The Journey
At first, it seemed as if God walked
through the garden of my life
on velvet kitten paws,
gifting me with fleet impression
of brushing soft caress,
leaving feather light prints
in the tender earth
of my spirit.
But, in later times, God climbed
the granite mountain of my will
using painful stake and hobnail boots
to gain each foothold,
bringing about His kingdom
through the thundering voice
of circumstance.
Then recently, I sensed God lost,
absent on Sabbatical
of undetermined length,
leaving only fading echoes
in my memory.
Until at last, in desert night
and aching loneliness,
I faced my emptiness
and discovered Her within.
God Does Sweat the Small Stuff
One of my nature enthusiasms after we moved to the country was to collect rocks, lichen, weeds, nuts, and pods to use in making ecology crafts with my children.
My first year of teaching primary grades I decided to use all these free materials for my class to make Christmas presents for their parents. My own children had used these for their teacher presents with happy results. Of course, four of them were already teens and my first grader took after his Architect father in both creativity and natural ability in constructing things.
So, after a migraine producing afternoon with twenty-five children indiscriminately piling heaps of pods, weeds, nuts, and the like onto flat rocks and then simply pouring whole bottles of white glue over them, I placed these horrible looking gooey white messes on the window sills to hopefully at least dry over the weekend.
Monday the parents were coming for our Christmas pageant and party and taking their children and their presents home for the holidays afterward. There would be no chance to start a new Christmas present project.
Disheartened, to say the least, I belatedly resorted to prayer, “God, we need a miracle here. The children had a great time, but even the kindest parent isn’t going to be able to disguise their reactions to these presents. Help please.”
Though exhausted, I slept only fitfully all weekend, dreading facing the debacle on the window sills on Monday.
But, it seems that God does sweat the small stuff after all.
The sunshine through the windows and the heat in the room, had somehow not only dried the glue to transparent, but in ways I will never understand, allowed the excess decorations to fall off each gooey clump. The remaining creations were each unique, and all quite lovely.
The Holy Spirit works not only is mysterious ways, but in very artistic ones.
One mother of six other older children, took me aside and said, “This is awesome. It’s the first thing any of my children has ever made, that I actually look forward to keeping in my living room.”
After the happy children and parents had departed, I swept up the scattered liberated pods and weeds, and thanked God profusely for sweating the small stuff.
Adventures in a Wheel Chair
Mt. Pilatus, Lucerne :accessible by tiny red train.
Monte St. Michel: settle for cafe at the bottom.
Mt. Pilatus at 7,000 feet is accessible by a small train, a cable car, and chair lift. We used them all. The train was the scariest!
The much smaller Mt. St. Michel defeated us when my husband and son, emboldened by a couple of beers, tried together to run pushing me up the cobblestone road. The rubber rim of my right wheel went flying off about a fourth of the way up.
I settled for coffee in a sidewalk cafe at the bottom. My son and husband were gone so long, the waiters were huffily removing my cup and setting my table for the next meal. I resorted to writing a note in French saying my son and husband would be back soon to join me for dinner.
Under threat of abandonment by my French speaking son, I am not allowed to attempt to speak French in France. The French are very proud of the beauty of their language. He thinks deportation is a serious possibility, if I do my usual “language deaf” mangling of even a foreign language that I have actually studied.
I must admit, I think that’s a real possibility in Paris. They are nasty to everyone, even non-Parisian Frenchmen, who often asked my son for help with the Metro and directions. And I helped young Japanese women finally get service in a cafe in Paris by besieging the waiters with written notes. I think the waiters feared I would fill the room with notes like confetti.
If you do not know French, at least carry a written note asking, “Where are the bathrooms?” But, beware, in Paris many of them are ecumenical.
Sunday from Hell or Does Somebody Up There Hate Us?
(Found this thirty-two year old memoir, while cleaning out files this morning. Someday, if I live long enough, I may think this is funny.)
