In a hole...there lived a hobbit.

2011-12-19T19:59:00.000-06:00

Christmas 2011

Hello from the home of the sniffles, where we have contributed to the profits made by the folks who make Kleenex. You'd think they'd send us thank you notes with dividend checks, even though we don't hold stock in the company. We are sorry for felling so many trees, though.

My beloved has worked very hard this year, including, but not limited to, the four hours he spent on the phone after spending two hours in the ER being diagnosed with bronchitis that morning. He's still coughing a bit, but is getting better. He's been spending his free time on genealogy, turning his efforts to my family after hitting the black hole of Irish records – they gathered parish records together into one central location...and then the central location burned. Makes Irish genealogical research a wee bit difficult. Interestingly, he found that one of my great-great-uncles is buried in the city we live in now.

Our girl is a junior and thinking about colleges. We've visited two, but neither is on the short list. She's still playing flute and went back to flute camp this summer. She's been taking a photography class, so we've been taking her to photograph places and people – most recently people with tattoos for her final project. She missed lots of school this month between strep and bronchitis (see above note on Kleenex), so last Wednesday, trying to get her project done in time, we went to three tattoo parlors, the VFW and a bar. That was interesting. Folks with ink are great, but she's still not getting a tattoo, says her mother, the fun-ruiner. We also went to the Jesus People USA community. Lots of tattoos there. Our kids went there for their mission trip over the summer, so we knew where to go.

Our boy's half way through his sophomore year. He thinks he got either two Bs and three As or vice versa. He has a lot of friends and is having a good time. He's now seeing all his friends who went to other colleges, so the fun continues. Our house is very loud when he's home. He spent the summer working for a landscaping company, which earned him both an appreciation for how hard that work is and some of his own money. Mom liked that. Not the stinky laundry bit, the his own money bit. He'll turn 20 the day after Christmas, which is hard to believe.

I'm doing some freelance writing for an internet-based education company. It's steady, interesting work, and I can work in my pjs from the comfort of my dining room. I'm also enjoying being a church lady, leading bible study, teaching the wee Souls, doing bookkeeping and serving on a diocesan commission. We had our church ornament exchange here Friday and our couples' group white elephant exchange dinner Saturday. I'm now wearing the sock-monkey slippers I got in the white elephant exchange. Score.

In August, I read a book about going on a vegan diet to reverse heart disease and strokes, and it made sense to me. I'd been a veggie in high school, so I joined my girl in her diet. Mostly I'm vegan, except for fish, as giving up sushi was Not. Going. To. Happen. Poor beloved, he says. I still fix him a steak now and again. I went veggie for health reasons, not because I hate meat, so he need not suffer, methinks.

We logged some air miles this year, beginning with a trip to London for me with my friend Kathy to visit our friend Patty. We spent a week talking and seeing the sights. We took a day flight over and got in late and stayed up talking until 3 a.m. Got up six hours later, toured Windsor Castle and stayed for Evensong, which was beautiful. We sat in the Quire, right behind the choir. Under the floor were the graves of Henry VIII, Jane Seymour and Charles I (and his head). We spent the rest of the week staying up til 3, getting up around 9 and onto the tube – saw the clock museum at Greenwich, the Victoria and Albert and the British Museums, had tea at the Orangerie by Kensington Palace, shopped at Harrods and Fortnum and Mason, saw a play, ate fish and chips at pubs, and went to Westminster Abbey and to Evensong at St. Paul's. Just scratched the surface - we need to go back! We never had any problems with jet lag, mostly because we never shut up and thus barely slept. I got home just in time to take my beloved to the airport for his two week trip to Thailand. Then I shut up and slept.

We took our baby to Portland in March – where we visited Reed College, two vineyards, the ocean and tried for Mt. Hood. Just an FYI, Mt. Hood in March is snowy. If you want to see that lovely lake they show in all the pictures – yeah, it doesn't look like that in March and you should wait until summer, otherwise you might hit a blizzard at 2500 feet and have to turn around in an Alpine-like village. The park rangers told us we were smart to have turned around. They were probably thinking we were idiots for trying it, but were glad we'd had the good sense God gave our beagle to turn around before we were the “stupid tourists” featured on the news. The best part was seeing my aunt, uncle and cousins, who kindly drove for hours to see us, as we were in the same state.

In June, while the kids were on their mission trip to JPUSA, we went to Mexico with our traveling friends. We didn't get sunburned this time, only because it was hurricane season...first night we came back to our room and found a note on the door with an update on a storm we hadn't even known existed. But not to worry, the staff were all trained just in case of emergencies! We had a good time anyway; went to a cooking class, took long walks on the beach, lazed around, and read books.

Summer also saw the celebration of my parents' 50th wedding anniversary. After they got back from the lake (where we joined them for a week), we were blessed to have many of the family together. All of my parents' living siblings were there, as were lots of cousins. It was horribly humid, but the resort was lovely and the company even better. My main worry had been political discussions, as we had all ends of the political spectrum represented there, just as the debt-ceiling debate going on. But it all went off without a hitch, and it was truly wonderful to see everyone.

The kids returned to school in August, bringing to an end our summer family travels. I went to Galena with my girlfriends in September; the leaves on the hills were beautiful and the time just flew by, as it always does.

In October, we drove up to western Wisconsin to the Quinns' cemetery to bury Karen's ashes. Next to the Celtic cross marking my brother-in-law's parents' graves, we gathered to raise a glass of Jameson's in her honor. It is still such a surreal thing that she is gone. She rests in a beautiful place, though.

We were with my husband's family again to celebrate Thanksgiving and the finishing of his younger brother's new kitchen - it is a thing of beauty and I have a bad case of kitchen envy. Ah well. Christmas will be spent with my family, at my brother's home. They are hosting friends from Germany and we are looking forward to meeting them and spending the day together.

As always, we hope that the day finds you with those you love, celebrating the birth of the One who loves you.

Grace and Peace.

Of Mice and Mishaps and Mercies

2011-12-01T09:52:00.001-06:00

Yesterday was one of those days.

Due to my own stupidity had coffee at bible study on Tuesday evening, went to bed around 1:00 Wednesday morning.

Alarm goes off the same morning five hours later.

Wake my girl up - who makes it as far as the couch and goes back to sleep.

Notice it ten minutes later when the shower wasn't on. Shoo her upstairs. She misses bus.

Get my beloved up at 7:00 for his 8:00 teleconference followed by his 9:30 meeting with the folks who have come in from NY specifically to meet with him.

He doesn't sound good, but I keep going and give my girl the "you're going to school, by God" pep talk.

Beloved comes down, not in work clothes - breathing is shallow and labored, clearly we're heading to the ER.

Go upstairs, inform girl, who's still got her hair in a towel and is now very late.

Order her to get ready in the "I'm taking no crap" mode, as the "you're going to school, by God" talk didn't seem to have lasting effect.

Call beloved's work to tell them that we're heading to the ER and that he won't be on the call, or on email, or just a little late for the meeting. Not bringing the laptop to the hospital.

Tell the girl to get in the freaking car. Have to remember to apologize for tone of voice. Might have been a bit snippy. Hindsight being 20/20, she's sick too.

Drop her off at school which is blessedly on the way to the ER.

Thank you Jesus it's just bronchitis and not pneumonia yet - EKG, Xray, breathing treatment and two hours later we've pulled away from the pharmacy with a paper bag full of prescriptions.

Beloved takes meds and heads upstairs to call into meetings. His boss, hearing his voice, orders him in capital letters on email NOT TO COME IN. Bright man.

Return home and log into work as I have to clock somewhere between 6 and 7 hours to make my time for the biweekly period which ends at midnight.

Write furiously, figure out how to make edits to earlier work (yay!), eat lunch for 3 minutes, write more.

Go to mail box with dog who's refused to pee each of the other four times she's asked to go out. Find a note from school about a low grade. Of course. It's that kind of day. On the bright side, there's a plus rather than a minus after the grade. It's redeemable before finals.

Stop at 5, print off my stuff for teaching, swing through Jewel to pick up the snacks I didn't bake for our classes because of aforementioned fun day.

On the way get a phone call from one of the co-teachers from the other class, who's turning around on the highway on her way to church because she has a counseling client who's homicidal or suicidal. Can't remember which, but anything that ends in "-icidal" is bad.

Get to church, dump supplies, realize I forgot the water (for all 70ish people there to drink - could have gotten it at Jewel, had my brain been engaged). Also forgot the dishtowels I was supposed to have washed and returned.

Try to tell the teacher his partner's not going to be there, only to be interrupted by kids swarming around the ladies' room because there's a mouse in there! Sooo totally exciting - if you're a six year old boy.

Friend traps it with a bowl, so I slide a clear plastic platter under it, and manage not to trip over the swarming children trying to see the mouse through the bottom of the platter on my way to release it. Moral - don't make the platter see-through next time, and there will be a next time - read on:

Release the mouse nowhere near far enough away from the church to not have it return within minutes.

Make myself walk back in the building.

Recognize I probably should be at an ACNA ordination being held a mile away. Wish I was there, briefly.

Have a lovely couple come to talk about working half way around the world as bible translators. Half way around the world in a mud hut is sounding really lovely right now.

Come home, realizing I've forgotten to grab the platter and the bowl that the mouse was in to sterilize, as the church water's not hot enough. And now need to send apologetic emails about the water and dishtowels along with warnings not to use the platter and bowl.

Oh, and forgot to pay the babysitter. Head slap and another apology email to write.

Log back in to upload my last article, re-read it, spend a half an hour editing it, send it in.

Head to bed, too wired to sleep.

The fact that God's mercies are new every day is pretty much the only reason I got up this morning.

To the reality that my baby has a headache, sore throat and stomach ache which is why she was dragging yesterday. When I was snippy.

Call the school and the pediatrician.

Write "I'm sorry" emails, realize I have several more of them to send.

And it's time to be putting together our Christmas letter. Think I'll wait until I'm not going to write "I'm sorry" reflexively at the beginning of each paragraph....

Little Stone Altars

2011-11-24T15:32:00.000-06:00

Last month our parish was received into the Diocese of Quincy, at the 134th Synod. The last few years for Quincy have been marked by the fracturing of the Episcopal church, the retirement of a much loved bishop, the separation of the majority of the diocese from the national church, and the lawsuit filed by the Episcopal church against the diocese seeking their parishes, endowment funds, and name.

The threat posed by this lawsuit was discussed at Synod. These new brothers and sisters of ours face being forced from their parish homes by those who have no intention of ever occupying the little churches nestled between the corn and soy bean fields of west central Illinois.

Serving to illustrate the waste of it all, is the fact that if the Episcopal church wins, whatever they might recover won't even make a dent in what they've spent on legal fees. Any proceeds from the sale of these buildings will go into the fund set aside for more lawsuits. A fund which replaced the budget line item previously entitled "Missions."

The pain of what may come is one we know well, because we've been through it. We had a bishop who said we could rewrite the New Testament. In our case, there was no lawsuit, we were a single divided parish, but there was a world of hurt that came with walking out of the church we'd helped to build.

A lot of folks would point out that a church is just bricks and mortar, and that's not what Jesus died for, and they are right. But the pain exists because a church is also infinitely more than just bricks and mortar.

It is the physical place that we have our history and our home. We built it, or our parents or grandparents did, and our memories are there: our baptisms; our weddings; our grandpa's ashes. All there in a place where we came together and trusted that because there were two or more of us gathered in His name, He'd show up.

And that showing up is what makes those bricks and mortar holy ground.

Throughout Scripture, we see that those who went before us built altars made of stone in places that have names that are recorded. They did it as an homage to God. He'd do something amazing on a piece of land and they'd mark the spot. We know that we can never begin to repay God for saving us, and we know that what He requires is the sacrifice of a broken and contrite heart and of praise and thanksgiving...we know all that, but our hands cannot keep still. The awe that compels us to the ground on our knees, compels us to build Him these altars.

Some are small, like the little Baptist box that we worship in in Wheaton. Some are soaring works of stained-glassed glory, like the cathedral at Chartres, built and re-built over a thousand years. Evidence of people who knew that nothing they could do would ever be thanks enough, but whose hands and hearts could not rest.

So is it wrong for them to be sad about possibly losing their parishes? I cannot say that it is. They are being sued by people who have sold former churches to Muslims and nightclub owners rather than allow the parishioners to "buy" back the building their parents or grandparents built.

Frankly, I think some righteous anger is fitting. We are not promised ease, and we know it. But we are to be working toward the Kingdom that is to come, participating in the building of the new earth. We plant altars as outposts, building blocks toward the future. To be required to hand these outposts over to those who are seeking to destroy the faith should bother us.

But it should also strengthen our resolve. The fact is that we built those altars because we know God acts in places. And if He does so in one building, He will do so in another, whether it is a living room holding folks perched on arm chairs to pray while Sunday School is held in the kitchen, or the local school gymnasium. We've lived through that, seen it happen, and are growing.

Against the wisdom of the world, five parishes from outside the state and four from within have come into the diocese. In the face of lawsuits and pain, Quincy is growing.

Because the reality is, too, that we know the end of the story. He will prevail against the powers and principalities of this world. And those little stone altars we built in faith - even though they be handed over to those who don't know how to honor God - will be redeemed.

Thanksgiving Day Proclamation - A. Lincoln

2011-11-24T12:10:00.001-06:00

Proclamation Establishing Thanksgiving Day

October 3, 1863

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle, or the ship; the axe had enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years, with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington, this third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the independence of the United States the eighty-eighth.

A. Lincoln

Still True, Fifty Years Later

2011-11-11T06:57:00.001-06:00

Yesterday was the 236th anniversary of the Marine Corps. Begun before our country, protecting it ever since. Started in a tavern and later storming Tripoli to save our interests against the lawlessness of the Barbary Pirates, which is fascinating reading by the way.

We enjoy freedoms we take lightly every day, largely because they are too many to count, because of the men and women who fought for them.

So once a year we have a day set aside to honor those who have fought for us, and to contemplate what their service has done for the existence of the the country we live in and love.

With a tip of my proverbial hat to Rev. Canon Dr. Kendall Harmon, Canon Theologian for the Diocese of South Carolina, for the link, I think this was a wonderful speech to start out a day of remembrance.

Veterans Day Remarks
Remarks by President John F. Kennedy
Veterans Day National Ceremony
Arlington National Cemetery
Arlington, Virginia
November 11, 1961

PRESIDENT KENNEDY: General Gavan, Mr. Gleason, members of the military forces, veterans, fellow Americans:

Today we are here to celebrate and to honor and to commemorate the dead and the living, the young men who in every war since this country began have given testimony to their loyalty to their country and their own great courage.

