Everyone has weird relatives. If you doubt this, watch any group of unrelated people who will talk freely about how they spent Thanksgiving. You’re bound to hear a tale or five. If you think you don’t have weird relatives, check out the mirror, maybe you’re the one the others talk about when they get alone with friends.
(Disclaimer: If Mitch’s relatives or mine happen to read this, please be assured that I am, of course, speaking only about the other relatives.)
Truth is, you don’t get to pick your family. In our culture, you can select your spouse, and that’s about it. As individualistic and choice-driven as Americans love to be, you just can’t decide who gets to be your Aunt Wilma, or your in-laws (unless you had the foresight to cover this in your spousal interview), or that pierced persona threatening to run off with your daughter. For the most part, you don’t get to pick the people you’re going to hug and condole and congratulate at weddings, funerals, graduations and holidays for the rest of your life. Sometimes I think it’s one of God’s little practical jokes, a gift to enliven us with the unexpected and the uncontrollable, to help us take ourselves a little less seriously. Some people take this reality in stride, while others react by moving far, far away.
(Disclaimer: Mitch & I live in Colorado because we love mountains, not because Colorado is about as distant as you can get from both Georgia and California simultaneously. Besides, the craziest one of all lives just down the road.)
However much you might complain about your kin’s embarrassing eccentricities, you love them because blood makes you family. And you also, if you’re a nice person, accept the ones they chose because marriage and adoption also make you family. That doesn’t mean you approve of them, agree with them, want to spend time with them, or even like them – it just means you’re RELATED and they have certain claims on you in a way no one else does.
Of course, in the best of cases, you do like them and enjoy them and want to be with them whenever you can. I love my family: the straight-laced and the tattooed, graduates of seminary or rehab, veterans and young soldiers, politicians and truck drivers, veterinarians and novelists, home schoolers and public school teachers. I’ve got one relative whose company engineered the sound on movies you’ve watched, and another who cooks on a wood stove by choice and displays more guns than most preachers own Bibles.
Wacky, wild or wonderful, I get warm fuzzy feelings when I think of them all!
It’s the same with my bigger family, my two billion brothers and sisters around the world who have individually decided that faith in Jesus Christ is a once in eternity proposition too sweet to pass up. You know, some of these people are really, truly weird. Some of them have annoying habits. Some of them are just plain messed up and should be in rehab. Some just got out of rehab and live with more zeal than prudence.
But you’re my relatives, and I love you all. If you believe Jesus is God, and that he died on the cross to take the heat for every wrong choice you’ve ever made – you’re my family. (And if not, you’re my neighbor.)
Now, that doesn’t mean I agree with everything you have to say, and you might get on my nerves with some of your quirks, oddities, or what I might consider to be unbiblical theology. And no doubt you could return the same sentiment about me. But you’re family, made so by the power of His blood, by our marriage to His son. We are siblings, both by birth and adoption.
A family is not formed by affection alone, however much we might wish to belong. It takes birth, marriage, or adoption. The family of God is formed by all three
And just like my natural relatives, I didn’t get to choose who belongs. I just accept and love the ones God chose to be my family. Every time I go to church (particularly on those occasions when I get to visit a church different than my preferred style), I get this excited feeling inside, because I love the Bride of Christ in all her wild, crazy, wonderful variety and sometimes weirdness.
Love is not the same as unilateral, uniform, unquestioning insipid tolerance. Love celebrates differences, but love also questions inconsistencies, confronts incongruities, gently exposes weaknesses and failings in a spirit of restoration and mutual growth. Love is iron sharpening iron, neither yielding, sparks flying, yet understanding that in the end, we are of the same element.
And that element is blood.
Showing posts with label Family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Family. Show all posts
Friday, December 01, 2006
Friday, September 08, 2006
My Cousin Jud
I know I've been blogless for weeks on end but here's an oh-so-linkable post from someone many of you would enjoy. For Dr. Dolittle & other missionary parents - be thankful YOUR kids TELL you about all that stuff they do when you're not around!!
At least . . . let's hope they're telling you . . .
They say everybody's got a crazy family and here's one of mine:
With love from CO to GA - and OK, CA, HI, WA and everywhere else I've got family, please meet
My Cousin Jud
At least . . . let's hope they're telling you . . .
They say everybody's got a crazy family and here's one of mine:
With love from CO to GA - and OK, CA, HI, WA and everywhere else I've got family, please meet
My Cousin Jud
Thursday, August 10, 2006
Grandma's Gone to Glory
“Please eat while we’re gone so we can see you in a couple of weeks,” I told her, the morning we left for Georgia. And then softly, in her ear, “Thank you for giving me Mitch. He’s the greatest gift you could ever have given.” And then we were gone.
She couldn’t wait two weeks, not even one. Right about the time we turned from one North Georgia highway onto another, she was already past the Milky Way, and by the time we pulled into my parents’ driveway, she’d already spent 30 minutes in her new home.
Time enough, as time goes there, to catch up with her husband, sister, parents, and all the rest. Time to take a few running galaxy laps, just for a bit of a stretch, then settle in to compose a couple of oratorios and organize choir rehearsals. Time to curl up in Jesus’ lap and ask all the why’s she still cares about, if any.
As we told the kids, “Grandma just closed her eyes, sleeping like she has been in her chair, and next thing she knew, her eyes opened and she might have thought to herself,
“This isn’t my room. As a matter of fact, this doesn’t look like any place on earth I’ve ever been.”
Next she might have realized that nothing hurt and everything worked, her speech, walking, full range of motion restored, withered forearm and clenched fist uncurled and relaxed, and ready to take the hands of a couple of angels who flew up right then and said, “C’mon, there’s people lined up to see you.”
