A Triptych of My Husband's Hometown (panel three)

A final look. The mystique is already fading. It feels like that episode of Star Trek where Bones puts on this helmet of supreme knowledge (actually looked like an old beauty shop hairdryer with Christmas lights poked through it) and becomes vastly more informed, but only temporarily, the "knowing" fades with time. An apt comparison to have come to mind, as today I shift from looking at the changes in our cultural lives to the changes wrought by the passage of time.

In days gone, Grayville had a movie theater. Now it has a building that looks like a movie theater, but is actually a community center. (What else do you do with a defunct movie theater if you can't bring yourself to tear it down?) It's old-styled, semi-circular marquee shows what happens in this place. One side is bare, blown away in a storm, its naked framework exposed for all to see. But the other side is intact and announces the community's cultural events such as dates for high school plays and the summer arts camps. In this place, life's storms are not hidden. Here history is not set aside so completely. Change incorporates the broken remains of former life, and new uses are found for old foundations. That unabashed naked exposure of old afflictions alongside new life built on former purposes and left-over strengths: this is an element of the old world that has not made its way into the new world. Soren Kierkegaard said, "Life must be lived forwards, but it can be understood only backwards." It seems that the new world is good at operating in the first part of this quote; while the old world is good at the last part. Both stand defensive of the part they're good at and regard each other with suspicion.

I watch my children play at the park in this town, and I am thankful that they move freely between the ancient rusty monkey bars and a new bright plastic tornado slide. Something feels right about this arrangement. Is this how we honor our parents? Is it not so much about what we do for them as it is what we do because of them; what we do with the view we meet in the rear view mirror and how we travel forward in our awareness of it?

On the way to the park, my husband pointed to what once was a railroad track through town...the railroad has been gone close to 20 years now; but it, too, is not forgotten. "I remember the bike ride to the park seeming like it was miles and miles long. We'd take a short cut down the tracks there and just hope a train wasn't coming." More comments like that one streamed from him to the children. This had not happened so freely before. He is teaching them another part of loving childhood, the remembering part.

Then, as we sat in that park, watching our children play, and reading--we would sometimes pause and reflect. "Nothing in my past prepared me for the world I'm in now. It seemed like people presumed that because I was competent at some things, I was competent at anything," he mused. It was like the people who ruled his childhood assumed the transition into adulthood would happen as naturally as one breath follows another. But this was not the way it happened at all. I thought about this a bit because I, too, grew up in this old rural world.

I think time and growth here in this place are like a river that is full of people. They make up a community that flows across time...and they know this. There is no abrupt change in the channel of experience as it flows from one stage of life to the next nor from one generation to the next. You have a generation flowing ahead of you that has already floated the path you're on. They are telling you where the current changes, where the rapids are. And you have a generation coming along behind you, and you turn and holler back to them. You tell them what has been called to you, what you have then experienced, and what you will now pass on. There is a natural hope and peace and security in this familiar pattern of living. And age and position in life have no bearing on this transfer...as long as you stay in the river. Portage off to some other place, and the river people are clueless what to tell you; and they feel like the river will die with your leaving. Something in the fluidity of time as it flows over people is lost when you leave. Unfamiliar stresses spring up in the dry ground you have begun to travel. But you know this leaving is in your destiny, because even there, in the homeplace, the river is going to change and grow strange. Maybe not this generation. But it is coming to be sure. We saw this the evening we went sneaking into my husband's old abandoned high school.

We ended up at the high school when we were driving around, killing time while waiting for our take-out pizza to bake. We pulled alongside the old building; and my husband pointed to windows, telling us what was in each room. "The school was small enough that we only needed one room per subject," he said. There was the math room, the home ec room (consumer science as it is now known,) and at the far end was the gym.

He pulled the car around behind the building. In the back, the grass was tall and wild, trying to reclaim the ground space it lost years before to cement, back in the day when the school made a valiant effort to become part of the new world, as most schools will attempt to do; but twenty years of not being a school changes a place. As we looked at this side of the building, we noticed the glass back doors were shattered and standing wide open.

Elijah said, "Oh, Dad, can we go in?"
Scott and I looked at each other. "My parents would have taken me. They did take me exploring an old abandoned church one time," I said.
"Come on," Scott said.

So we picked our way through crunchy shards of glass and up the steps into a building. It greeted us with the smell of every musty year it had stood alone. Not even a hint was left of the varnished wood and fresh paint smell, the hallmark scent of old schools. But the steps up to the central hall and down to the basement still stood just inside the door. They were still painted red along with a red fire door that looked practically new. Glancing up, I saw multi-colored layers of paint pulled and frayed, hanging from the ceiling. I wondered which layer of color my husband saw when he walked these halls as a student, but I didn't ask, for he was already forging his way down the hall.

"It's so small, even with all the lockers gone!" he exclaimed. A thought returned to me that had visited me before--back when he spoke of his lengthy bike ride to the park, a short distance in reality. The thought was that our frame of reference for extremes gets so much broader as we age.

The flooring tiles, once stiff and shiny, waxed and seemingly impermeable, now were curled and brittle. They rocked beneath our feet as we stepped on them. The math room still had a blackboard, but it was filled with obscenities. It seemed a room more fit for use in a Stephen King novel than for use by a student learning quadratic equations. Another room, whose original purpose escapes me for now, was stacked floor to ceiling with plastic twin mattresses--35-40 of them. They were stacked haphazardly and looked like something from a bizarre dream. In the stairwell--rather than a dropped and forgotten notebook or rusty metal lunch box as you'd expect--were the partial remains of a dismembered doll.

You see, the school did not go immediately from being a school to being alone and abandoned. It's "sickness" (asbestos) spelled its doom as a school, but the building still held a certain appeal. A cult group--Scott's mom remembers them as being associated with the Moonies--bought the property and used it for communal living for a while before they disappeared. Now no one knows where the leader/owner of the old building is; and the building is truly abandoned, with remnants of both its glory days and its strange days lying around. For instance, the kitchen side of the old home ec room still had tattered curtains at the windows and an old metal kitchen station at one end of the room, but these were not sufficient to stir visions of people learning domestic skills in this place. The other side of the home ec hall (the sewing side) was an absolute breach from the school's history. It had become the chapel of the latter group. Several old wooden pews were shoved into one corner, all but one that stood alone. It faced the pew group in the back and stood in a puddle of water, with the curled floor tiles looking like floating pond plants around its feet. The setting sun cast a strange golden light through the windows of this room.

We didn't trust the stairs enough to explore the upper storey. One room we'd entered had a collapsed ceiling all over its floor, so we dared not go stomping around up there. And the basement was filled with more of the rank old water, at least ankle-deep, beneath mildewed walls. It was too dark to see much, but we did creep to the edge of this cavernal pool to take a peek into the biology room and see the ghostly outline of a work station left in there; but like the kitchen, it was hard to envision students learning--particularly learning about the working of live things--in that place.