I do not believe that any nation in the history of the world has buried its soldiers farther from its native soil than we Americans -- or buried them closer to the towns in which they grew up.

We celebrate this Veterans Day for a very few minutes, a few seconds of silence and then this country's life goes on. But I think it most appropriate that we recall on this occasion, and on every other moment when we are faced with great responsibilities, the contribution and the sacrifice which so many men and their families have made in order to permit this country to now occupy its present position of responsibility and freedom, and in order to permit us to gather here together.

Bruce Catton, after totaling the casualties which took place in the battle of Antietam, not so very far from this cemetery, when he looked at statistics which showed that in the short space of a few minutes whole regiments lost 50 to 75 percent of their numbers, then wrote that life perhaps isn't the most precious gift of all, that men died for the possession of a few feet of a corn field or a rocky hill, or for almost nothing at all. But in a very larger sense, they died that this country might be permitted to go on, and that it might permit to be fulfilled the great hopes of its founders.

In a world tormented by tension and the possibilities of conflict, we meet in a quiet commemoration of an historic day of peace. In an age that threatens the survival of freedom, we join together to honor those who made our freedom possible. The resolution of the Congress which first proclaimed Armistice Day, described November 11, 1918, as the end of "the most destructive, sanguinary and far-reaching war in the history of human annals." That resolution expressed the hope that the First World War would be, in truth, the war to end all wars. It suggested that those men who had died had therefore not given their lives in vain.

It is a tragic fact that these hopes have not been fulfilled, that wars still more destructive and still more sanguinary followed, that man's capacity to devise new ways of killing his fellow men have far outstripped his capacity to live in peace with his fellow men.
Some might say, therefore, that this day has lost its meaning, that the shadow of the new and deadly weapons have robbed this day of its great value, that whatever name we now give this day, whatever flags we fly or prayers we utter, it is too late to honor those who died before, and too soon to promise the living an end to organized death.

But let us not forget that November 11, 1918, signified a beginning, as well as an end. "The purpose of all war," said Augustine, "is peace." The First World War produced man's first great effort in recent times to solve by international cooperation the problems of war. That experiment continues in our present day -- still imperfect, still short of its responsibilities, but it does offer a hope that some day nations can live in harmony.

For our part, we shall achieve that peace only with patience and perseverance and courage -- the patience and perseverance necessary to work with allies of diverse interests but common goals, the courage necessary over a long period of time to overcome an adversary skilled in the arts of harassment and obstruction.

There is no way to maintain the frontiers of freedom without cost and commitment and risk. There is no swift and easy path to peace in our generation. No man who witnessed the tragedies of the last war, no man who can imagine the unimaginable possibilities of the next war, can advocate war out of irritability or frustration or impatience.

But let no nation confuse our perseverance and patience with fear of war or unwillingness to meet our responsibilities. We cannot save ourselves by abandoning those who are associated with us, or rejecting our responsibilities.

In the end, the only way to maintain the peace is to be prepared in the final extreme to fight for our country -- and to mean it.

As a nation, we have little capacity for deception. We can convince friend and foe alike that we are in earnest about the defense of freedom only if we are in earnest -- and I can assure the world that we are.

This cemetery was first established 97 years ago. In this hill were first buried men who died in an earlier war, a savage war here in our own country. Ninety-seven years ago today, the men in Gray were retiring from Antietam, where thousands of their comrades had fallen between dawn and dusk in one terrible day. And the men in Blue were moving towards Fredericksburg, where thousands would soon lie by a stone wall in heroic and sometimes miserable death.

It was a crucial moment in our Nation's history, but these memories, sad and proud, these quiet grounds, this Cemetery and others like it all around the world, remind us with pride of our obligation and our opportunity.

On this Veterans Day of 1961, on this day of remembrance, let us pray in the name of those who have fought in this country's wars, and most especially who have fought in the First World War and in the Second World War, that there will be no veterans of any further war -- not because all shall have perished but because all shall have learned to live together in peace.

And to the dead here in this cemetery we say:

They are the race –
they are the race immortal,
Whose beams make broad
the common light of day!
Though Time may dim,
though Death has barred their portal,
These we salute,
which nameless passed away.

The Pain Now is Part of the Happiness Then

2011-09-20T00:18:00.000-05:00

C.S. Lewis said in his book about his life with his wife who died of cancer, that "the pain now is part of the happiness then." The play caused me to cry off all my make up when I saw it as a young woman on the stage of a theater in London. I knew that it was true - all happiness is tinged with the sure knowledge that when we choose to love someone, we know that we will lose them at some point and we will be in pain.

My sister-in-law, Karen Marie McCarthy Quinn, went from us, from this life, a year ago, September 19, 2010. She was 55 years old. It was not a choice to love her, you just did.

Karen was charming, intelligent, and funny and she contributed richly to all of our lives. She talked about putting her hand into Jesus' hand before she died, just like her mom had told her to, and she lived the last, most difficult portion of her life with grace. Hers was a life to celebrate having been a part of. To have loved her and to have been loved by her was a sweet thing.

The fact that she was so lovely is the very thing that makes this reality so hard. Particularly this month containing both her birthday and the day she died.

And it's stunning to think it's been a year - because it's all so fresh.

We got a call saying that she was gone and headed over to their apartment to spend some time with her before they moved her body to the funeral home. We stood and prayed over her, thanking God for the time we had with her and feeling pretty stunned. It was surreal to have Karen there, but not there. The hospice folks came in and did their jobs, quietly bringing a level of order into the midst of our sadness.

My brother-in-law's family drove down later that night, which made us not so uncomfortable to leave him alone. We went together for dinner to our youngest brother's home and ate. Trying to figure out conversation and still stumbling. We were exhausted and knew that the days ahead wouldn't get better.

At the end of bible study Monday, when we were talking about our prayer needs, the only thing I could think of was to ask for grace over the trip we'll make to Wisconsin in a few weeks to bury Karen's ashes. It will be another hard day.

We'll look back on this from the end of time with understanding, from a place of unimaginable wonder, and most importantly, we'll look back at it together with Karen. Blessedly do not mourn as those without hope. But we do mourn.

Trying Something New, Again

2011-09-14T13:24:00.000-05:00

A couple of weeks ago, former President Clinton was on CNN talking about his diet - a vegan, low fat one, designed by Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, Jr.. Dr. Esselstyn's bottom line is that there are areas of the world where there is little to no heart disease or cancer, which he attributes to diet, saying that heart disease is a food based illness. And as President Clinton has had heart problems that, despite diet and exercise, were not getting better, he looked to this diet that seemed to be the best chance for those in a position of last resort. He's lost 24 pounds and he's doing much better now.

So I got the book out of the library. I've been reading cookbooks for almost all my life, I go through a couple each month (thanks be to the library), and what they all say - in one form or another, is that we need to treat food with respect. Dr. Esselstyn would say we can treat it as life or as a pathway to an early death.

Given a history of heart related health issues in my family, I decided to give this diet a try - with some tweaks. His idea is no fat, no avocados or nuts if you have any heart disease. Forget the EVOO, butter, and cream that I love. Dairy products are out, almond milk is in.

Like so many things in life, diet is an act of will. You have to tell yourself to look at things differently:

Mayonnaise = glue
Milk = baby cow food, not grown up people food
Red meat = something that will make me too full
Turkey = didn't like it anyway, not an issue
Cheese = not doing so well with that one yet, working on it

The diet says no fish, but I'm not listening to that part, as sushi is on my diet. Period.

I am focusing on what I can eat. Whole grain breads, pastas, all the veggies I want. Fruit - three helpings a day - easy peasy.

What really helps is to say that it's not that I am never going to eat these things again. Sometimes, I will have a steak. If I'm eating at someone's home, I'll eat what they serve and be thankful, because this isn't an allergy thing.

So far, so good. I'm down about eight pounds and feel much better. I still have a long way to go, as the words "well rounded" don't just describe my reading list.

Living Faithfully A Hidden Life

2011-09-13T08:40:00.001-05:00

When I was a child, I wanted to be the Queen of England. I lived there and knew that she was important and in charge. When we returned to the States, my goal changed to being President of the United States, because he was the important person in charge.

It was my goal to be in charge. Not because I wanted a bunch of people serving my every whim (although if I'd thought about it much, I'd have liked that part), but rather because I figured no one could make someone in charge eat lima beans or meat with fat on it And there'd definitely be no bed time for me. I could read for as long as I wanted.

I was too little to know that I'd have to have married Prince Charles to achieve the former, or run for office to achieve the latter. And now that I'm an adult, neither is an appealing thought. Further, I can cut the fat off of any meat I eat and not a single lima bean has passed my lips since I left home 26 years ago.

The fact that my childhood dreams didn't come true is fine, partially because becoming a Christian vastly changed my perspective. I was reading Christianity Today magazine, catching upon back issues today, and in one of the articles there was a quote from Middlemarch, where George Eliot reminds us of what we owe "to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs."

Years ago, that would have bothered me, but now it doesn't. Now it seems to me to be an admirable goal.

As I waved good-bye a couple of months ago to a lovely woman who's graced my life, and the lives of those in our parish over the last few years, I was struck by how God works through these hidden lives. He sent her to us, enriched our lives, and then moved her along west to grace the lives of folks unmet in Washington.

She brought depth and joy to our bible study on Monday morning. She ran a beautiful VBS for our kids, some of whom didn't know Christ and were meeting Him for the first time. She made a difference, seeding and watering. And she'll continue that work elsewhere and will fade from the memories of some of our littlest ones here, just as the many women who seeded and watered before all of us have faded from the memories of the little ones they've served and then moved on from.

And what matters is not whether anyone knows or doesn't what we've done in our lives, because we'll be forgotten by men (unless, God forbid, we do something truly awful). But we'll have had the joy of being part of the lives of the saints of God. Whether someone visits our graves or not.

And so my adult dream, I suppose, is to live a faithful, hidden life. I want to serve and be served by those I'm with here and now; living, working, and worshiping together.

Tell Me The Stories Of Jesus

2011-09-12T18:24:00.000-05:00

"Tell me the story of Jesus,
Write on my heart every word.
Tell me the story most precious,
Sweetest that ever was heard."

Yesterday at All Souls, we began a series on Jesus in Adult Education, which promises to be great. The beginning of the series,led by Dr. Alan Jacobs, focused on how God is exactly like Jesus.

At one point, Dr. Jacobs asked people to tell what their favorite thing that Jesus said or did was...that wasn't exactly how he phrased the question, but that was the gist.

I love it when people answer questions like that. It gives me a deeper appreciation for Jesus when people say what they love about Him. As people told the stories they love about Jesus, the woman by the well, for example, I sat and thought - Oh yes! I love that one best - right up until the next person spoke and I thought - Oh yes!

It's something we should do more often.

I thought about it a lot after leaving church, and realized that my current favorite reflects the quality of Jesus that I feel is most needed in my life at the moment.

Over the past few months, one of my dearest friends has had some trouble, and there have been times that I have wanted to rush in and put all 5'3" of me physically between her and the trouble. She would do the same for me, which would be better for me, as she's taller. We have years of bearing each other's burdens and sharing each other's joys, and the old maxim applies - "do what you want to me, but don't even think about touching my friend...."

Thus it is the story of Jesus and Saul, meeting on the road to Damascus, that resonates so strongly right now. The voice of Jesus saying "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?" And Saul's confusion - "who are you, Lord?" And the response - "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting."

What is appealing is the ferocious love of Jesus for those who follow Him. Saul wasn't in Jerusalem when Jesus was ministering and never met Him while He was alive on Earth. On the face of it, he wasn't touching Jesus. He was, however, terrorizing those who followed Jesus, to which Jesus took exception. So He smacked him down, and then picked him up, and life was never the same for Saul.

Like with most of what I know about Jesus, it's both comforting and discomfiting, because this ferocious love is directed toward me and others. Therein lies the discomfiting bit: I have to look at my own behavior toward those who also love Jesus.

I need Him to bind my tongue (or keyboard) when need be, because persecution takes many forms, and I don't want to be one who persecutes followers of Jesus. Additionally, if I want to be like Jesus, and if I am to have that ferocious love for others, it will spring from a tender love that will push me out of my comfort zone, not just for those I like, but for those Jesus loves. Heaven only knows where that will lead, but I'm sure that "Ann's Comfort Zone" won't be on the signage.

But it's still my favorite story, because I love the demonstration of His protection and love.

Continuing the words of the inimitable Fanny Crosby on telling the stories of Jesus:

"Love in that story so tender,
Clearer than ever I see.
Stay, let me weep while you whisper,
Love paid the ransom for me."

The Value of a Political Promise

2011-07-26T16:22:00.000-05:00

Last month was my parents' 50th wedding anniversary. In their honor, my brother and I invited their siblings, nieces and nephews in for a party this last weekend. We ended up with a couple dozen folks making the trek from both coasts to Illinois.

The way my brother and I approach planning is to lay out a plan and then mentally walk through it and figure out what can go wrong. We then plan contingencies for as much as we can.

On our possible problem list: having to pay for rooms that folks booked but didn't use, getting treatment for anyone who got sick while they were there, and whether the weather would cooperate with those who wanted to golf, which it didn't because between spectacular lightening storms, it was muggy and gross. But really none of those concerns were on the top of our worry list.

That spot was reserved for politics and the "discussion" thereof.

The larger portion of my family are liberal Democrat, say 90%. In much smaller proportion, are the conservative Republicans, say 8%. There are a couple of Independents thrown in for good measure.

Typically the siblings call each other, argue politics, and then hang up on each other once everyone's good and offended. The difficulty here was that they'd be in the same hotel and you can't hang up on someone in person.

So we assigned our oldest to walk around with the most vocal of the Republicans, being young and, in his words, "malleable." It was a divide and distract strategy. I spoke to the most vocal of the bunch (there were several) and told them no politics.

My one aunt (a Democrat) said she wouldn't talk politics, and one of my uncles (a Republican) not only said he wouldn't talk politics, but said he wouldn't talk religion, either. But those were political promises, and here's how they turned out...

My brother picked my aunt up at the airport Friday and she made it a grand total of six, count them, six, minutes before she asked his political affiliation. My uncle waited for a total of ten minutes after assuring me, in person with a straight face, that he knew what not to talk about, before he began talking politics. Ten minutes - 600 seconds of restraint.

Blessedly, what I had not planned on in my list of worries and contingencies was that everyone is unhappy with them all. How great is that - something to he thankful for in this mess!

When I tried to settle things by saying that they're all at fault - a statement that is usually true but most folks want to blame only one party - there was actually agreement. When I pointed out that we've been raising the debt ceiling continuously since the mid 70s, with both Republican and Democrat congresses and presidents, there was agreement.