That at least she would be used to. All her life, people connected with Mom and she with them. As a customer service supervisor for a large ministry, she had a stream of employees in and out of her office getting coaching, counseling, prayer, problem resolution.
Once, I suggested she could try to think of the caregivers in the same way. “Only this time, they’re coming into your office to ask how they can help you.”
Strong-willed to the end, she never lost her core qualities reflecting out of her deep blue eyes, although she lost everything else. Even the caregivers who came in the last year, who never heard her say one word, developed a strong connection with her.
Sanguine, sassy, spicy all her life, she retained that as well. Never shy and often ornery, she would sometimes express herself in the few ways she still could. Once a caregiver was late, and told Mom she was sorry. “Sorry doesn’t cut it,” Mom shot back. Our friend loved it and retold the incident for days.
But Mitch and a few caregivers could still make her laugh by clowning.
“I must have been a beautiful baaaby,” Mitch would sing, rolling his eyes, and pinching his cheeks. She would shake with mirth, making small choking noises in her throat that let us know she was laughing – or crying as the case may be.
Shades of her busy office, she still loved being the center of attention. One caregiver would “dance” with Mom while maneuvering her in and out of bed, joking about good-looking Tom Jones. Another would kneel by her side, holding her hand, and pray for her each morning. You can’t buy help like that, but we received it over and over again.
“Giver-Givers,” my three-year-old called the ladies who came into our home four times a day to feed, bathe, dress and care for Mom, and the name fit well. Many became like family, preparing Mom’s food in the kitchen side by side with me as I cooked for the rest of us. Several bought her gifts, new pj’s, slippers, a pillow for her back. A year ago when she could still barely speak, one caregiver would cajole her into saying “Walla Walla Washington,” then they’d both collapse in giggles.
Mom always loved her family and friends. My children would go downstairs and lay on her bed, next to the Lazy-Boy where she spent all her waking hours and, as time wore on, many more napping hours as well. They’d watch cooking shows or kid shows with her. I know this brought her a lot of joy, so I let the kids get away with more TV than they would have upstairs.
We are so glad we kept her in our home, and that she was able to stay here until the start of her next journey. That’s what she wanted. Her leaving marks the end of a journey for Mitch and me as well, in a sense. Thankfully, one day at a time, it worked. I think it could have continued working for as long as she needed us, had she stuck around for another few rounds. But we’re glad she left while her clear blue eyes still told a story her lips could no longer manage, and that her mind still understood all we said. Most of all, her heart still gave and received love.
The best of caregivers are vulnerable because they do not keep those tidy professional boundaries. They really bond. And at times like these, they really, really hurt.
And of course, Mitch is deeply sad. Although it’s been many years coming, one step at a time, the finality is different. I did not realize how different it would be for him. Having not yet lost a parent, I’m trying to enter in, to feel his heart in all of this.
Right now we are on a sorrowfully-sweet journey of a different kind – rediscovering Mom and all our family history and roots. In preparing for the memorial service, we’re spending many, many hours digging into old photo albums, tracing family trees, trying to figure out how to turn Mom’s favorite big band, swing jazz and Gospel CD’s into MP3 clips to accompany photos of her.
Meanwhile, I’m re-gathering my earlier, pre-stroke memories of Mom – the time she comforted me when Mitch first hurt my feelings in our dating days, the great mind connection she and I had as partners in a round of Taboo, her weeping joy when she unwrapped a tiny pair of baby shoes we gave her at the Villa in Palmer Lake, in 1996.
This will be a service not run by ministers but a gathering of friends, each of whom we hope will share a memory, a song, a prayer, a verse.
Once again, on August 19, Mom will be the center of attention. And we’re working very hard to make sure it’s one sweet party.
She couldn’t wait two weeks, not even one. Right about the time we turned from one North Georgia highway onto another, she was already past the Milky Way, and by the time we pulled into my parents’ driveway, she’d already spent 30 minutes in her new home.
Time enough, as time goes there, to catch up with her husband, sister, parents, and all the rest. Time to take a few running galaxy laps, just for a bit of a stretch, then settle in to compose a couple of oratorios and organize choir rehearsals. Time to curl up in Jesus’ lap and ask all the why’s she still cares about, if any.
As we told the kids, “Grandma just closed her eyes, sleeping like she has been in her chair, and next thing she knew, her eyes opened and she might have thought to herself,
“This isn’t my room. As a matter of fact, this doesn’t look like any place on earth I’ve ever been.”
Next she might have realized that nothing hurt and everything worked, her speech, walking, full range of motion restored, withered forearm and clenched fist uncurled and relaxed, and ready to take the hands of a couple of angels who flew up right then and said, “C’mon, there’s people lined up to see you.”
That at least she would be used to. All her life, people connected with Mom and she with them. As a customer service supervisor for a large ministry, she had a stream of employees in and out of her office getting coaching, counseling, prayer, problem resolution.
Once, I suggested she could try to think of the caregivers in the same way. “Only this time, they’re coming into your office to ask how they can help you.”
Strong-willed to the end, she never lost her core qualities reflecting out of her deep blue eyes, although she lost everything else. Even the caregivers who came in the last year, who never heard her say one word, developed a strong connection with her.
Sanguine, sassy, spicy all her life, she retained that as well. Never shy and often ornery, she would sometimes express herself in the few ways she still could. Once a caregiver was late, and told Mom she was sorry. “Sorry doesn’t cut it,” Mom shot back. Our friend loved it and retold the incident for days.
But Mitch and a few caregivers could still make her laugh by clowning.
