Frankincense. Who knew?

This morning I put away some of the Christmas Décor. Since we don’t take down our tree until January 6,  just the stockings and a few other things have been boxed up ready for storage. 

Snippets of Christmas music danced in my mind as I packed them away. I love to sing. I love to sing Christmas songs, as they are generally so happy and sentimentally touching. Humming a strain of Karen Carpenter’s “ there He lies, there with the lambkin, only swaddle for His garment,” I picked up the Santa with the wobbly ( and now after 22 years) detachable head that Randall played with as a baby, the train set of ornaments from Craig’s first Christmas, but left the cards received on the shelf where they had been nestled among pine branches. A sympathy card for my late father’s passing sits among them. I paused.

Celebration and sorrow on the same shelf.  “ Prince of Peace o’er all the universe ♪ alleluia al - le - lu - ia,” swelled in my mind.

We sang a Latin piece from the 1500's, Personent Hodie, for Christmas Eve, as we processed. Walking slowly down the aisle of our glorious stone cathedral, in half-light, banners on every pillar, I felt transported to another time, where somber music gave glory and honor to the Christ Child. 

My son Brett and other tenors and their bass counterparts intoned, "Magi tres venerunt, parvulum inquirunt, Bethlehem adeunt, stellulam sequendo, ipsum adorando, aurum, thus, et myrrham ei offerendo," while I and my soprano section echoed 'aurum, thus, thus, thus, aurum, thus, thus, thus' 

"The three Magi came, in search of a little child, They go to Bethlehem, following the little stars, worshiping him, gold, frankincense, and myrrh to him offering."

Frankincense favored heavily in the soprano descant in the measures listing the Gifts of the Magi, more than gold.  Gold, for a King. Myrrh, to foretell of His death, 33 years hence. (Celebration and sorrow, at the manger.) 

Frankincense, used in the Temple for centuries, and in the manger ostensibly to ward off the smells of the animals huddling nearby. Through the magic of the Internet I discovered this fact of the tree which produces the fragrant resin:

<Frankincense trees are also considered unusual for their ability to grow in environments so unforgiving that they sometimes grow directly out of solid rock. The means of initial attachment to the stone is not known but is accomplished by a bulbous disk-like swelling of the trunk. This disk-like growth at the base of the tree prevents it from being torn away from the rock during the violent storms that frequent the region they grow in. This feature is slight or absent in trees grown in rocky soil or gravel. The tears from these hardy survivors are considered superior for their more fragrant aroma.>  Who knew that the source that kids have quipped as Frankenstein had such resilience?

The source goes to say that frankincense trees are on the decline due to over-exploitation and beetle infestation, and includes a reference to Herodotus, who documented the trees being dangerous to harvest due to venomous snakes inhabiting them. 

Huh.

A tree that can grow out of a rock which produces ‘tears’ used to create fragrance, which is being attacked by outside forces and at one time, habitually surrounded by snakes.

Huh.

The Church grew from Peter, the Rock anointed to carry forth the Good News. (Peter was a mess. Over emotional, doubtful, outspoken, passionate, impetuous. Not at all a candidate for ministry.) There were tears shed over the death of Christ, not only for His suffering, but for the loss of the overthrow of the government oppressing the weeping populace. 

People of faith still stand on the Rock, the foundation for the Cross, but are buffeted by the winds of  denominationalism, greed, scandal, the rise of secular ‘civil rights’ which afford all other belief systems to flourish but quell public Christianity. Snakes of all types slither into churches -- tradition, pride, ego, past hurts, failures, over-emphasis on budgets, business- instead of ministry-principles at play. 

Over the centuries, the fragrance of the Church, inviting and warm and laced with notes of hope, has evolved into knock-off denominational scents that pass for Christianity because of similar labeling. These knock-offs turn away agnostics and atheists and those who have been hurt by the "Christians" who bathe in self-righteousness and religious practices, not faith. 

There are many true Christians in mainline denominations, to be sure, but they seem to be outnumbered by Churchgoers who believe in grace-by-works and social standing.

Nonetheless, the fragrance of Christianity, the true fragrance, is not at all offensive, and it has no denominational overtones, no political undertones. It has lingered for over 2000 years. As the cliché says, Wise men still seek it. 

It is pure. 

May you breathe of it, the scent of peace, the soft smell of comfort, the aroma of hope; the lavish lingering of Love that has no boundaries, in this coming New Year.  

