Mom and Dad started making coffee and prepping the turkey.

We would gradually scoot down one stair at a time, but we knew we were supposed to stop before the open railing to the living room. As we got older we took turns as to who got to go all the way down and run across the floor without looking too hard and plug in the tree lights.

And then we would crowd together on one stair and see what we could make out by the light of those big, colorful bulbs.

The tree would be set up by the front windows near the fireplace. It took a day to put it up every year. When it was new the individual branches were color coded, but over the years it took longer to see the specks of paint left on the hard wire stem ends. It often became a guessing game, stacking up like-sized pieces, hoping they would fit into the holes on the tube in the center.

We’d start at the top, poking each branch into the “trunk”, adjusting the angles as we went down to avoid large gaps that let you see through to the metal frame. There were extra rings of greenery to put on between groups of branches, and then we’d load on everything we could find in the attic boxes to fill it out.

And last would be the tinsel, my personal favorite, flung willy-nilly all over the branches and ornaments, many of which were handmade as school projects. I loved my styrofoam egg carved out to hold a tiny nativity scene with a background painted in art class.

When we were teenagers we would go get a cut tree instead of the fake one. Some years Mom and Dad would head down to North Carolina and bring back a Frasier fir tied on the top of the car.

That’s the version I’ve always preferred in my own home.

Our Christmas morning growing up would continue with Dad lighting the laid wood in the fireplace. And once they had hot mugs in hand and a crackling fire going, we took our places around the room to open presents.

I know some years were lean, some were more generous in the amount of gifts we got. Funny thing is I don’t distinguish between them in my mind. I liked getting new things, but even better I liked having Dad home all day, watching him help prepare food.

Up until just the last couple years I would have my time with Dad in my head as I made his cornbread for my dressing and chopped the onions and celery like he always did at the kitchen table. All on Christmas morning.

And I liked having people over our house. We almost never had anyone over. I felt like people saw the preacher’s family as untouchable, off limits for the normal interactions I saw them having with everyone else.

So sitting around the dining room table there would be a few true friends to our family that I loved and feared and felt honored to spend this day with every year.

We’d eat at 2, and play games and try on new clothes or try out new things, and add wood to the fire, and drink hot chocolate and eat dessert or leftovers or both.

I don’t remember the t.v. ever being turned on unless we knew for sure there was a special show we wanted to watch together, and then only in the evening. Our time was spent interacting and cooperating with each other in games, and cooking and cleaning up in groups. I’d sneak off for solitary times to avoid overload by reading a book or writing for a while.

If I had to boil those growing up days down to a few words they wouldn’t focus on things. Togetherness, relaxation, feasting, companionship.

It was a magical day, when we might complain about the tasks we were asked to do, but we did it eventually because there was plenty of work to go around and the day wouldn’t be as much fun if we were waiting for chores to get done before we could play pinochle.

So as I prepare myself for our several Christmas celebrations over the next week or so, I’ll be running around trying to get my gifts bought, but I always reach a point where I look at my lists of what I’ve gotten and say that’s enough. I could always get more things, but we could also be just as happy with less.

I get to a point where I have to look inside and ask what I’m really hoping to get for Christmas. And while things are nice, I really want what I got in my childhood home of modest means and hard-working parents,

I want to gather together with people I love.

I want to not think about the constant stresses of life, and instead consciously let go of the hold they can have on me.

I want to cook and eat food that satisfies my heart and my stomach.

And I want to be with people who are on this journey of life alongside me, recharging and refreshing each other as we look ahead to the new year to come.

And I hope you can take time to celebrate in a way that leaves you better for all the hard work and planning.

Because Jesus didn’t come to make a lot of work for us once a year. He came to give us life. Abundant life.

And I’m ready to enjoy that abundance.

I got the music in me…

21 Thursday Nov 2019

Posted by in Childhood, Gratefulness journal

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One thing I’m continually thankful for is being raised in a musical family.

Dad was a preacher who promoted Southern gospel groups. He also sang, but I couldn’t tell you what part. Mom was a piano player and sang alto.

One of my first memories is of being a baby wrapped in a blanket lying on a pew in our church, and my parents on the platform practicing with their quartet.