“I must have been a beautiful baaaby,” Mitch would sing, rolling his eyes, and pinching his cheeks. She would shake with mirth, making small choking noises in her throat that let us know she was laughing – or crying as the case may be.
Shades of her busy office, she still loved being the center of attention. One caregiver would “dance” with Mom while maneuvering her in and out of bed, joking about good-looking Tom Jones. Another would kneel by her side, holding her hand, and pray for her each morning. You can’t buy help like that, but we received it over and over again.
“Giver-Givers,” my three-year-old called the ladies who came into our home four times a day to feed, bathe, dress and care for Mom, and the name fit well. Many became like family, preparing Mom’s food in the kitchen side by side with me as I cooked for the rest of us. Several bought her gifts, new pj’s, slippers, a pillow for her back. A year ago when she could still barely speak, one caregiver would cajole her into saying “Walla Walla Washington,” then they’d both collapse in giggles.
Mom always loved her family and friends. My children would go downstairs and lay on her bed, next to the Lazy-Boy where she spent all her waking hours and, as time wore on, many more napping hours as well. They’d watch cooking shows or kid shows with her. I know this brought her a lot of joy, so I let the kids get away with more TV than they would have upstairs.
We are so glad we kept her in our home, and that she was able to stay here until the start of her next journey. That’s what she wanted. Her leaving marks the end of a journey for Mitch and me as well, in a sense. Thankfully, one day at a time, it worked. I think it could have continued working for as long as she needed us, had she stuck around for another few rounds. But we’re glad she left while her clear blue eyes still told a story her lips could no longer manage, and that her mind still understood all we said. Most of all, her heart still gave and received love.
The best of caregivers are vulnerable because they do not keep those tidy professional boundaries. They really bond. And at times like these, they really, really hurt.
And of course, Mitch is deeply sad. Although it’s been many years coming, one step at a time, the finality is different. I did not realize how different it would be for him. Having not yet lost a parent, I’m trying to enter in, to feel his heart in all of this.
Right now we are on a sorrowfully-sweet journey of a different kind – rediscovering Mom and all our family history and roots. In preparing for the memorial service, we’re spending many, many hours digging into old photo albums, tracing family trees, trying to figure out how to turn Mom’s favorite big band, swing jazz and Gospel CD’s into MP3 clips to accompany photos of her.
Meanwhile, I’m re-gathering my earlier, pre-stroke memories of Mom – the time she comforted me when Mitch first hurt my feelings in our dating days, the great mind connection she and I had as partners in a round of Taboo, her weeping joy when she unwrapped a tiny pair of baby shoes we gave her at the Villa in Palmer Lake, in 1996.
This will be a service not run by ministers but a gathering of friends, each of whom we hope will share a memory, a song, a prayer, a verse.
Once again, on August 19, Mom will be the center of attention. And we’re working very hard to make sure it’s one sweet party.
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Oh, I Wish I Was in Dixie!
When I was nearly six, my family drove from British Columbia to Georgia. I had left Georgia at the age of 11 months and learned to walk on the boat en route to Tokyo. So on that first trip back, I really couldn't remember Dixie much less the "old times there ne'er forgotten." Nevertheless I belted out "Dixie" mile after thousands of irritating miles, much to the annoyance of my elder siblings and parents. I thought this would be a good time to teach that song to my kids now as we undertake the ol' familiar sojourn to my Southern roots and family. Irritating one's parents OR children on road trips is a time-hallowed tradition.
Among other family reunions, with my co-worker Karen's permission to do this without her in attendance, I plan to hold a meeting of the Pastor Luke Fan Club, Southern Division, at Jim 'n Nick's BBQ.
And Pastor Denny, I will wave as I drive by. Maybe another trip we can do lunch in Wichita!
You know, I think people are amazing, and my friends are amazing. Few things make me happier than sharing my friends with my other friends. While I am away, please welcome some of my nearest and dearest, old friends and new, who will be guest-posting on both my blogs, Living From My Heart and Healing School.
I guarantee you will be blessed.
Among other family reunions, with my co-worker Karen's permission to do this without her in attendance, I plan to hold a meeting of the Pastor Luke Fan Club, Southern Division, at Jim 'n Nick's BBQ.
And Pastor Denny, I will wave as I drive by. Maybe another trip we can do lunch in Wichita!
You know, I think people are amazing, and my friends are amazing. Few things make me happier than sharing my friends with my other friends. While I am away, please welcome some of my nearest and dearest, old friends and new, who will be guest-posting on both my blogs, Living From My Heart and Healing School.
I guarantee you will be blessed.
Thursday, July 06, 2006
A Neighborhood Fourth
One of the million things I love about America: Small neighborhood get-togethers.
Two of my neighbors organized a bicycle parade, inviting everyone to decorate bikes, strollers, and wagons. We had dogs, roller-bladers, flags waving, and a pair of balloon-decorated SUVs fore and aft to keep the kiddies safe from any traffic. Neighbors watched on lawn chairs as we marched by. People yelled "God Bless America" and "Happy Fourth." One SUV blasted Lee Greenwood's God Bless the USA on repeat. I didn't mind. I never get tired of it.
Afterwards - lemonade and cookies for all at a driveway lemonade stand. The sign proclaimed "25 cents" but the host dad waived that for those who didn't bring cash.
What a great chance to meet neighbors and celebrate our freedom, and our common joy in our children.
Monday, June 26, 2006
My Day Ahhhhhhhhff
Since my employer charmingly mandates that I use up all remaining vacation time before fiscal year end, I took the day off yesterday. A Monday at home is delightful. Not part of a massive road trip effort, not even a trip to the Cheyenne Mountain zoo, just home.