♪Strange as it seems there's been a run of crazy dreams...

For a few years now, I have made it a practice to say a little prayer before I get up in the morning.

Nothing astute, as I have but a few incoherent mumbles before my coffee just a Thank You and please keep my family ( and I list them from oldest to youngest ) in Your care to-day. I have always started with my mom and my dad, of course over the last year adding Jonathan's parents and children and siblings along with mine, in descending order.
     Mom, Dad, Mom & Dad, my older sibs ( and nieces and nephews), Jonathan, my younger sibs
( which include my Israeli family) and all of nine of our combined kids. I have to admit, it is a mental challenge to keep everybody in age order as the total number of immediate family is 43. (Pretty prolific for a Protestant-based clan. LOL.  To be sure, I'm not touting my own prayer ritual as righteous holiness, as it is the one attempt at holiness I have on any given day.)

   Now the List is down to 42. 

   For the last ten days I have struggled with leaving my dad off the prayer list. I know he's in heaven, and no longer in need of prayer, but it's hard to break the habit. After a long lonely week of mourning, I have relative peace about his passing and about our past, but he's been in my dreams just to spite me, LOL, even if my conscious self has calmed. 

   In a recent production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, we sang the line, " Strange as it seems there's been a run of crazy dreams..." Last night I dreamed of a puzzle piece type image, a Facebook photo-post of all things ( yes I know I have no life ) that I couldn't get in the right place, and I kept waking up and falling asleep right back into the dream thread. Even in my dream state I knew that piece was Daddy. The other day I shared with friends that I had a dream... where I was on the highway. No big deal... except I saw in front of me and then in passing, a baby elephant, a hippo with glass stuck to him (like sprinkles on a cookie), a penguin playing with a puppy, and a wild boar.  Since I have no Joseph to interpret, I went to a dream dictionary just to see if any of it made sense. Interestingly enough, 

it did!

     Hippos in dreams are said to represent hidden strength, aggressive nature and possible territorial tendencies. Check. Broken glass, disappointments and a relationship that has come to an end – check.  
     Elephants indicate a need for more patience, letting go of a memory -- and represent power, strength, faithfulness, and intellect. Check.
     Penguins symbolize the fact that problems are not as serious as they appear, and wild boars indicate a need to delve within one's self to seek answers. Check.
     The highway is pretty self-explanatory, on a journey. ha!

    On a conscious level, I’ve found myself flitting between the three of the stages of grief, anger, denial, depression, glossing over bargaining because really, there was no hope for recovery. The forecast is mostly acceptance, with lingering showers of sorrow at unexpected moments.

    In my sub-conscious, I’m still searching for an answer. My intellect won’t let this one go… and at least one of the many siblings on my morning litany is having the same problem, except on a very painful, conscious level. I told her this morning in a message that true love is defined in the Bible…patient, kind, doesn’t bear a grudge… and that’s how she loved our dad. I did too, for the last fifteen years, after I got through the first two times of losing him to his intellect and his alcoholism ( a deadly combination). She lived the Commandment of 'honor thy father and mother' far better than I ever have, in my own nearsightedness. Perhaps that's where the zoo animals showed up on my 'highway', as funky road signs.  Either that or I need Breathe-right strips to get more sound sleep. LOL Probably both.  

     I can no longer ask for prayers for my dad, and there's a touch of sadness in that. Then I remember the hippo in my dream, and how I need to step back from trying to save everyone I love, even from themselves. So... now in the daily pause between my mom and Jon's folks, there's a little sigh of thanks for a daddy I loved, and after I have my coffee and get going every day, my mind is filled with prayers and plans for finding where to put the puzzle pieces. Given my track record, it may take another thirty years to figure things out... oye.  As a dear one pointed out recently, some folks are late bloomers, so... it's all good. "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." Romans 8:28 Sometimes He even works for the good of those who aren't called, because that's the kind of Dad He is. The Best Dad, Ever. 

    

     

Sitting Shivah, Singing Gospel... Good Grief.

♪Amen! Amen!♪ A aaaa men ♪ a-men a-men!

We’ve all heard that Negro Spiritual at least once in our lifetime. (Yes, it is called  a Negro Spiritual. History is not always PC.) :-P 

Amen means “So be it.”  “So be it” does not consistently translate to “Hallelujah everything is wonderful”.It’s an agreement, an acceptance to the prayer offered, whether in jubilation or despair. Ancient counterpart to today's ad nauseum, "It is what it is." 

