Where Have You Been Mama?

 

 

I just got a wild hair and decided to look up my old blog.  It's been two years since I've been here!  A lot has happened in those two years. 

 

Like most things in life, once you skip doing something you're supposed to do, it becomes easier not to do it the next time and the next until you've stopped altogether.

 

I found a beautiful, bound leather journal for a dollar in the thrift shop.  Decided to use it to record blessings every day to keep my thoughts positive.  Lasted two weeks. 

 

 

I finally got up the courage to join Weight Watchers after my heart scare.  Lost 25 pounds and more energy that I'd had in years.  But it was expensive and I kept forgetting that I had to pay extra if I missed a week so I quit after 3 months.  Slowly, the weight came back on.  Putting on my shoes to go walking was a chore.  Walking was boring.  Blah blah blah.  You know how it goes.

 

And a dozen other things I meant to do and started well, then poof - it was over.  Here are some things I've learned in these two years.

 

 

1.  Be kind to yourself.  You aren't stupid, lazy, bipolar or thoughtless if you fall out of a habit.  You're a regular human being and we do this kind of thing every day - all of us. 

 

2.  When it comes to diets, you're back on routine with your next bite. 

 

3.  Don't wait for a grand gesture to get started again.  Certainly you can make your own grand gesture but don't wait for God to send one out of the blue.  Eating well again - go to the salad bar at the market and buy yourself a healthy meal, remembering that some fixings are carb and calorie laden, like dressings.

 

4.  Sure - reward yourself.  With something healthy.  Buy a book at the library sale. Hit the thrift shop for a $2 blouse or 50c piece of china.  Nail polish from the 99c counter.

 

 

5.  Make appointments with yourself.  Put it on the calendar.  "Today I'm going to have lunch with so and so."  "Today I'm going to call _____ and have a chat."  Put out the equipment you'll need for the activity - sneakers at ready, clothes out, CD Walkman ready.

 

6.  Post it notes on your blouse.  I want to pray throughout the day but TV calls.  A bright yellow sticker on my arm reminds me.

 

 

So today I resolve to get back into my blog.  It's a small thing but it's another building block in my eternal quest for consistency.

Treasures From The Past

I'm a little weepy as I write this, and it's not all due to dust and mold allergy!  Some of the heirlooms in our house are going to good homes with family members.  We're thrilled that they won't end with us and will live on with others who love them and the people they're connected to.

The cedar chest my grandfather made.  He was a cabinet maker and built beautiful furniture.  This one wasn't good furniture, it was utilitarian.  Yet, made with respect and care because in those days, you did everything that way.  It's covered with grime, painted gray, spiders are in it.  But the person who is going to get it is going to love restoring it.

A tiny wooden stool.  My grandpop was fond of making stools!  He'd find a good piece of wood in the trash and start creating.  That's also going to be fun for my niece to restore.

A little oak box of some sort.  We had to pry the cover off, to find it was really a tiny chest.  Opening the drawers I began my tearful journey with my father's rulers.  Okay.  What's the big deal about rulers?  My father had this thing about them.  Occasionally he even made his own.  When he had his business he ordered hundreds of them with his name on them.  Beige color, plastic, beveled edges, they were the staples of my life with him.  Underlining in his Bible, making art work, in business as he measured glasses for customers.  It took me back to those days when I would watch him study for his turn preaching.  I'd ask him what his topic was and he'd always say, "Sin.  I'm against it."  We're going to keep the little box and restore it.  Even if we never use it, it's a memory.

There are other cabinets filled with tools.  Hard core woodworking and construction drills and bits.  Dad was the consummate builder, like his dad.

David reached up and brought down a wooden box that was high up out of sight.  I recognized it right away.  Slowly pushed the dust away and opened it... it was my father's art box.  That did it with the restraint.  Pastel chalks, charcoal pencils, watercolors, oil chalks, gum erasers.  The whole vista of memory opened up.  Dad was an artist who should have done it for a living.  He used his art in ministry.  He did 'chalk talks', if any of you over 60 remember them.  Illustrating a sermon or talk by drawing a picture in chalks then giving it away to an audience member.  I would have my little easel, beside his, he'd put out the chalks and pencils and direct me.  He did the big one, I did a little one.  Sometimes he'd give me what he had done.  For many years I had a chalk picture on the door of my bedroom of the Safe Harbor - a ship coming into the harbor at dusk, red sky, setting sun, safe from the storms of the day.  I'd stare at it at night and think of God, my harbor.  That picture did more for my acceptance of God than any number of sermons.  When we were finished drawing he would insist that I put the materials away correctly.  Sometimes I went with him to the art store for supplies and he would buy me sketching pencils or art paper.  Once he brought home one of those jointed wooden dolls that an artist uses to sketch form.

I'm reminded of the verse that says, "Lord, you have been my dwelling place through all generations."  More than the actual things, it's the memory of my dear parents who taught not by words or strap, but by living out the example.

Date Night at Wawa

Sometimes you forget that your pleasures are regional.  We don't have Publix or Piggly Wiggly up here in Pa.  Out near Harrisburg they have Sheetz convenience stores.  Here in Pennsylvania, we have Wawa.  When I first heard the name of the store, 40 years ago, I laughed.  What the heck was a Wawa?  It sounded like Snoopy's voice.  Not sure why the owner named it that but oh well.

Most convenience stores are horrendously expensive, have horrible food and dirty bathrooms.  Wawa's do not.  They started small, like a 7-11 but over the years, refined the atmosphere.  Although the food does cost more than a grocery store, it's not out of most people's league.  The sandwiches are reasonably priced and very good.  Hot drinks, delicious, well made.  The bathrooms are clean.  The buildings, while all the same structure, are designed to fit into any environment.

A mile from us used to stand Bally's gym.  It was a three story glass building with a huge parking lot, on the edge of the community park.  Totally out of tune with the neighborhood.  Nobody liked it.  Three years ago it went out of business and sat there, annoying everyone.  Then, a developer bought the land and we all sighed.  What kind of monstrosity was going up there now?

Surprise!  It was a Wawa!  It took a year of planning and building after six months of knocking down the Bally's building.  Everybody wondered if the store would be worse than what was there.  Would traffic be a nightmare?  How about Manhattan Bagel across the street?  Would they be put out of business?

David and I were sitting in the back room, reading, when he saw that Wawa had opened that day.  We were two excited senior citizens.  Wawa's habit is to offer free hot drinks for the first week.  I said, "why don't we go over now?"  Well that was a thought.  Who goes out for fun after ten?  We do!  And it was really fun!  The store is clean and bright, the manager stopped us and explained where everything was, I got a S'more hot chocolate and David his coffee.  On the way out, we met a friend who was also excitedly getting her coffee.  Traffic in and out was fine and a path led down into the park.

Welcome Wawa to Willow Grove!

Happy Birthday Mother!

Today, Mother would have been 101 years old!  Now, my dad I can imagine that old.  He was robust and active to the last hour.  But mother, she was shy, graceful, retiring, Dad's port in the storm.  I can't imagine her being any older than she was when she passed away at 83.

My first memory ever is of mother feeding me.  I was in a highchair so I must have been a toddler.  She was smiling, I threw food on the floor, and she laughed.  She thought I was funny.  I felt so accepted.  Other memories are of watching her bake, clean, do wash, iron, hang the wash, set the table, bring out the food and set it in front of Dad first.  She hung wallpaper, gardened, sewed all our clothes, read everything she could get her hands on.  The neighbors would get together and give one another permanent waves.   And I didn't only watch from my perch under the table or in the corner of the kitchen.  She would invite me, rather than make me, come and help so I was doing adult activities at a very young age.

I loved going visiting with her.  Mother would put on her hat and gloves, fill a basket with fresh baked goods and tea bags.  We would get on the trolley or bus and "call" on a sick or elderly woman.  I would sit at her feet while they chatted, either coloring or playing with a doll, then mother would pray with the woman and on the way home, she would stop at the playground and let me play as a reward for being good.