When I would normally be stuffing leftovers into a sack and grabbing kisses from both kids, I instead cuddled in our waterbed with my 3-yr old, surrounded by stacks of books and an audience of plush doggies.
Once Mitch got home from work, we ate breakfast all together and then headed off for Walmart – before pre-nap exhaustion, sibling stress, and kid-consumer gimme-ism set in.
We got home just in time for a quick dip in our new backyard pool, frigid although Mitch gallantly tried to warm it by draining our hot water heater repeatedly. But kids don’t care about such details. We learned when my son was 2 that the standard answer will always be, “N-n-n-n-no, I’m not c-c-c-c-cc-cold.”
Still, I got no argument taking a shivering little girl out for nap, and she didn’t even pull the last-second delay tactic, “But I’m huuuuungry.”
One child safely down, I spread lunch fixings all over our table. It’s amazing how a sandwich can taste like you bought it in a restaurant if you put enough good stuff on it. Lately I’m enjoying a Basil Ranch salad dressing, my son prefers Goat Cheese with Sun-Dried Tomato. Mitch peeled us an avocado, and we had lots of romaine and red-leaf, roma tomatoes and red bell peppers. My young gourmet fried us up some bologna slices – they bulge in the middle with the heat and come out looking like little sombreros.
The three of us finished Steve Martin’s Pink Panther – we started it at dinner the night before but my 3-yr old kept asking every 5 seconds “What happened, Mama?” plus she truly did not understand the humor of people getting knocked down, hit in the head and what not. I could tell she disapproved.
So we three enjoyed it sans running commentary. My favorite part is when Inspector Clousseau spins the big globe, and, with a nod to Peter Sellers’ falling on the floor with that move, the globe instead comes off its stand and turns into an Indy Jones-like missile destroying all in its path and takes down a pack of cyclists like bowling pins.
Getting Mitch to do anything sitting down is a little tricky, but I’ve been wanting him to read my blogs for days now, and he knew it, so he sat still long enough to catch up. Since he’s the human whose approval I care most about, that alone made my day.
Naptime over, we got another arctic dip, put the kids in pink and blue see-through donuts and spun them like bumper boats. Later I swathed them in warm towels and blankets.
I made curry for dinner, S&B Golden Curry, Medium Hot, a Japanese import which takes me back. I’ve made peace with the fact that, at least for now, my kids do not like curry, so I make two meals on these nights. Mitch has the same taste I do, or I might not have married him. Life is too short for bland food.
Afterward Mitch started to throw away the S&B box and I stopped him – “Wait, I might need to blog about that.” This made him laugh out loud. (When we first started dating, Mitch’s laugh embarrassed me, until several of my friends commented how nice it was, and I have loved it since. Mitch is the one you hear laughing across the room in church or at the movies. Not the annoying kind that goes on and on, Mitch laughs because he really thinks it’s funny, and he’s not thinking about himself. That makes people happy to be around him.)
Mitch thinks I should blog about “You Might Be A Blogger If . . . .”
My desire to save the curry box being Exhibit A.
We finished the evening by watching Dinotopia – this one accessible for my 3-yr old with its talking saurians and comprehensible dangers. I am completely intrigued by this movie. It reminds me very much of Kent Hovind’s DVD on dinosaurs. Although philosophically the two are realms apart, they both tell of a world where humans and dinosaurs lived together.
Refreshed, I’m ready to return now to the world of EOBs and death certificates, benefits summary rewrites and finding new ways to make all these things comprehensible and accessible to all I work with. As big a challenge in its own way as piloting a brach through a T-Rex infested forest.
It’s Tuesday, time for my own adventure!
When I would normally be stuffing leftovers into a sack and grabbing kisses from both kids, I instead cuddled in our waterbed with my 3-yr old, surrounded by stacks of books and an audience of plush doggies.
Once Mitch got home from work, we ate breakfast all together and then headed off for Walmart – before pre-nap exhaustion, sibling stress, and kid-consumer gimme-ism set in.
We got home just in time for a quick dip in our new backyard pool, frigid although Mitch gallantly tried to warm it by draining our hot water heater repeatedly. But kids don’t care about such details. We learned when my son was 2 that the standard answer will always be, “N-n-n-n-no, I’m not c-c-c-c-cc-cold.”
Still, I got no argument taking a shivering little girl out for nap, and she didn’t even pull the last-second delay tactic, “But I’m huuuuungry.”
One child safely down, I spread lunch fixings all over our table. It’s amazing how a sandwich can taste like you bought it in a restaurant if you put enough good stuff on it. Lately I’m enjoying a Basil Ranch salad dressing, my son prefers Goat Cheese with Sun-Dried Tomato. Mitch peeled us an avocado, and we had lots of romaine and red-leaf, roma tomatoes and red bell peppers. My young gourmet fried us up some bologna slices – they bulge in the middle with the heat and come out looking like little sombreros.
The three of us finished Steve Martin’s Pink Panther – we started it at dinner the night before but my 3-yr old kept asking every 5 seconds “What happened, Mama?” plus she truly did not understand the humor of people getting knocked down, hit in the head and what not. I could tell she disapproved.
So we three enjoyed it sans running commentary. My favorite part is when Inspector Clousseau spins the big globe, and, with a nod to Peter Sellers’ falling on the floor with that move, the globe instead comes off its stand and turns into an Indy Jones-like missile destroying all in its path and takes down a pack of cyclists like bowling pins.
Getting Mitch to do anything sitting down is a little tricky, but I’ve been wanting him to read my blogs for days now, and he knew it, so he sat still long enough to catch up. Since he’s the human whose approval I care most about, that alone made my day.