We left the main building and walked back to the place where shop class (now known as industrial arts) was held. This garage-like building was a lot less creepy. It was open enough for cleansing air to blow through it. In fact, it looked as if the equipment for class might have been hauled out only yesterday; and the day before that, class might have still been conducted. Scott really wished he could have explored the band building, but it was still locked tight, almost as if the domain of music was protected from the worst of the shame that had come upon this place, but then again I being a musician would see it that way. (smile)

We had seen all there was to see. We left. The thought came to me how great was the desolation that had visited that towering old building. Old timers would say, "We live in a fallen world." Oswald Chambers said (in my devo reading around the day we got back) "The basis of things is not rational but tragic..."

As we drove back to get our pizza, Scott commented on our exploring in the context of the rear view mirror quote I'd read him earlier in the day. "Much of my rear view mirror does not account for changes like these. We do see old things as close no matter how much they grow strange and far away from our brush with them. In time, they decay and lose their power everywhere except in our own minds. I'm glad I had the chance to have you and the kids with me when I saw the reality of what is actually there." I am glad we were there, too.

A Triptych of My Husband's Home Town (panel two)

This visit to Grayville certainly was not our first look into that mirror of my husband's history, it was simply the first time the town lived up to its name for us.

Currently, the highway through the little village is being widened, so I suppose the town will soon reflect its symbolic name in that a traveler will be able to whiz through it seeing only a passing gray blur; but that is not really what I mean by it living up to its name. For years, we have taken the time to look at the town, dissecting its influence on us, but we saw only pure black and white in it--mostly the black. Now we are seeing the blend of the two, the something gray and unfathomable. I blogged a few days ago about the ultimate sameness of the glass half empty/glass half full analogy used by many to analyze life's ups and downs. I feel like that idea comes into a fuller ripening here.

Our joint soul-quest can be given a visual representation through the example of skewed lines. Lines in space that pierce a common plane but never run parallel and never intersect are skewed. And, life for both my husband and me felt something like leaping from one of these lines--the line called "childhood"--to a separate skewed line called "adulthood." Many in our generation and in our current world know this feeling. In this respect, my husband describes himself as a man who had a childhood with its fair share of joys, but at the same time, a childhood that failed miserably to prepare him for the adulthood he now knows. Was this the fault of his parents? "The village" that raised him?

Fault is hard to assess, but this much is obvious: the lines men leapt across for generations were parallel, or at least intersecting, in the rural world from which we came; but now they are as skewed as were those same lines for the first generation of Pilgrims. There seems to be nothing on the new line that corresponds to the things we learned were "reliable" on the old one. The change of direction prompts vertigo. Who am I supposed to be on this line? Who are you? How do we walk it? And so, we have spent years looking to understand this world that proves to be so different from the world of our parents and their parents. Years trying to assess blame for the seemingly undeserved hardship and stress. Years biting our tongues as those same parents offered the rationale that they never had the stresses we have, so we must be greedy or unwise or undisciplined. They fear their own line dies as we raise our children to be on this new unfortunate (in their eyes) line. For years, we fight the shame of this judgment imposed by those we'd most like to please. For years, we simply tried to get our new footing. Then we arrived at this weekend...

This weekend felt like we were given a mysterious opportunity to drop off the line entirely and onto a magical plane of reflection and meditation, a place to simply view these lines--skewed regarding time and lifestyle. And though these lines remain skewed forever as they disappear into the distance, what can happen at that plane is a sort of uniting in this one thing: their simultaneous points of penetration of that plane of awareness. Somehow, this feels very important in a way much larger than our little lives can commemorate. If I can put it to words, maybe I'll even remember what standing on this plane of reflection is teaching me. I hope I can. Then again, maybe it will be like waking up in the middle of the night, thinking I had dreamed the answer to the secret of life, jotting it down on a bedside notepad, sleeping again in deep satisfaction, and waking the next day to see I've written only gibberish.

Time will tell. For now, I'll do my best to preserve what is fresh, to show the two worlds through various contrasting images.

• In one world, cement is used primarily for its cheapness, its convenience and its role in facilitating mobility. In the other world, gravel still serves this purpose, and cement is often used in decorating. It stands as a paradoxical memorial to things that are alive nearby but are already receding: a pair of lawn geese or deer or dogs, a birdbath with a cement cardinal inviting other "real" birds: Come back! There is yet room for independent live things here.
• In one world, landscaping is carefully groomed to be symmetrical or maybe to be asymmetrical, to be ethnic and sensitive to a multitude of environmental factors--in any case, it is landscaping that is intentional and the result of informed effort. In the other world, landscaping is manicured but not so often regimented; planned yet still somehow relaxed. And it carries its own reflection of informed effort. But in the first world, the dust of the landscaper's feet still lingers in the air; in the other world, the original landscaper has long since turned to dust, leaving behind the perennial ring of irises or maybe day lilies at the foot of an oak of ancient circumference.
• In one world, a fence operates as a much-needed boundary, offering privacy where it is sorely needed and giving an inoffensive view where the horizon is not an option. In the other, a fence is just...a fence. (This comparison comes from my husband's lips.)
• In one world, an outdoor gathering of people in lawn chairs occurs along a graceful canal that runs through downtown like a living piece of rococo art. The people gather to hear the symphony play an outdoor concert, hoping this event will give them peace and rejuvenating inspiration. In the other, the outdoor gathering of people in lawn chairs occurs outside a strangely triangular building of yellow brick, perched on the banks of the lake-that-was-a-river. These people also listen, but to a self-appointed preacher in a crisp white shirt with a plywood lectern. They, too, hope to be given peace and rejuvenating inspiration.
• Changes in the homeplaces also tell the difference between the worlds: in one world, they simply move to the suburbs, leaving little remembrance of anyone's former squatting rights...in the other, homeplaces are burned down and replaced with newer trailers. Or they may be left standing, but covered with new siding to replace the old, brown "brick-look" tarpaper. In that world, though, the trees and the street names don't change. Sometimes an old shed in the corner of the lot will even survive where the house itself did not. Sometimes, not everything is replaced, and not everything is forgotten.
• In one world, to see a bank means seeing polished marble, creative architecture, a bronze plaque. In the other, to see a bank means seeing a nondescript double wide trailer with an attached carport that shades the drive-up window. The sign in front very likely could have cost more than the building itself.
• In one world, central air is the greatest form of relief on a hot day. In the other, drinking a glass of iced tea while sitting in front of a box fan that sucks fragrant but humid air through a window, a fan held in place by pillows stuffed around it...this is the greatest form of relief on a hot day.
• In one world, you know the mayor's name and occasionally see him on television. You trust he is wise enough to run his community competently. In the other, you bump into the mayor at the local grocery store where he wears a Hawaiian print shirt and buys the local newspaper just like anyone. He knows your name (even though you're not a local anymore) and has, as a matter of fact, already heard that you're camping in town for the weekend. You trust he, too, is wise enough to run his community competently.
• In one world, camping means taking up temporary residence in a place where the sites are clean and carefully measured, a place where many engaging craft activities are offered to the kids at the community center/snack bar. My husband says that camping in this world means going to a place where even the bugs have name-tags. In the other world, campgrounds contain crooked water pumps, broken-cement-block fire rings, and a women's restroom. (There's a men's, too, but the light bulb is out in that windowless chamber; thus, everyone uses the women's room...But bring your own toilet paper if you feel inclined to use any, and don't lock the door as the lock is broken. You'll be trapped inside. Better to simply take someone along to stand guard, or you can just say a friendly howdy-do to anyone who walks in on you. After all, the chances of this are slim as there aren't many campers around anyway.)
• In one world, kids do things like soccer and lacrosse where they are always under someone's watchful eye, participating in educational, healthy, directed, expensive, insured activities. In the other, a kid still gets on a bike late in the morning with a few bucks in his pocket. He hollers bye and spends the day at the pool or at the park. If anything educational occurs, it is the result of random luck. His mom doesn't give it a second thought if he doesn't reappear until dark. Neither of them considers it a wasted day.