Mother was the consummate storyteller.  Every experience was a cause for drama and she would regale us with these little plays, we children acting them out.  She was a writer also.  Carried a pen and paper everywhere she went and one would see her pull out her little pad and jot down notes.  It would later appear as a story.  She was never published, rather she did it because the stories were in her and had to come out.  Mother would often turn to me and invite my input.  We had this plan o write a book together - life from the old and young point of view.  We never got to write the whole thing but worked on it throughout our lives together.

Mother honored her husband.  Yes, they were human, fought and disagreed vigorously.  But when it came down to it, Dad was every bit the head of the home.  It enabled him to be the leader and protector a husband is supposed to be.  She was adored and supported by him and was able to be much more than many other women in the 50s because of his respect for her.  She was progressive because my dad had her back.

Never in my life was I sent to bed, even as a teenager.  At bath time mother would sit on the toilet seat and sing Jesus songs and we'd talk.  She would lead me to bed and open our current book and spend a good hour reading to me, praying over me, rubbing my back.  When I would wake, I would hear the old rocker squeaking back and forth and see her in the corner of the room watching over me.

Mother seldom spanked me. (that was Dad's job).  She didn't have the temperament for it.  As bad as I was and insistent on my own way, she would talk to me.  When mother said that she was disappointed in me because she knew that misdeed wasn't who I really was, my heart melted, more than any strap could do.

As a young mother and wife, I would come over, Dad would pour endless cups of tea while she would whip up spetzle, my favorite.  When I was very pregnant and sick the whole time, she suddenly flew out the door, stopped the ice cream man and bought me a cone.

I feel so fortunate that I had that week to say goodbye, especially since Dad took a flying leap into heaven.  We talked about everything, she solved the mysteries of our family life, passed on family secrets that I was supposed to hold.  I apologized for being such a difficult kid and she said, "I thought you were cute and funny.  I loved being your mother."  I will take those words to my grave. 

She made me write down the whole dying experience - a writer to the end.  We sang hymns and prayed together.  I was writing, in fact, at the moment she passed.  I had been singing the hymn, Face to Face with Christ my Savior, and sat down to rest, picking up my yellow legal pad to write the things she had told me I needed to remember, when her breathing just stopped and she was gone.

And yet, not gone.  She's with me in my dreams, in this house where she spent 50 years, the old Philadelphia house for the first 8 years of my life, the rose gardens, grape arbor, upholstery, the box of hundreds of buttons in a Whitman Sampler box because you never know when you'll need a button, her thread collection which I'm still using, her Singer which is working well, and in the people who come up to me and tell me how much they loved my mother.

So happy birthday Mother!  Love you and miss you but glad that you're enjoying eternity.



Eunice Macdonald was kind, gracious, non judgmental, loving, respectful of other people's journeys in life, progressive in thinking, a deep thinker about God and open to learning something new, not a religious party line thinker.  Counselor, children's minister, prayer warrior, artist, Bible teacher, true Christian and friend.

Where's Mama?

Missed me?  Of course you did!  It's been a year of adventure, and unfortunately, no way to publish it on my blog! 

Our old computer, good girl that she is, slowly died.  Taking facebook and blogs with it.  Thank you Uncle Sam - able to get a new one this year!  Checked it out - Mama's Musings is back!

Things we said we'd never do - along with the computer, Dave and I got tablets.  I swore they were useless to me - never say no.  It goes with me everywhere.  Camera - facebook - google, oh what fun to watch a tv show and look up the stars and plot!  "Hey, who was the second Darren?"

Library app - any book in library circulation - for 3 weeks and automatically returned.  What could be better for a reader like me?  And if you're one of those who told me I would love it - please hold your judgy look!  You were right, okay?

So Mama is back!  Hope you'll visit often and find out what soap box I'm on that day.

Mother's Prayers

It's 11:30 pm, I've brushed my teeth and taken my medication.  Lights are out in the bedroom, David is snoring.  I lay there with pillows plumped for a half hour and then got up, came in here to write more on the stories I have going.  Why?  Because nothing but dark thoughts are going through my head.  Depressive thoughts.  Things I should have done, things I did do that were wrong, regrets, scenarios of what I wish had happened in certain circumstances.  Does this happen to you too?  I bet it does.

In other days I would write a story in my head.  Or think of a Bible verse for every letter of the alphabet, or girl's names, or favorite foods.  I usually never got farther than G.  But it doesn't work for me anymore.  Maybe something about aging when the stories have been written, no new Bible verses to surprise myself, don't care about girls' names and I'm on a strict diet so shouldn't think about food.

So I get up and see if Joel or Joyce are on the religious channels.  Or go to my trusty computer and write or blog.  I have a memory of long ago.  This is the house I grew up in.  I was often frightened in the night but terrified to get up and face the monsters that lurked for me in the dark.  But when I did, I found comfort in the living room.  Mother would be lying on the sofa covered in an afghan that she had made, a radio at her eat tuned to the Family Bible Hour music.  She would be murmuring.  It wasn't a bad dream, she was praying.  An insomniac (is that where I get it?) and often having depressing thoughts (she told me on her death bed) she would go into the living room.  Dad would have set up her nest with the blankets and radio.  He would make her toast and go back to bed.  Mother would lie there in the dark praying.

And then one night, I heard my name.  "Bless little Martha..."  Little Martha was 13 and wild, rebellious, heedless and thoughtless.  Had nothing to do with God.  Was scaring my gentle mother to death with my antics.  But I heard my name in prayer.  My mother, who couldn't stop me, knew who could.  I felt so loved.

So in a few minutes I'm going to close up shop here and try again, if David's snoring doesn't keep me up.  I'm having a routine blood test in the morning and cannot eat anything until 10 tomorrow morning and if I sit here long enough, I'll eat and that will be the end of my blood test.  What will I do to get to sleep?  Stay tuned!

A Sweet Hobby

I remember the day, around 1962, when my mother came into this very living room and sat beside me on the sofa making me turn off the TV.  I was not pleased.  She had a sampler she had sewn when she was a child.  Why she would think I, her wild pre teen would care, I don't know.  I still see it - a home made counted cross stitch design that said 'Search the Scriptures'.  Of all the lame things to say, mother asked me if I would like to make a sampler too.  I think she was in the mood to share something with her daughter and that was what she came up with.  In a burst of uncharacteristic cooperation, I said I would like that.

Mother got out a piece of fine muslin from her fabric box.  Together we used a pencil to mark Xs in the shape of words.  Mine said, 'Love One Another'.  I was given a hoop and red thread and set to work.  Mother and I had a great afternoon together, laughing and sharing.

And that was the start of one of my favorite hobbies.  I loved cross stitch.  And it didn't take me long to finish a piece.  When I was thirteen my Pioneer Girl leader announced that she had started a business - glory be, a sampler company!!  And it was just up the street.  My father drove me over and I thought I would faint from the joy of it.  A warehouse full of printed cross stitch kits.  I chose two and remember that they cost about $3 each.  They were finished within two weeks.  He took me back.  And I picked the biggest, hardest one there - St. Francis of Assisi Prayer, 16x20, half inch letters.  It took a year off and on.  It hung in my parent's house until I got married and it moved to my house.  I have no idea where it is now.  Then I did an alphabet sampler with a flower for every letter.  My daughter has that one.  In my thirties, depressed, overwhelmed, my father knew just what would perk me up.  He bought me a crewel kit of a Hummel child thinking it would give me encouragement.  That was followed by three more Hummels.  In the following years I would take a piece of muslin or lawn and draw a picture or a poem and just free lance it.  I carried a 5x7 square of aida cloth with me at all times and would sooth my social anxiety by doing poems and Bible verses.  I can see myself, my busy hands on my lap, weaving the needle in and out, while trying to look like I was listening.

And then I stopped.  Never picked up the needle again.  I think life got too busy and overwhelming for hobbies.  When the girls were here last summer and we went through the cedar chest, they exclaimed over the many needlework pieces, almost fifty, that were stored there.  When they went home, I couldn't get embroidery out of my mind.  So I went out and bought a large length of aida cloth and looked up some counted cross stitch patterns online (something my mother didn't have).  And started to stitch.  And stitch.  And stitch.  Pictures and words and alphabets.  I have a quilt made of embroidered Bible verses, 14 samplers of all kinds.  Just started #15.  I love going to Michael's and ruminating over thread colors.  So many more than I had in 1965.  What am I going to do with them?  Nothing.  Roll them up in a tube and when I'm dead my girls will find them and say, "What the heck?"  Or maybe they'll value them as I did my mother's work.