In my early life I spent countless evenings at similar practices and then it was my turn to step up to the microphone singing a chorus as a preschooler, joining in the choir, or being part of a youth singing group.

I wondered if my dad wanted to be a professional singer. He was so supportive of the groups he scheduled for “gospel sings” in our area. Some big name groups came through, but there were many more lesser known performers he promoted by getting people to hear them live.

Those events were always exciting for me. I was shy, but still thrilled at being allowed backstage with Dad. I soon got up the courage to talk to the bands, and became a roadie of sorts, taking on the job of dismantling and carrying out the microphone stands. It was the only equipment they would trust to a scrawny kid.

One of my fondest memories of those concerts was standing onstage during a break and singing with my family. We did it at various places, but my favorite was the high school auditorium in our home town.

I have an 8×10 of the whole gang, and looking at it takes me back to manning the ticket booth by the doors, hanging out in the practice room where the bands warmed up, the smell of the curtains as I’d stand behind them watching the bands and the audience both.

I didn’t listen closely to the music then because there were so many other things to experience. But somehow it still got down inside me, and I knew that music would always be an important part of my life.

I often wondered if Dad didn’t wish he could play an instrument. Then one day I discovered a guitar case in my parents’ closet. I pieced together that it probably belonged to my Papaw, who played guitar in the honky-tonks when he was drinking.

So I think Dad could play, but he chose not to.

And that’s a shame. Because if his dad had a talent for it, I bet he would have been a good player.

And I would have loved to hear my daddy play the guitar.

My mom was a good piano player. And I have had about eight long, full, endless, mostly boring years of piano lessons in my life.

I did not inherit her skill.

Mom learned to play shape notes. Some of you may have grandmothers who can explain that to you! Apparently each note had a shape. The lines and spaces weren’t enough of a clue. But maybe that was her secret.

Because I could never make much sense of the lines and spaces and the ovals drawn upon them. Yes, every good boy deserves fudge or whatever makes him say, “Ahh!”, but theory and I never connected.

Mom could play almost anything. And transpose in a couple minutes time to suit the voice of the singer. And sing harmony with anyone.

In our little family singing group my older sister sang lead and I got harmony. Which was fine with me, because I was fascinated with my mom’s voice and how she found the right notes.

In my piano lessons I heard words like chords and keys, and I even knew that usually the second note from the top was the alto. But without a pencil to write down the letters I could not tell you what I was supposed to sing.

There are Facebook laments about how churches should go back to hymn books so people can see what they are supposed to be singing. But I know that after eight years of studying it, and my whole life singing out of a hymn book, I was no closer to knowing what I was singing.

Mom taught me that while some people are gifted with understanding theory, others are gifted with understanding the feel of music.

Guess which one I am?

I’ve often heard it said, of piano players especially, that they play by ear. In my understanding that usually means that they can’t, or don’t want to learn, to read music.

What I have also found is that those who play by ear are driven by the music, not by the notes on the page and the written instructions of how to play it.

They play with passion and feeling, and that flows through the music.

While music played exactly as written can be quite beautiful, I’d rather hear music played from the heart, full of meaning that goes beyond notes on a page.

And so I sing by ear.

I used to labor to figure out what it meant to sing specific notes. I’ve had piano players go over and over parts, and in some settings it’s necessary to toe the line and sing exactly the way every other alto sings.

But what I love most is the way learning and singing music comes to me.

It starts with lots of listening – I always say I have to hear a song 50 times before I “get” it.

The important thing for me is to feel the music inside me, to know where it is going, to feel the excitement of where I hope it goes next, to be carried along by the story it tells me before I ever take in the words.

Once I truly have the music in me, then I can add the lyrics, trying to hear them clearly on the radio before ever seeing them on paper. And layering on the meaning, the story, the message. Whatever they need to tell me.

To find my voice, I have to let the song tell me where to go.

Singing lead is great, and I love it. But there is something so satisfying about trailing a little under, giving a base, an anchor for the melody to soar above.

Depth and power and feeling.

I’m told that what I do is hear the chords and pick one of the lower notes to sing. That could be the technical explanation, but mainly what I love is to feel the music and let it bring out a response from my heart.

The same kind of response I felt as a girl, standing in the folds of a heavy curtain, hearing the same song I bet 50 times, and knowing that it was speaking to me.