Finally, a bridge becomes apparent between the old world and the new, an arc springs between the skewed lines: in one world, the best-tasting water comes in a plastic bottle. You're on a first-name basis with it, and you pay good money for it. But in the other world, the best-tasting water comes from a waist-high pipe in the ground, staked up with some rope and scrap-wood. It is free if you can lift the pump handle. A child crosses from the new world into the old and asks, "Dad, is this water clean?" A father familiar with both worlds answers, "Eh? Let it run a minute before you drink any." The child waits, and then cups his hand and drinks before investing himself utterly, thrusting his sweaty head under the flow for a cool drenching. The drenching would have been less likely to happen in the "new" world...what with the water costing so much--and of course there's the central air, making such a baptism against the heat simply unnecessary. With the arrival of every good thing, something is lost. With the oppressiveness of every bad thing, something can be gained. But that is more what I want to think about tomorrow.

Such are the cultural and lifestyle differences of the two worlds. Happily, we find we can now move casually between them. Happily, we attempt to show our children the good on both of the skewed lines: the challenge and the vitality of the new world is ever with us. We are indeed pilgrims here, and there are no "Indians" hiding in the brush, happy to show us how to grow corn when we get hungry. On the other hand, the old world is not so desparately far away. A weekend trip can bring its virtues before our eyes again.

Tomorow, I'll try to put words to how these lines are skewed across time. It was a deep conversation we had on this, my love. I hope I can do it justice. Maybe you will have to help me with it.

A Triptych of My Husband's Home Town (panel one)

Life has found a theme again...fitting the holiday it fell on: Memorial Day.

We spent the weekend camping in my husband's home town...a small rural community in Southern Illinois on the banks of what once was the Wabash River. But eventually a flood caused the river to move on, leaving the town behind. It is said that young rivers flow fast and straight. Old ones wind and wander, their swirling currents cutting deeper and deeper fingers into the landscape as they careen back and forth until nature finally cuts off a portion of that river channel to make a straight path for the river again, and an ox-bow lake is isolated and born. While maps show that there is still some mixing of waters between the river proper and the side eddy that touches Grayville, it is still as a whole remote from the faster moving water...the water that has a place to go and things to do.

I noticed the metaphoric nature of that water this weekend. It reflects the spirit of the town in many ways. In fact, much of my husband's and my musings over the time we spent there, camping on the edge of the park, sharing space with woodchucks and lizards, we considered the duality of life...both the dualities found in seeing different places at the same time and in seeing the same place at different times.

The morning we took the children to play at the park, a park their father played at himself years ago, I read the following quote in my devotional. It comes from "Objects in the Rear View Mirror" by Meatloaf. (One of those fellows I never considered to be so profound--what with his Rocky Horror Picture Show history and all--but still...

"If life is just a highway,
Then the soul is just a car,
And objects in the rear-view mirror
May appear closer than they are."

I liked the author's reflections on the quote. Gire describes this lyric thusly:
"No matter how fast we drive or how far away, we can never escape our past. Even though it is behind us, it is always in our rear-view mirror. And though it seems that the images of our past should grow smaller, the irony is that the farther down life's highway we travel, the closer they sometimes appear. Always just a glance away. And always glancing back at us. The images in that mirror may send us safely on our way, or they may send us crashing into a ditch. Such is the power of memories."

We immersed ourselves in the world revealed by my husband's rear view mirror the last three days. We visited old haunts...even sneaking into his old abandoned high school...but these will be things for describing in the other panels of the triptych. For now, I'll stop and simply think how honored I am that he finally mustered the courage to take us off the main river channel into the waters that didn't have anywhere in particular to go where we could find that lost place and lost time, where we could reflect on both the charm and the horror of the changes and the sameness in life...

The Trashman Cometh...

A while back, I blogged about my performance arts class doing a sacramental creation of the prop-bags they were using in a chapel service. The combination film/skit involved trash bags as allegorical to the junk we carry around in our souls and what Christ can do to free us from that trash.

Today we had that chapel service. Later, I learned that in the break-out discussion groups that followed the service, two girls were weeping, girls who have been sitting on the fence about their faith in the power of Jesus Christ. How amazing it is to watch teenagers do such a thing in each others' lives! For it was the kids themselves that made this happen. They selected the text. They created the break-out groups' discussion guide. They adapted the text for film. They made the film. My own teenage son did the video edit. All I did was facilitate their vision of what they wanted to offer with this piece of performance art.

I had wondered for a while whether this odd class had really accomplished any valid purpose. It was such a synthesis of random elements. But if C.S. Lewis is right about art when he says, "We sit down before a picture [movie/play/concert] in order to have something done to us, not that we may do things with it. The first demand any work of art makes upon us is surrender. Look. Listen. Receive." If this is what art is to accomplish, then I have shown them the tools within them to create art that does things to people.

I like what Graham Greene says in The Power and the Glory: "There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets in the future." May these amazing young people have seen through such a door today, God, as their artistic witness stirred the souls of their peers.

Mystery solved.

My doctor is sending me to an interior decorator. Unless when I heard room-atologist I should have heard rheumatologist. I'll find out June 7 at 7 am (what kind of specialist sees patients at 7 am!?!)