I know that at some point, like Forrest Gump, I'm going to be done and just stop.  I only have one piece of aida left so maybe the time is coming.  How sad.  But until then, I'm having a ball.  Thanks Mom.

The Impossible Hand of Understanding

Corrie Ten Boom was a Dutch christian, an ordinary person, in an ordinary family, strong papa, dear mama, loving sisters.  Their lives were flowing by with nothing of any great importance happening.  And Corrie had every reason to believe she would reach the end of her life having lived a quiet, humble life.  Then World War 2 happened and the Nazis swept into Holland and occupied it, dispatching the Jews and anyone who aided them.  The quiet life ended.  Corrie joined the underground, at age 45, and her family ended up hiding Jews in a secret space in their home.  One of those women became so frightened she left the hiding place and made it known to one of the boy soldiers in their neighborhood.  He was their childhood friend.  And he gave them up.  The family was arrested, thrown into a train with the town's Jews, and landed at Auschwitz.  Papa, Mama, sisters, brother, nieces, nephews - all were sent to the ovens upon arrival.  Only Corrie and her sister Betsy survived to go through events that even a horror writer's imagination couldn't conceive.  Betsy died two years later, and Corrie survived until rescued by the Americans.  She went on, for the rest of her life, as a speaker, healer, recounter of the Holocaust from her perspective as a Christian.

This is one of the stories she tells in her book, The Hiding Place.  She was speaking at a meeting in America, four years after the war, telling her story.  Urging the audience to forgive as God forgives us, not to hold hatred or grudges against the wicked, but to seek to bring them back from their darkness.  When she was finished, a handsome young man came up to her and in a German accent told her this - he had been a guard at Auschwitz and had done evil.  After the war he had come across some Christians who had ministered to him and he had completely repented and changed his life.  He put out his hand and said, "I would like to ask your forgiveness and shake your hand as a brother in Christ."  Corrie looked closer.  She saw that he was indeed one of the guards who had beaten her sister and taken pleasure in the inmate's pain.  Corrie was paralyzed.  She felt hatred well up, pictures of the vile things he had done to her and her sister.  She had visions of revenge.  She most certainly was not going to shake his hand as if nothing had happened.  And then, a strange thing happened.  She thought, "God I can't shake his hand.  If you want to, fine, but I won't."  And with that, without any conscious motion on her part, her arm rose, her hand went out, the man took it and burst into tears.  "Please, please, forgive me!" he begged.  Corrie said everything changed.  The coldness broke open and she embraced him as a brother.

This week, two young men, ordinary boys, living ordinary lives, friends, parents, extended family, education, a wife and child came to a boundary.  They could choose this way or that way.  One way to a constructive life, the other to destruction.  For whatever reason, they chose destruction.  Six months ago, a young boy, mentally ill, consumed by video games, executed 26 children in a school.  He too had a choice at some point in his life, as did his parents, and he too chose the way of death instead of life.

We're supposed to hate them.   I know what I think 'they' should do to them.  I know what popular knowledge says should happen.  But I just can't.  Not because they aren't evil, and deadly, because they are and the events they caused are going down in history as holocausts.  I don't take that lightly.  But I don't want to be the person who hates, or judges.  I can't carry that around with me.  On a smaller scale, I've been a criminal, making the choice to do the destructive thing, stepping over that boundary with terrible consequences for someone else.  And along with the regret I will always carry, I can't also carry the burden of knowing I'm not forgiven even though I've repented.

So I do the motion.  I put my hand out.  And hope the emotion follows.

I Like My Church!

I come from a fundamentalist background, ultra conservative, uber evangelical.  It's never sat well with me.  Even as a child I had questions and doubts but heaven help the kid who expressed them!  As an adult in a traditional church I also had doubts that what I was hearing was the whole truth.  But by then the church's value to me was confidence building.  I was Mistress of the Church - baptism hostess, kitchen worker, bereavement committee, VBS director, banquet head and all around background detail person.  It was easy to ignore the restless whispers in my head that were telling me how off base some of the traditional doctrines were. 

In the late 90s my life fell apart.  A series of misfortunes, including the pastor from hell, pushed me to the edge of suicide.  I came to hate God for allowing the pain.  "Donald Trump is a better father than God!  He takes care of his children!"  It was a very dark time in my life.  And the church's pastoral counselor didn't help when he insisted on reading me Bible passages and telling me what I should feel.

At that time, my job was falling apart as well.  Dear friends/colleagues were jumping ship.  Gerri was my angel and before she left she insisted that I come to her church's women's retreat at a christian resort on the Chesapeake.  Yeah, yeah... but she was paying so what the heck.  Free weekend away from the husband and children.

First, the Chesapeake is gorgeous.  I wasn't prepared for the beauty of it.  The resort sits right on the bay with all the smells, sounds and colors one would expect from a movie.  You get to the place through a tiny town with quaint, tourist shops, and then along a winding dirt road through a forest.

Secondly, our room was really nice, not the typical hotel room, especially not a christian hotel room.  The place had a pool, hot tub, snack bar, thrift shop and private chapel.

We were just in time for the first meeting of the afternoon and our clique got on the elevator to the conference floor.  As we got off a young blond woman came striding down the hall with the most beatific smile.  "Hurry and get there!  The worship is fine!" she said as if talking about a day at the shore.  And the worship was fine.  I thought I knew what worship was - stodgy, staid, boring songs and windbag testimonies.  But this was different.  The songs were rocking, the women on their feet, shouting all manner of things from Amen, to Yes Lord to WhaaHoo!  Arms in the air, dancing, swaying.  I was in love.  I was absorbed into groups of women like an amoeba.  That weekend I became a Calvary girl.

Fifteen years later, I'm still a Calvary girl.  And this is why -

- the same people sit in the same places in this cavernous room, so you know a lot of people by sight and that's okay because you talk to them as if you know them but it doesn't involve an investment in people you might or might not want to hang with.

- it's big enough (2500 a service x 3) that if you want to be known you can be, if you don't want to be known you don't have to be.

- it isn't embarrassing.  I can safely invite anybody of any class, gender identity, religion or lack of and know they'll probably have a good time.

- the music rocks.

- it has a support group for everyone - new christians, medical, war vets, pornography addicts, regular addicts, gamblers, Russians and Spanish, divorced adults and kids, bereavement and on and on.

- everything they do is done well.  The bathrooms are beautiful, original art work on the walls, a bride's section with private changing room, bathroom and make up mirror.  All repairs are done immediately so there's no wreckage to look at.  Programs are planned for maximum organization.

- there's a bookstore.

- if you liked a song they'll copy the words for you.

- security is highly organized and secret.  Children couldn't be safer in the building.  I once saw an Adam Code when a child was missing from the room.  Men and women rushed to the doors and locked them.  Another team swept through the sunday school rooms.  She was found in her brother's room.  On the anniversary of 9/11 friendly security people were posted on every hallway.  I know some of them carry weapons.  The pastor has a body guard, very low key and it's sad that Joe needs one but that's life.

- we get to call our pastor Joe because he's just a guy who does his job well, not a demi god.

- if you're upset and cry you get a half dozen people with their hands on you praying.

- if you go out and sit in the lobby during the service, which I like to do, you see and hear the most interesting people!  One guy was on drugs and he sat right next to me to talk about it.  One guy was telling his friend how he married a young girl and he didn't want children but she deserved at least one so what the heck.  One guy was calling his mother to tell her he had gotten engaged.  Thanks - over the phone from the church lobby.

So if you want to go and check out Calvary Chapel, call me.  I guarantee you'll like it whether or not you agree with the message.