Naptime over, we got another arctic dip, put the kids in pink and blue see-through donuts and spun them like bumper boats. Later I swathed them in warm towels and blankets.
I made curry for dinner, S&B Golden Curry, Medium Hot, a Japanese import which takes me back. I’ve made peace with the fact that, at least for now, my kids do not like curry, so I make two meals on these nights. Mitch has the same taste I do, or I might not have married him. Life is too short for bland food.
Afterward Mitch started to throw away the S&B box and I stopped him – “Wait, I might need to blog about that.” This made him laugh out loud. (When we first started dating, Mitch’s laugh embarrassed me, until several of my friends commented how nice it was, and I have loved it since. Mitch is the one you hear laughing across the room in church or at the movies. Not the annoying kind that goes on and on, Mitch laughs because he really thinks it’s funny, and he’s not thinking about himself. That makes people happy to be around him.)
Mitch thinks I should blog about “You Might Be A Blogger If . . . .”
My desire to save the curry box being Exhibit A.
We finished the evening by watching Dinotopia – this one accessible for my 3-yr old with its talking saurians and comprehensible dangers. I am completely intrigued by this movie. It reminds me very much of Kent Hovind’s DVD on dinosaurs. Although philosophically the two are realms apart, they both tell of a world where humans and dinosaurs lived together.
Refreshed, I’m ready to return now to the world of EOBs and death certificates, benefits summary rewrites and finding new ways to make all these things comprehensible and accessible to all I work with. As big a challenge in its own way as piloting a brach through a T-Rex infested forest.
It’s Tuesday, time for my own adventure!
Monday, June 12, 2006
Happy Birthday, Joy!
From my earliest memory you were there, like the air I breathe. We shared a room until you were in 8th grade. I drove you crazy by my “organization style,” draping each day’s worn clothes over a chair until it nearly tipped over. I made fun of your juice can hair rollers.
When I was 7, we roughhoused on your bed in what was for you an uncharacteristically crazy tickle fight. In a reflexive kick, you knocked a loose tooth right out of my mouth (it only hung by a thread) and then felt so bad you apologized profusely. Probably the most violent act of your lifetime.
Together, we put on our swimsuits to do the dreaded chore, thinly disguised by Mom as a “Bathtub Scrubbing Party,” griping the whole time. Although you would have preferred a quiet leisurely read, you trekked with the family on a thousand picnic hikes, at the most memorable of which you flung a banana peel into the bushes, but it caught on a prominent twig and hung there like a neon sign. We laughed hysterically. We always laugh together. And cry when we need to.
We’re joined by memories and blood, not by any similarity of habit or temperament. Your Christmas tree disappears on New Year’s Day – mine lingers until Easter some years. (But as I grow older and more organized – more like you! - I try to get it put away before February.) Open heart surgery could be performed on your kitchen floor, and your definition of “clutter” is two stray sticky notes. I’ve been known to hide stacks of dirty dishes in the linen closet when Mom was coming to visit, and I think I have a couple more rooms to my house if I could just excavate my way inside.
You send gifts and cards like clockwork for every occasion but Groundhog Day. I have great intentions, but do well to remember Christmas. The year I mailed your gifts on time, your husband called and asked if he should save the package until February, so as not to break tradition.
So today, I thought I would REALLY surprise you with something ON TIME!
I love you. You are my Steel Magnolia, my quiet hero, the best friend I know will never drift away.
Happy Birthday, Joy!
May Love lift you up where you belong, and may your view from here be your best ever!
When I was 7, we roughhoused on your bed in what was for you an uncharacteristically crazy tickle fight. In a reflexive kick, you knocked a loose tooth right out of my mouth (it only hung by a thread) and then felt so bad you apologized profusely. Probably the most violent act of your lifetime.
Together, we put on our swimsuits to do the dreaded chore, thinly disguised by Mom as a “Bathtub Scrubbing Party,” griping the whole time. Although you would have preferred a quiet leisurely read, you trekked with the family on a thousand picnic hikes, at the most memorable of which you flung a banana peel into the bushes, but it caught on a prominent twig and hung there like a neon sign. We laughed hysterically. We always laugh together. And cry when we need to.
We’re joined by memories and blood, not by any similarity of habit or temperament. Your Christmas tree disappears on New Year’s Day – mine lingers until Easter some years. (But as I grow older and more organized – more like you! - I try to get it put away before February.) Open heart surgery could be performed on your kitchen floor, and your definition of “clutter” is two stray sticky notes. I’ve been known to hide stacks of dirty dishes in the linen closet when Mom was coming to visit, and I think I have a couple more rooms to my house if I could just excavate my way inside.
You send gifts and cards like clockwork for every occasion but Groundhog Day. I have great intentions, but do well to remember Christmas. The year I mailed your gifts on time, your husband called and asked if he should save the package until February, so as not to break tradition.
So today, I thought I would REALLY surprise you with something ON TIME!
I love you. You are my Steel Magnolia, my quiet hero, the best friend I know will never drift away.
Happy Birthday, Joy!
May Love lift you up where you belong, and may your view from here be your best ever!
Sunday, April 30, 2006
My Father's Shoes
Such a large crowd of witnesses is all around us!
When you live and work in another culture, you’re bound to unconsciously bump up against people’s expectations, even with the best of intentions. You might as well not spend too much time worrying what others think. My father is the sort of person who carries off magnificently unselfconscious eccentricities in his own culture. Thirty-six years in Japan did little to alter this tendency.