In the mean time, I close out the school year with my students. I sent them a goodbye letter. In it, I quoted things from a book by Ken Gire--Windows of the Soul--that is my most current source of soul-stirring reading. Some of these are his words, others are his own favorite quotes. Either way, these things domino-fall nicely against my own soul so I'll keep them here in my literary scrapbook:

"A glass window stands before us. We raise our eyes and see the glass; we note its quality, and observe its defects; we speculate on its composition. Or we look straight through it on the great prospect of land and sea and sky beyond."
Benjamin Warfield in "Some Thoughts on Predestination"

"Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
But only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries."
Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "Aurora Leigh"
(I wonder: would I have understood this poem even 3 years ago? Back then, my well-shod feet were unstained by fallen berries; while my stained fingers grasped and came back empty. My soul cried out at the unfairness of blackberries suddenly out of season. You withered the bush, God. What an amazing risk You took. Then what a great pay-off when my eyes did indeed see heaven crammed into that fruitless bush.)

"Art is at once surface and symbol."
Oscar Wilde, preface to "The Picture of Dorian Gray"
(This, I think, is one of the most challenging things I try to convey to young people who study the arts under my tutelage. I take it very seriously.)

"The soul, though at all times hidden, is at all times revealed, expressing itself through everything we say and do. Through the ordinary brushstrokes of our everyday life, a portrait of our soul is being painted."
Ken Gire himself in the source book used here
(For teachers, this is a given. For others, maybe not so obvious.)

"There is more to you than you know." (Gandalf to Bilbo Baggins)
J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit"

And bookends to finish.
At one end, C.S. Lewis:
"The book or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing...They are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never visited."

At the other end, Abraham Heschel:
"He who is satisfied has never truly craved." Related to this quote Gire says, "...True food from heaven...The more we taste, the more we long for another taste. And another. Until at last the hunger grows so intense it transforms not only our lesser longings but our very lives themselves."

To me, this last is the lost heart of evangelism; one I strive to revive in my own little life at least. It reminds me of the quote you showed me, my love, from Blue Like Jazz:
"...I never liked jazz music because jazz music doesn't resolve. But sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself...I used to not like God because God didn't resolve. But that was before any of this happened."

And now before I really start to ramble off on a tangent...a last quote appears, reminding me to wind this down, playing even now in the background.

"That's it, Buster, you just lost your brain privileges!"
as said by Plankton on SpongeBob Squarepants.

The Specialist

Not the movie, the mystery one my answering machine told me that my doctor made me an appointment to see. Too bad I didn't get home in time to make a call back before the office closed. Too bad when the nurse tried to call my cell phone, the call wouldn't go through. Tomorrow is the soonest I can discover who I'll be seeing. What was in the x-ray? What was in the blood work? Why when I just get my life organized to be a little easier to walk through should something hit me that requires a "specialist"?

Tonight is the night I prove to the powers that be whether I'm a glass half empty or a glass half full kind of gal. Or maybe tonight I prove that both are just the same.

The Flipped-side of Faith

Two things God brought before my eyes this week. This morning He connected them to us. One came from a thought shared at staff devotions. That one is for you, my love. The other was for me. I got it in my "quiet reading time." Then I recognized He began the work of this 8 years ago. As Michelangelo says, "The more the marble wears, the better the image grows." This image is growing clearer all the time...heaven knows the marble is wearing!

Here is the example for you: when Peter walked on water, he walked but promptly sank. He cried out, "Lord save me!" "And immediately Jesus stretched forth [his] hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt? " The staff devotion was about the fact that Peter's lack of faith was not in Jesus. He saw Jesus walking on the water right in front of him. His lack of faith was in himself.

Here is the example for me: When Sarah was old, and they had waited a very long time for the coming of the promised child, three men visited her husband and reaffirmed the promise from God, saying it would happen within the year. Her response was to laugh. Again, not because she didn't have faith in the power of God, but because she lacked faith in herself. "How can a worn-out old woman like me enjoy such a pleasure?" she said.

This bond between these two has been crystallizing in my mind this morning...then it hit me these two were the names of our table assignments on our Emmaus Walk 8 years ago...that moment of our first real simultaneous spiritual awakening.

One more thing that is an exhortation to us.
Remember Peter means "the Rock."
Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek the LORD: look unto the rock [whence] ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit [whence] ye are digged.
Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah [that] bare you: for I called him alone, and blessed him, and increased him.

And for me: For the LORD shall comfort Zion: he will comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the LORD; joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody.

Oswald Chambers gives this thought about the progression of things: as a farmer makes a garden, first he must plow the ground and prepare the soil. Doing this takes away a "great deal of natural beauty" for a time. This is where we are right now. This is not the time to look for the promised blossems. I am reminded of your dream about the City Worker who planted yellow flowers, but with a strange machine that did the planting...no human hand touched the plants. I think this is an important dream to remember now, but I don't know why...maybe so that you won't grow weary in waiting for the unknown to reveal itself.

"Everyone who asks receives." Matthew 7:8

The Lord GOD hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to [him that is] weary: he wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned. Isaiah 50:4

Happy Sabbath.

The Emperor's New Clothes, Part 2 (as worn by Dan Brown)

I think when I speak about God's nature to that Bible class next week I'll read the kids an excerpt from Dan Brown's other book...the prequel to The daVinci Code...called Angels & Demons.

One thing about that book makes it hard to read...and I mean literally hard to read. It is at least 1 full inch narrower than any other narrow paperback book I own, making my hands cramp as I try to hold it open wide enough to read the words on the pages. My first thought was: were we wanting something that had a pretensiously large appearance to it, hence lots of itty bitty pages, or did we just want people to look awkward as they read it? (I saw someone reading it at the doctor's office the other day, and he was obviously having the same trouble I am.) But this is not the point to raise with the Bible class.

I think I'll read them an excerpt from Chapter 61 (I just set a brick on the book to hold it open so I can reference the text here.) In this chapter, we are given a flashback to a lecture the main character, Dr. Langdon, aka Tom Hanks, is giving about religious symbology. In this lecture, Brown has Langdon "debating" Christian symbolism with a few Christian students who are less informed about Christianity than most Buddhists are. He is full of knowing smiles and higher knowledge as he connects Christian purpose and symbolism to the singular driving force of some underlying previous religion.

Early Christians wanted to be buried facing east, as a nod to former tribal sun worship (none of his Christian students noted that maybe they wanted to be facing the direction from which Christ would return to earth.) As for halos, "...Halos, like much of Christian symbology, were borrowed from the ancient Egyptian religion of sun worship." He says this because they appear to look like sun discs in Egyptian art. (None of his New Age students piped in that halos are actually representative of the fact that the spiritual energy--aura, if you will--of these ones touched by God is so high it is physically visible.) Christmas? It is in December rather than March when it should be celebrated because it is a replacement for sol invictus celebrations, a holiday recognizing the change from increasing darkness to increasing light. (Personally, I like using that former symbol as a date to mark the celebration of Christmas since we don't know the actual date. Although I may have been unwittingly privy to it...see former blog about the mysterious sprouting of Christmas out of time; I posted it in March.)