The Unspeakable

At one of my former daycares, worked an Indian woman, a Hindu, who was one of the wisest, kindest people I knew.  We were talking about crime and I was holding forth about what we should do with criminals.  Ah, the years when I knew everything!  This woman looked into my eyes, and said with a gentle tone, "It was Mother Theresa who said, 'I can't judge you because of the Hitler in me.'"  I was stopped cold and I've never forgotten that proverb.  Any of us are capable of anything given the perfect storm of circumstances -  so it behooves us never to say, "I would never..."

Along with the nation and the world, I am horrified at the disaster in Newtown, Connecticut.  For the first two days I couldn't stop crying when it came on the news.  I'm was a preschool teacher for 30 years.  I see the faces of those precious little ones, and superimposed over them, the bullet holes, the blood, the survivors seeing their friends torn apart.  So much misinformation came out as news anchors rushed to be the first to spread the news. Grasping for bits of gossip, interviewing traumatized children.  The shooter's mother worked there, they let him in because they knew him, he had ADHD, she was too hard on him...

As it turned out the mother never worked at the school, the boy had untreated Asperger's, he broke a door to get in, and his mother was in the middle of trying to get her son into treatment for his mental illness.  The guns were hers, from her collection.  She was an enthusiast and taught her boys how to handle a gun safely.  Sure, we can ask now how she could keep weapons in the house with a mentally unstable son, but hindsight? 

I wanted to say something vengeful about the dead shooter but the only thing that came to mind was,  "Lord Jesus, have mercy!"  Wow!  Where did that come from?  I know what mental illness is like.  It's around me, it's in the family, I myself need medication and counsel.  I spent 20 years behind a curtain, cut off from the world, seeing it but not being able to participate.  When I was diagnosed the curtain was ripped away and I saw with painful clarity how disastrous my life had been up until that point.  Was that me who said _______?  Did I really ______?  How could I have ______!

I feel like I can see the mind video of Adam Lanza.  He wasn't capable of seeing life in the abstract, only the individual details.  Things like love, happiness, patience, puppies and babies, respect, God - his mind wasn't able to understand these concepts.  He adapted, of course, in order to survive.  He learned how to play the game.  But he was mentally and emotionally blindfolded.

When he grabbed the guns, although he certainly knew what guns were for, and that he would use them to kill, he didn't reason out the consequences because 'reasoning out' an idea from beginning to end was not in his capability.  When he broke his way into the school he didn't recognize adults, children, teachers.  Age is an abstract concept.  He saw bodies.  Shooting and killing them were video games, TV shows, not real life human beings.  He could have chosen to break into an old folks home, lovers in the park, a daycare or church.  Human differences didn't exist in his disordered mind.

It made sense to him according to the context of his brain function.  If he had lived he wouldn't have recognized that he had done anything wrong.  He would have blamed the police for interfering.

All mentally ill people are not serial killers. Mass murder is still rare though seeming to gain ground.  I doubt that I harbor serial killer genes nor do my friends who struggle with mental health issues.  But I've done enough harm in my own corner of the world to understand the concept of it being done on a wider scale.

That's why I pray, Mercy, dear Jesus, for this boy, Adam Lanza.  As distasteful as it is to contemplate, I see God standing there in that school as Adam put the gun to his own head, holding out his hand and walking his spirit off the scene.  Adam looks around in a panic and says, "No!  Did I do this?"  And God says, "Beloved, come and let's talk."  And all over the school angels are lifting children to their feet and dusting them off, gathering them in a group like the count before a field trip, which is kind of what's happening - the ultimate field trip.  And their ageless spirits recognize Adam's and he is forgiven on the spot.

Defining People, Dividing People

Its fun to people watch!  Our world is full of such variety, and good thing.  It would be a boring world without it.  Gender, race, religion, gender identity - such a garden.  But I noticed something in myself that I don't like and here I am telling on myself.

I tend to make snap judgements about people based on appearance or tone of voice.  I hate that I do that and I'm immediately sorry and change my thought pattern, but that first reaction is there, negative stereotypes.  An obese man went by on the store Scooter.  "Probably ate himself into obesity."  Talking to someone about their diabetes - "Well if they'd lay off the sugar.."  Screaming children - "spoiled brats".  The cranky old woman - "Old battle ax".  Anyone who doesn't look like me and mine - "Am I safe?"  "Just like a _______ to ______."  When the fact is, I don't know the medical history of any of these people.  I don't live in their homes.  I don't see what happened just before they got to Walmart, or what's waiting for them at home.  I don't know their personal histories or tragedies.  How can I judge on the basis of a 4 second glance?

Forty years ago my mother got cancer.  By the time they found it and operated, it had spread everywhere.  (By a miracle she recovered and lived for another 30 years.)  I was going to lose my mother in the worst possible way.  And I had only just had a baby who would never know this remarkable woman.  I went to the grocery store, in a daze, and knocked something off the shelf.  Didn't even realize it.  Until an elderly lady walked up to me, a stranger, and said, "I saw you knock that down and you didn't even pick it up.  You're the reason prices are so high."  I burst into tears and said, "My mother is dying and I can't see straight!" And she said, "Yeah right." and walked off in disgust.  I have never forgotten how that felt.  One can knocked to the floor defined me.

Ten years ago, my father died and I took mother to the grocery store.  He loved to shop and this store was the last place he had gone.  We took his suit to the funeral home, then to Superfresh.  Inside the door, helping my crippled and mourning mother into the Scooter, I met someone I've tussled with from time to time.  He said in a monotone, "Hellohowareyou".  With tears in my eyes I said, "Not so good..."  That's all I got out before his whole expression changed to one of disgust.  He turned and walked away.  I know he didn't know my father had just died.  But his first response was to assume it was old negative depressed Martha again.  He defined me by my emotions.

Today I was speaking with a businessman I know and like.  Very good man.  Who is gay.  Femininely so.  I felt the thought rising and stopped it before it saw the light of day.  His gender identity doesn't define him.  It doesn't even enter into the equation.  It hasn't got anything to do with anything.  But something in people, not just me, reacts so nastily to the person who doesn't meet our moral standards or our stereotypes of what a man and woman should look like, talk like, walk like, feel or behave.  What is it in humans that makes them define a person by their mannerisms or personal life?  Fear?  Probably.

I'm not perfect and I'll probably do it again.  But I'm in there trying!

The Reason for the Season

I remember Christmases past.  The earliest memories are of sitting under the tree, (yes I was that small), and somehow, somehow the whole tree fell over.  Ornaments were made of glass then, there was no plastic and predictably, shards spread across the carpet, adults came running.  I do not remember being punished or made to feel bad.  Mother spoke gently to me and I felt such guilt I didn't do it again.

I remember when, around Thanksgiving time some of my dolls disappeared.  I asked where they were and mother said they had all gone to the hospital.  "ALL of them?  At one time?"  Yes, it was contagious.  "Well what did they have?"  Mumps.  I couldn't let it go.  It worried me terribly that my babies were sick and I couldn't help.  Meanwhile I was banned from the basement.  There were sounds coming from there all the time my father was home.  On Christmas morning, when the family descended the stairs en mass there under the tree were eight cradles, with my eight babies, all wearing new outfits and one extra each. 

I remember piles of presents.  But going back in my mind, there was one big one, usually a doll, and lots of small things - a hairbrush, shirt, dolly bottles, coloring book.  It looked like a mountain of gifts, and although it was exactly that, they were negligible items from Woolworth.

My parents never told us Santa knew we were naughty or nice and would reward us based on behavior.  The thought that we could influence love and generosity by mistakes made or sins comitted was anathema to my parents.  They believed that the idea of Santa was so close to a kid's view of God they never wanted us to make the jump to believing God was the stern keeper of records.  In Him was light and not darkness.

And so it went.

For my own children it was the same.  Piles of presents under the tree - one big one and many small, dime store items.  It was all we could afford.  We counted boxes to make sure each girl got the same because believe me, they counted.  Each year I would start in October to sew up Barbi clothes.  Buying bits and pieces of fabric for 25c gowns, leisure sets, pants suits, fur coats and business dresses would come off my machine.  A card of Barbi shoes and purses would complete the gift.  One year there were homemade Mickey Mouse hats.  One year homemade Cabbage Patch dolls.  We had so little money and did the best we could to make sure the girls never knew it.