At the formal dinner on Saturday evening, we had a conversation at our table that included both religion and politics, and no one used their steak knives for anything other than their steaks.

Who'd'a thunk it? The fact that no one is happy with the Congress and/or the President was actually good for something.

All kidding aside, I'm attributing how well the whole thing went to the prayers of my friends and the ladies of the Monday Morning Bible Study, because the fact that no one ended up storming from the room or going to the hospital was a miracle of God. Which is what it'll take to solve the debt ceiling issue.

Muffins Like Cake

2011-06-08T17:02:00.000-05:00

Rick Warren just tweeted that he doesn't blog, because when you do, it tempts you to think that everything you say is important.

This is not an important post. If you're looking for profundity, look elsewhere, because sometimes a post about muffins is just a post about muffins.

Which means it's important to me and to those who might eat a muffin that I've made, so that's four people, tops. I did, however, figure out how to post a picture to the blog, so that makes it, yeah, still just important to me.

Anyway, about the muffins. I keep making blueberry muffins using muffin recipes, over and over, searching for one I like. And after multiple, unsatisfying, batches (all of which seem to disappear anyway), it struck me this morning that what I want holding my blueberries together is a cupcake-like muffin, not a muffin-like muffin.

So I'm off to the recipe books to come up with a blueberry cake-muffin. One strong enough to hold the blueberries up like a muffin does, without being an actual muffin. My cousin Marsha used to make a cake that was a mix of Jiffy Cake Mix and Jiffy Corn Bread Muffin Mix. That was about the right texture. So I know what I'm after, it will just take more trying. Fortunately my boy's home, so I'm not worried about having to eat all of my mistakes.

June 6, 1944

2011-06-06T13:53:00.000-05:00

This was posted over Memorial Day by a virtual friend, as my husband calls the folks I know in the Anglican world that I haven't met (yet). I loved the language and the depth of emotion involved. It resounds so powerfully, sixty-seven years later. When I grow up, I'd like to write as well as whoever wrote this for President Roosevelt.

“My Fellow Americans:

“Last night, when I spoke with you about the fall of Rome, I knew at that moment that troops of the United States and our Allies were crossing the Channel in another and greater operation. It has come to pass with success thus far.

“And so, in this poignant hour, I ask you to join with me in prayer:

“Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity.

“Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith.

“They will need Thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard. For the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces. Success may not come with rushing speed, but we shall return again and again; and we know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph.

“They will be sore tried, by night and by day, without rest -- until the victory is won. The darkness will be rent by noise and flame. Men's souls will be shaken with the violences of war.

“For these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice arise, and tolerance and goodwill among all Thy people. They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home.

“Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom.

“And for us at home -- fathers, mothers, children, wives, sisters, and brothers of brave men overseas, whose thoughts and prayers are ever with them -- help us, Almighty God, to rededicate ourselves in renewed faith in Thee in this hour of great sacrifice.

“Many people have urged that I call the nation into a single day of special prayer. But because the road is long and the desire is great, I ask that our people devote themselves in a continuance of prayer. As we rise to each new day, and again when each day is spent, let words of prayer be on our lips, invoking Thy help to our efforts.

“Give us strength, too -- strength in our daily tasks, to redouble the contributions we make in the physical and the material support of our armed forces.

“And let our hearts be stout, to wait out the long travail, to bear sorrows that may come, to impart our courage unto our sons wheresoever they may be.

“And, O Lord, give us faith. Give us faith in Thee; faith in our sons; faith in each other; faith in our united crusade. Let not the keenness of our spirit ever be dulled. Let not the impacts of temporary events, of temporal matters of but fleeting moment -- let not these deter us in our unconquerable purpose.

“With Thy blessing, we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy. Help us to conquer the apostles of greed and racial arrogances. Lead us to the saving of our country, and with our sister nations into a world unity that will spell a sure peace -- a peace invulnerable to the schemings of unworthy men. And a peace that will let all of men live in freedom, reaping the just rewards of their honest toil.

“Thy will be done, Almighty God.

“Amen.”

And Can It Be, That I Should Gain

2011-06-03T23:04:00.000-05:00

Now and again I post a hymn here. I get overwhelmed with the words and need to say something about it. Mostly this happens whenever I hear something by Wesley and I get caught in a fit of nostalgia and gratitude.

I grew up in the Methodist Church. It was our touchstone and home no matter where we went or how often we moved. Which was a lot.

Every two to four years, the boxes would come out, a huge van would pull up and pull away with our stuff. My first swat on the rear end ever came during moving time when my dad caught me busily unpacking the boxes he'd just finished packing. I was little, in my defense, and probably thought it was funny. Hindsight being 20/20, I now know that it was not.

Anyway, we'd move and, no matter what time we'd finished unloading the Saturday night before, we'd be in church in our church clothes (suits for the boys, dresses for the girls)Sunday morning. Our church clothes never went into the moving van, they came along in the car with us, the dog, and the china and silver.

Dad would stand up during announcements, introduce us all, and we were in. Dad onto finance, Mom into children's education somehow, and choir. Me into choir. I don't remember if my brother did choir. In the world of Methodism, there were lots of choirs. If you're into that stuff, and we were, the Methodist church is the place to be.

I'm no longer Methodist, having found Anglicanism in a compromise move between Catholicism and Methodism. And I love it and haven't pined for what I left in a long time.

A couple of weeks ago we were back into the Methodist church for my niece's confirmation. I was excited to go back, as I'd loved the music. But we didn't go to the traditional service, we went to the contemporary one, and I'm not a fan. I do like contemporary Christian music, but I was looking forward to the Methodist hymns.

So earlier today, when someone linked to one on a website I was looking at, I followed the link and watched the folks singing it. They were singing their hearts out and the look on their faces was one of pure joy. The words are old, but the theology makes you want to weep with how sweet it is...my chains fell off, my heart was free, I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.

Man oh man, did God ever give that Charles Wesley a gift...

1. And can it be that I should gain
an interest in the Savior's blood!
Died He for me? who caused His pain!
For me? who Him to death pursued?
Amazing love! How can it be
that Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?
Amazing love! How can it be
that Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?

2. 'Tis mystery all: th' Immortal dies!
Who can explore His strange design?
In vain the firstborn seraph tries
to sound the depths of love divine.
'Tis mercy all! Let earth adore;
let angel minds inquire no more.
'Tis mercy all! Let earth adore;
let angel minds inquire no more.

3. He left His Father's throne above
(so free, so infinite His grace!),
emptied Himself of all but love,
and bled for Adam's helpless race.
'Tis mercy all, immense and free,
for O my God, it found out me!
'Tis mercy all, immense and free,
for O my God, it found out me!

4. Long my imprisoned spirit lay,
fast bound in sin and nature's night;
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray;
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
my chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.

5. No condemnation now I dread;
Jesus, and all in Him, is mine;
alive in Him, my living Head,
and clothed in righteousness divine,
bold I approach th' eternal throne,
and claim the crown, through Christ my own.
Bold I approach th' eternal throne,
and claim the crown, through Christ my own.

Have Mercy On Me, A Sinner

2011-06-02T11:58:00.000-05:00

"They" say that the older you are, the more folks you know who are dying or sick or having trouble. And I am at the point in life, 48 birthdays in, where I and lots of my friends are going through stuff. Not the easy stuff - your kid's getting a "C" in English or can't ride a bike yet. Which isn't easy stuff while you're in it. But it's stuff they grow out of, generally.

The stuff we are going through is the crappy, life-changing kind that means that the way you pictured your life before the stuff hit, yeah, that won't happen. And the reality is that we all go through it, some more publicly than others, and none of us will come out on the other side of it unscathed, for better or for worse. And there are many forms the stuff takes - parents' health going down hill, kids on drugs, girlfriends from hell, spouses who are failing in many forms, job loss, divorce...the list goes on from there, but it gets more and more depressing every time I think about it, so best stop listing.

I don't have solutions, many times, for my friends or for myself. We're wading together through the stuff, holding hands and trying to keep our heads above the muck, because some days it is all you can see.

But in the midst of the muck, I do know one thing, as I listen to them and seek their counsel for myself and my stuff, and it is this: you have to pray. There is nothing else. Pray like there's no tomorrow, which is risky to say given the recent Camping thing about the world ending, and yet not, because it could end tomorrow. Come, Lord Jesus, come. I won't come out of it unmarked, neither will they, but we can come through it marked as Christ's own.

Last week, while cleaning before company came over - or better said, trying to maintain the pretense that my life involves cleaning regularly - I read an article in Christianity Today magazine. I was cleaning, understand, just the kind that looks like reading. The article was about a guy who was dying and as he was, he was singing an old hymn. And the author talked about how she was praying the Jesus prayer - the one that goes: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Over and over again. Her thought being that, when old age robbed her of all else, that would be so deeply imprinted that it would still be there, on her lips.

And in God's providence, I read the article last week. Because this week has been filled with "stuff" dumped in my lap, and the Jesus prayer is what is rising to my lips. I don't know if that's what the author meant for me to read in the article, but what I read was that I should pray this prayer so often that it is what comes out of my soul when my body is not as under my control as it was before.

And that's what I'm trying to do now. Because the stuff is not in my control, my friends'stuff is not in their control, and it's got nothing to do with how we behaved or what we asked for or how we parented or anything. What is in our control is how we deal with it. And my vote is with prayer.

I hope that it is what will rise to my lips as I am dying. I'm very worried that all the opinions I've withheld from people who so badly needed to hear them (all the while being very, very proud of my self control - another thing to ask mercy for)will spill out. And, more worrying is the thought that some of those folks might be around caring for me to hear them.

Which brings me back to asking: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Amen

It's a Lovely Day in May

2011-05-10T14:19:00.000-05:00

I'd thought about titling this post "The Month of May!" after the song from Camelot - loved that musical, saw it when I was 16ish with Richard Burton. But I went back and read the lyrics. This is a post about planning and gardening, not about all the stuff in the song. Made me want to watch the movie, but not name a post after it.

It's May and finally nice enough to be outside. Actually too hot to be out for long, we found this morning. Projects for this week include planning my parent's 50th wedding anniversary and reworking the front garden, which requires ripping out most of my wild geraniums. I am finding the latter to be perfectly therapeutic after spending time doing the former.

I don't know why the flowers are called wild geraniums exactly. I paid for them at the local nursery and brought them home in pots. They have a lovely magenta colored flower and they bloom a lot. They had a name - Cranesbill Geraniums. But people kept admiring my wild geraniums. They have a name, I'd say! They are not wild! But then they ran amok, spreading across the walk up to the house and somehow winding up on the other side of the driveway. I've stopped defending them as "not wild" and am now going after them with a vengeance.

Also on the chopping block are the purple cone flowers. I thought I'd bought short ones. I did not. They are huge, practically a shrub, and are not lovely to look at. They are supposed to add "winter interest" to my garden. I don't know who'd find them interesting, excepting the folks that write up the descriptions in flower catalogs, which are meant to lure you into buying. So caveat emptor - "winter interest" translates to sharp prickly black lumps on the end of long stalks that catch on your clothes as you walk by. I guess that might be interesting to someone. I'm not that someone, and so my spade and I are going to dispatch them posthaste to the great recycling pile in the sky.

In the place of the soon to be gone flowers, I'm planning basil, tarragon, thyme, and rosemary. The list gets longer the hungrier I get. I start thinking of all the things you can cook with herbs, and off I go. I'd also like to plant some peppers and tomatoes, but will likely save those for pots in the back yard. I had cherry tomatoes in front a few years ago, some of which came back from seed the next year, but two years was their limit.

I also need to look up how to prune my grape vines. There's apparently a trick to it, given the type of grapes I have, which I'll also have to look up. I kept the tags, but they are in the "kept tags" pile, and I'm not sure where that pile got cleaned away to. Whatever they are, they can't stay as they are.

This year, I'm planning to actually eat some of the grapes, rather than let the birds get to them before I do. Same applies for the raspberries. The seem to be spreading, which means my family may get a couple. I tend to go out in the morning with the dog, pick some berries while I'm waiting for her, eat them on the way in to the house, and then not bother to tell my family how good they were. I just put on my martyr face and go take out the dog...again. No, no, I say, I'll do it...ha!

So this lovely day in May is for planning: an anniversary, a garden, a pot of sweet tea, and a vacation or two. There's lots more going on all around me, in my church, my family and the extended world. But for today, I'm going enjoy to luxury of going to ground (literally) and doing some thinking. The rest of my life goes so much better when I do that now and again.

His Mother

2011-04-07T14:12:00.000-05:00

In church on Sunday we had a visit from Bishop Alberto Morales, of the Diocese of Quincy, who came and gave a sermon on Mary.

As a Protestant, I was raised not thinking about her much. Not that all Protestants don't think about Mary, but in the churches in which I was raised, she was trotted out at Christmas - gently holding a baby, quietly wrapped in a blue and white shawl. Sometimes we saw her at Easter, just to the side of the cross, looking sad. If we saw her elsewhere it was because Jesus was telling her to go away or that it was not His time yet. If the Roman Catholic Church had gone too far one way by deifying her, we were certainly going to provide balance and go too far the other way.

Now as I've grown during Bible study, and become a mother, I've felt myself wishing to have known more. I've found myself wondering how she might have felt, watching her son up on a cross.

Sunday, Bp. Morales began with Mary's discussion with Gabriel. Which began with a "how" and ended up with a "Let it be unto me"...and he proceeded through to Jesus' testing moment in the Garden of Gethsemane. From His request that, if it were possible to "let this cup pass"...to His "let it be".... How neatly it was tied together, how Mary had influenced Jesus. Years of being taught to discount her, as if she'd never existed, are being quietly questioned, assumptions are being shaken and often laid aside.

For years I've struggled with how some people prefer Mary over Jesus. How she's related to by both men and women, and why people would pray to her. A parent of one of my friends told me once that he prayed to Mary instead of Jesus. Didn't want to bother "the Big Guy," and he liked Mary better. I still don't understand how one could see her as being co-equal, but I'm getting how and why people love her so much.

Because if you love Jesus, his mother has to be a part of that. And you can't put aside the one who held and loved him as a baby, who watched and remembered, and who stood, unable to save him, as he died. You can't put aside her influence on His humanity - anymore than you can refrain from chuckling when you hear something you've said come out of your kid's mouth. That's when it really strikes you - the influence, for better or worse, that we have on our children is immense. And her's wasn't less so. Not if Jesus was fully human. It couldn't have been.

I know there are a lot of books written about Mary. I'm not sure I'm interested in those. I'm focused right now on reading the gospels and seeing Mary through the single lens of Scripture.