My half-siblings are half way through their required week of Jewish grief in Northern Israel. Sitting shivah in an Orthodox home means covering the mirrors, lighting a single candle, sitting on the floor, no shoes, no showers,  reciting the Kaddish - the mourner's prayer, for a seven-day period of mourning. (No doubt the grieving is exacerbated by the grieving, guilt, and mild gall of my former ‘stepmother’, who may be coming to terms with the journey she shared with a man twenty years her senior, her contribution to his alcoholism, and missed opportunities. She shouldn’t be so hard on herself… we all make Big Mistakes.) 

As utterly miserable as they may be, at least they are together, and there is finality to the passing, and some sort of closure.

I lost a dear friend this summer to something similar… infection, surgery, infection, body succumbing. He was 34 years younger than my dad, and we held his hand at the hospital and told him we loved him…and a week later, sat in church and cried and laughed and cried together. I'll not soon forget the anguished face of his youngest son turning back to look at the casket one last time before recessing out.

There are moments of my day when I have that anguished look, only it’s a dull ache in my chest. I get misty every couple of hours, and at night, I cry for all the stupidity of years lost, stubbornness, stoicisim, and persons who do not allow themselves to publicly mourn, for their own reasons. Ironically, if my dad were here, he’d tell me to “save my tears for something important.” Hmmh.

I wish I had a funeral to go to. 

I wish I could force myself to get dressed formally and drag myself to a church or a synagogue and be put through the torture of facing the loss of a loved one.

Instead I am here, alone in my grief, unable to mourn him with any one whom I have a shared history, since his departure from my family basically perforated it all those years ago and it has never been quite the same.

I used to have dreams of seeing my dad in a random place and just hugging him, and finally after a twenty year absence, I got to do just that, in sort of a random place, an airport terminal. Same place I hugged him good-bye a week later, knowing it would be the only time that would transpire. What a wonder it is that the dream even ever came true at all.

I wish I could have an end date to our mourning...and wish there was someone to mourn his loss with me. My Jonathan told me it tore him up to not be able to rush home, to be here with me. I wept, and then told him 'soldiers have to stay at their posts,' even though I wish he were here, too. 

On Sunday morning, I shared with my fellow choir members that the music we sang would have been cherished by the Daddy I knew back in the 60's...jazzy gospel and classical praise. We grew up listening to the Robert Shaw Chorale, Mahalia Jackson, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and Glenn Miller. He would have been tapping his toes at the "Jazz Gloria", and teared up at the Saint-Saens "Oratorio". Through the same stifled anguished ‘look’ I trilled "Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord our God who cometh" on the day my father was buried.  I mentioned tearfully to some that the service we had this was the funeral service I always would have imagined for my father, Christ-centered and full of glorious sound. 

I sat stock-still as the Christmas Toccata was masterfully offered by our Juilliard-trained organist, Kiyo Watanabe. Filled with familiar strains of ancient hymns, it also has a melancholy and dark air woven to the last few measures, and then a resulting gentle finale.

The dynamic of the Toccata IS the dynamic of Christmas. It’s joy and strain and darkness and hope and sorrow and frenzy and peace and beauty, in rapid succession and intermingled with each other.

Sounds a little Hebraic? That’s because it is… but the end of the Story is not mourning at the death of the grown Christ. He came to live among us that we might have hope beyond sitting shivah, beyond no funerals, beyond this finite world.

The ache comes and goes. The hope remains that I will hug my dad again, because I believe what he believed, that the end of the Story is not mourning and gnashing of teeth, but glory in the presence of the Father.

So be it.

♪ fa la la la la, and Kalamazoo

So last night we decorated our tree, with my Jonathan Gilbert on Skype on my laptop, having gone to dinner to raise a glass in the memory of my boy's other grandfather, whose first name happened to be: Gilbert. Life is funny sometimes.

   I went to bed happy as a lark, tree lights twinkling in my spirit. 

   Jonathan called me this morning, around 8:30 a.m. and via Skype I got to see him drape golden tinsel on a tiny tree, in his apartment in Kuwait. :-) He was pretty happy with himself! I was sleepily overjoyed to see my boy celebrating the Season in a tangible way!  We signed off, both needing coffee and food, at different ends of the same day, and I checked my e-mail and Facebook before having a shower and calling him back before he went to bed. Then I learned that today was The Day.