As an adult my aging parents had little extra  but they always took care of me.  Every single year they got me a sweater - in size L.  I've worn a 1x since I was 30 but mother simply wouldn't believe her 5 pounder was that big.  Size Large it would be.  They would give me my favorite pens, a hair clip, slippers, socks.  David would receive a bath towel in his favorite color with his name embroidered on it.  I loved it because they came from these generous, thoughtful people.

Here we are in 2012 and there's no extra money for Christmas.  I have everybody's Christmas lists and wish I could tick everything off.  David and I promise each other every year that we aren't going to get each other anything (yeah, right).  Save the money for Brianna.  I hate this.  I keep searching my mind thinking where I can get extra money and where I can get knock offs inexpensively.  By Christmas eve I will have earned enough from my little job, minus the bills, to provide a modest pile under the tree.  I'm very proud of my daughters who have taught their children not to expect a consumer's paradise.  They do not bury their children in gifts this one day a year.

But there are other memories of Christmases past.  Helping my father search for the perfect tree that we could afford.  He always knew 'a guy'.  Throwing the tinsel on the tree, my brother would guffaw and step all over the lights, Dad and Mother retelling the stories of the ornaments as they came out of their wrappings, testing the bubble lights, placing the tin foil angel on the top of the tree, hot chocolate and homemade donuts when we were through, Dad reading Luke 2 and praying, carolers, Christmas Eve services, brother ringing sleigh bells to make me think Santa was there, having to stop on the stairs to get an 'excited' picture taken every stinkin' year instead of rushing downstairs and diving in, waiting for each other instead of thinking of our own gifts only, dinner at Granny's or Aunt Jessie's, inviting the neighbors in and us going to their homes to view the gifts.

I've never been one to burble on about 'the reason for the season!' or keeping Christ in Christmas or how much more fun it is to go to church than open presents.  Seriously?    But I do know there's more to the season than the height of the pile of gifts or their expense.  Family, tradition, memories, warmth, the knowlege that we were never outside of our parents or our God's good graces, generosity, creativity, thoughtfulness, celebration.  That's the Reason for the Season!

I Remember Mama

Maybe I should be worried - I've been thinking of my mother and her last weeks lately.  No idea what's triggered it.  Maybe I feel like the 'mother' part of me is going, going, gone with the advancing ages of my children?  Maybe my life here in her house has taken a very Eunice and Jim turn?

I remember the night Dad died.  Mother called me around 10 pm to say 'Daddy is very sick and I can't get him out of the bathroom.'  Not because he was hogging up his time limit, but because she was, by then, pretty much crippled from arthritis and couldn't support his weight.  I told her to call 911, I would meet them at the hospital and David would come get her.  She bumped down the stairs on her bottom to open the door for the paramedics and they had to carry her back up.  Throughout those hours she sat beside him in her wheelchair, holding his hand.  At various times he had private conversations with David and I, saying goodbye and thank you for being a good son and daughter, giving mother into our care.  When the time came and Dad began to fly away mother didn't cry.  She watched stoically, holding his hand tightly.  Then she pushed herself up out of her wheelchair, laid her hands on him and prayed a prayer of thanksgiving for their marriage.  I don't think I have ever been so proud of being Eunice's daughter.  When I brought her home we lay in her bed, weeping.  "What am I going to do without him?"  she kept asking.

The answer came a month later.  Aunt Martha had moved out of the downstairs apartment, we renovated it for mother and planned to move into the upstairs to take care of her.  Our thoughts were that somewhere down the line we'd sell and get a bigger house for all of us.  When I took mother on a tour of her new apartment she said, "Well now, I've lost everything.  My husband, my home and my independence."  I came in the morning for my daily visit and found her sitting in her green chair by the window.  She was gazing out at the familiar scene.  She turned and smiled at me.  "Daddy was here.  He said it was ok to come.  Do you think I was hallucinating?"  "No," I said, "I think he really did speak to you.  I'm sure he's waiting for you."
From that moment on she didn't have another sad day.  She quietly went about her business.

She developed what I thought was a cold.  I made the doctor treat her.  'Rest' was all they would say.  It wasn't a cold, of course, it was congestive heart failure that had been coming on for years.  The only reason she had lived this long was because of Dad.  "Bring her to the ER" said the doctor.  I couldn't believe it.  I wheeled her in and we had to sit in the waiting room.  She kept smiling at a point in the far corner.  We finally got to a booth in the ER, undressed, comfortable on a gurney if that's possible, waiting for tests and more doctors.  I was reading a book when mother said, "Oh look, there's Daddy."  We looked up the hallway in front of us, maybe 30 feet away.  A short man stood in profile, wearing the shabby brown tweed coat Dad was buried in, scuffed brown shoes, his arms folded akimbo as was his usual, a thin line mouth expression.  He rocked back and forth exactly like Dad did.  Mother and I looked at one another, and when we looked back the man was gone.  Now you tell me.....

The next week was mother's last.  I sat by her bed almost 24/7.  Her friends came to say goodbye, sing hymns, pray with her.  They brought their children who loved 'Granny the Cookie Lady'.  She and I shared the secrets of her life, things I had suspected but didn't know for sure.  People from the 40s and their peccadilloes, the stray baby, the children gone wrong.  Saintly behavior, grace in the face of disaster.  I fastened a picture of Dad in his wedding suit on her tubing so she could see it without moving.  One day when I came she said, "He's here, you know." and smiled her young girl's 'I know a secret' smile.  She was getting younger by the hour.  I was amazed.  One would think a dying woman would get older, but no, she was going back, back in their lives together.

On the day she died, I apologized for being such a brat of a kid and she said, "I loved being your mother."  I will never receive a gift as precious as that from my dying mother.  As they took her up to hospice I put Dad's picture in her hand and she breathed her last holding on to him.  Do I think he was there?  You bet.  She stopped struggling which she had been doing for the last week and with a gentle sigh, drifted away.

I saw her several times over the next month.  I had a waking dream where she showed me heaven and answered questions I posed to her.  I wrote this all down as it was appearing to me and have that paper framed in my home.  One night, about 3 months later, I felt her presence beside my bed, leaning over me, tenderly.  She said, "Its time for me to go.  You'll be just fine.  In motherhood is your salvation."  And I have never again felt her presence.  I do meet her in dreams when I need her as has happened several times, too many to be coincidence.

And here I am, right now, wanting my mother.  Maybe she'll come to me tonight in my dreams?

Thankfulness

Today's the day!  Brianna and I have been planning the menu for days, not that it takes too much thought.  We're pretty traditional.  We know what we like.  Normally she's just in it for the turkey but this year she's asked for cheesy mashed potatoes and corn.  Okay with me.  We had breakfast together, then Dave put his famous orange turkey together and in to cook for it's 5 hours.

Brianna and I will plan our Black Friday journey.  We go out at 5 am to Walmart and KMart, then breakfast at Panara.  Then sleep all day.

Memories of the past - Mother put the turkey on early, Dad took me to a park.  We'd feed the ducks, he'd take pictures, I'd have to go to the bathroom so he'd hold me over a hidden pile of leaves in the woods.  I always had to go to the bathroom.  Dinner was a big deal.  Brother would put away prodigious amounts of food, sister was always serene, I was the wild card - didn't eat much, didn't like side dishes, was too ADHD to do well in a group, I'd get feisty, knock something over.  Mother never seemed to mind.  To her, that was life in a loving family.  We were who we were.

Dinners at Granny's house or Aunt Jess's - quiet, dark houses, 'be on your best behavior Martha Jeanne', foods that I wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole, knick knacks that drove my mother insane that I might decided to play with them and break them, fragile, formal dishes and heavy silverware, linen cloth and napkins, paper thin aperitif glasses always full of crandberry juice which was yucky.  BUT - in a circle of people who loved me, had some special treats for me, told wonderful stories about the Old Country.  I was part of something bigger than I.