What I found lovely about Sunday's sermon, apart from the sermon itself, was the timing. As I've been delving into the gospel of John, I've been coming to terms (an ongoing thing, I'm afraid) with the humanity of Jesus. I find myself quick to look at Him as God, rather than as man. Looking at His mother, thinking about the influence she'd have had on Him, and seeing the parallels between her conversation with Gabriel and His with His Father, well, very cool week for the brain.

Wishing I'd Met Avis DeVoto

2011-03-21T00:06:00.000-05:00

The other day I read something that is so perfectly reflective of where I'm at that I couldn't wait to share it. So I wrote up a post and then looked at the front of the book, which had, as most books do, a little warning about reproducing without permission. Dagnabit. Partially because I'd already written it up and partially because there's no way I'll be able to summarize what they wrote in a way that comes even close to how wonderfully well they wrote what they did.

I got the book As Always, Julia The Letters of Julia Child & Avis DeVoto Food Friendship & the Making of a Masterpiece because I love to cook and have been using Julia's cookbooks forever. Their correspondence began when Julia wrote a response to an article Avis' husband wrote on American knives. Julia sent him a French knife and Avis, handling her husband's correspondence, wrote back. They ended up writing for years and their letters covered politics (McCarthy era), publishing, cooking, travel, families - everything. That initial letter lead to the eventual publishing of Mastering The Art of French Cooking.

They have a lot in common: both women are Democrats; both are very political; and both love food. They are, to use their terms, egghead intellectuals. Avis is 48 and Julia 40 when their letters begin. And the two women forge a lasting friendship on the chance writing of a letter.

While I've found the food discussion interesting, it is Avis, rather than Julia, who truly fascinates me. She has two sons, one of whom's still at home during the correspondence, and one of whom is returning from military service in need of help. He has what sounds like autism to my only partially educated ear. Her description of their life with him is honest, loving and despairing, and very human. She is like an amalgam of many of my friends, and yet enough unlike them as to make me want to know her, specifically. She is a wife, mother, editor, writer, encourager, helpmate, friend and, later, widow.

Mid-way through the book there's a section where Julia's busy pigeon-holing people into groups. She's got groups she dislikes, one of which she labels UMB - Upper Middle Brow, most of whom are Republicans and reside in the mid-western and western states. She describes them as basically nice, but, given their lack of intellectualism and achievements, a waste of human material. She's being flippant and not a little derisive, and Avis calls her on it, telling her that she's being too quick to categorize people and that these Republicans are apt to occasionally have answers that are better than those of the eggheads. Avis goes on to say that she's continually surprised by good things about these people...and that some of the intellectuals that she knows can be the "awfullest fools."

Avis then shares with Julia her take on a family she knows who publicly present a wonderful face, but who are dealing in private with something that turns them into a "mass of well-concealed panic." She tells Julia that she admired this family, thinking it ideal, until she really knew their story. And that the complexity of people caused her to love them, turning her "to mush."

I love Avis' response. Because the older I get, the truer her response rings. In terms of understanding and sometimes being awed by the complexity of humanity, Avis DeVoto nails it.

Avis died in 1989. And I was pretty sad to read that part, as I'd like to have known her. She'd not make a comfortable friend, but you'd be a better person because of her friendship. Julia Child certainly was.

Baguettes Are Tricky Little Suckers

2011-02-06T22:39:00.001-06:00

Over the end of last week, I made bread for a baby shower. Three of the loaves, two baguettes and one boule, were from a recipe out of Artisan Breads Across America, called Acme's Rustic Baguette.

I've been making breads from a book called Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, which I love - fast and easy and delicious. And they have a fabulous Gluten Free Loaf in their second book that's probably the best gluten free bread I've ever eaten, ever. But this kind of bread - not made in five minutes, but rather in about 20 hours - is a whole 'nother level of tasty.

I began baking on Thursday by making what they called a Scrap Dough and a Poolish. Combinations of tiny amounts of yeast, flour, and water that you add into the main dough the next day. The poolish sits out on your counter top and gets bubbly by the next morning, the scrap dough rises a bit and then comes out of the fridge, ready to be added, bit by bit, into the dough as you're putting it together.

What I love about the book, apart from their lengthy discussion on growing wheat, is that they give you a recipe synopsis, which lays out the recipe for you. So you know, as you're entering into the adventure, that the ride will last about 20 hours. Most of that time, you're sitting around (or in the case of the poolish - sleeping overnight) waiting for the timer to go off and let you play with the dough again.

Initially, the dough was much stickier than the wet doughs I usually work with, but by the time I'd folded it for the third time, it was getting a little more manageable. Once all the fermenting, turning, proofing and shaping was done, I had two baguettes and a boule.

Lessons learned? Baguettes are tricky little suckers. They look like you'd just roll out a tube of dough and go with it, but nope. Taking care not to pop any of the bubbles in the dough, you make a rectangle (harder than it sounds) fold it like an envelope, then fold it a couple more times, and then start rolling. You're not allowed to touch it a bunch, but you are to touch it with purpose. I liked that.

I don't have the shaping of those quite right yet, but I'm undaunted because the taste of the bread was great. Didn't matter what the shape was, and my boule was slightly 'underdeveloped,' it was still great. And they tell you that. No matter what you make, it will taste great.

What was really fun was taking pictures and sending them to a bread baking friend of mine who introduced me to the book and, prior to that, the bread. He analyzed my bread based on the pictures, so I have an idea of how to fix some stuff. And I went back over the book, looking at my finished product, and saw what he was talking about. I love the generosity of the cooks and bakers I know who share their time and talent. It's a great community to be part of.

Now I have a couple of loaves of bread in my freezer, part of one in the fridge, and lots of cheese to pop onto a slice of it whenever I want. The abundance of riches reminds me of the adage about how teaching a man to fish lets him eat for a lifetime. Forty years ago, my mom started making bread and made me learn how. Forty years later, up to my elbows in flour, kitchen looking like something exploded in it, I'm still getting to learn..and eat! I am a happy child.

And All Men Are At Home

2010-12-24T22:24:00.000-06:00

This was one of several poems read by Dr Alan Jacobs as the Christmas Eve service at All Souls Anglican Church, Wheaton, was starting. He read another, which I also loved and will track down, but this one was particularly poignant.

CHRISTMAS POEM by G.K. Chesterton

There fared a mother driven forth
Out of an inn to roam;
In the place where she was homeless
All men are at home.
The crazy stable close at hand,
With shaking timber and shifting sand,
Grew a stronger thing to abide and stand
Than the square stones of Rome.

For men are homesick in their homes,
And strangers under the sun,
And they lay on their heads in a foreign land
Whenever the day is done.
Here we have battle and blazing eyes,
And chance and honour and high surprise,
But our homes are under miraculous skies
Where the yule tale was begun.

A Child in a foul stable,
Where the beasts feed and foam;
Only where He was homeless
Are you and I at home;
We have hands that fashion and heads that know,
But our hearts we lost – how long ago!
In a place no chart nor ship can show
Under the sky’s dome.

This world is wild as an old wives’ tale,
And strange the plain things are,
The earth is enough and the air is enough
For our wonder and our war;
But our rest is as far as the fire-drake swings
And our peace is put in impossible things
Where clashed and thundered unthinkable wings
Round an incredible star.

To an open house in the evening
Home shall men come,
To an older place than Eden
And a taller town than Rome.
To the end of the way of the wandering star,
To the things that cannot be and that are,
To the place where God was homeless
And all men are at home.

Christmas Letter 2010

2010-12-18T22:11:00.000-06:00

Christmas 2010

A friend said to me recently that tears and laughter are the mortar of life. Through the changes of this last year, they are what have held us together and kept us (questionably) sane.

Losing my mother-in-law in December last year turned Christmas 2009 into the “Amazon.com Christmas.” My husband took our wish lists, pared them down to a reasonable level, and, with a few clicks of the mouse, brown UPS boxes began showing up. Our son thought we should just leave them that way under the tree. I drew the line at that and wrapped the brown boxes. It gave us something to chuckle about as we hung Mom's ornaments on our tree with the tissues nearby.

One hectic work year done and another underway, in January my beloved headed to Bangkok for two weeks of meetings. The people there are great, but it's a long plane ride. Upside: frequent flier miles, which you get a lot of for sitting in a plane for 20-some hours each way. He continues to do genealogical research, and we tramp around the local cemeteries once he's found a great-grandparent or long lost step-great aunt. It's fun to do the detective work. Our kids think we're odd, which is kind of true.

At Spring Break we went to Pensacola Beach. In late March, pre-oil spill, the beaches were beautiful. The water was freezing, however, so we didn't swim much. With the exception of our daughter the Vegetarian, we ate lots of seafood and loved our visit to Joe Patti's fish market in Pensacola. Wow and yum.

In our first major change of the year, our oldest graduated from high school. He was very sad to leave his friends and very excited to go to college. Our summer travel schedule meant he couldn't get a job, so he got to spend the time hanging out with his friends, broke, but totally, lazily happy. Once he had none to do, I realized how much of my time had been spent “asking” him about homework. Twelve years of a topic of conversation, gone in the time it took to walk across a stage on a beautiful May evening.

Shortly after graduation, the kids, my niece and I headed up to Lake Vermilion for a relaxing week of fishing with my folks. I missed VBS for the first time in years, but the family time was sweet.

We celebrated our 25th anniversary by taking a trip to Maui with the kids. We snorkeled a lot and also ascended Haleakala, driving the switchbacks from sea level to 11,000 feet up, way above the clouds. The views were spectacular and neither kid fell off the mountain – certainly thanks to my “nagging,” which they failed to appreciate. We visited a goat farm (again, not appreciated by the kids) and a winery (ditto), and Sean and I decided that next time we are not bringing said, unappreciative kids.

August began a season of leave-takings. My friend Patty moved to London, which I was sad about until we realized that we can video conference on Skype and that visiting in person requires a trip to London. Thanks to my husband's frequent flier miles, my friend Kathy and I are going in February. Tea and crumpets, plays and museums, cottages and castles here we come!

August also saw our leaving us to go to ISU, majoring in teaching Middle School math and science. He absolutely loves it. He has an unlimited meal plan, interesting classes, and a great dorm floor. He did well and finished finals in mid-December. I've enjoyed having my car to myself, but we miss him a lot otherwise. He misses my cheeseburgers.

Thankfully, our daughter still comes back home at the end of the day. She started sophomore year and has her permit. She's playing flute, piccolo, alto recorder and soprano ukulele. Last month we went to hear her favorite group, Project, play and went to a flute workshop by one of the band members the next day. They play beatbox flute, cello and bass. Not only does she now want to learn cello, but the flute player in the group advised the kids that busking on street corners playing flute is a great way to earn money. We are torn by that idea. It would save on college, but what parent wants to tell people their daughter works on a street corner? Her room looks like a music store, but we love listening to her play. She's also joined the French, Art and Drama clubs at school.

September was very hard. My sister-in-law, Karen, and her husband, Tom, moved back to Illinois in July. She'd been battling malignant melanoma for over six years and her health was worsening. During the next couple of months, we had the luxury of time with her, enjoying trips to art galleries, walks, watching movies, or just sitting and talking. She was increasingly tired, but was not in pain until a couple of days before she died. She passed away on September 19th, just a few weeks after celebrating her 55th birthday and their 19th anniversary. She was a gifted teacher and artist. I don't know how to put into words how wonderful she was or how much we miss her.

Also in September, my mom went into the hospital for a scheduled, and long overdue, back surgery. It went very well, and we expected she'd be home in three days. Instead, she returned home almost a month and two more surgeries later, with not only a new device in her back, but also a stent and a pacemaker. I'd say it was three for the price of one, but I'm pretty sure it was three for the price of three. We were blessed that Mom received excellent care. We spent a lot of family time together eating hospital food, “discussing” politics, and solving the world's problems.

November had us celebrating Dad's 75th birthday and spending Thanksgiving with my family. It was a particularly poignant holiday this year. Having a healthy Mom at the table, and having friends and family who prayed for us and carried us through the last few months, gave us a lot to be thankful for.

Cold weather is baking season and I've been baking bread a lot, beginning with crusty French loaves and more recently trying gluten free variations. I've been baking for church events, which lets me bake without eating it myself. My very favorite thing to bake for is my Wednesday night class when I get to sit on little chairs at little tables with a dozen of the wee Souls (my name for kids at All Souls Church), memorizing verses, reading the Bible, coloring, and munching on brownies - it's a glorious thing.

And now we're in Advent, a time of quiet, reflective waiting in the midst of frenetic activity, which ends for us at the beautiful, candlelight Lessons and Carols on Christmas Eve. We'll spend Christmas morning with my parents and then head to my sister-in-law's home in the afternoon. As always, I hope this finds you all spending Christmas surrounded by those you love and who love you.

Grace and Peace.

Ann and company

Gathering to Give Thanks

2010-11-26T01:42:00.000-06:00

Last year at this time, at the end of Monday Morning Bible Study, we sang several Thanksgiving hymns in preparation for heading out, away from each other and into the Thanksgiving business. And while I loved all the hymns we sang, there is one that remains a constant favorite:

We gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing;
He chastens and hastens His will to make known.
The wicked oppressing now cease from distressing.
Sing praises to His Name; He forgets not His own.

Beside us to guide us, our God with us joining,
Ordaining, maintaining His kingdom divine;
So from the beginning the fight we were winning;
Thou, Lord, were at our side, all glory be Thine!

We all do extol Thee, Thou Leader triumphant,
And pray that Thou still our Defender will be.
Let Thy congregation escape tribulation;
Thy Name be ever praised! O Lord, make us free!

Written in the 1500s as the Dutch came out from under Spanish rule, it went from being a Dutch patriotic song to being a Thanksgiving song over the course of the next three hundred years. It continues to speak to people who have been oppressed or who have struggled. And, in one way or another, that applies to most of us.

Sometimes sermons or Christian music urges us to be active and to never slow down, as if it's all up to us and that God will forsake us if we let up for even a second. This old hymn tells the truth - it is God who ordains and maintains. The battle was won from the beginning, with the knowledge on God's part that we'd be fighting along side Him.

Having lived through the last couple of months of change and sorrow, I've taken comfort from the knowledge that this is not up to me. That I'm just part of a larger picture painted by God. And so when it came time to give thanks before dinner, at a time when we were missing those who'd gone ahead and grateful for those who hadn't, I was overwhelmingly thankful to belong to a God who forgets not His own.

Give Me, Every Day, Some Bread

2010-11-22T22:00:00.000-06:00

No, this isn't a post on the Lord's Prayer. It is a post on bread, because I tried a recipe from a cool book called Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, by Jeff Hertzberg, M.D. and Zoë François.