I really believe in a God that loves us unconditionally; that that’s sort of what He does for a living. But sometimes….………
When I wrote this, we lived way out in the country, through a creek, up a hill, down a hollow, all five miles of which were traversed on an ancient dirt wagon path, last tended by Roosevelt’s CCC Corps.
Since we had a large family; us, five kids, my mother next door, horses, and miscellaneous and multitudinous pets, we drove a Suburban Wagon and a pick-up truck. Both vehicles were middle-aged and generally loose-jointed from the constant and traumatic trips over what euphemistically passed for a road to civilization.
Our adventure started on Saturday, when our eighteen year old had to take the Suburban to his new job fifty miles away, since the special jack for the truck was broken. That left mother and me using the pick-up to do our weekly grocery shopping. No problem, until a steady downpour set in just as we hit town. I bought only enough groceries to get by that day, then crammed them, mother, the new jack, and her purchases into the cab of the truck. So far, all was well, except maybe mother.
That night we got organized for a busy two hours at church on Sunday. One child was scheduled to practice lectoring at ten, while another was to train as a new altar boy, and I was teaching preschoolers. My husband and I were to usher at the eleven o’clock service, while one son served and the other lectored.(read the Scriptures.)
Three home haircuts, one bandaged ear, clothes laid out, and my mother reminded of the exact time of departure, I even remembered to set the alarm for six a.m. to get the eighteen year old up for work. Shutting my eyes about midnight, I treasured the thought that after getting our son up, we could sleep until at least eight-thirty, since we were so organized.
Ho! Ho! Ho!
Sunday
6:00 a.m. Alarm goes off. Husband rouses son.
6:40 a.m. Phone rings and husband stumbles to it. Husband exercises remarkable restraint to his mother-in-law’s enquiry as to where-abouts of her umbrella.
7:00 a.m. Son announces that truck has flat tire and lugs are frozen. Good thing we bought that jack. That crises handled, we return to bed.
7:30 a.m. Phone rings and husband mutters his way to it. I offer silent prayers that it’s not about umbrellas. Unfortunately, it is not. It’s son fifteen miles from home with truck broken down in the middle of nowhere. We both get up and husband dresses hurriedly to rescue son.
7:50 a.m. Husband’s key chain breaks on way to car, spreading keys all over gravel driveway.
8:00 a.m. Husband drives off. ( Muttering censored.)
8:15 a.m. Husband notices that car is overheating badly. Detours to his office to get water.
8:30 a.m. Radiator bone dry and steaming, but husband cannot get into office to get water, since office key evidently still lying in driveway.
8:35 a.m. Sun is shining, not a cloud in the sky. Mother walks through woods to arrive an hour early. Still worrying obsessively about umbrella. Alarm goes off. I realize I am out of cigarettes.
8:50 a.m. Husband prays way to filling station without water. Filling station is closed. (Maybe prayer cancelled out by earlier censored muttering?)
9:00 a.m. Ingenious husband finds outside water tap and coke can to fill radiator.
9:15 a.m. Husband learns noteworthy fact: It takes fifty to sixty coke cans of water to fill a radiator.
9:20 a.m. Son calls asking if Dad went back to sleep. (My reply censored.)
9:25 a.m. I see handwriting on wall and start calling to find a ride to church.
9:30 a.m. Husband realizes Suburban’s gas tank is registering empty and wallet almost empty. (Regresses to censored muttering.)
9:35 a.m. I start calling to find substitutes for teaching, lecturing, serving, and ushering.
9:40 a.m. Husband finds open self-serve gas station. Gas gauge now registering slightly above empty. Wallet registering empty. Switches back to prayer.
9:45 a.m. My mother still worrying about umbrella. I remember it’s in the truck. I start searching purses and pockets for cigarettes.
9:50 a.m. Husband arrives to rescue son. Ignores question about whereabouts for last hour and a half. Opts to use Suburban to push truck all the way back to our regular service station where we have credit.
10:10 a.m. Arrives at service station, which is still closed. Starts son refilling hot radiator with the coke can and a seven up can from the truck. Son asks no more questions.