After all his examples, he chalks it all up to transmutation or god substitution in an already established worship routine. One girl in his class gets offended on behalf of God, how sweet, and asks whether anything in Christianity is original. He responds that very little is original in any religion. He notes that something planted the ideas of communion and a Christ-figure in the minds of the Aztecs as well. Langdon believes that as mankind grows more civilized, he grows knowledgeable enough that he no longer needs any of these symbols.

So why is Dan Brown an emperor unknowingly in the buff through this passage? All the while this lecture is going on he (He) has Langdon doing something very telling, very tongue-in-cheek funny. Oh, I don't think he (Brown) realized the "symbolic" connection of having Langdon do this. He probably saw Donald Sutherland playing a college professor in a movie doing this and thought he looked cool, so he borrowed the image. All through this lecture that takes place in Chapter 61 --which if you "add it all up" gives you 7: a "symbolic" number representing God's completeness and sovereignty over all things created...another connection between this particular text and God that Brown probably didn't intend--all through it Langdon is munching on an apple.

Let me see now, I think I remember one of the most "original" symbols in the Bible having something to do with apple-eating. Now what did that symbol stand for again? Hmmm...oh, yes. When we saw that in scripture we were watching someone buy into the idea of having a claim on the power needed to appropriate knowledge comparable to God's knowledge. I'm surprised He didn't prompt Brown to have a snake slither out the door when the bell rang, but that would have been too obvious. Even Brown would have caught that. (smile)

You believe what!?!

Tomorrow or the next day, I think I'll offer to cover the high school Bible class that is without a teacher for these last two weeks of school. I think we'll talk about what this comment means: "I am a Christian." When I was young, this comment meant basically the same thing to everyone...albeit there were variances, particular of the Catholic versus Protestant vein. But now, making such a statement can mean this: I believe Jesus sired offspring who moved to France, chose Judas as His betrayer because of Judas' higher faith, and then later after Jesus came out of the tomb, He moved to India, did a little more stuff there and died again to be permanently buried in Kashmir alongside Moses. Moses!?! When did Mount Nebo...where scripture says Moses died...end up in Kashmir? I know he didn't wander up the wrong mountain...all the way over in India because Deuteronomy 34 says "Moses was 120 years old when he died, yet his eyesight was clear." ) Last night I heard a Christian apologist make the comment "We are a people who can say quite clearly what we believe, just not why. We have a dogma not a committment to a personal God."

The Sloshy Tablecloth

One of my favorite authors, Max Lucado, gives the cultural background on the old Christian saying: "my cup runneth over." In ancient tradition, if you were a guest in someone's home for a banquet, a cup left empty was a subtle hint that it was time for you to go home as the host was finding you tiresome. A full cup meant stick around a while longer. But a cup filled to overflowing--to the point where it spilled over and drenched the table around you--was the highest sign of favor from the host.

Last fall, I felt a call from God. Immediately upon my committing myself to that call, I began having "cup running over" experiences. The spills I made warranted groups of people cleaning up after me. Over and over through the fall and into the winter, I'd have those moments; and I'd shake my head and say "Spilling grace again." Even others were affected...for instance, my husband spilled my coffee all over himself when he tried to thoughtfully doctor it for me while I was in the bathroom at a fast food restaurant. Finally, somewhere around Christmastime, I came across the book with Lucado's historical "explanation" for the spills: God is happy with my offering of myself. I am welcome at His table.

Lately, though, has been a dry spell. Not so many spills. And, now there is the question of whether my health will fail me before I can even make good on that offering. Not that I have a problem with being "let off the hook" but the sense that He had this course in front of me has been so strong. My belief is that the commission has not changed; if anything my comprehension of it will.

Coming from the doctor's office today, I sat in a long line at the drive-through for a fast-food restaurant. That long line gave me the opportunity to lay these thoughts out for God. My faith's not shaken; but I realize clarification may be coming as to His plan. I told Him I was fine with that...I know His way of doing things is often not perceptible as wisdom until it is looked at in hindsight. I've experienced that many times. Why would I doubt the infallibility of His messages now?

As I got to the window finally, the little gal handed out my bag of tacos. Then she picked up my drink to hand it out too...and spilled it all over the place! She didn't even get mad. She just laughed and made me another one, like the whole thing just made her down-right happy. And well it should have. It sure made me happy!

Don't think I'm not...

...thinking of you tonight...I have already said a prayer for you, and, even though I know there won't be bad news, I will say another later...I remember Steven King saying..."I always sleep with my feet under the covers so the monsters that live under my bed won't get them...I know there are no monsters there, I know there never were monsters there, and if I sleep with my feet under the covers, they won't get them..."

Love you, precious....

Mother's Day +1

I didn't get a blog on yesterday...but here is what is on my mind as a mom.
These are some of the things I hope that I might not just say, but might actually live in front of my children. If these could be my true legacy, I would feel I lived that part of my life--motherhood--well:

1)"Rejoice with those who rejoice...life in harmony with one another; do not be haughty...never be conceited. Repay no one evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all." Romans 12:15-18

2)"Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anyone." First Thessalonians 4:11-12.

3)"What happens when we live God's way?...We develop a willingness to stick with things...We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments." Galatians 5:22

4)"Make sure that you don't get so absorbed and exhausted in taking care of all your day-by-day obligations that you lose track of the time and doze off, oblivious to God." Romans 13:11

5)"Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it." Romans 12:2

And most of all, I pray that I could honestly echo Christ in saying this--
"I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me." John 8:28.

By way of self-assessment, I know I am a better "walking testimonial" for some of these than for others...and I'm not much good at doing multiples of them in concert...I tend to get mad and/or irrational when too much "high road" walking is required of me. (Like Bill Cosby, I can be driven to insanity and known to make ridiculous pronouncements: "No one is ever to look at anyone else in this house ever again!" after hearing "He's looking at me..." whined over and over and over and over...)
I also falter when these opportunitites for displaying righteous living come at me in the Chinese Water Torture format.

But hopefully in the end, my children could reflect on this list and recall at least one or two times when I have shown them a life lived by these principles. More importantly, I hope they have the wisdom to look back for these character gems in their mother in the first place.

The good is always the enemy of the best...

...says Oswald Chambers.
Yesterday I blogged about my misunderstood friend...one who has joined the fraternity of the "secretly honorable." (smile)

I've also blogged in the past about how God has been showing me to be a living example of what was given symbolically to the Ancient Hebrews through the image of bread...called the Bread of the Presence. I've been that bread this week in particular in at least 7 episodes...some were of my own initiating, while some were other-initiated.