My dad turned 75 on Sunday and I got him this book I'd read about that promised artisanal breadmaking skills (and bread) in five minutes a day. Trick is to get a big, food grade tub and mix enough dough to make four, 1 lb. loaves, let it rise, and pop it in the fridge. No kneading. So I ordered it for him and an extra book and tub for me. I also got him a sushi-making class (two hours of instruction, along with wine)...which, yeah, I'll go along for also. He gave me half his genes, so the food presents are his fault, I figure.

I grew up making bread. My mom ground her own wheat and we made whole wheat bread in loaf pans every few days. I liked kneading it and watching it rise, but it took time. My brother and I used to cut slices of it and toast it with butter and sugar on it. I also used to melt a big hunk of cheese on a thick slice of it for breakfast (I read the book Heidi and she did that). It was wonderful.

I've got this friend at church who makes brilliant bread. He makes boules and baguettes, not just loaf pan bread. We have soup suppers on Wednesday nights before our various classes for kids and adults, and he always makes the bread. I love the soup, don't get me wrong, but I go for the bread. And for the class I co-teach, of course. I love those kids.

My friend's bread is like what you find in a great bakery, and that's what I wanted to learn how to do. Then along comes this book into my life. I don't even remember how, probably on some food website. A few clicks on Amazon.com and voila! In my fridge is a tub of dough with three loaves worth of bread left in it. Theoretically, it can sit for up to 14 days. You cut off a hunk, shape it, let it sit for 40 minutes and pop it onto a hot stone in your oven for a half an hour and then, just like that, there is a boule cooling on your countertop.

Of course, the book does not describe the fact that, if you're at my house, you spend part of that half hour waving your dishtowel beneath the smoke detector that's going off because your oven needs to be cleaner. Apparently the term "self-cleaning" in "self-cleaning oven" doesn't mean it will actually clean it's ownself.

Tangent aside, there is a crust of bread left on the cutting board. I don't hold out high hopes that it'll last much longer than tomorrow morning. I'm making challah next for the Thanksgiving dressing, and then on to baguettes. Right after, that is, I clean the stupid oven.

I hope Dad likes his present, I really do. Because I love his present ;-) Now I just need to figure out what we...I mean he...is getting for Christmas.

Thanksgiving Plan

2010-11-22T10:17:00.000-06:00

This year we're hosting. Current plan (already slightly revised)...

Menu:

Appetizers:

Smoked Salmon w/Goat Cheese
Crudité Platter
Something from my brother
Champagne, Pinot Noir

Meal:

Roast Turkey
Challah stuffing with apples and celery
Mashed Potatoes with Cider Sage gravy
Sweet Potatoes Anna
Braised Cauliflower
Green Beans - from my brother
Vegetarian Pot Pie with Puff Pastry Crust
Riesling Kabinett, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir
Sparkling Cider

Dessert:

Pies - Pumpkin, Apple and Mincemeat.
Pies from Dad and Mom. Not me.

Coffee

Plan:

Order turkey from Whole Foods - they stopped taking orders yesterday. Oops.

Revised Plan:

Monday:

Go get 18 lb. turkey so as not to miss getting turkey I didn't order.
Make challah dough for stuffing.
Hang curtains.
Possible guest coming in. College friend of the boy's.
Clean house...for a while. Get caught up in tv, take nap, leave rest.
Map out timing of the cooking for turkey day.

Tuesday:
Make challah, cool, cube, set out to get good and stale.
Do rest of shopping.
Continue to clean house, get caught up in a good book, take nap.
Make dinner.

Wednesday:
Husband off work, time to look frazzled busy.
Brine turkey, finding some way to store in suddenly microscopic fridge.
Chop and saute vegetables for veggie pot pie for baby girl...who is now driving.
Make cranberry sauce.
Thanksgiving Eve service at All Souls Anglican Church, Wheaton. Favorite one of the year.

Thursday:
Continue to clean, now frantically.
Slice sweet potatoes and soak prunes in port for Sweet Potatoes Anna.
Peel and chop potatoes for mashed potatoes.
Clean and cut up cauliflower.
Make sure wines are chilled. Very important step. Didn't even need to write down.
Set tables.
Order kids around.
Kids go hide in the basement.
Turkey out of brine, aromatics in, and into oven.
Appetizers out.
Family in.
Turkey out to sit, side dishes into oven.
Make gravy.
Eat myself silly.
Nap off turkey coma...

Those Who Live In Glass Houses...

2010-11-19T00:35:00.000-06:00

Over the last couple of days I've been sputtering about a blogger who did something rude to a friend of mine and then wrote an even ruder post about it on his blog impugning my friend's knowledge and spiritual maturity, all the while boasting of his own. The fact of the matter is that the only one who actually exhibited maturity during the incident was my friend. When some folks called him to task for the rudeness of his post, he gave replies that told them that they could just stop reading his posts, he wasn't a noble Christian.

I'm speculating that he received a few too many non-supportive replies to his post because he removed it. Or maybe his mom, or his pastor, or someone wiser than he read the post and took him to task. Of course, nothing is ever gone from the net, really. So his lack of charity, recorded by him for posterity, is cached away out there forever. Which is kind of the point of the post. That whole thing about how living in glass houses should keep you from throwing stones, yeah, this is where that applies.

Because the minute you start blogging, you construct glass walls that allow the world to see into your life. And when you say you are a Christian, what you write will be seen as proof one way or the other. What that blogger (who claims Christianity) did was to witness poorly. He passed up a chance to show grace, which is something we should be actively seeking to exhibit.

Which reminds me of what I think of as the cardinal rules of blogging. First, use the delete key more frequently than the "publish post" tab. Second, don't be in such a rush to publish that you fail to seek counsel. And third, ask yourself how you'll be heard - does anyone really need to be lectured by you?

Throughout the last seven years of the Anglican Angst, there have been many times where I've written emails and left the "To" line blank. Or I've run what I'd like to write past close friends and then either hit the delete button or edited heavily. Now and again, though, I confess to having sent something that I shouldn't have. Because frequently what I want to say and what I should say are two vastly different things. And once said, it's out there for ever. Which means it's been seen, and glass houses don't exactly provide a great place to hide.

Required Reading on Veterans' Day

2010-11-11T23:14:00.000-06:00

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

--Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae (1872-1918)

I Can Be Found In The Wine Cellar Under The Stairs

2010-10-17T00:34:00.000-05:00

Last month I was writing to a friend and somewhat jokingly put my address as The Wine Cellar Under The Stairs. We don't have a wine cellar exactly, we have a wine closet under the stairs in the basement. We looked at putting a wine fridge in there, but realized that the temperature is a pretty constant 59 degrees and we don't buy $500 bottles of wine, so it's good enough. I think I could squeeze a barstool and table in there, but that'd look bad. The joke, however, was only partial. I've said a few times that one more icky piece of news and I'm going to hide under my desk.

Since my last posting in August, my husband's sister, Karen, passed away in September, eleven days after she turned 55. She'd battled skin cancer for over six years (a good year longer than she was initially given)and the cancer spread and finally won.

The day after Karen died, my mom went in for scheduled back surgery and ended up having two heart procedures as well - buy one, get two free. She came out of the hospital with an appliance around her spine (planned), a stent in her heart and a pacemaker in her chest (surprise!). Boy will she set off alarms everywhere she goes. She ended up spending three weeks instead of three days in medical facilities and is now home, merrily disregarding the doctors warnings...but that's a story for another time.

It strikes me that this could end up being a whiny post. All this stuff converging at once, along with some outside unrelated stress - sign me up for the vacation with the padded rooms. But, as I look back over the last couple of months, I see how taken care of I've been in the midst of what's been a lot. And I learned a few things about how to live, and that has kept me out of the wine cellar (if not out of the wine).

My sister-in-law Bonnie and I got to spend time with Karen, taking care of her, before she died. We talked about many things, not the least of which was Jesus, a topic Karen and I had skirted around before as I'm a Bible thumping nut-bag and she was not. We talked about what the Bible says about death and what it says about life. And, while I was not with Karen when she died, nothing was left unsaid, and I'm at peace.

It's not that I don't wish we would have had more time. I wish she gotten to live to old age with her husband, I wish...well many things. But with cancer, you have to take the small victories in a war we ultimately lose. She was lucid and not in any pain until close to the end. Hospice was there when she needed them, but that wasn't until a few days before she died.

During this time, both with Karen and my mom, I've been supported. My Bible Study ladies, our Prayer Chain,and my friends were faithful in prayer. I told Karen that's the joy of a small church. They know your business and they follow up on you. Sometimes it's like being smothered in a blanket (mostly when I'm not behaving well), but mostly it's like having a security blanket with you every where you go.

My girlfriends listened to me, got me a massage, and hugged me a lot. I waded into caring for Karen without training, reading all the books on hospice our library had. My friend Karen, who is a nurse, helped me with information. It could have been scary, but it wasn't.

I told God I was there, inadequate, but there, and asked what He wanted me to do or say. And He gave me enough for every day. Things worked out. Some things fell through the cracks, but most didn't - or at least people were gracious enough not to make a fuss about those things that I missed.

My mom's surgeries went well, and, while I found most things of hers more stressful than anything with Karen, again, God gave me enough strength to get through it day to day. And to laugh about parts of it - like the fact that the "Rush" in Rush Presbyterian Hospital has nothing to do with the speed with which they move and everything to do with the fact that, no matter whether you're released at 10:00 a.m. or 2:00 p.m., the paper work will come through and let you out into rush hour traffic around 4:30ish. Great doctors, though. I got to spend time with my dad, working out KenKen puzzles from the NYTimes and talking politics and life.

And along the way there've been joyful things. My niece asked me to be her confirmation mentor, so I get to spend time with her on an ongoing basis and talk to her about Jesus. My husband decided to use almost all his frequent flier miles so my friend Kathy and I can go visit our friend Patty who moved to London. We're counting the days. Our Wednesday night program at church has started up and my co-teacher and I have 11 great kids ages 4-8 who come to class excited to be there every week.

But most of all, I'm successfully applying the main lesson I learned from Karen. She was probably one of the least technologically savvy people I'll ever meet,but she could and did pick up a phone and call to keep up relationships. Each time I walked into their apartment, I put down my phone and left it on ring only. That way, if the school tried to reach me, they could. But emails and texts and tweets all went by the wayside in favor of long conversations and quiet pauses while we sat on the balcony and watched the world go by or took walks.

And that time was precious and that pattern was worth repeating, so when my family are home, the phone goes away and the computer gets put down. I'm not as quick on emails - or on posts - but that's okay, because the time invested in my family results in richer relational life. It is requiring me to overcome years of ADD-ish behavior, but it is good. So thanks, Karen Marie McCarthy Quinn, teacher, for the lesson. Because as tempting as the wine cellar might be, it can really only hold one person, and that's not the best way to live.

Subdivision

2010-08-22T21:49:00.000-05:00

On Wednesday we took our oldest to college for his first year. I spent most of the preceding days studiously avoiding that reality with my nose stuck in a book (BTW House Rules by Jodi Picoult is worth reading). So, I think, did he, given the frantic packing Wednesday morning.

We got him packed into my parents' car, which, being bigger than mine was able to hold the mini-fridge, the suitcases, the backpack, the bedding, the upright string bass, and all four of us. My husband's office had a pool going about how soon I'd lose it. While still in the dorms? On the way out of town?

Okay. It was before we even left the house. We've already worked out that our son's coming home Labor Day weekend for a family party. It's like he's going to camp for two weeks. I can deal with that.

But I keep picturing him like he was when he was little. Never sleeping more than an hour and forty minutes at a time as a baby. His belly laugh. His fixation on the ball toy from Discovery Toys and his obsession with pool tables. Golden curls as a toddler. Endless math problems to keep him quiet during church. How many times did I read The Foot Book? The way he said "oh shit" when he hit his elbow on the door when he was two that told me I had to watch what I said. He said it perfectly in the correct context and everything. Blessedly my mother was nowhere nearby.

And now he's in room 1406, overlooking the library and the bank. On his own. He is only a couple of hours away, and he has a debit card and a cell phone, so he's not completely disconnected from us.

But when I look at the map of our state on the weather report on the news, I now am looking at two different areas on it, because that's where my family is...are... which verb do you use anyway? It's a whole new world.

Loving Marriage

2010-08-10T00:48:00.000-05:00

My last post was about chocolate chip cookies, some of which did go off with my boy on his camping trip. This post is about the reason I was baking those cookies in the first place, which was that my husband was after a freshly baked, warm and melty chocolate chip cookie.

In general, my beloved is pretty low maintenance. He wishes the same thing most husbands do, I suppose: that the house were cleaner; that I'd never discovered the internet; that I earned an income so he could live in the lap of luxury and stay home, eating bon bons and watching soap operas and tossing occasional handfuls of $20 bills in the air at the mall - which is what he pictures me doing all day. And, no, he wouldn't really watch soap operas if he were to be at home.

But, having arrived at our 25th anniversary, I am taking a moment to think out loud about marriage and be thankful.

About ten years ago, our couples group had a discussion about the book The Five Love Languages. We did this exercise where we were each given an index card and asked to wrote down what our top two love languages were - i.e. the way we best receive love. We then turned in the cards and Cathy, who was leading that night, read them off and we were to guess whose they were. Out of the entire group, one wife guessed one of her husband's correctly. That was it. The possibilities were, if I remember correctly, physical touch, surprise gifts, words of affirmation, quality time and acts of service. Acts of service was one of my husband's. After learning that, I stopped throwing him surprise parties (which, it turns out, he hates), and have tried to do things for him - like the afore-mentioned chocolate chip cookies.

The book exercise, which produced good results, was just one of many steps in our life together that taught us about each other. One of those "journey of discovery" things that all the wedding cards talked about. Cards which we ignored in the blur of presents and checks and getting ready to go off for a week on St. Martin.

Because when you meet and fall in love, it's all about those dreams that include a white dress, and a honeymoon, and the ephemeral "happily ever after" wrapped up in silver bows. And no matter how good the pre-marriage counseling is, you live in a dreamy euphoric state of being in love, fed by romance novels and movies and Hallmark cards, which leads you to believe that, because you are soooo in love, you will magically know everything about your beloved, like having some kind of love ESP, and the sailing off into the sunset will be very smooth.

But then you get home from the honeymoon and it turns into something more complex and more rewarding. In our case, we got home and when I went to pick up my brand new husband from his office on our first day back at work, he'd been laid off and was standing there with his box of stuff.