10:15 a.m. Service station attendant arrives. Diagnosis truck as needing a mechanic, but Suburban just needs a new water hose. Suspense builds. Do they have a water hose? Why ruin a perfect record. Of course not. Husband beyond muttering, censored or otherwise.
10:20 a.m. Miracle discovery of an open parts store one block away. Son has enough money to buy hose. Husband repairs hose.
Meanwhile back at the old homestead, chaos reigns, as children and grandmother freak out over noisy impending demise of adorable chipmunk in jaws of hungry cat in full view outside sliding glass door. I shout over uproar and hand down ruling that all close their eyes and ears and accept cat’s role in ecological balance of nature. Children go sulk in rooms and grandmother goes home in protest. I surreptitiously dig for long cigarette butts in ashtrays. I try one more call, then give up on finding a lector substitute and mentally wish priest luck.
10:50 a.m. Hooray, hose is fixed and husband and son on way home. Suburban begins to make ominous jet airplane noises.
11:00 a.m. Husband and son arrive home in Suburban with jet airplane delusion. Grandmother arrives with doughnuts to console children. Son calls boss and is requested to come as soon as possible, “or else” is implied.
For next ten minutes we hold a democratic discussion, loosely translated as everyone yelling at once, about possibilities of son dropping everyone off at church and how many friends would it take to get us all home afterward? And how would we get groceries? Fifteen year old expresses grievance about not getting to go play tennis. My and my husband’s simultaneous spontaneous responses censored. (We regress a lot.) Son worrying about jet noises, since his job is fifty miles away. Mother still looking for umbrella. Cat still nibbling on chipmunk, which fortunately is beyond caring.
11:15 a.m. We call married son, whose wife is sick with a stomach virus, but who agrees to pick us up at the grocery in an hour and bring us home.
11:30 a.m. Eighteen year old drops parents like kittens in Kroger parking lot and jets off to work.
12:00 noon Run into mechanic in Krogers. His diagnosis: truck seriously ill, Suburban’s jet noise
also may be serious and dangerous on the highway.
12:30 p.m. Married son packs us and our eight sacks of groceries into his small car.
12:45 p.m. Son’s car begins making strange noise half-way to our house. Son stops to
Investigate. Husband remains numbly staring into space, while lighting two cigarettes at the same time.
12:55 p.m. Ice cream melts.
1:05 p.m. Start on again. Noise quits, but car drags bottom along last stretch of rough road.
Son sighs a lot. Husband mute.
1:20 p.m. Arrive home with eight sacks of groceries to ravenous whiney children, full cat, Mother again asking my husband about her umbrella. As husband opens six pack bought at Krogers, I hear him muttering something about “where the sun don’t shine.”
1:30 p.m. Phone rings and I panic that it might be about son driving the dangerous Suburban. It’s the person in charge of lectors asking was anything the matter, that our son didn’t come to lector?
2:30 p.m. Person in charge of lectors says that she is sorry she asked.
2:45 p.m. Husband finishes six pack. I escort mother, who is still obsessing about her umbrella through the woods to the safety of her house.
Hilde
Hilde, my old friend, my sister-in-Christ
lost and fragile in your fog of confusion,
let me lead you, carry you even
back in time to the truth of you.
Of you rising like a phoenix from the ashes
of a broken heart from a failed marriage
inspiration for us all, a mother of two
starting over, learning to restore the voices
of the silent young, the broken, the old,
your gifts lavished on the least of His,
bringing to life the Good News of God’s love
for those with simple minds, but open hearts.
Hilde, my old friend, my sister-in-Christ
lost and fragile in your fog of confusion
let me lead you, carry you even
back in time to the truth of you.
Don’t Forget to Keep Your Fork
Heard a story that, factual or not, gave me chills.
A woman was in the last stages of cancer. She gave her minister a list of hymns and scriptures that she wanted for her funeral. At the bottom was an enigmatic note: “Don’t forget the fork.”