And opening my mouth, and letting the music back out.

The Perfect Leather Jacket

14 Thursday Nov 2019

Posted by in Childhood, Parenting, Relationships

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Over the last year I’ve been slowly working my way through a book, Boundaries by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend. I say slowly because I’m only halfway through it!

I got the book and the accompanying workbook out of the library and dug in deep. (I’m too cheap to buy them!) I found I had a lot to learn about boundaries, but I have felt God gently showing me a lot about myself and the way I was raised, and also about my parents.

There were some things I held against them over the years, things that became my own battle cry to “never be like my parents”, until (shock) I heard their words come out of my mouth.

I can’t explain it any other way than that God supernaturally brought understanding to my mind, helping me see the way life had molded my parents based on all I know about their childhoods.

I’ve had a lot of light bulb moments in the past year. I’ve learned to see the reasons behind their inability to set good boundaries for me, to teach me how to set them for myself. And as I remember the way my world was as I grew up, I’ve had a lot of questions answered by diving into this book.

I’ve also rejoiced when answering questions showing the good sides of my parents. Though it’s necessary to examine the negative, the book really does balance it with applauding the good things I’ve learned and the people who have helped me.

This week I’ve journaled about how my parents taught me to make good decisions, and to learn the value of delayed gratification.

And it all comes down to the perfect leather jacket.

I was about 17 years old, working my first job, driving a car a family friend had donated to the preacher’s kids (my older sister and myself). It was made the year I was born.

I have to clarify. This was my first job working for a business that gave me a weekly paycheck.

Because one thing my parents excelled at was living within their means. Which meant that they didn’t splurge on lots of extras for us four kids.

I never really thought about it until I was grown and married, but we were probably poor. The thing is, it never felt that way. We had a home and food and clothes and love, and I never lacked for anything I truly needed.

And there’s the secret.

Of course when I was little I didn’t know the difference between a want and a need. But that was one of the first and best lessons I ever learned. As we got older, Dad especially impressed on us that they were taking care of our needs, but our wants were up to us to supply.

He helped out by taking us strawberry picking at a friend’s patch once school was out in June, and we set up shop in the front of our big barn. He made signs painted to show our hours, what we sold, and if we were open or closed.

We kids sat out in the barn, sold the baskets of berries, restocked the table, collected the money, and cleaned up when we sold out.

This led to getting more produce already picked later in the summer: tomatoes, squash, green beans, peppers, cucumbers, watermelon, cantaloupe, and the season ender, corn.

In this home produce stand was where I found my love of numbers and counting, handling money, calculating and distributing the profits that were left after we repaid Dad for the produce costs.

I excelled at this. I don’t remember what my siblings loved most about the stand, but next to talking to the customers and adding up their purchases, the hands-on economics class was a thrill for me.

I would keep track of how much time each person spent working the stand. Down to the minute. And once we had paid Dad, we took 10% off the top and put that in what we called the “family fund”, which was to be used for whatever we all agreed on. Maybe a trip to Cedar Point or extras during our annual trip home to North Carolina.

The rest was divided between us kids based on how many hours had been worked and what percentage of the time was spent doing the work.

We each then tithed off our profits, and the rest we could spend on whatever we wanted! My favorite was to get tart ‘n tinies, which were miniature Sweetarts in the shape of little pellets once in a while, play a few games at Cedar Point, and save the rest.

I was probably 9 or 10 when we started working the stand, and it lasted past when I started that “real” job. It was no wonder that within a year I was asked to do the weekly inventory and cash reconciliations, once they learned how good I was at handling those details of the restaurant where I worked.

And so finally, after years of socking most of my money away in a savings account, I found myself at the local mall in a trendy clothing store, smelling the rich warmth of that brown leather jacket.

It fit me perfectly! Not too baggy across the shoulders, but with enough room to move my arms. I remember the feel of the silky lining as they slipped into it the first time I tried it on. Cool and smooth and luxurious.

As my hands warmed the leather the fragrance of it teased my senses. It was similar to the musky cologne I liked.

I had to have it.

So I did what people did in the 70’s. I put it on layaway. I put a small deposit down, and then I would need to come and pay a minimum amount every week until I paid it off.