Once, in my 6th grade, a friend told me she’d seen my father running in the rain across the CAJ parking lot in his sock feet, clutching his shoes in one hand, big black umbrella in the other. I asked my dad that night if he’d been at my school, hoping my friend had somehow been mistaken. “Well, yes,” he confirmed. Driving from the suburbs to downtown Tokyo is inefficient, so he parked at school and walked to Higashi Kurume station to take the train. On his way back he got caught in a downpour. Of course no sensible person goes out without an umbrella, but the puddles were deep so he carried his shoes because, he told me, “I didn’t want them to get wet.”
How can you argue with logic like that?
Granted, if you consider that his next pair of shoes was three years and ten thousand miles away, he behaved quite sensibly – but how many people do you know who do the sensible thing even if it makes them appear undignified?
When Dad first went to the mission field in 1957, at 5’11” he stood well above other men. When you ride the subway, thousands of people stand packed nose to nose, so it’s easy to tell whose head sticks out. (Tokyo dwellers colloquially refer to a subway like this one as “empty.”) By the time my parents left Japan in 1993, the Japanese people grew so much taller that the government enlarged the standard size of first graders’ desks three times. So my father got squeezed face to face like all the rest.
But in the ‘50s, in the coastal collection of fishing and farming villages known as Choshi, Dad stood tall. With a population of 90,000, and one American man, it’s a safe bet everyone watched Dad wherever he went.
They say in Japan only children, Christians and drunks sing in public. Put children and Christians together and you get Sunday School – up to 140 giggling Japanese kids squeezed into my family’s tiny home each week. (Among my own childhood memories is searching for my shoes among many dozens tumbled in a doormat-sized space.) Once, as the last adult helpers began their leisurely leave-taking, my mother opened her entryway door to find a church teen standing on the tile, his feet in Dad’s shoes, wearing Dad’s coat. The sleeves draped well below his fingertips.
“I just wanted to see what it felt like to be in Sensei’s shoes,” he explained simply.
After graduation, this young man headed off to Canada, ambitious to study clothing design. Although “fashion industry mentor” would not be one of my father’s top 100 descriptors, I’d like to think his friend caught Dad’s gift for following one’s dream no matter who is looking.
In 1962, my folks left Choshi to furlough back in U.S. They couldn’t take everything, and invited neighbors to help themselves to leftover clothing – including some of Dad’s shoes. (The same young man wrote my parents later and told them he’d tried them on again. Still no fit. )
Which, if you know anything at all about Japan, squarely dates this incident in the tail-end of post-war poverty. Later on, missionary kids dumpster-dived for locals’ castoffs, never the other way around. When my father attempted the same generosity seven years later, the neighbor stared dubiously, then offered, “I suppose I could use them for rags.” Talk about feeling like the bottom of the missionary barrel!
Even so, in 1979, someone again thought my father’s shoes worth wearing.
Dad always brought slippers when visiting a tuberculosis patient in a local hospital. Traditional hotels and hospitals provide an entryway where you can trade your shoes for their slippers, just like homes. Since Dad’s entire heel hung off the native-sized slippers, he didn’t mind carrying his own. Ministry is unhurried everywhere but America, and my father took his time, ministering to the sick man with prayer, Scripture, and a heart full of Jesus.
When he came out, his shoes were gone. At least he had his own slippers to wear home.
We teased Dad that perhaps a local collector needed just the right accent piece for a display shelf. It’s not like someone could easily mistake his size 11’s for their own.
Once, walking home, a neighbor stopped my Mom and me and made us stand in the street several minutes for a recitation of Sensei’s virtues. “Your father is a great man,” she said to me in English. My Sunday sandals raising a blister, I shifted from foot to foot, hoping she’d conclude her rhapsody so I could get home. The phrase “great man” lingered in our household lore, but Dad paid no attention.
These days, Dad laces on hiking boots and heads up the hill behind his North Georgia home. When we talk, he lets me know his time that day – 19 minutes. Never mind the collapsed disk, sciatica and whatever else tries to ail him.
I remind him he’s grown almost as young as Caleb when that octogenarian claimed his mountain. I tell him I’ve heard a great song I’d like to play at his funeral, preferably in another 40 years or so, and recite the lyrics:
I won’t bend and I won’t break
I won’t water down my faith . . .
I want to be a light for future generations
He mumbles a quick “Oh!” which I interpret as pleasure, then changes the subject.
Like Max Lucado’s Wemmicks, the stars and dots just don’t stick to a man who spends time with His Master. Once in a while, he stubs his emotional toe on someone’s attitude, just like the rest of us. Most of the time, though, Dad remains oblivious.
Watched by many, watching only One.
We’re always in somebody’s viewfinder. Tell you what, next time we feel stressed by who’s looking, what they’re thinking – let’s do ourselves a favor. Let’s take off our Sunday shoes and go running in the rain. As long as we protect what’s irreplaceable, we can let our socks get wet.
What’s it gonna take to lay your burdens down, it’s a beautiful sound
And they all fall, like a million raindrops,
falling from a blue sky, kissing your cares goodbye. –The Newsboys
When you live and work in another culture, you’re bound to unconsciously bump up against people’s expectations, even with the best of intentions. You might as well not spend too much time worrying what others think. My father is the sort of person who carries off magnificently unselfconscious eccentricities in his own culture. Thirty-six years in Japan did little to alter this tendency.
Once, in my 6th grade, a friend told me she’d seen my father running in the rain across the CAJ parking lot in his sock feet, clutching his shoes in one hand, big black umbrella in the other. I asked my dad that night if he’d been at my school, hoping my friend had somehow been mistaken. “Well, yes,” he confirmed. Driving from the suburbs to downtown Tokyo is inefficient, so he parked at school and walked to Higashi Kurume station to take the train. On his way back he got caught in a downpour. Of course no sensible person goes out without an umbrella, but the puddles were deep so he carried his shoes because, he told me, “I didn’t want them to get wet.”