Now these two merge into one very funny piece that Scott sent to a young friend of ours. It is too funny and too timely to not keep a record of it here:

BREAD IS DANGEROUS !!!
Research on bread indicates that:
1. More than 98 percent of convicted felons are bread users.
2. Fully HALF of all children who grow up in bread-consuming households score below average on standardized tests.
3. In the 18th century, when virtually all bread was baked in the home, the average life expectancy was less than 50 years; infant mortality rates were unacceptably high; many women died in childbirth; and diseases such as typhoid, yellow fever, and influenza ravaged whole nations.
4. More than 90 percent of violent crimes are committed within 24 hours of eating bread.
5. Bread is made from a substance called "dough." It has been proven that as little as one pound of dough can be used to suffocate a mouse. The average American eats more bread than that in one month!
6. Primitive tribal societies that have no bread exhibit a low incidence of cancer, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease, and osteoporosis.
7. Bread has been proven to be addictive. Subjects deprived of bread and given only water to eat begged for bread after as little as two days.
8. Bread is often a "gateway" food item, leading the user to "harder" items such as butter, jelly, peanut butter, and even cold cuts.
9. Bread has been proven to absorb water. Since the human body is more than 90 percent water, it follows that eating bread could lead to your body being taken over by this absorptive food product, turning you into a soggy, gooey bread-pudding person.
10. Newborn babies can choke on bread.
11. Bread is baked at temperatures as high as 400 degrees Fahrenheit! That kind of heat can kill an adult in less than one minute.
12. Most American bread eaters are utterly unable to distinguish between significant scientific fact and meaningless statistical babbling.
In light of these frightening statistics, it has been proposed that the following bread restrictions be made:
1. No sale of bread to minors.
2. A nationwide "Just Say No To Toast" campaign, complete celebrity TV spots and bumper stickers.
3. A 300 percent federal tax on all bread to pay for all the societal ills we might associate with bread.
4. No animal or human images, nor any primary colors (which may appeal to children) may be used to promote bread usage.
5. The establishment of "Bread-free" zones around schools.

No one can say how they'll be bread for someone else. No one can know whether in giving themselves as a type of offering they will be understood, as this funny little piece demonstrates.

Lately, we've felt God tapping us on the shoulder and saying He was going to make changes in our lives. It has been such a gauntlet to run...envisioning one obstacle after another...primarily obstacles to our human logic. Like human logic dictates divine activity! So we've done what everyone does: we've made ourselves busy. My book that I'm reading, the one that is supposed to function as a cheerleader in my efforts to accept this mysterious divinely-prompted anticipation of change, says: "When we're busy, we don't just ignore God; we make control our god."

The first change You dictated was to slow down. You hit me in the head with a brick...and I don't mean figuratively (smile)...on that one, God. So I will slow down. Irony here--a thing I see many places lately--is also found in the imagery of my little book: when we accept that God is wanting to make changes, we are often stupified because we are busy pouring over a Rand McNally rendering to tell us where we're going...even as You are buckling us into the seat of a supersonic jet. "Get over yourself...come along for the ride. Trust me. You'll end up where I want you, whether you can track the little red and blue lines across the page or not."

So...am I ready to sit perfectly still; be slow; be relaxed...even as You chose the altitude and rev up Your engines, shooting me/us off at the speed of sound?

The Emperor's New Clothes...

...today I saw the antithesis of the old fairy tale where the Emperor--due to falsely inflated, egotistical dignity--is coaxed into marching around town in the buff.

Contradictory to this emperor, the friend I saw today, (yet another example of the dark and light contrast I mentioned in my last blog) sacrificed his dignity for the sake of other people's hearts. He allowed his honor to lay in question, without storming the doors in defense of his dignity, because such an assault would have left casulties, and he is too kind to do that. Ironically, such a loss of baseline dignity--to those who can really see and hear when it happens--creates an even greater dignity. It becomes like diamonds that change from this: tough little mountain droppings to this: rainbow-flashing facets that dazzle the eyes.

So as a tribute to you, Greg (and I know you're not perfect, and I know you thoughtlessly brought this problem on yourself, but nevertheless your walk in this type of honor)...for you, here are a couple of fun quotes that have to do with people and dignity.

"...the first notice his Excellence received of the intrusion was when from his garden he heard the gradually nearing uproar of expostulation and the answering bull-roar of inarticulate swearing. Slowly, he lay down his garden trowel; slowly he stood up; and slowly, he frowned. There in his garden, no one disturbed him--no one!
Inevitably, he said, "What is the meaning of this?"
It is the precise question and the precise wording thereof that has been put to the atmosphere on such occasions by an incredible variety of men since humanity was invented. It is not recorded that it has ever been asked for any purpose other than dignified effect."
from Foundation and Empire, by Isaac Asimov

"...and in the evenings I lie in bed and watch television. When you are a writer and a speaker, you aren't supposed to watch television. It's shallow. I feel guilty because for a long time I didn't allow myself a television, and I used to drop that fact in conversation to impress people. I thought it made me sound dignified. A couple of years ago, however, I visited a church in the suburbs, and there was this blowhard preacher talking about how television rots your brain. He said that when we are watching television our minds are working no harder than when we are sleeping. I thought that sounded heavenly. I bought one that afternoon."
from Blue Like Jazz, by Donald Miller

You're going to be fine, friend. Better than most.

Dark meets Light...

...in many venues, my love.
From your dreams.
To my student's dreams.
From our expectations.
To the world.
See this:

IQALUIT, Nunavut - Northern hunters, scientists and people with vivid imaginations have discussed the possibility for years.
But Roger Kuptana, an Inuvialuit guide from Sachs Harbour, North West Territories, was the first to suspect it had actually happened when he proposed that a strange-looking bear shot last month by an American sports hunter might be half polar bear, half grizzly.
Territorial officials seized the creature after noticing its white fur was scattered with brown patches and that it had the long claws and humped back of a grizzly. Now a DNA test has confirmed that it is indeed a hybrid — possibly the first documented in the wild.
"We've known it's possible, but actually most of us never thought it would happen," said Ian Stirling, a polar bear biologist with the Canadian Wildlife Service in Edmonton.
Polar bears and grizzlies have been successfully paired in zoos before — Stirling could not speculate why — and their offspring are fertile.

Let's keep digging...(smile)

David and His Grandma

...I was going to discuss a neat article I found on the democracy of bees, which is based on a dance contest--a complex shimmy dance they do for each other--but I figured it would start you laughing again, love. And it is Sunday after all, so here's a Sunday blog.