When the minister asked for clarification, she replied: “I want a fork placed in my hand in the casket. I want to be buried with it in my hand.”
Looking puzzled, the minister agreed to make sure this happened, but asked her to explain why.
She explained, “When I was young, at all our special family dinners, my dad would always say, ‘Don’t forget to keep your fork. The best is yet to come.’ “
Safe from the Monsters Under the Bed
“Emma.” Nanu exclaimed, “Why are you out of your bed?”
“I’m scared of the monsters hiding under there,” Emma sobbed.
“Oh! I understand,” nodded Nanu, as she held out her arms.
With Emma snuggled into her lap, Nanu whispered in her ear,
“I remember when I was a child and used to get scared.”
“What did you do?” Emma asked, whispering back.
“Hiding under the covers was my favorite safe place.”
“But what about the monsters? Weren’t you afraid?”
“Well, I’d leap into bed from at least two feet away,
right into the safe space, smack-dab in the middle.
Then, I’d yank the covers up over my head,
staying perfectly still, with my eyes shut tight,
my legs close together and my arms at my sides,
so not any part of me would hang over the edge.
Then I felt safe from anything under the bed.
I’d wake up next morning still frozen in place
with my arms a bit cramped from being held close.
But, I’ve always been safe from the monsters at night.
And as you can see, that’s been a long while.
It’s been seventy years, since I was your age.”
Emma studied Nanu’s wrinkles and very white hair,
thought about it a moment, then nodded her head.
Her grandmother’s story had made her feel bold.
“My bed will be my safe place,……at least ‘til I’m old.”
The Zen of Cats
I found some notes today on a delightful little book I bought in England years ago: The Power of Meow
by Bernard Gunther about Rumi, his cat.
The following are quotes from this:
I have known three zen masters in my lifetime. All of them were cats.
Zen is nothing special; just doing one thing at a time.
The power of meow is fully being at this moment, completely present, totally aware of your boundless, real, authentic, cat like nature.
Life is like a cat. It often doesn’t do what you want it to. It tests, annoys, frustrates, fascinates, exacerbates, and sometimes confuses you. ….
For, life is not your fantasy. It is what’s ultimately good for you. Because all in all, life itself is your spiritual teacher, your guruh.
When you learn to deal with what is not ideal, your life will be a good deal easier.
Spirituality is about being fully present (open) in every moment to moment relationship and situation.
If you make a mistake, make it a take, learn from it. Don’t dwell on it, forgive yourself and move on. Some people suffer just for the hell of it.
Value what you have as much as what you want.
Rumi, being always present, does not have to achieve anything or get anywhere. So he can be spontaneous, free, with no obsession, tragic story, or chronic fear. Life is a constantly unfolding playful mystery.
Every moment, thought, feeling, experience, or situation is an opportunity for greater awareness and transformation.
Who you think you are can’t survive, but who you really are can’t not survive.
True love is being in love with the ultimate source of love.
We are all melting in the fire of Ultimate Love’s intention.
No you
No me
No Rumi
Just we.
This spoke so loudly at the time and once again in the now. I definitely have spiritual Alzheimer’s.
He Who Began a Good Work in You, Will Be Faithful to Complete It.
In old age, the life question, “Why am I here?” becomes, “Why am I still here?”
In the past fifteen years scientists have discovered that the natural human life span
may be one hundred and twenty years or more. I’m not sure if this is good news or bad news!
Does the Gospel message have any good news for the challenges of later life?
Many people have conscientiously lived the Gospel message, that it is better to give than to
receive all their lives, so they find it difficult to figure out how to answer the call, “Come, follow
me,” when they are flat on their back, stuck in a wheelchair, in pain, and dependent on family
or nursing home care.
I’ve become convinced that following Jesus in our later years is a completely different
call. Jesus does not limit the “Come Follow Me” to his years of healing the sick, feeding the
hungry, and taking the Good News of God’s love to others. It includes following Him, like loyal,
doubting Thomas to Jerusalem, where we know that in worldly terms, things will not go well.