How can you argue with logic like that?
Granted, if you consider that his next pair of shoes was three years and ten thousand miles away, he behaved quite sensibly – but how many people do you know who do the sensible thing even if it makes them appear undignified?
When Dad first went to the mission field in 1957, at 5’11” he stood well above other men. When you ride the subway, thousands of people stand packed nose to nose, so it’s easy to tell whose head sticks out. (Tokyo dwellers colloquially refer to a subway like this one as “empty.”) By the time my parents left Japan in 1993, the Japanese people grew so much taller that the government enlarged the standard size of first graders’ desks three times. So my father got squeezed face to face like all the rest.
But in the ‘50s, in the coastal collection of fishing and farming villages known as Choshi, Dad stood tall. With a population of 90,000, and one American man, it’s a safe bet everyone watched Dad wherever he went.
They say in Japan only children, Christians and drunks sing in public. Put children and Christians together and you get Sunday School – up to 140 giggling Japanese kids squeezed into my family’s tiny home each week. (Among my own childhood memories is searching for my shoes among many dozens tumbled in a doormat-sized space.) Once, as the last adult helpers began their leisurely leave-taking, my mother opened her entryway door to find a church teen standing on the tile, his feet in Dad’s shoes, wearing Dad’s coat. The sleeves draped well below his fingertips.
“I just wanted to see what it felt like to be in Sensei’s shoes,” he explained simply.
After graduation, this young man headed off to Canada, ambitious to study clothing design. Although “fashion industry mentor” would not be one of my father’s top 100 descriptors, I’d like to think his friend caught Dad’s gift for following one’s dream no matter who is looking.
In 1962, my folks left Choshi to furlough back in U.S. They couldn’t take everything, and invited neighbors to help themselves to leftover clothing – including some of Dad’s shoes. (The same young man wrote my parents later and told them he’d tried them on again. Still no fit. )
Which, if you know anything at all about Japan, squarely dates this incident in the tail-end of post-war poverty. Later on, missionary kids dumpster-dived for locals’ castoffs, never the other way around. When my father attempted the same generosity seven years later, the neighbor stared dubiously, then offered, “I suppose I could use them for rags.” Talk about feeling like the bottom of the missionary barrel!
Even so, in 1979, someone again thought my father’s shoes worth wearing.
Dad always brought slippers when visiting a tuberculosis patient in a local hospital. Traditional hotels and hospitals provide an entryway where you can trade your shoes for their slippers, just like homes. Since Dad’s entire heel hung off the native-sized slippers, he didn’t mind carrying his own. Ministry is unhurried everywhere but America, and my father took his time, ministering to the sick man with prayer, Scripture, and a heart full of Jesus.
When he came out, his shoes were gone. At least he had his own slippers to wear home.
We teased Dad that perhaps a local collector needed just the right accent piece for a display shelf. It’s not like someone could easily mistake his size 11’s for their own.
Once, walking home, a neighbor stopped my Mom and me and made us stand in the street several minutes for a recitation of Sensei’s virtues. “Your father is a great man,” she said to me in English. My Sunday sandals raising a blister, I shifted from foot to foot, hoping she’d conclude her rhapsody so I could get home. The phrase “great man” lingered in our household lore, but Dad paid no attention.
These days, Dad laces on hiking boots and heads up the hill behind his North Georgia home. When we talk, he lets me know his time that day – 19 minutes. Never mind the collapsed disk, sciatica and whatever else tries to ail him.
I remind him he’s grown almost as young as Caleb when that octogenarian claimed his mountain. I tell him I’ve heard a great song I’d like to play at his funeral, preferably in another 40 years or so, and recite the lyrics:
I won’t bend and I won’t break
I won’t water down my faith . . .
I want to be a light for future generations
He mumbles a quick “Oh!” which I interpret as pleasure, then changes the subject.
Like Max Lucado’s Wemmicks, the stars and dots just don’t stick to a man who spends time with His Master. Once in a while, he stubs his emotional toe on someone’s attitude, just like the rest of us. Most of the time, though, Dad remains oblivious.
Watched by many, watching only One.
We’re always in somebody’s viewfinder. Tell you what, next time we feel stressed by who’s looking, what they’re thinking – let’s do ourselves a favor. Let’s take off our Sunday shoes and go running in the rain. As long as we protect what’s irreplaceable, we can let our socks get wet.
What’s it gonna take to lay your burdens down, it’s a beautiful sound
And they all fall, like a million raindrops,
falling from a blue sky, kissing your cares goodbye. –The Newsboys
Sunday, April 09, 2006
Le Coeur A Ses Raisons
On the day I met Mitch, I saw his Dad in street clothes, only once.
Already losing his battle with prostate cancer, Bill left the next morning for Lake Casitas, enjoying one last precious fishing trip with his sons. After that, as Mitch and I began to date, our times together included time with his Dad, huddled miserably in pajamas on his La-Z-Boy, and eventually on the hospice-provided bed which centerpieced the living room.
Bill liked me immediately, and I am certain he knew I would marry Mitch in time. He privately told Mitch’s Mom they didn’t need to worry about their youngest son any more.
I wish I could have known him better, but soon the pain grew too great for him to speak. And one day, encircled by his family and hearing words of reassurance and release, Bill slipped home.
In those six months while we watched his father die, Mitch began to teach me about our healing covenant in Christ.
My rock-solid, Scripture-loving background had taught me that God wills some sick and some well. His to choose, ours not to question why. He gives and takes away. For better, for worse. For richer, for poorer. A little sunshine, a little rain. Kind of like yin and yang: we need some bad things just to keep balance in the universe and teach us important lessons.