Backtracking in my prayer journal, I found I juxtaposed these prayers back on Yom Kippur, the Hebrews' Feast of the Tabernacles, the celebration of God's plan to take his people from being desert nomads to being the landed gentry. On Yom Kippur, I melded my own prayers to these. Yesterday, I came across this prayer from Psalm 139 in the course of this backtracking. Today, it showed up in my devotional. Oswald Chambers started the devo I was on today with the following words: "Psalm 139 ought to be the personal experience of every Christian." (from Daily Thoughts for Disciples.) I counted this extra attention to this faith song, prophetically given by King David, worthy of note here:
"You've hedged me in behind and before, and laid your hand on me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
It is high I cannot attain it." (Weren't we echoing these words just yesterday?)
"Where can I go from Your Spirit?
Or where can I fly from Your Presence?" (My bird, eh?)
If I ascend into heaven, You are there;
if I make my bed in hell, behold You are there.
Even there Your hand shall lead me.
If I say, 'Surely the darkness shall cover me,'
Even the night shall be light to me,
Indeed the darkness shall not hide from You,
But the night shines as the day;
The darkness and the light are both alike to You." (another recent topic of faith-stretching conversation between us, eh?)
Then he goes on to talk of being covered even in his mother's womb, being fearfully and wonderfully made even as a fetus. And he and the wife of his dishonor would birth the line through which Christ came. Who would have expected that?

Christ always full of surprises: disciples expect to spend the day fishing, they find the Savior making invitation to them; a woman trudging along for her son's burial, Jesus gives him back to her alive; religious leaders want a miracle as evidence of His power, He offers them a direct link to the Creator of all miracles; the Hebrew nation looks for a political leader in an immediate kingdom, He offers a spiritual leader in an eternal kingdom. Religious leaders assumed killing him would prove he wasn't who he said he was, he proved he was who he said he was by not staying dead. How much their faith must have been strained in those days considering they assumed they had it all figured out. How much that attitude haunts--possesses like the Serpent restating its position of Knowledge, that great temptation that caused the Fall--in the church of today. Would our corporate faith take the strain if He shined a spotlight on our hand, still holding that apple full of fresh bite marks, if He sent an eye-popping revelation of equivalent proportions today?

Anyway, I said there were two prayers. David's grandmother, Ruth, prayed this while he was but a seed within her...a seed that would take two generations to take form. Her petitionary prayer led to re-location to a place of profound prominence from a place completely outside God's lands of protective haven. She sought to go along with Naomi, the bitter one. I seek to go where Christ and You lead me.
"Entreat me not to leave you, or to turn my back from following you;
And wherever you go, I will go;
And wherever you lodge, I will lodge;
Your people shall be my people,
And your god, my god.
When you die, I will die,
And there be buried." Ruth 1:16-17

This I've prayed. This we've both dreamed. (Yes, you know even my chicken dream had elements of this...hehehe.)
Now guess where Naomi proceeded to take her: Bethlehem.

When God gave the laws of the Sabbath, He said to remain circumspect...a strange thing to put in conjunction with the Sabbath, but not so much so when God lays a specific Sabbath at your feet, and your faith strains to receive it. Be circumspect because such a Sabbath acts like a scale holding blessing and death in the balance. "Work" on such a Sabbath and you add weight to the death and misery side. Watch for God to lead where He's said He'll lead, and you add weight to the blessing side. It would take days to summarize all the examples of this principle in the reigns of Hebrew kings, God's people called to reveal His laws of engagement. You say you came out of your "encounter dream" with a heavier sense of responsibility for this Sabbath. You are right. We recommitted to that yesterday...found our common ground, reassured each other. I have faith that we will continue to be led. Happy Sabbath, my love.

Last night I dreamed I was a chicken...

...and upon relating this to Scott I received this response: peals of laughter. I guess it was my matter-of-fact presentation. Scott, through tears and guffaws said something about the Prednisone I'm taking. Maybe so. But, still...

It's funny how God gives you "meaningful" dreams that validate the verse about the foolishness of God being wiser than the wisdom of men.

Also funny is the fact that being a talking chicken in this dream made another dream--equally bizarre--take on a more noble and explanatory meaning. So fine, I'll be a chicken. (smile)

"When 'sick' happens to you"

I borrowed the title from an article my hubby found for me today in Indy's weekly entertainment magazine. The article is funny and biting...as it should be since it is written by a woman (Mia Lee Bauman) who is a professional comic.

On a cruise, she developed serious pain behind one eyeball and lost vision in that eye. She describes the experience with "...and I seriously consider calling the ship's doctor to beg him to remove my eyeball. He can use whatever instruments are available to him. A spoon. I don't care. I am in so much pain I can feel the insanity creeping in." I can relate to her pain, although mine is not in my eye, it is behind my left temple. The spasms were so violent that they made my temple slap the strap that was supposed to hold my head still for my MRI on Wednesday. I've never experienced anything like it. After several hours of this, my neck tendons began to seize up, and I began to look like I was preparing for some cross-gender stage role as Quazimodo. These symptoms are still occurring today. I told my high school students that I'm beginning to think I'm about to birth something out the side of my head, but that I don't expect it to interrupt my life too much as its alien father will probably come and take it back to the home planet. One high school girl quipped "...or maybe a Greek goddess will leap out of your head." I told the English teacher he should be proud. He is obviously doing a fine job teaching the Odyssey, and the brighter ones are even finding opportunities to apply what they've learned in a broader context.

Mrs. Bauman's visit to her doctor, and then to her opthamologist proved frustrating. Not until the eye man told her (disgustedly) that she just needed aspirin and a nap in a dark room, but if she insisted, he'd refer her on...and she finally connected with a neurologist--not until then was she diagnosed with MS. The good news is that my MRI, thankfully, showed no such health issue. The bad news, my MRI showed no health issue. So we're assuming (I hate when doctors have to make assumptions) that my fibromyalgia (and its funky work on my immune system) is the culprit. So I'm on prednisone (say Hello, Moon Face!) and we'll see...

(P.S.when I posted that I felt like I was the moon, I meant it poetically, and not that I wanted a big round waxy-looking face...good grief!)

Maybe Charles needs some Vicodin

I've delayed giving this blog a title, because honestly I don't know where it will travel...I know, however, that I am in the mood to share, albeit I'm not sure where the tour-guide in my sub-conscious will take me.

I do know, however, that tomorrow is "International No-Pants Day". How or where this day achieved this designation I don't know, but I do know that hundreds of otherwise normal people will tomorrow eschew slacks, drawers, shorts, trousers, high-waters, jeans, sans-a-belts, and plain ole' pants for, I would guess.....well.....kilts....kilts would be a tremendous tool for people to declare their allegiance to No Pants Day. I have discovered, however, that buying a kilt is no easy proposition...there exists no such thing as the "Sears Kilt Outlet, or "J C Kilts (Oh where is the Scottish Store of SNL fame when you need it...."If It's Not Scottish, It's CRRAAAPPPP). Anyway, I plan to celebrate tomorrow by sparing the world the sight of my pantsless visage, as I am giving a drum demonstration at a Christian school...best not to incur the Wrath (upper case W) of God on that one...