And that was the beginning of working together and building our life. Learning to live through job loss and weight gain, new homes and plumbing disasters, and budgets big on macaroni and cheese. There were days when we'd have to force ourselves to show up and days when we couldn't wait to see each other. We've navigated Parents' Day Out, pre-school, K-12 for one kid and K - 9 for the other so far, and in a week will send our eldest off to college. We've had one bird, three dogs and four fish. And we've suffered the loss of two parents, three grandmas, two great-aunts, one great-uncle, two aunts and several of our friends, and a couple of our children's friends. Looking back, I can see that the times of greatest struggle for us have happened when we lost sight of the fact that those words we said 25 years ago made us one person, not two any longer, and we (or, really I mostly) act alone.

In that haze of being so in love, I was clueless of what was in store. I didn't know how much I needed to grow and change. Didn't know I wasn't saved, didn't know how much or often or badly I'd fail, I was pretty sure I was doing just fine, thanks. But when I was far off, God provided me with a husband who didn't give up and pushed me to be better, with a church where I found out that I am a sinner and was lead to the Savior, and with children who, as they grow up, continue to delight and challenge us.

Really, what did we know? We were 21 when we got engaged over Papa Del's pizza and Lowenbrau beer. And you know, you can't know - you just think you do. My parents probably thought what all parents think when their kids get married fresh out of college - 'they're babies!' And we were. But we've grown up together. And we are more in love now than we were because we know each other better than we did. Embarrassing to our kids, I'm sure, but it's true.

If God is exceedingly good to us, we'll have another 25 years together. And as we're fielding the teasing questions about what presents will we be giving each other, I know that the real answer is that it doesn't matter if we get each other something from the jewelry store or the Apple Store or not, the truth is that we have already been given the gift.

Of Butter and Blueberries

2010-07-14T00:40:00.000-05:00

As you can tell from the title, this is not a weighty post. It would be if I were talking about the kind that has settled around my waist, but, as my blog is kind of hobbit-ty, I feel a responsibility to authentically be gently rounded. Furthermore, anyone can - and indeed many people do -post about weight loss, so I will leave those kind of posts to the folks who actually have some weight loss to write about.

I'm in the middle of my annual blueberry kick. It's almost impossible for me to walk through the fruit aisle and not walk out with a container of them, even though I frequently haven't finished the last one. I have them with my yogurt in the morning, I walk past the box and grab a handful during the day. I swear sometimes I'm going to turn into Violet Beauregarde from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (which, if I don't stop the blueberry dessert trip I'm on, is not that far-fetched a possibility).

I made a blueberry crumb cake over the weekend using a recipe out of a cookbook called Baking Unplugged. It was excellent. The cake had great texture, nice flavor, and was made with butter and sour cream - which contributed significantly to said texture and flavor. Lasted two days, barely. So I'll head back to that cookbook for a recipe for a blueberry pie. I'm on a never ending quest to make pies like Grandma Clewett's, which were stunningly good. You could wave a fork over her crust and it would crumble. Her peach pie was my absolute favorite, but right now, I'm looking at blueberry pie because I'm in blueberry mode. I'll go into peach mode in August, when I can get really good Michigan peaches.

Today, however, I turned away from blueberries and made an effort to show my husband how much I love him with a new chocolate chip cookie recipe. My beloved has had a hankering for freshly baked, warm and somewhat gooey chocolate chip cookies. As he's been putting in 15+ hour days, I thought that the absolute least I could do for him would be to bake some. So I found an Alton Brown recipe for puffy chocolate chip cookies. I generally like Alton Brown, as I love food science, and find his recipes to be pretty reliable. This recipe called for butter flavored Crisco in place of butter, and I thought that sounded interesting. The Crisco stuff has no trans fat, which, if you believe the advertising on the side of the package, is better for you than butter. The reviewers liked the cookies, so I went ahead and tried it.

The cookies are, as promised, puffy. But, despite the cup of butter-flavored Crisco, they are not buttery. My husband liked them, which was, after all, the point, and so did our daughter. So my plan is to save some for them and send the rest with our son, who will eat anything not nailed down, on his camping trip tomorrow. The nice thing about disliking the cookies I've made is that I can send them off without a backward glance or even hint of longing. Those left at home are, like the Kraft individually wrapped singles in the cheese drawer, completely safe from me.

As for the claims of the non trans fat thing, I don't know if I buy it, but I don't care, I'm going back to butter (and blueberries). I just don't know what to do with the last cup of "butter"-flavored stuff that is now sitting in my kitchen. Our bedroom door squeaks...hmmm...

Mentally Prepping - or Just Being Mental.

2010-04-25T18:16:00.000-05:00

I'm starting to think about what we'll be packing next fall for our college-bound boy. When I went, we used to have our van packed to the gills. But now so much of the stuff is so much smaller. Laptop not computer. Printer (smaller). Stereo? Nah - iPod and small speakers. And no typewriter. We just gained about four square feet of car space.

But then that lovely train of thought disappears when I remember that I played piano and they had one at school, so all I had to do was pack music. Our kid plays the upright string bass (fortunately the 3/4 size). It's like six feet tall and somewhat fragile. If he plays in the orchestra or the jazz band, we'll need to bring that down and find a place to store it, and there goes the auto real estate that we'd gained by the advances made in 25 years of technology. Toss in the possibility of bringing down his electric bass and amp, and I don't know that I'll fit in the car.

The big blessing is that he chose a school that is two hours away, so if he forgets something, I can just run it down to him, meet him for lunch at Monical's pizza, and head home. And, let me add, the fact that Monical's pizza is there will always keep me happy to make the two hour trip. For those of you who have not had a Monical's pizza, it's thin crust, herb-y loveliness. There are at least two within 10 minutes of campus, and I've been to both of them.

So, while I'm mentally working out the whole kid going to college thing and preparing myself for the loss, planning visits down there, complete with cheesy goodness, is making it easier on the mommy.

Spiritual Spackle

2010-04-21T09:13:00.001-05:00

I've been painting a lot, with more to do on the horizon. Most recently I've been painting the kitchen. I still have some trim work to do and the more I look at it, the more work I see there is to be done. It is an odd color - Yosemite Sand. It looks utterly different hour to hour, depending upon the light. It will be great as a backdrop for things, and it goes well with our current cabinets and counter tops - which, God willing, will change some day. We're way overdue for a kitchen rehab, but replacing the garage door is first on the list, so for now, a new coat of paint is what our kitchen gets.

In preparing the walls for the paint, I pulled out the Spackle. The house is 20 something years old. It's been through four families and I don't know how many dogs - three of ours anyway. There are scratches, dents, nail pops and settling cracks to be dealt with, which require Spackle, the wonder goop. As I was prepping, I told my husband how much I loved Spackle. I got one of those 'I'm glad you're happy, honey' looks from him before he returned to staining the deck.

I am happy, because I really do love Spackle. I love how you can add water to an old tub of it and it comes back for you to use again. I love the fine powder that comes off of it when you sand it down, but most of all I love how it covers up stuff, as if the dent or crack was never there. And in verbalizing my reasons for loving Spackle (to tell my skeptical husband), I ended up realizing that Jesus is like Spackle. Not to be flip about it, but He is. He comes along and covers you up. Then He spends the rest of your life sanding you down to the point of smoothness, so that you are no longer dented, scratched or cracked. So that you are ready for the new coat of paint, as it were.

He's doing that with me. When I was saved, 18 years ago now, it was like I got covered with a lump of Spackle. As I've gone along, I've gotten smoother. I'm more compassionate, more able to shut up and listen, and less self-absorbed. Lest anyone think for a minute that I'm tooting my own horn, let me say very clearly that I was massively self-absorbed to begin with and am still pretty self-absorbed, as probably anyone who blogs is. But I'm better able to say that what someone else needs or wants is more important that what I need or want and, occasionally, act on it.

There have been all sorts of benefits from this spiritual Spackling. I have better friendships and relationships in general. At the end of the day, I am less filled with regrets over what I've done or said that was wrong, partially because if I shut up, I say fewer things that are wrong, and partially because I'm better able to apologize to whomever I've offended that day. And I can go to God and ask for relief from worries and distresses that would otherwise paralyze me.

The sanding continues, as it has to, and as I actually want it to. I have a long way to go as I still have a hard time sometimes putting aside what I want to do for what is right to do. And just like in my kitchen, there's a lot of trim work to be done. But the job is started and underway, and that, like Spackle, is a very good thing.

A Rambling Ode to Manual Typewriters

2010-01-30T13:45:00.000-06:00

Last month on Twitter, there was a posting from Dr. Jacobs' always enlightening TextPatterns about manual typewriters. I followed the links on his post to an article from The Guardian about how some writers prefer to use manual typewriters instead of word processors. Cormac McCarthy's manual typewriter was being auctioned off for $15,000. Wow.

One of the points made by authors who use typewriters was that they require you to think more prior to writing. Which leads me to conclude that there is much that is written now that would benefit greatly from this approach, and to assume that it would also probably serve to prevent a lot of what is written from coming into being in the first place. Typing on a manual requires so much more deliberative effort, making it more serious somehow.

And the articles lead me to reminisce about typewriters and then to think about how word processors have changed our world for the (mostly) better.

My mom taught me to type on a manual typewriter. I got an electric one later which I lugged off to college. It came with its own case and weighed about 40 pounds. I earned spending money typing and editing (and sometimes rewriting entirely) other students' papers. Living in an engineering dorm brought a steady income stream. I now have my father-in-law's electric which I use for tax forms - always praying that the ink won't run out because I'm pretty sure they don't make those ribbons anymore. My kids find it fascinating - like dinosaur bones. I love the sound it makes when the keys are depressed and the satisfying whirr of the carriage return. Oh, and the clunk of the shift key. The whole sound experience makes me feel very, very productive.

I got my first computer in 1984. The "pre-writing thinking" referred to in the Guardian article was rendered largely unnecessary given the editing capabilities of word processors. And as the speed and capacity of the processors improved, I became used to thinking less prior to writing as I could copy, paste, delete and retrieve pretty much at will. I do love to type, but it takes so much less effort to produce and send things off on a computer.

And no virtually everything that is typed is sent off via email, Twitter, FaceBook and blogs. We fling out little bits of information that require neither structure nor context (which can't be given in 140 characters and a smiley face anyway), and little, if any, thought - which is okay, as they may or may not ever be read. It is coming at little cost; for the price of monthly internet access and a computer, I can type myself silly.

There is a lot that's good about this, as a record of everything I've ever written or researched is handy by when I want to check on something, although sometimes I look back and realize what I typed was either immature, unkind or just plain wrong. For our kids, while plagiarism is easier using copy and paste than it used to be (we had to work for it by typing each word we were copying from the encyclopedia ourselves), there is now a website called turnitin.com that the teenagers in our school district have to turn everything into, which automatically checks for copying. We've sent letters, pictures and music via computers and little by little we're saving the trees. And we can write things and send them immediately, when we realize we've forgotten a birthday or anniversary.

But, to me, the true glory of using a word processor is most evident when you have to do multiple, slightly different versions of something you're sending out to different audiences. For example, when my child was instructed to write the same introspective paper about an event that changed her life for the fifth year in a row. Leaving aside the sheer absurdity of asking a fourth grader to write such a paper based on ten years of life, each year we found that you can just change the name of the teacher at the top of the paper, tweak it a bit, print it off and turn it in. This year, in her more mature state, she ventured that perhaps she should be writing a new paper this year (not that she had anything to add at that point). I said that, while she could, if the education program was disconnected enough to make teachers ask the same question for five years running, then they deserved the same amount of effort from her that it took to make the assignment in the first place. And typing the whole thing all over again, yep, too much effort.

The Great Divorce

2010-01-29T08:46:00.000-06:00

Currently our small group is reading C.S. Lewis' The Great Divorce. An allegorical tale of a man who dies and gets on a bus to a large grassy plain. He meets various characters along the way, many of whom get met by emissaries who are sent to help lead these ghosts across the plain, up to the mountains and into perfect love and joy, if only they'll give up the chains that bind them to hell.

It's been a year or so since I've read any Lewis - and I'd forgotten how much I end up wincing as I recognize myself. I have a friend who says that if you read Scripture correctly, it should pinch you. Clive Staples is like that for me; I'm only a little ways into it and am already bruised.

I am listening to the book on CD in the car and am meeting the parade of characters, many of whom I resemble on some level: whining, pride, grudging duty, not accepting help, looking for how I was wronged or what I'm owed. It's terribly annoying and terribly necessary. I have to determinedly resist the temptation to listen and identify these traits in other people I know, rather than seeking to root out my own sin.

Throughout this uncomfortable exercise, however, I get glimpses of the picture, painted so deftly by Lewis, of heaven. One of selfless joy, of complete love and of a far better life. And so I keep listening because, when all is said and done, the chains of sin are really heavy and I don't want to carry them around. I do want to experience, on a more consistent basis, the sheer relief of letting go and letting God.

In the Company of the Stars

2010-01-27T22:30:00.000-06:00

Every evening, somewhere about news time, our dog Amy asks to go out. She actually has to take care of "business" about half the time. The other half of the time, despite our imploring her to do something, she stands there and sniffs the air.

So while I wait on the speckled pup, I look up at the stars. Our house faces south and, during the winter, the nightly show includes Orion, the hunter, and his two dogs, Canis Major and Minor. The legend goes that he was a hunter in love with Merope, who does not love him. He dies after stepping on a scorpion (scorned and scorpioned, poor guy). Feeling sorry for the hunter, the gods placed him in the sky with his two dogs, kindly putting the scorpion far away on the other side of the sky so that he'd not be hurt again. For the last few nights, it's been too cloudy to see anything, but tonight there were moving clouds and I got a glimpse of Orion's belt and shoulder.

And took pleasure in the company, both of us out there with a dog.

Cross-eyed and deaf

2010-01-15T16:46:00.000-06:00

I got new glasses today. I've been waiting for two weeks to get them and am trying to adjust. It's not going so well. The lenses are "progressive," which apparently means I have to cross my eyes to see just right. If I accomplish this cross-eyed thing, things come into startlingly good focus. Which is cool. But, if not, and if I'm not pointing my nose in the direction of what I'm trying to see, things get blurry. So I have to move my head a lot, which I don't do. And I've waited 15 days to be annoyed and I paid for it, too.

Then there's this weird effect that not seeing well has on me. I feel like if I can't see well, then I can't hear well. At which point, I might as well check on out and take a nap. While I love naps, I know I'll wake up no better.

I'm giving these puppies a weekend. If they're not better, I'm going to march right on back in there and...ask very politely for some help.

Monday's Hymn

2010-01-05T09:40:00.000-06:00

Yesterday at Bible Study we talked about living in, but not in, modern Babylon. We talked about prophesy and eschatology from the book of Daniel and then we gathered around the piano and sang one of my favorite hymns. Reveling in the sovereignty and protection of God. Once again, Monday was sweet.

Holy, Holy, Holy
by Reginald Heber

Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee;
Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty!
God in three Persons, blessèd Trinity!