As a young married, dinner at David's house, Thanksgiving was also his mother's birthday, I was assigned a seat next to Aunt Kate who was the relative who was 'difficult' to them (I liked her) and Dave's father, an old Navy man.  First I got my finger stuck in the tiny handle of a teacup, He looked at me and said, "What's the matter with you?" and yanked my finger out.  Then Jan told me the dishes belonged to her grandmother and 'not a piece has been broken'.  Gulp.  Then, Art would carve at the table and give you the piece he wanted you to have, not the piece I wanted and he put it on my plate with these words from the military, "Take what you want, but eat what you take."  Gulp again.  When the kids came along it was my Granny's house all over again - stressed that someone would break something.

There was the year we decided not to go to their house and to make our own.  I have a photo of my mother and I holding that turkey and smiling.  It's one of my favorite pictures.

I find myself very thankful this year for all the usual things.  But in particular, for the worst event that happened to me in the last three years.  I've finally gotten to the point where I can see the reason and thank God for it.  Yay!  3 years ago I walked into a restaurant in November, slipped and sprained hip, arm, leg and foot.  I had to retire from my career, use a cane or walker for a year, go through a prolonged and nasty lawsuit, lose our life savings.  We went from okay, to barely squeaking by.  Had a breakdown.

2012 - Ah!!  I see.  The settlement, although small and not at all what I thought it would be, is a nice nest egg, and emergency fund for disasters.  And we've had them.  I hadn't realized then that I was really at the end of my career.  Times change, especially in education and I wasn't up to rolling with them.  I have a job now as substitute special ed assistant that lets me be home when I need to be, and when I'm working, it's terrific.  I love the kids and have met some superlative teachers.  The money isn't much but it buys food and emergencies.  And I'm home for Brianna, otherwise she wouldn't be able to join any teams at school.

So I'm thankful for enlightenment most of all.

Holiday Dinners

Breathes there a child who hasn't had to live through holiday dinners with the extended family?   Waiting for dinner while the grown ups socialized, that one relative nobody really wants to invite but, hey, what are you going to do, picking at your dinner while the grown ups ate and socialized, wilting with boredome while the grownups yakked away after dinner, tried to find something to do for the rest of the night but there wasn't much so you got in trouble in one way or another and mother sighed on the way home, "Next time we're leaving you home!"  ("Good").

Oh, was that just me?

My earliest memories are of my aunt and uncle's house.  It was a beautiful old carriage house, soft lighting, dark wood.  I was the baby so everybody was nice to me.  Aunt and Uncle were friendly.  Granny and PopPop seemed old to me but couldn't have been but 65-70.  My parents were laid back and understood that a kid was a kid.  For some unaccountable reason, Aunt gave me a pop gun.  Okay, she never had children so I guess Auntie took a wild guess and thought an inquisitive little chipmunk like me would enjoy a pop gun.  I was enjoying it and imagine that within five minutes of having it everyone was sorry the thing had come into the house.  Hey, I thought, my PopPop likes good fun!  I'll pretend to shoot him and he'll laugh.  He was, by this time, a little weak with ill health, not always catching on quickly.  Granny protected and cared for him stringently.  I snuck up behind him, put the gun to his ear and let fly.  The cork flew out, hit him above the ear, making a loud POP.  He screamed, not knowing what to think, I remember him wobbling, people came rushing.  I stepped back to observe the action.  "Gee, what's with him?"  Aunt grabbed the gun away, Granny helped her husband into a quiet room to recover, my mother took me by the hand to walk around outside while she explained my poor choice.  And the memory embedded itself in my brain for the rest of my life.

I remember looong dinners at Granny and PopPop's house in Philadelphia.  I only ate bread and turkey, not all that other stuff.  Mashed turnips?  No thank you, only I wasn't that polite.  Then Granny would give me the lecture about how when she was a girl all they had to eat was dirt and they liked it...  Then turning upside down on my chair from boredom, trying not to break the fragile china with the heavy silverware.

And this is what I've got to ask mother when I get to heaven - why on earth didn't you bring toys or something for me?  I mean, you knew what I was like.  A doll for goodness sakes?

Christmas dinners, while presents were piled under the tree and you had to wait through drinks and appetizers, sit through a boring dinner, then sit through after dinner talk which was dumb stuff, finally get released to get to the reason why you came, other than mother making you.  Same thing for my girls at Nana's house - wait, wait, wait, blah blah blah.  (I brought toys for them however).

Christmas and Easter dinners here in this house when my girls were young?  It was my parents house then and it was wonderful.  Dad had a way of making everything magic, sometimes literally.  He was a magician among other things.  There would be art materials and toys bought just for that occasion, and a Swedish angel candle - you know them, you light the four candles, the angels at the top go around from the heat and ring little bells?  Highlight of dinner at Granny's - playing with fire.  A dinner served that was child friendly.  No mashed turnips.

It's Thanksgiving in a few days and Dave and I are planning our meal.  It will be just the four of us as usual.  The other two families live hours away.  We've asked Brianna to help plan the food so we can be sure she'll eat it.  Em will make her famous squash soup.  Brianna has no way of understanding how important these feast days are, even though its just us, same old kitchen, same old food.

Holiday meals are when memories are shared, we get to listen to old stories, of grandma and grandpa's childhoods, how mommy was when she was young, you see family dynamics with the popular relatives and the ones you had to reluctantly invite (thank God we don't have one of those.  We like all our relatives).  We see how the old folks are treated, respected or not.  You learn table manners, discretion, how to behave in someone else's home.  You see china and stem ware, linen tablecloths and cloth napkins.

Who knew so much went in to holidays at Grandma's?

Christmas Letters

Holiday time again!  Shopping for gifts nobody really needs, stressing over whether you got an even number of presents for everyone, trying to find parking, and Christmas cards!

(Okay, that was a mean rant.  I'm not a Scrooge.  Really, Christmas is one of my favorite holidays).

Sending Christmas cards is always a dilemma for me.  When I was a kid and more concerned with presents, I do remember receiving dozens of cards and they weren't the ones that are mass printed.  My parents picked out each and every one, as did our friends.  They meant something.  Mother would tie a string of yarn across the fireplace and display our cards all season.  Every time I looked at that display I remembered how many people thought of us all year.

As a young married, we received and sent the mass printed, boxed cards.  They came from everybody in our sphere of knowledge - the doctor, Acme store, pastor, our government Representative, plus friends and family.  I continued my mother's idea of a display over the living room archway.    By this time mom and dad were in this apartment and they put theirs in a decorated Christmas basket.  (David made me a copy when we moved in here).

In the 90s we began to receive this new phenomenon - the Christmas letter.  I'm sure they were around before that, but no one in our circle, except missionaries, sent them.  We weren't so busy up until then and we communicated with people.  Didn't need a run down of their lives since last we met.  I liked them.  TV shows made fun of them and Dear Abby was full of dismissive letters about them.  How the writers probably lied to make themselves look better.  My question was this - if they didn't have a good year, or if nothing happened, why would they go to the trouble to make up, print and mail a fake letter?  I still don't believe that one.

The formula was the same for everyone we knew - Dear ________ (fill in the name).  Followed by some well crafted religious statement to set the tone - "Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ, the Savior who came as a babe but grew up to die on the cross so we could have our sins forgiven ...."  The letter would go on to list each and every possible detail of that person's life.  And I mean every one.  Two pages of things I would never think to ask or ever want to know.  "John has been suffering from bloating for weeks but we found out it was an allergy to nuts the dog has been limping and we've given him antacids Mary Sue has had a real struggle with math this year and her legs itch Grandma's hearing has really gone downhill our beloved dog Alice died this year Ray tried basketball but was so bad at it he got thrown off the team..."  Last paragraph, another super religious statement and maybe the words to a hymn.  I scratch my head and wonder, why would they think anyone would want to know this insider information?  Filters, anyone?

Okay, I'm being judgemental.  Forgive me.  I can, because I wrote a lot of those letters myself.  In those days it was important to follow the straight and narrow and not make waves.  I cringe when I remember.  Oh Martha Jeanne, where was your good sense and creativity?