The fates have seen fit to allow me a bit of time at home this week, and, once again, God shows his knack for these timing things by putting me at home the exact week my wife is suffering from a rather nasty headache-sickness-puny thingy. I would have been beside myself if I were 1000 miles away, listening to her try to keep the cogs of the household moving when she was practically on life support (others call it Vicodin)....I've been on the big V, and let me tell you, it's hard to string A-B-C together while under it's influence, nevermind try to cook and outfit 3 relatively dependent children for a week...it wouldn't have suprised me a bit to come home and find them duct-taped to the ceiling, while my wife sobbed and clutched a beheaded parrot in the corner. Thank you, God, for sparing me that visual...and thank you for taking care of her, as well....

On the work front, this week has given me a bit of decompression time from my Las Vegas hangover...LV is a world unto itself these days....It's like they have constructed a reality-proof dome over the city, effectively shielding it from anything that resembles the real world. The entire city reminds me of a cross between "The Truman Show" and "Jerry Springer". I can't, for the life of me, imagine living there. Unless you are running away from something, or have utterly given up on life....well, any life I can imagine living...and as a post script to that, I watched Charles Barkley on SportsCenter this morning confess that he has probably lost 10 million dollars gambling, playing cards....and that he has no intention of stopping, just cutting down to 1000 dollars per hand, rather than 10000 dollars per hand, because he likes the idea of beating the casino out of their money.....Glad to hear you have a handle on that monkey, Chuck...10 million dollars....it boggles the mind...how do you think they built those casinos, Chas?... not on the Abe Lincoln I dropped in the Rio last week....not on 5.99 steak and lobster buffets at the Frontier...how many kids could you have sent to college with that 10 large you flushed at the Mirage (fitting name, huh)....I think that the "rush" of keeping 5 million people from starving to death last year would have beat the hell out of your selfish, unfathomable sickness...I used to like you, C...

...but then again, what did I expect...at least you still have your pants

Now here's a prayer fit for posting...

...on the National Day of Prayer. I can't take credit for it. King David gave us this one, although I'm transcribing it to make it my own:

Deal bountifully with me, Your servant.
Open my eyes to see wondrous things from Your law.
I'd expect that every day I'd become more at home in my world, but instead I become more a stranger in it, and my soul melts from the heaviness of this.
You are my strength. I have chosen the way of the one known as the Truth.
I cling to the things He--Truth--testifies of You, though they mystify me.
O Lord, do not put me to shame!
I agree to run the full course of Your commandments.
I agree to run because you enlarge my heart.
Teach me Your way, and I'll keep it until the very end.
This is the testament of my passionate devotion to You!
Give me understanding...give it to my whole heart!
My heart I draw out and lay in Your open hand.
Incline it to You and the things You'd say through my life; protect me from covetousness.
Turn my eyes away from worthless things to see the valuable things invisible.
Revive me in Your way.
Establish me in Your Word.
Revive me in Your righteousness.
Amen

When I quoted this Psalm in my prayer journal last September, I finished the entry by saying that surely King David and I were inhabiting the same bubble of righteous truth as he wrote that one and as I read it. (smile)

Ode to John the Forgotten

How could I forget you? For years, you have not even entered my mind. How can that be? I'm acquainted with your counterpart from my husband's past. I'm not sure what his name was, (Snowball maybe) but he was white and fuzzy and became a multi-generational servant before he went the way of the Velveteen Rabbit. As have you, John.

You were resurrected in my memory one warm lazy afternoon during a study hall in my classroom. One of my high school students asked if she could interview me for a project. I agreed. Pretty typical questions. "Where were you born? Where did you grow up? What about siblings? Any childhood pets? A favorite toy?" I started to say no, when she elaborated, "Maybe a teddy bear?" Oh my God! There you were! Rushing back at me. I remember getting you when I was three from my "new" aunt. Who knows why I named you John. Who knows why my sister named her pink bunny "Barney." I don't remember how I came to name you, but I do remember this:
You were stiff and over-stuffed then, clad with a shiny red bow at your throat.
But within 10 years, your bow was gone (no doubt I decided to wear it in my own hair and lost it flying on some swing set.)
Your plastic snout was scuffed (from that careless love of childhood: one minute kissing you, the next dragging you face down along the floor.)
You were soft and mushy (from the tears I shed against your chest.)
You were the first thing I looked at as I came in from school (slumped on my bed, or else looking like a yogi, your nose touching your feet, see the soft, mushy reasons listed above.)

For years you never left that plane of my bed. Life's only variety for you was when I happened to get a new bedspread or take you along to Grandma's. But you knew all my secrets. Nothing seemed too silly to tell you. Never did I fear your disapproval as I expounded the unfairness of every well-deserved punishment I received. You were my surrogate playmate, brother, father, boyfriend, comforter and peace-giver...until I went away to college. There I found new sources of comfort. You stayed at home. I didn't really see you as serving any purpose beyond nostalgia at that point. I should have taken you with me. I didn't stop needing the comfort, I just found "living" but unworthy substitutes. Then, when I began to learn more about what was in the crater pool of pain I carried, and all the ripples that slid over it, I didn't want to remember you. Actually, I didn't want to remember why I needed you, why I cried on your chest. Other girls had stuffed animal collection. But me...I was monogamous.

"Did you have a favorite toy, maybe a teddy bear?"
It's revival time in the church of my memory. Thanks for everything, John. May some baby in heaven be holding you now.

a prayer song composed under the influence...

...of vicodin...no not even vicodin, its generic. I'll probably delete this post when I'm coherent and not in pain. It probably won't make sense any more then.

Remember...
I sing because you're memorable.
I dance because you're joyful.
I sleep because you're active there.
I listen because you have treasures buried.
I cry because you're compassionate.
I deteriorate...
I deteriorate because you have better to offer in exchange for what I have now.
I believe because you are changeless.
I love because you first loved me.
...Remember.

I finally watched Casablanca...

...last night for the first time. All these years...and I'd never seen it. I've watched Harry and Sally (in When Harry Met Sally) watch Casablanca plenty of times, but never had I seen it for myself. But I understand now why it has lasting appeal.

Plenty of contemporary movies offer the "animal passion held at bay" scenario for a while, but then there is always the violent sex scene on the stairs, against the backyard fence...whatever is most immediately convenient and at least smacks of privacy. Very few movies, however, take that passion scene and run it instead to the absolute dregs of unrequited chivalry. Love as embers that could be stirred but never are. Somehow such a story raises the image of true passion an exponential leap above what is described as "steamy, sexy, sultry, etc." on a playbill nowadays.

My hubby and I just had an interesting chat about all this. I told him that to me it is like the difference between being male and female versus being masculine and feminine. Males and females rut like animals in heat. But those endowed with the power to be truly masculine and feminine can hold each other loosely in that Casablanca way if they must. In so doing, they hold each other tighter and longer and certainly more beautifully than the rutters are able to do. Love on a different plane. Love that goes to the end of life wanting what is best for the other person.

He and I do that 5 days a week, while he is on the road. Then of course is the scene on the stairs, against the backyard fence...