Holy, holy, holy! All the saints adore Thee,
Casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea;
Cherubim and seraphim falling down before Thee,
Who was, and is, and evermore shall be.

Holy, holy, holy! though the darkness hide Thee,
Though the eye of sinful man Thy glory may not see;
Only Thou art holy; there is none beside Thee,
Perfect in power, in love, and purity.

Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
All Thy works shall praise Thy Name, in earth, and sky, and sea;
Holy, holy, holy; merciful and mighty!
God in three Persons, blessèd Trinity!

Christmas Letter 2009

2009-12-17T23:33:00.000-06:00

Every year I send out a Christmas letter to my family and some of our friends. I've edited this one slightly, but this is it.

We're heading into Christmas 2009 pretty sad as my mother-in-law, Rose Marie, passed away last week. She was 80, mom of six, grandma of nine. We'd gotten a call late morning saying she wasn't doing well and she was gone by the evening. She was with most of her kids and those who couldn't be there spoke to her over the phone. She wasn't in pain for which we are very grateful. She'd been saying for the last few years that she was just going to fly away and was ready to go. One of my friends said she pictured Mom going from our loving hands into the arms of her Savior which we find comforting.

So, tissues in hand, we are getting ready for the holiday. My husband's very busy at work with projects due by the end of the year. He's headed to Bangkok for a two weeks in late January, but as he has escaped business travel for most of this year, I'm trying not to grumble about it. He's found time to do a little genealogy research here and there, which is an interesting hobby.

We will have been married for 25 years next August and are planning to celebrate with by going to Europe for a couple of weeks. We'll be taking the kids, but they have told us that if we hand them cash, they'll go off to shop and leave us alone to play kissy-face. Sounds romantic to me...sort of...

Our oldest has decided that he wants to be a middle school math teacher. He did Intro to Teaching at the high school where he spent time at one of the local jr. highs, and loved it. He's been accepted to a college in middle school math education and is looking forward to going. He's checking into music there also, as he'd like to continue with the bass. We just have to figure out where he'd store it as the dorm rooms are small.

He spent part of last summer up at the Christian camp he goes to and took the counselor training program. He was given a cabin with some special needs kids and enjoyed the challenge. He spends a lot of time with his friends and not so much studying (although finals are this week, so he's actually studying). He's playing in the top jazz band and orchestra this year, and is heading to San Francisco for an orchestra field trip at Spring Break. He's reveling in being a Senior - life is good at the top.

His sister is likewise looking forward to his going away to school as she has designs on his room. She's a freshman this year and is enjoying high school. She got off to rough start as one of her good friends passed away in October from the H1N1 virus and an underlying heart defect. Her friends have pulled together to help each other through, and are very tightly knit.

She's playing the alto recorder in a Renaissance quartet with three friends. They wear costumes and they sound and look lovely. She's thinking that she'd like to play in an orchestra when she graduates college. She wants to ditch the honors science and math classes but I told her she'll at least need the math classes to manage what little money she might earn wisely. Sean told her she could live at home, which earned him a big eye roll. She spent a week at flute camp down at our old school, playing flute six hours a day and is signing up for more next summer.

I have more grey hairs, more wrinkles and am more (well) rounded. I did my usual trips to Galena and in the Spring we explored the wine region of Eastern Iowa. They produce some respectable wines, particularly using the Chambourcin grape from Missouri. In the Fall we went to a grape stomp in Elizabeth, Illinois, standing in tubs, stomping on grapes and staining our feet purple. We then sat outside, overlooking the rolling hills and vineyards, drinking wine and eating crackers with cheese and honey and jam while admiring our pretty purple tootsies. That was a very good day.

We spent a week with my family up at the lake in early June. We're usually there over the 4th of July, so it was much chillier than normal. I ended up in the Urgent Care Clinic with a case of systemic poison ivy which landed me with prescriptions of Prednisone, which is a drug that makes you wired and nervous, and, I'm told, irritating to be around. I was wired and nervous, anyway, everybody else was irritating...or irritated, it was one of the two. Fortunately, I'm over that.

At the end of June, I went to Texas as a delegate to the Inaugural Conference for the Anglican Church of North America. I got to see my cousins and had a great (albeit warm) time. Texas in June – 102 degrees 90% humidity. I ran VBS again at church for what was my 13th and last year. I'm tickled with the lady who's taking it over from me as she's very enthusiastic about it and is already working on curriculum. I'm also teaching the K-1 class on Wednesday nights. We have about 12 kids who show up on a regular basis and I love them all.

I have bible study twice a week – we've begun a study on Daniel at church and I'm doing a study on Isaiah with our couples group women. Instead of doing housework, I've been learning Braille and am considering going back to school to get a Masters in Special Ed. One of these years I'll decide what I want to be when I grow up – which would, sadly, require me to grow up. I have also started to blog a bit, which helps me to think things through. My blog is www.livedahobbit.blogspot.com entitled “In a Hole...There Lived a Hobbit.” after the opening lines of The Hobbit. I took one of those on-line quizzes about which character from the Lord of the Rings are you? And I am a hobbit in my love of food and company – which explains my rounded little self. I do not, however, have hairy feet.

My parents are mostly fine. My mom has had some health issues, but has more energy than she has had in a while, so it's good to see her moving around. We were with her side of the family in Minnesota, for a reunion and for the interment of my aunt's ashes. We saw the homes my mom grew up in, and had a wonderful time getting to know each other better. Dad is consulting still, which keeps him busy to the extent he wants to be busy. They are a part of a church dinner group and they have a lot of neighborhood activities where they live.

Our dog is snoring away right now after a couple of days at the kennel while we were busy with the wake and funeral on the south side. She's more of a couch potato and is barking a bit less as she matures. Which is good.

We are excited about our kids finishing finals and being able to sleep in, although they'll both have essays to do over the break. We are looking forward, also, to spending Christmas with my husband's family. It will be good to gather. We hope that this letter finds you healthy and well and enjoying Advent

Wishing you all the hope of Christmas.

a.

Rest In Peace, Rose Marie

2009-12-12T01:18:00.000-06:00

My momma-in-law passed away quietly this past Wednesday. We got a call around noon that she wasn't doing well and she was gone by 9:00 p.m. Aged 80, mother of six, grandmother of nine, aunt of eleven. She was our momma bird.

She'd not been doing well the last year or so after a stroke took her vision and parts of her memory.

She was little, funny, sometimes quite acerbic, at times self-absorbed and at times very generous and perceptive. We went through bouts of liking and not liking each other. But, over the last fifteen years, it was mostly all liking. Despite having diabetes for 46 years, she really didn't complain hardly at all. She just kept on going which I admired about her.

It's been a surreal couple of days, with her going as fast as she did, and as the events go on I'm becoming sadder. I know where she is, and am happy she's no longer trapped in her earthly tent, but I'm heading into "sorry for myself" territory now.

Mom was ready to go. Over the last couple of years, usually before we'd go to the dentist, she'd tell met that she'd probably not need another appointment because she was just going to fly away, which we'd chuckle over and tell her that we wanted her to stay with us. Until we saw her on Wednesday and her breathing was labored and we just wanted her to be able to sleep. She wasn't in pain, but her breathing was difficult and would stop momentarily and then continue. So I prayed that she would fly away home, told her that she was free to go at any time, and handed her off to her Savior.

Thursday, we sat down with a lovely man at the funeral home and went through a myriad of detail: what casket went with her outfit; what she'd hold in her hands; what book could be used for sign in. Then there are the flowers, the luncheon, the obituary, the wake hours, the funeral mass decisions...on and on. Thank you God for email as her children decided these things on line.

The wake was Friday. A mixture of people came - family, friends from college, friends from the old neighborhood, friends from church - and talking to those friends enables you to not think about the next day for a bit. I was very touched that so many folks, many of whom had never met her, made the trip down - a good hour or so - to see us.

The funeral is tomorrow and then we'll head over and clean out her room at the nursing home later. Progressively, as she's moved from the apartment there to the assisted living wing to the nursing home, our trips with her stuff have gotten more manageable. Most of it's in our basement and we're hoping to have a clean out party in the not too distant future. I don't mind the stuff - I have a huge, high tolerance for mess - but it should go if it's not being used and some of it really belongs to my husband's siblings.

But that last bit can wait. We'll be together at Christmas, all the McCarthys, and we'll have some time to mourn and laugh together. Now it's off to bed with me. Tomorrow promises to be a longer day than today. Sadly, my black fuzzy crocs don't go with funeral clothing.

Giving Thanks

2009-11-27T09:18:00.000-06:00

The house is pretty quiet this morning. The dog, seeming to sense that everyone is in a turkey coma, is curled up snoring in my spot on the couch. I am relegated to the next cushion over, which is actually more comfortable to sit in, not having been compressed by years of being sat on. Thanks, Amy.

We spent Thanksgiving yesterday with my folks, just six of us, as my brother's family spent the day with his in-laws. It was a quiet meal with an overloaded table. I made a gratin of butternut squash and sweet potatoes with Gruyere and garlic infused heavy cream. I don't know if anyone else liked it, but at least I did as it was a lot of work to make. I also made green bean casserole, which everyone does like, to make up for the squash gratin, which again, I liked.

We came home to a Thursday paper the size of a Sunday paper, filled with ads for stuff I neither care about, nor, in some cases even knew existed. When my husband asked me if I was going to the store to pick up some of the computer stuff he had his eye on, I told him that if he woke me up and drove me, I'd be happy to go. As he's still sleeping and I'm typing in my pjs, my evil plan to stay in and relax worked!

Thanksgiving is one of those holidays where Norman Rockwell expectations meet reality. I have friends who eagerly anticipate seeing their families and friends who dread it. For us, it's a mix.

Neither of our mothers are doing all that well. Sean's mom had a stroke last year and is in a nursing home. My mom's health is difficult and her memory is worse, which makes the holidays - and indeed any get together - a bit of a minefield to negotiate. Our kids don't spend much time at the table with us, heading down to the basement between courses, which means we don't have a lot of memories of spending time with them at the holidays.

On the brighter side, however, yesterday at All Souls, our church put on a brunch for the homeless. Fliers were passed out at the local PADS shelters and a great deal of food was donated. I didn't have much to do with it, other than picking up some of the donated food and dropping it off before the brunch started yesterday. It sounds like we didn't get as many folks as we were set up for, but there's significant movement toward doing this next year and word will get out along the way. We're in too small of a building to do much more, but I believe we're called on to work out that part, and yesterday was a start.

And it focused me on what to be thankful for: the generosity of the local grocery stores and restaurants; the blessing of a pastor's family who understands what living out faith means; a parish of people who get excited about the opportunity to serve; the security that no one will kick us out from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., leaving us to wander the city until it's time to find shelter anew; that we have both of our mothers still with us; that everyone in our family has jobs; that we could go and get the stuff from the paper in our car at 4 a.m. if we chose to do so; and that we have choices.

So it wasn't a Norman Rockwell holiday, but it'd be hard to fit all that thankfulness into a single picture frame, anyway.

Between two hard places, clinging to the Rock

2009-11-19T23:18:00.000-06:00

We've been reading the book of Isaiah in our small group bible study over the last couple of years and are about half way through it. We're a group that's been together for the last 18 years, so when we meet for bible study we often answer about five questions from the study guide, taking our time and delving deep. And then other times, we just talk if we didn't all get the lesson done, or if something important has happened in our lives.

Last week we weren't able to meet, so I've had a couple of weeks to mull over the lesson. We are reading in Isaiah 36 and 37 about how the Assyrians sent an emissary to King Hezekiah offering "peace." From the south, there is an offer of "aid" from the Egyptians. Both offers get quotation marks around them because they come with strings attached. I'd say that the king was between a rock and a hard place, but from a Christian perspective, it's very evident that he's between two hard places and is clinging to the Rock.

I've been thinking about what the Assyrian captain of the guard said and the reaction to it. He speaks in a language that all can understand, seeking to seduce them with offers them land and food, neatly weaving lies with truth. The aid from the Egyptians can't be counted upon (true). That when the Assyrians conquered a variety of other kingdoms, the "gods" of those kingdoms didn't save them (again, true). And then, oh so smoothly, he slips in the idea that Hezekiah's God won't save his people either - blithely equating the LORD to these other "gods." Whoa, Nellie.

In response, the people remain silent. The king and his men tear their clothes in mourning over the blasphemy. King Hezekiah goes to the house of the Lord and prays, acknowledging God as the Creator of heaven and earth and laying out his concerns. And, we hear from Isaiah, God has Hezekiah's back. He causes a rumor to arise that diverts the war machine of Assyria elsewhere. Sennacherib, King of Assyria, dies by the sword when two of his sons kill him while he is in the temple of his "god."

These passages are not only reminding me how to pray in general, but to grieve over blasphemy. Not to shake my head and to be snippy about it, which I'm really good at, but to mourn. Then their example tells me to bring that sorrow to God and let Him deal with it. Seeing that, when faced with the blasphemy of the Assyrian Captain, King Hezekiah's men didn't respond directly to him at all, but went to God instead.

I understand addressing blasphemy from those who claim Christianity. It is a fine balancing act to tell the truth in love while leaving no room for question that the statements or the behavior is unacceptable, and that, left unchecked, blasphemy has severe consequences.

But here we see someone who doesn't believe insulting God, and the response of the believers is silence, mourning and prayer. I'm no theologian, but it strikes me as a good pattern to follow.

Forming His Own Bubble

2009-11-14T08:45:00.000-06:00

Engagement, marriage, first car, second car, bird, first house, first child, second child, second house, third dog...we been adding since 1985. Then, the other day, our son received the college acceptance letter he's been waiting for. He's excited about it, and so are we, but the fact that life will be changing for us is now a reality. We will only be three around the dinner table.

His sister is thrilled. She loves the idea of being an only child. She's eyeing his room for where the best place to sit while applying her nail polish, filling his room with the noxious odor of teal or blue or whatever shade by Opi. He hates the smell of nail polish.

I've watched my friends go through this - in varying states of joy and tears. We want our children to grow and to thrive. We have dreams of what they'll do when they grow up. We just don't want them to go to colleges that are farther away than the local high school.

I do remember how exciting it was to go to college and loving the independence and the parties and even the classes. I was in charge of when I got up and went to bed - limited only by class schedules and homework. I want him to have that experience and he'll have a great time. He has friends going there and, knowing him, he'll make more friends and learn a lot and become a great teacher. I'm certain of it.