Only then could I take it home.

That first week I described it to my family and friends. I couldn’t wait to go “visit” it the first time and make my payment, trying it on again to be sure it fit as good as I remembered.

Meanwhile life was moving on, and I was looking at going to college. And starting to figure the cost, because my parents couldn’t help much.

And I had to make one more trip. To say goodbye.

Lots of “if only’s” came to mind for several months after I got my money back. The thoughts of how I would have looked walking into school or church, the envy or congratulations from my peers.

That perfect leather jacket wasn’t the only thing I’ve wanted and not gotten. But it was the first. And the lessons it has taught me have carried me safely past potentially bad financial decisions.

Because, like I eventually had to say that last time in the store, I can still hear my Dad saying, “Is this something you really need, or is it something you only want to have?”

And those are words I don’t mind hearing come out of my own mouth.

Thanks, Dad. You taught me well.

Not Finished with Me Yet

03 Thursday Oct 2019

Posted by in Asthma, Childhood, Recovery journey, Tragedies

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Last Thursday I almost died.

Literally.

I’m still gathering all the pieces of why I didn’t, and I want to capture for you my perspective on what I hope is a one-time occurrence.

(For some background you could check out my post “Inspiration” from August 8, 2019.)

I’m really big on gaining knowledge and understanding. So when my asthma and allergies (still unnamed) started ramping up and causing attacks, I went into research mode. I made an appointment with a pulmonologist, but it was almost two months away. So I responded to a Facebook post about an asthma clinical trial, and found my asthma and allergy doctors instead.

Since then I’ve participated in two clinical trials designed to test generics of an effective asthma drug that makes it more affordable to do what should come naturally.

Breathe.

So in a two week time I had already had two serious asthma attacks: one after visiting a very musty used-book store, another that woke me up coughing and choking in the wee hours of the morning.

That second one got me thinking that I needed a better strategy of how to communicate that I was having trouble. I was alone in the family room to use my nebulizer for an albuterol treatment at 4am, taking my phone in case the distress didn’t let up. But my husband’s phone charges overnight in that room, so it would be down to my teenagers or 911 if I couldn’t walk and breathe at the same time to get help.

I freely admit I have control issues. Four and a half years of Celebrate Recovery have gotten me to the point where I can clearly see my problems, but I still don’t want to admit that I need help.

I don’t want to be powerless.

Seriously, I have been in places where I had no control over what was being done to me, and as a girl I decided I would do my best to control everything I could to make sure nothing bad happened to me again.

Yet Thursday night I had almost no control over what was happening to me.

Just the day before my third attack in two weeks, I met with my mentor, who I hadn’t seen for a month, and we talked about my need to have a written and easily communicated way to let my family know what I needed. So while working Thursday, my mind was on doing this, making a list from the most drastic to least invasive things to do for me or ask me about.

In my controlling mind I never wanted to entertain the idea of needing to call 911. That was for people who couldn’t analyze their own situation and be proactive about doing for themselves all they could.

Joke’s on me.

My niece, a firefighter and EMT, will give me a look next time I see her, but on my list was to ask her what to expect if I ever needed to call for emergency help. Because I like to work it out in my head before it ever happens.

Someone else was doing the working out, way better than I ever could.

Simple things like me feeling inspired to clean the garage. Okay, boss the teenagers around to get the garage cleaned. This happened a few weeks ago after moving Middle Son into college, when I was feeling the need to clear out the staging area in the house, and do the every-ten-year garage purging. It wasn’t completely cleared, but in organized piles at least.

I just want to park inside it this winter.

And getting stocked up on my regular asthma meds for when the current trial ended, something I would normally wait to spend the money on.

Way farther back, two and half years ago, Baby Girl had taken the classes and gotten certified for adult and infant CPR training. Though she had never had occasion to use it, she wanted the knowledge and confidence it gave her to work with young children in many areas of her life.

Let’s go farther, to 8-year old me, who was learning to use a riding mower and wanted to hear herself sing over the noise. And who was almost drowned by a neighbor boy in our pool, so I decided to learn to breathe deeply and be able to hold my breath for long periods calmly. Who loved to be onstage and belt out lines or songs, no cheating with microphones. Who toughed out labor every time with no help from drugs.