These days, I simple adore Christmas letters!  They've become as original as their families of origin.  One dear friend who is with the Lord this year sent photo cards every year.  Her children have children and we still got those cards.  One year a family we knew had a horrendous year and their letter spelled it out in painful, intimate detail.  We got a letter written in round labyrinth shape, and a poem letter.  One written from the perspective of the family cat.  One with a photo included of a grandchild seconds from the birth canal.

I love them all.  I love to know what's been going on in every body's life.  I hope I do a good job and they like to get ours.

Now, about Christmas cards.  They're expensive.  And stamps - out of sight.  We've gone through some very difficult financial years (haven't come too far since then, sadly) but we always found money for cards.  I would promise myself that this year, no.  Can't afford it.  Then cards would come to me.  "Oh, I have to send this one a card, and she would wonder what happened if we didn't send her one, and it would be an insult to forget so and so."  We once sent a card to a friend who never replied and we never got the cards back.  Turns out he had been dead for 10 years and his son, in whose home he had lived, just never bothered to tell us.  

I agonize over the right cards.  Not paintings of the Christmas story, not trite little sayings, not secular images - after all, it is my religious holiday.  Something sacred but still creative.  And we always manage.  I take my choices very seriously.

So you'll probably get a card from Dave and Martha, and a letter.  I hope it suits and you find it interesting but not cloying.  We'll try to keep the intimate details to a minimum.

Christ Returning

I'm not putting anyone else down.  This is my perspective and everyone else has a right to theirs.  So my blog - indulge me.

No, I don't want Jesus to return because I don't like the president.  I don't want Him to return because of 'the gays' or Ellen 'Degeneret'.  I don't want Him to come back to punish the pro choice advocates. 

My pastor preaches about His imminent return.  "Be ready!"  Humm.. how be ready and why?  If He comes to take me out of this world, this world and all it's sin and despair will drop away.  Why would I need to pray more, behave better or read more scripture? 

I have friends who won't send their daughters to college because there's no point.  Jesus is just going to come back and women won't need jobs.  They should raise children to look forward to Jesus' return.  (head scratch).

There are end times conferences, books by the million (Left Behind series), endless classes - 'Are We in The End Times?'  Plotting the clues like an astrologer.  Divisions and even age old arguments over how He'll come, when He'll come, who will go when He comes.  Secretly rejoicing in the misfortune of those who will be left.  (Come on, even though it's de rigour to add 'of course it's so sad' you know you're wiping your brow and saying, 'whew!  Got in!)

Personally, I'm not 'ready'.  I can live with gay marriage, abortion, Rosie O'Donnell, women having the vote and working, people behaving badly.  In my worst times of depression I wanted to be out of pain, but not out of the world.  I know my parents wanted to "see Jesus face to face!' but in my mind, He doesn't really have a face, I'm going to be essence as will God, Jesus and my loved ones, and with the world gone, am I going to have human emotions of eagerness?

I'd rather work to make my corner of the world a better place.  To work on myself to be a light to the hopeless.  And when He comes, He comes.  And I hope the idea of only 'true' Christians going up is wrong and we all go up. 

The Yoga Mama

I did my first yoga yesterday.  I am so glad there were no cameras there.  "Put your hands up, squat, twist your arms around, bend one leg over the other, hold..."  Yikes!  The only thing that saved me were the other women in the room who were hopping on one foot and letting out "oofs" and "ouches".

I was attending a lecture by a young lady who had come through a terrible life circumstance and, finding her way out, found relief through the practice of yoga.  She was sharing her journey with us.  Her early life was my story, of feeling the odd child out, low self esteem, afraid of social situations.  Yes, my old friends, I was, although I hid it by helping the hostess or jumping into the caterer's kitchen.  Tears came to my eyes as I listened to this woman and wouldn't you know it, I had cleaned out my purse and had no tissues.  Our life situations eventually diverged, she into some dark stuff, mine into quiet desperation.  Both of us found healing by different paths, but healing none the less.

She talked about energy coming from the sun above, and up from the earth below.  Sun and earth are life.  Without them we do not live.  We straightened our spines and aliened our bodies so the 'chi' could flow unimpeded from head to toe.  We raised our arms and looked upwards to receive the light that was flowing down.  We squatted down (ow ow ow), closed our eyes and breathed deeply fixing a wish in our minds that we would like accomplished in our lives.  She spoke about getting rid of life distractions like TV and self medicating substances.

One thought that went through my head was, "This is the thing my church has warned against.  Giving entrance to evil spirits.  A useless practice that hippies and hippies do instead of knowing the living God."

And then I thought, wait, everything I've done so far has a correlation to my faith practice. 

Could it possibly be that we're talking about the same thing from different viewpoints using different words?

As a Christian I do believe life comes from 'above', from God.  I do believe His Holy Spirit flows through me if I open myself up to Its power.  Aliening my spine is a health practice, not mumbo jumbo.  When I pray I can't help raising my arms and touching my heart, it makes me breath deeply (which is also a health practice).  I kneel to pray and through prayer I lift my needs to God, fixing them in my mind, expecting my needs to be met.  Is cutting down my TV time a bad thing?  Is my Christian faith the stuff of hippies and evil spirits?

I think that in a lot of life we're speaking the same language, using different motions. Its the blind men and the elephant, each touching a different part and thinking that part was the whole.  If I believe God is all, over us, around us, through us (like the chi) then I have to believe people are more alike than different and their ways of expressing God their part of the whole.

I liked the yoga.  Felt good when I got home.  More energy.  So we'll see.

The Election

Whew!  It's finally over.  President Obama has won a second term by popular acclaim.  But it's been a terrible road getting to election day.  I can't think of another situation that brings out such rancor in people who are normally of such good will.

I've had difficulty these 4 years of Obama's tenure trying to respect the man and office but not liking some of the policies that were coming out of the white house.  I love his style, I love his wry approach, he is a disciplined man, his wife is strong and he has raised two lovely daughters.  I sense, however, that his inexperience has gotten in his way big time.  He didn't come to the office through business, political family or wealth.   There's no training to be the leader of the free world.  You get noticed, you are approached with an offer, you are groomed for a few years and you do what your party handlers tell you to do.  They don't run a person for office unless he's able to do the job as they want it done.

- Nixon couldn't get elected if he had a nomination from God Himself, yet, he was.  (Humm, maybe it was God Himself who nominated him?)

-John Kennedy didn't want the job, but his father was in too deep and forced his sons to comply.  If Kennedy had continued to retirement we have no guarantee that he would have been a great president.  It was only his death that catapulted him into political sainthood. 

-Ronald Regan was an actor, not a politician.  He was chosen and groomed for the job because of his acting and PR skills.  And despite claims of sainthood by conservatives, he did a fair but not great job. He did what his party paid him to do.

 -Poor George Bush was a failed businessman who was selected precisely because he knew nothing and would accept a shadow president to run things.  (his brother Jeb was approached first and he turned them down).He was a christian, which the party needed for their conservative base.  So a whole legend was written about his converstion at a Billy Graham crusade, witnessing to soldiers, praying over a sick bed.  Then he got feisty and thought he could really do the job and a campaign to slap him down was started in the name of the dreaded liberals.  His second term was bought for him and he was warned to behave, and he did.  Good old folksy George.

 -Barach was smooth, smart and the right ethnic configuration for the agenda and so was brought along for just this period in history.

It's no accident of fate that these men who had no experience were run for president.  The powers that be want an obedient servant, not a thinker.

And here we are in 2012, electing a president.  I can't begin to understand the viciousness that's been spewed out about Barach Obama.  Accusations of being a muslim (why would he keep it a secret?  It's no crime to be one, and why would he affiliate with the Baptist church way before thinking of public office?), of being an illegal alien, of redecorating the white house in muslim colors, wearing a ring inscribed with arabic prayers... and much much more.

Over and over, we've been told that 'true' Christians shouldn't vote for him because he sanctions abortion and gay marriage.  I was told that by voting for him I was putting myself in serious jeopardy with God.  And no amount of reasonable discussion made a dent in those people's minds.  They want someone to hang their discontent on and the president seems like a good hook.