But it's so odd that's he's old enough to do so - that we're all of a sudden here. I find myself alternately not thinking about it and deluding myself that this "down-sizing" is temporary. He's going to get married, eventually, and have kids and then our family will grow. Kind of like the liquid in a lava lamp - bubbles that stretch, separate and rejoin in sometimes larger forms. We're in that stretching phase that will result in his forming his own bubble. We won't be the same and it feels kind of thin, somehow.

In the words of Proverbs, we've trained our child up on the way he should go, so that when he's old he will not depart from it. Our job, while not ending, is changing as he prepares to continue on that path. He'll be walking on it, but not holding our hands, or even walking within our sight. And I'm reminded that God gives us children like library books - on loan. They shape and change our lives and we are richer for it. But then they need to be returned - sent on to shape and change the lives of others. And, as with many things that God has for us, I pray that He'll give me joy about it, because at this moment, I confess that I'm a little sad.

Discernment

2009-11-01T16:01:00.000-06:00

I am contemplating going back to school. Eventually my beloved would like to change jobs and do something totally different - perhaps becoming a banjo maker in the hills of Tennessee. Which raises the inconvenient question of income, because apparently apprentice banjo makers only pull in five or six figure salaries if you count the numbers after the decimal.

So I'm thinking about re-upping my teaching certificate, long lapsed. I'm in the process of learning Braille, which I started learning for the fun of it, as I'm a language geek. Then the other day my friend Karen told me that there are grants that could pay for a masters' degree in Special Ed. working with children who are blind or have low vision. And not just teaching, which I love doing, but also working out mobility and orientation issues. Which would be kinda cool to do.

So I'm embarking on some praying and some research. Finding out what jobs might be available, where I could do student teaching, etc. I found a couple of universities which have the program online and could arrange local student teaching. As I tend to move at glacial speeds, I'm pretty sure that next week will still find me in research mode. So no banjo making just yet.

The Gift of Encouragement

2009-11-01T15:47:00.000-06:00

Our son went to a retreat at a local Catholic church this weekend. Prior to his going, we got a call asking us to write a letter of encouragement to him and to send it with him in an envelope as a surprise.

It was a lovely thing to sit down together and talk about how much we love our firstborn, what we are excited about for him, and what we think he does well. After our conversation, we wrote a three page note.

In doing so, we put into words what we already knew but probably hadn't said to him: that the stuff that we nag him about is minor - cutting his hair, practicing his bass - nothing stuff. We tease him and tell him that his parents are secretly Amish and that when we nag him about whatever annoys us, he should be thankful that we're not making him wear those short black pants. And he'll sigh like he's been cursed with the parents from 1472 and roll his eyes - not that you can see that's what he's doing beneath all that hair. In comparison to so many people we know or hear about, however, we have no problems.

I know he knows we love him, because we tell him a lot, but it's good to write things down, by hand, on paper. It's something he can save, like I saved the letters from my parents and my grandmas that I got when I was at college. Letters that told me that they loved me enough to sit down and write to me. There's something about a handwritten note that is more intentional and more real somehow, particularly in an age where everything is on a screen of some sort.

So I'm going to try practicing written encouragement. I do have to find something suitable to write on, post-it notes don't work well. I'm thinking that this would be a nice present for each kid for Christmas...not replacing gift cards or electronics...but giving them something that won't get obsoleted or outgrown.

A few days reflection on this post prompts me to add that these notes are best done when things are going well. When I couldn't haul Mr. Sunshine out of bed on time for church this morning because he'd been up talking to a friend until 1:30 a.m., I was very glad that we'd written the letter on Friday.

In Praise of a Monday

2009-10-20T15:31:00.000-05:00

Some people dread Mondays - and I get it - I used to. But every Monday I get to go to Bible study with this fantastic group of women at All Souls in Wheaton where I attend church. We've been working on Beth Moore's study on King David called A Heart Like His, which is pushing us to look at our lives through the clarifying lens of Scripture. The viewpoint this gives me is sometimes uncomfortable, however this happens in a wonderful circle of comfort and support and it helps me to live better. We pray for each other and share each others' burdens and joys.

Yesterday we did something that was totally unplanned and utterly lovely. We went upstairs to watch the video portion of the lesson only to find that the projector wasn't working with the VCR. So, given the gift of a suddenly open half an hour, we decided to sing. We are blessed to have, in our company, a couple of gifted pianists/organists, one of whom played several hymns for us.

We ended with the hymn This is My Father's World. When we were at our old church, a church battling within and without, the verse of this hymn that says "and though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the Ruler yet." would play in my head every time I went there. It reminded me that God is in control, and, no matter what we are going through, that He is sovereign. It also served to focus me on the reality that my job was to remain in the Word and to love my neighbors and not to despair.

And reveling in the hymns we'd sung yesterday morning brought me to thinking about how much I like the music at All Souls. When we first started at this church I remember thinking I'd like some music written after, say, 1845. I had an hour long chat about it with our pastor and about 45 minutes into the conversation, I decided I'd lost and now I'm glad I did. While I like contemporary Christian music, so much of it is about people's reactions to God, rather than about God. The theology embedded in what we get to sing on a Sunday morning - or a Monday by surprise - is so deep. We have these old hard bound hymnals that came from a church in Canada. I'm sure there's some story attached to how we got the hymnals; I'll have to ask at some point.

But yesterday morning, singing with the women, standing around the piano by the altar, where we got the books from wasn't the point. We raised our voices in spontaneous worship to God. Singing the songs that our parents and our grandparents before them sang, some of which were penned before their parents were born. The quaint, familiar songs that tell of our loving, majestic and sovereign Lord. Words that were true then, are true now, and will be true when our grandchildren sing them.

It was a great Monday.

Prayerful Processing

2009-10-14T21:02:00.000-05:00

One of my friends asked me a while ago how I was praying about something, which got me to thinking about prayer. The kind we come up with, not the kind which are read in church, composed, many of them, by the able hand of Cranmer. I've been mulling on the question ever since, meaning to write about it. And then there was this last week, with the death of my daughter's friend, when writing about it seems to be more necessary.

My initial answer to my friend's question was that sometimes I pour out my problems before God, tattling away on whomever richly deserves it - right up until God gently reminds me that what I'm kvetching about is, rather inconveniently, something I've also done - except probably worse or bigger. Sometimes I'm so upset that God gets to hear that I can't even find the words to pray (and probably enjoys the uncharacteristic silence). Then there are times, too, when my heart is so full of joy or gratitude or peace that I scramble to find words that are big enough to express what I'm seeing or feeling.

And sometimes, like today at the funeral for a fourteen year old, the broken request for His grace and peace wells up, overflowing the confines of my soul. It is the only thing I can do. The funeral home was filled full when her pastor presented the good news of the gospel. Kids sat, holding each other. And God's grace was present.

I'm sure there were many other people praying there today. Aching questions asked of God about why this happened, now, to her. Even if we knew the answer to that one, this beautiful child would still be separated from us, and there wasn't any way anyone could have known, or done something differently or better or anything to have saved her life. There were prayers of thanksgiving for her presence in our lives. And prayers of gratitude that this was a child who was well loved by her parents, adored by her friends, and who lived her short life well.

At the burial, one of the moms said to me that this is where the girls find out that there are things that we mothers can't fix. While our daughters already know that, it is more true right now because this isn't a matter of forgetting to do something, or be somewhere. This is too big and no one can fix it. We just have to live through it.

As her pastor said, we know where Michelle is, and we rejoice in her life and in the fact that she's safe. So the prayer now is one for us. That God's peace, which passes my feeble understanding, will be with us now and always.

Declaration of Interdependence

2009-10-14T09:09:00.000-05:00

Perhaps because we're looking college in the eye - the reality of our family living in two places instead of one...well, three in one place and one in another...I have been wondering why we place such an emphasis on raising our children to be independent. As if living their lives separately is a good thing for either of us. So, I'm going to rebel (albeit late as my kids are teenagers) and aim for interdependent kids.

Should they be able to move out and live alone, supporting themselves and buying us a beach house with any extra that they earn? Sure. I'm not looking for them to live at home forever, exactly. I do want to take the vacations with my beloved that our children would not want to take. I want to go to the National Parks and the churches of Europe and meander around, stopping here and there with a sketch book and pencil, not that I can really draw anything worth looking at. Which wouldn't be the point. Sean will take beautiful pictures and we'll marvel at what we'd have seen that day over a glass of wine.

But I also want to spend the rest of my life with my kids and their kids and, if this low sodium diet doesn't kill me off, with their kids' kids. I need us to be part of each other's lives.

So why do we place this value on independence? It certainly isn't biblical. Honoring your father and mother doesn't involve sending them the odd e-mail and never seeing them. Raising your child up in the way he should go so that when he grows old he doesn't depart from it doesn't imply that you'll be absent as he continues on that path.

I think this whole "ideal" of raising independent children is a lie. Just like that old perfume commercial which told us that women could "bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan, and never let you forget you're a man" as if anyone, male or female, can do all that stuff and not keel over from exhaustion, no matter how nice they smell.

The fabrication goes that we should have at most two kids and the sooner we bring them up to go off and be independent, the sooner we can go back to our lives, as if children somehow make you put off living a life. So we are to start training them early to live alone by using toys that teach them to play quietly by themselves on a computer or in front of the tv while we're on the laptop, the phone, nose in a book....whatever it takes to hang on to an identity other than "Susie's mom." And I'm not innocent of the above, I'm just questioning why I've done what I've done.

We are told by the media that we are "worth it" that we "deserve" stuff - and one of those things that we deserve is our "me" time. But why is that, aside from advertisers obvious interest in getting us to buy their products? I can't see what I've done that is so remarkable that I deserve anything. I'm just a housewife. I live a nice life. I volunteer - at stuff I love doing. And if I "deserve" it - who has to give it to me? Where to I go to cash in this chip? And why is the goal to be so alone?

So how to break this cycle of independence and work on interdependence?

When they're babies, independence is impossible as their needs are too immediate and physical. You're face to face with them while nursing. Your body is tuned to theirs as cutting the umbilical cord didn't actually serve to sever much of anything.

But as they grow older, the connection is far more mental and as such is strewn with exit doors. There's the pre-teen angst of junior high boys. You hope the walls of your house survive the fists that pound on them in frustration. The slamming of doors, the forgetfulness, and the realization that you're using your Lamaze techniques far more than you did during labor. Then follows the teenage moodiness (theirs and mine), the hormonal swings and the strangeness of a generation we're not a part of. They stomp off to their rooms, where you're not really welcome despite the fact (which, by the way, you shouldn't bring up) that you paid for the room and the door, and there is more separateness. Their language is different, their music - only somewhat less so, and the technology they view as normal was inconceivable when we were their age. All obstacles to overcome on the road to interdependence.

So I'm seeking the chink in the armor. One way I've stumbled onto, is to find what they love, whether it be video games or card games or music or whatever, and work out a way to do some of it with them. Putting down my laptop, my CrackBerry (which I love and my entire family entirely hates), or my book and playing a game with them. Some games I'm horrible at and they laugh at me, but I actually beat my son at chess the other day. A game I taught him after he beat me at checkers when he was four. Things I wouldn't have thought to do, but things I'll miss doing when they're away. Things that keep us together and make us laugh.

As we get closer to sending our son to college (if the college applications ever get done), I find us all in the same room more often. I suspect it's the looming threat of separation, even though I do want him to go to learn to be a teacher because he'll be a great one.

But I never want either of my kids to think that they need to, or should, do it all on their own. There are a lot of folks who have held their hands as they've walked toward adulthood. Their teachers who helped them learn, the friends who gentled their rough edges, the family that loved and reared them are all part of the world into which God intentionally placed them. We're none of us meant to be independent or alone.

So I'm going to help them to see both the gifts God has given them and to recognize the gifts God has given to those around them so that they can weave their lives into the tapestry, supporting and being supported by it. I want them to know that they are part of the body of Christ...where neither they, nor any other part, can say "I have no need of you."

Homecoming

2009-10-13T21:17:00.000-05:00

Today was one of those days when leaving the hobbit hole was hard. My daughter's friend died last Thursday. She was fourteen: a sweet, gifted child. Two of my three trips out were routine - to drop off a forgotten thing at school, a run to the grocery store for lunch supplies. The third trip was back to the high school. Back past the news van parked out to cover the kids coming back to the high school for the first time after the death, back to pick up my daughter and two of her friends to take them to the wake.

The girls chatted in the car; they'd not done what was next. I knew, though. It was like that moment last Thursday afternoon, just prior to telling my daughter of the news of her friend's death. That moment before adding one of life's truly hard experiences into a formerly innocent life. The moment a parent doesn't even think to dread when her child is little.

We went in to the funeral home and saw their teachers from Junior High. All in a cluster, teary eyed and reaching out to the girls, telling them how grown-up they looked, how beautiful. And then on into the viewing room. Into some other reality, standing in a line of people who are all either crying or staring up at the ceiling trying not to. Inching toward what cannot possibly be real. A still, young girl wearing her Homecoming dress. The one she was supposed to wear this Saturday.

The girls move forward. Touching the pictures on the easels. Holding their tissues and each other. Wearing the t-shirts that they'd made a couple of days earlier, saying in the colors lime green and purple - her colors - that they would love her always. That they would never forget her.

I remember the first time someone my age died. Junior year in high school, a couple of years ahead of where they are now. We weren't close, but I still remember his name and always will. He was the first to go home.

We approach her family - there is nothing to say in such a situation. If the pain were smaller, there would be words that could contain or somehow control it. But there are not, because the death of an only child - or any child - doesn't come with appropriate words. "I'm sorry" is all that comes out through the immense thing that has lodged itself in my throat, disabling my vocal chords.

Her father hugs my daughter and her friends. He tells them the truth - which is that we will see her again. We are Christians so we will. The separation, however, is agonizing. We were created by God to not only worship Him, but to love and to live with each other. Which is the truth too.

Tomorrow is Wednesday and the funeral. The third of the triad of experiences. The finding out, the viewing, and then the formal saying good bye. And then, starting Thursday, there is the rest. The living without. Sitting with a different lunch buddy. Not getting texts from her when she gets to school. Not hearing her laugh or seeing her smile. Learning to breathe past the hitch in your throat - to keep going. Which they will all do. And the rest of the world will go on around them as if nothing had happened.

My daughter is growing up. Sometimes I don't see it when it happens and just realize later that she's taller or more mature or somehow older. Mostly, this growing up makes me rejoice. Although I pretend to be sad about her being as tall as me, or the same shoe size, or entering high school, the reality is that I want her to thrive. To grow up into the wonderful young woman I know she will be.

I just wish, like every parent, that I could wrap her in cotton wool, mark her with a "Fragile" sign, and protect her from pain. But, I can't and so I'll do what mothers do. Walk beside her, holding a box of Kleenex, and praying for God's protection and grace over her all the days of her life.