Jesus was in God’s accelerated class. What He learned from His experiences on Good
Friday may take the rest of us years.
Through my years in a wheelchair, I experienced things that I never would have, if I
were walking under my own power. Painful and challenging as these were, they were learning
experiences. Shocks do get our attention.
Shock One: was being imprisoned. I could no longer go either when or where I wanted.
I was helpless and dependent on others.
Shock Two: was that my church community pretty much went about their busy lives without
me. I felt abandoned even by my Christian family.
Shock Three: Though blessed with free air travel abroad, I discovered that the handicapped
are literally hated in many countries. (Note: Many people were kind in these countries, but the negative experiences were a shock.) In the Czech Republic, I was hissed at and we were forced
off the sidewalks into the streets and even out into the rain by middle-aged, middle-class
looking women. In Lucerne, Switzerland a taxi driver with a trunk easily spacious enough for the
wheelchair, vehemently and arrogantly refused to take us from the airport.
In a two story museum in Paris, we were told that the elevator was out of order, though we
could see workers using it. In Vienna, the manager of our small hotel refused to help
us find a safe place on the ground floor for the wheelchair that wouldn’t fit into the tiny
elevator.
The first few times I experienced this kind of rejection, I cried at night realizing that it didn’t
matter to these people, whether I was a good person, smart, talented, or had even achieved
things. I was rejected, because in their eyes I was defective, and that probably threatened to
force them to recognize their own vulnerability as human beings. These experiences made me
feel terribly naked and vulnerable out on the streets among hostile strangers. In fact, we would
go blocks out of our way, when we spotted groups of young skin heads on the street.
Shock Four: When we had to struggle to get me and the wheelchair up long flights of stairs
while hurrying to make a connecting train, no one offered any assistance, some even
angrily pushed past us. Those days left me with both a great deal of physical pain and the
emotional pain of feeling so universally rejected.
But grace came in Prague in a huge ancient cathedral. As we toured the cathedrals of Europe
several things struck me. One: the only people actually using them for prayer were the old,
mostly women. Two: The Catholic ones were filled with gold and silver ornaments and
elaborate tombs of Popes and Bishop, the Anglican/Episcopal ones were filled with gold and
silver and elaborate tombs of Kings and Queens and other nobility. The Presbyterian one in
Scotland was a little less gilded, but no less ornate and filled with the tombs of warriors.
In Prague the cathedral not only had many gilded angels, ornaments, and tombs, but one
room with walls almost completely covered with embedded semi-precious stones.
My son wanted to climb to the top of the bell tower and my husband was taking photos of all the
glitter. It was jam packed with tourists, so they parked me in a dim unadorned corner without
any people in it. I was newly wounded by my experiences of rejection and when my son and
husband were gone a long time, I began to feel depressed and sorry for myself. I started
looking around for something that represented the love of God, not the silver and gold in
honor of men. Finally, I looked up at the wall behind me. There was a life size wooden crucifix
with the body of Jesus right over me. We were alone together in the darkness, since the crowd
was entranced by the silver and gold and the famous. I remembered a quote from Paul Caludell, “Jesus did not come to explain away suffering or remove it. He came to fill it with his presence.”
Somehow in that moment, I experienced a oneness with Him. We were in this together. I
was not alone and never would be.
God chose, through Jesus, to experience our loss of purpose, imprisonment, falling
under the weight of the cross, needing the help of strangers, being
stripped of image, being rejected by the world for vulnerability,
being abandoned by friends, suffering physical and mental pain that makes the minutes
seem like hours and the hours like eternity, and even finally feeling abandoned by God.
Yet, still saying, “ God, into your hands I commit my spirit.”
I knew then, that He is not only with me and all of us, but He is in us, experiencing
everything through us. Right then, right now, and always. He told us that whatever is done to
even the least of us is done to Him. And in the helplessness of old age, we are finally freed to
accept being the least, those totally dependent on God. We are not alone, ever. And
when that becomes more important to us, than all the losses we mourn, I think we get to go
home.