I have a theory.  I think that when a person has emotional or mental issues, it's so painful that they'll look for somewhere else to hang their depression and anger.  Can't do that to a person they know, but can do it to a celebrity or petty cause that won't face them every day.  Its called 'transference'.  Hating a president is an emotional tool to let off steam.  It happened to George Bush.  And I haven't got a single doubt that had Romney been chosen to win (predetermined?) there would have been something that these disgruntled, unbalanced people would fasten onto.  Probably his faith.  Or his wealth. 

And something I've noticed is that when a person gets so over reactive to a political figure or a cause it's not just politics.  This extreme need to control comes out in every other area of life - marriage, parenthood, friendships and work. 

So it occurs to me that I have to get ahold of myself and not be too hard on those who hold these rabid reactions toward political and religious figures.  There's more at work than politics.  And as God has forgiven me my screeds and over reactions I need to be patient with others.

Pontius Pilate

I like how our pastor does chapter by chapter Bible studies rather than subject sermons.  We've been in Luke for months and today was Jesus' trial before Pilate.  It got me to thinking - (of course it did...) - about the knee jerk reactions to Bible characters that christians seem to have.  They're either GOOD or BAD, nothing in between, no understanding of what made them take the path they did, how God would view their lives.  So often we force God to respond like we would respond.

So, Pilate.  He came from an equestrian military family who got him well placed in his youth.  He caught the eye of Tiberius and advanced straight up the ladder, hoping to reach the top.  Tiberius knew he could trust his prefect, Pilate, and so, in 26 BC he sent Pilate to, basically, the  armpit of Judea.  There was a lot of unrest in the area because of the long standing, hated Roman occupation. Rebellion was bubbling just under the surface, about to explode. So the emperor sent the meanest, cruelest, most dangerous man he knew to keep the peace.  Pilate of the Pontii family of Rome.  And he lived up to his promise.  He planted his heel on the Jewish neck and squeezed.  He was hated by Roman and Jew alike but the Jews had no choice but to work with him if they wanted to maintain their religious and political standing.

Jesus.  An wandering messiah, one of many, from a tiny village in Judea.  So how did he come to be such a threat that the Jews wanted him dead?  The Judeans wanted freedom from their Roman oppressors.  There was a vast underground of rebels, growing stronger every day.  This prophet, Jesus, was speaking about freedom as well, but from a different perspective.  He meant freedom from religion, a personal God, personal spiritual responsibility and he claimed that his authority to teach such a novel idea came from his 'father' God.  This is what made him dangerous to the Jewish authorities - Theirs was a highly political religion.  This man could quite possibly gather enough support that political rebels would ride his religious wake into an uprising against the Romans.  And if that happened, the whole religious and political structure would come down  For the sake of the nation, Jesus couldn't be allowed to continue.

Jesus and Pilate cross paths.  The Jewish authorities had to kill Jesus in some spectacular, horrendous way to send a very clear message to any who would come against Rome and the established religion.  But the religious court couldn't do that, only the Roman court had that authority.  The plan for a public execution was put into place.  Jesus and Pilate were swiftly coming toward one another.

Jesus was arrested in the garden and taken to the priests to be tried.  But he wouldn't cooperate and give them a secular reason for the Romans to execute him.  Next step, bring him before the Roman prefect and accuse him of insighting riot.  I can see Pilate being awakened from his sleep.  The Jews that he hated were yammering again, demanding that he give his consent to some stupid religious matter.  He threw his clothes on and stroke angrly into the court.  And there was this beaten, half unconscious filthy beggar, the priests babbling on about his claiming to be God, saying he was forming a kingdom and he their king.  Pilate was furious.  Perhaps he decided in that moment to be oppositional to get back at the priests?

And then he heard the name of the man - Jesus of Nazareth.  Pilate had heard of him.  Miracle worker, preaching peace and obedience to the powers that be.  He had been wanting to meet the prophet.  And now was his chance.  He ordered Jesus taken inside.  They spoke.  Pilate was impressed.  Why would he want to have this man killed?  "No," he said.  "This man has done nothing to warrant death."  But the priests shouted louder.  So Pilate had an idea - he would send this Jesus to his enemy Herod who was the next highest in authority.  There was no love lost between them and if shuffling Jesus off would get Pilate back to bed and off the hook it was worth a shot.  Within the hour, the crowd was back.  Herod didn't want the job either so he had Jesus beaten severely and returned to Pilate. 

Now Pilate was really mad, but not at Jesus.  He sensed that the prophet wasn't any danger to Rome but the priests were.  He tried to reason with them - "I see nothing over which to condemn him.  I'll have him beaten again to teach him a lesson."  No, the priests shouted.  "Execute him!"  Still trying to get out of a bad situation that was growing worse, Pilate remembered that these people had  a custom, to release one prisoner as a good deed for their Passover.  He asked the head of the prison who they had down there and the name Barabas came up.  A minor criminal, perhaps on the fringes of rebellion.  Barabas was dragged out of his cell, sure that this was it, his execution had come.  He was thrust out into the prefect's court beside another poor soul.  "I will release Jesus, as is your custom!"  The shouting became more frenzied - Release Barabas!  Crucify Jesus!"  And they wouldn't stop, their voices become louder and louder.  By this time a crowd had gathered.  The priests sent men through the crowd to whisper lies about Jesus until the innocent onlookers thought the calls for execution were their own idea.

Pilate's wife, Claudia, whom many scholars believe was a secret follower, called her husband aside and warned him of the danger he was facing.  She knew the man Jesus and she knew he wasn't an ordinary criminal of any kind.  She knew that condemning him would be her husband's downfall and so she warned Pilate not to listen to the priests but to quickly release Jesus.  Pilate strode back out and the crowd went wild, screaming that they were going to report him to Tiberious and have him recalled if he didn't do what they wanted him to do.

And right then, Pilate made a decision that changed the course of history, a misjudgement that, on another night he might have made differently if he hadn't been tired, mad and harried.  He caved in to pressure.  What was one more wandering Jew more or less?  But he got his last licks in - the death warrant was always written and nailed to the cross.  He ordered the death warrant to say "He is the King of the Jews".  No, said the priests, not he IS the king of the Jews, he SAYS he's the king of the Jews.  Pilate snapped.  "I've written what I've written!" and he ordered his soldiers to clear the court, which they did with all the hardness of the Roman guard. 

We know what happened after that.  Jesus was executed, he rose the third day.  When word came to Pilate, what did he think?  What did his wife say?  He knew in that moment what a terrible mistake he had made.  But what was done was done and he went back to his terrible and cruel reign, wiping out men, women and children, whole villages, crucifying hundreds of innocent  people.

Five years later, Tiberious died.  By this time, Roman and Jew alike had had their fill of his cruelites and Pilate was recalled.  Emporer Caligula was crowned.  And Pilate was in severe disfavor along with his family.  He was stationed in a worse place, Gaul, which became France in later centuries, where he commited suicide rather than face the rest of his life in disgrace.  The people  threw the body into the river where he was eaten by fishes.  (How ironic - eaten by fish, the christian fish symbol).

And now, ta da, the thought I had in church on Sunday about Pilate.  We're supposed to hate him, righteously of course.  He condemned the son of God!  He didn't choose to do the right thing!  But you know, on this side of heaven, how many of us have a perfect record?  How many of us make right decisions all the time?  Do we make misjudgements that change the world in their own small ways?  This was one small man in his speck of time, who uncharacteristically tried to do a good thing, but who, in the end, made a choice he lived to regret.

 I can see myself doing exactly the same thing.  He didn't know this man was the Son of God.  How would he?  All these prophets claimed divine right, this one was perhaps more popular than most, more compelling.  Pilate acted according to his life pattern -

Just like most of us do, just like I do all the time.  And I think that if my misjudgements were written down and somebody published my story two thousand years from now, I might be viewed in a terrible light as well.

And beside all that, he, like Judas, was part of a plan - the role of the bad guy who advanced the plot.  Without them, the whole story fell apart.

Mother Theresa said, "I can't judge you because of the Hitler in me."  And I'm thinking, I can't judge any of these historical figures because the same capacity for horrible choices is in me.