Just breathing deeply.

So when very suddenly Thursday evening I went from laughing over pictures of a cake I’d had delivered to Middle Son at school, to not feeling right, to labored breathing, sweating, feeling a little nauseated, all the pieces (much more than I could ever list) from my whole life’s story came together in some of the hardest words I’ve ever said.

I need help. Call an ambulance.

I guess I’m not shocked this didn’t register. After all, I’m the one who handles these kinds of things. Because nobody else can (Ha! My deluded mind talking again.)

But as I stumbled back into the chair by my nebulizer and with shaking hands broke open a vial and poured it in, I heard my husband making the call.

My ears quit working. I couldn’t make out all the words. I could see my younger daughter trying to catch my eye, saying something I couldn’t understand. I barked out a few one-word orders on the exhales, but I couldn’t stand not having the little push of air helping with my feeble inspirations.

I was hardly breathing. In only a couple of minutes.

And several more passing while the ambulance rushed from five miles straight up the road.

There was no white light at the end of a tunnel. My whole life didn’t “flash before my eyes”. I don’t think I was that close to death. But then again, what do I know? Why do I try to minimize the seriousness of those moments?

The reality is, if the EMT’s hadn’t gotten there quickly, I probably wouldn’t be writing this.

There was a lot of activity going on around me. Kids rushing out to make sure the garage was wide open and shoving those piles farther out of the way. Moving one of the cars so vehicles could pull close to the house. Clearing laundry baskets and shoes out of the floor and away from the door so there was clear access.

Me begging wordlessly for another vial of albuterol, frustrated at how long it took me to communicate what I needed. (Should have gotten that plan down in writing.)

And the overriding need to breathe.

Out is possible. It’s a relaxing, a release, as little as it may be it didn’t take much effort.

But inspiration…

I didn’t fully understand what I was talking about until Thursday night, when every thought, every bit of my will was focused on moving that magnificent muscle, my well-developed diaphragm, and feeling a pitifully small whiff of air making it’s way into my wheezing, mucus-filled, inflamed, closed-up lungs.

There were suddenly strangers, one kneeling beside my chair talking in my ear, others carrying things, holding things up, putting things on my face and in my veins, asking questions I couldn’t answer.

The voice by my ear telling me to hold just a quick second before breathing out, to get the medicine in.

I’m just as sure as I can be that it’s like Luke described it: “Suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God…”

Not the people, don’t misunderstand me. There was a battle going on in that room that was far beyond the working of my labored lungs. There was an eternal question that was being answered:

Who is in control here?

It wasn’t me.

In fact, I fought some of the things they wanted to do. I couldn’t stand the mask (they said it was like a CPAP, so that’s out for me in the future), but I wanted the oxygen and aerosol drugs it was providing so they let me hold it as close as I could. When they couldn’t get a clear oxygen reading, I heard something like 84%, they talked about intubating, and I motioned the kids to leave the room for a bit. Thankfully they didn’t need to do that.

The hardest part was hearing them ask questions I knew the answers to, but couldn’t speak.

Yet within an hour and a half of getting to the hospital I was talking to everyone and walking out on my own two feet.

Two days later Baby Girl (who is 16 and my hero right now) shared what she had been trying to tell me. She had her CPR manual out and was preparing herself mentally to be able to break her mother’s ribs if I went unconscious before the ambulance arrived and she needed to keep my heart beating. Because she is the only one in the house trained to do that.

And in the emergency room I learned that the EMT who took charge of me is also a nurse at the hospital we wanted to go to. He knew exactly what they would do, and did all he could ahead to avoid any delays in my care.

My family rushed madly to gather things I might need if I were admitted, let our grown kids know the situation, reached out to our church, got there quickly to be with me, though I was pretty unaware of my surroundings for a while.

The next day I canceled work and appointments, let myself be chauffeured to get more meds and run necessary errands, and was able to go to Celebrate Recovery.

I got there late because I’d run off without my phone and had to turn back. Got caught by a train, and after arriving during worship had three people I needed to talk to before I paid attention to the song.

And then I looked up to the screen and I got my answer.

“From life’s first cry, til final breath, Jesus commands my destiny.”

Thank you, Jesus, that you have not yet let me reach my final breath!