When Mitch told me that Jesus’ death on the cross purchased unconditional healing for our sicknesses as well as undeserved forgiveness for our sins, I felt concerned. Could my good-looking boyfriend be mixed up with some kind of cult?
Of all the gifts my parents gave me, the greatest is an unquestioned allegiance to the infallible supremacy of the Word of God. If the Bible says the sky is blue, but mine is green, I get my eyes examined, then call the EPA to start a clean-up operation. Like the old office joke about the boss. Rule Number One: The Bible is always right. Rule Number Two: If the Bible appears to be wrong, see Rule Number One. That’s how I was raised.
So Mitch never argued with me. He just took me to the Word.
When I read, for the first time, Isaiah 53:4, with the correctly-translated Hebrew words – and its interpretive New Testament passage, Matthew 8:17, it blew me away:
Surely our sicknesses he hath borne, and our pains -- he hath carried them, And we -- we have esteemed him plagued, smitten of God, and afflicted. (Young’s Literal)
He fulfilled Isaiah's well-known sermon:
He took our illnesses,
He carried our diseases. (The Message)
But what does that mean when your Dad is coughing blood into a pan? Who do we believe when the promises of Heaven face off against the ravages of hell’s visitation?
To Mitch, it didn’t seem to matter that his father’s suffering provided evidence to contradict God’s plan for healing. Every person who takes God at His Word experiences two realities: what we hear God say, and what we see happening in the world around us. Whichever reality we focus on becomes our filter to explain the other. As one preacher put it, "Even if no one ever got saved, the Gospel is still true."
We’re told the early disciples preached the Word with signs following. If you preach only what you see, you’ll get more of the same. And there He can do no mighty work, but only heal a few sick people.
To Bill, family is everything. He knew his most important job was complete, that of raising his kids. Knowing his family would be OK settled the greatest concern of his life. Once each person around the circle said aloud, "Dad, we release you. We’ll take care of Mom," Bill chose to leave his body within one minute after the last one spoke.
They say the heart has reasons that reason cannot comprehend. The closer we grow to the heart of God, the more we’ll catch His vision, and the more easily we’ll understand the reasons why things happen. Isaiah's question, "Is there anyone around who knows God's Spirit, anyone who knows what He is doing?" has been answered: Christ knows, and we have Christ's Spirit.
Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît point.
The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.
Already losing his battle with prostate cancer, Bill left the next morning for Lake Casitas, enjoying one last precious fishing trip with his sons. After that, as Mitch and I began to date, our times together included time with his Dad, huddled miserably in pajamas on his La-Z-Boy, and eventually on the hospice-provided bed which centerpieced the living room.
Bill liked me immediately, and I am certain he knew I would marry Mitch in time. He privately told Mitch’s Mom they didn’t need to worry about their youngest son any more.
I wish I could have known him better, but soon the pain grew too great for him to speak. And one day, encircled by his family and hearing words of reassurance and release, Bill slipped home.
In those six months while we watched his father die, Mitch began to teach me about our healing covenant in Christ.
My rock-solid, Scripture-loving background had taught me that God wills some sick and some well. His to choose, ours not to question why. He gives and takes away. For better, for worse. For richer, for poorer. A little sunshine, a little rain. Kind of like yin and yang: we need some bad things just to keep balance in the universe and teach us important lessons.
When Mitch told me that Jesus’ death on the cross purchased unconditional healing for our sicknesses as well as undeserved forgiveness for our sins, I felt concerned. Could my good-looking boyfriend be mixed up with some kind of cult?
Of all the gifts my parents gave me, the greatest is an unquestioned allegiance to the infallible supremacy of the Word of God. If the Bible says the sky is blue, but mine is green, I get my eyes examined, then call the EPA to start a clean-up operation. Like the old office joke about the boss. Rule Number One: The Bible is always right. Rule Number Two: If the Bible appears to be wrong, see Rule Number One. That’s how I was raised.
So Mitch never argued with me. He just took me to the Word.
When I read, for the first time, Isaiah 53:4, with the correctly-translated Hebrew words – and its interpretive New Testament passage, Matthew 8:17, it blew me away:
Surely our sicknesses he hath borne, and our pains -- he hath carried them, And we -- we have esteemed him plagued, smitten of God, and afflicted. (Young’s Literal)
He fulfilled Isaiah's well-known sermon:
He took our illnesses,
He carried our diseases. (The Message)
But what does that mean when your Dad is coughing blood into a pan? Who do we believe when the promises of Heaven face off against the ravages of hell’s visitation?
To Mitch, it didn’t seem to matter that his father’s suffering provided evidence to contradict God’s plan for healing. Every person who takes God at His Word experiences two realities: what we hear God say, and what we see happening in the world around us. Whichever reality we focus on becomes our filter to explain the other. As one preacher put it, "Even if no one ever got saved, the Gospel is still true."
We’re told the early disciples preached the Word with signs following. If you preach only what you see, you’ll get more of the same. And there He can do no mighty work, but only heal a few sick people.
To Bill, family is everything. He knew his most important job was complete, that of raising his kids. Knowing his family would be OK settled the greatest concern of his life. Once each person around the circle said aloud, "Dad, we release you. We’ll take care of Mom," Bill chose to leave his body within one minute after the last one spoke.
They say the heart has reasons that reason cannot comprehend. The closer we grow to the heart of God, the more we’ll catch His vision, and the more easily we’ll understand the reasons why things happen. Isaiah's question, "Is there anyone around who knows God's Spirit, anyone who knows what He is doing?" has been answered: Christ knows, and we have Christ's Spirit.
Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît point.
The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.
--Blaise Pascal
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