   My younger half-sister, Daniella, had apparently left a message for me at 7 a.m. which I did not get, having been asleep and then awakened to the sight of a tiny Kuwaiti "tannenbaum".

    " Just got a call from the hospital to come right away"... Oh no. This is it.  My long estranged and now suffering from dementia father had a leg removed two weeks ago today, and had been battling blood poisoning since. 

    I had to recharge my cell phone twice in the course of the day, in between calls to Daniella and my half-sister Kfirah, having to talk to my dad's second wife for only the second time in 14 years ( the last being when my Aunt Yvonne died, and my illustrious father had been placed in an Israeli detention/detox for a drunken rampage,  unable to receive the news until he finally sobered up), breaking the sad news to my father's only surviving sister, and then calling my cousins, and the rest of my family who are in varying stages of grief, and then calling Jonathan's mom after sniffling through an end of the day call with him, to debrief. 

   See, when after your parents get divorced and your dad moves to Israel with his second wife and then disowns you and your siblings for ten years while in the meantime he has a whole other family, it gets a little convoluted. Even after 30 years, after you have you made peace and move forward as adults and allow grace to enter in and heal over tender scar tissue, it gets a little twinge-y... simply due to lost years, lost life, lost love. 

  As I write this, it is morning in Israel, and the second set of Bailor kids, minus one or two, are making preparations to attend the burial of their sometimes manic, once-upon- a-time marvelous father. Daddy plowed hard through life, whether in a mad rush to score a basketball goal, deliver an exam that gave people migraines but never let them forget the subject matter, disciplining a recalcitrant child with a knuckle thump on the head or taking one to lunch or for ice cream-- with a drink in his hand, and either a joke on his lips or an angry scowl on his brow. Nothing in between.

   On this day that we have all been dreading for years, The Day We Get The Call About Dad, I'm wistfully sad. 

    Tonight is not any different in my life than any other day... Daddy has been absent from my life for the better part of 27 years, 10 of them being disowned by him and his family. (I broke the ice on my 30th birthday, calling to talk to him as if Nothing Bad had ever happened, and didn't lose track of him for very long at a time in the fifteen years hence.)

    My heart is not sad because he died, as I am relieved that he is with my grandparents and aunt and uncles and reunited with his best friend, Uncle Jerry, Aunt Donna's husband who has been gone for 40 years. 'Bout time those two caught up. 

   My heart is not sad for me, or my kids that didn't know my dad save for one Christmas vacation five years ago, when we were all together for four days. 

   My heart is full. Full of relief that he can be with Uncle Jerry and the rest of our loved ones that have gone ahead, full of wistfulness that he missed so many years wandering the streets in a drunken stupor, full of questions of why he jumped the track of a successful youth leader and college professor to lead the life of an Israeli emigré at age 43, full of happy memories of me and my dad, my dad and us kids, especially at Christmas when he would get fairly silly and make us giggle a lot when he was not knuckle thumping us, in church, to get us to stop giggling. HA. 

   How he loved Christmas! Loved the seasonal sweets, and the holiday spirits, the faculty parties, the church parties, and the lights on the houses and the celebration of the Christ Child being born in a messy manger. He loved the beginning of the Story, because back then he ascribed to the End of it, where the Christ Child returned in full glory to redeem those who knelt at the cross where He ended his human tenure. Daddy loved the Candlelight service, and the Christmas hymns and silly Christmas songs of his childhood, equally. Just as my brother and sister would sing, 'to save us all from Santa Claus when he was on his sleigh' instead of  'to save us all from Satan's power when we were gone astray', LOL, Daddy would putter through the house, singing "Deck us all with Boston Charlie fa la la la la and Kalamazoo..." He loved to put the Christmas lights up on the house, not primly along the roof line like everyone else, but in a Star of David to celebrate Jesus' Hebrew lineage. We should have known... :-)

   My heart is full. It’s two hours into the day that my dad will be buried, in Israel. We cannot be there, and yet we are there. There are traces of us American-borns in the faces of the Israeli-born, and on their children, too.  (My son Craig has strong personality tendencies of his grandpa's, and they spent all of four days together.)   

  There are traces of him in each of us, strong-willed, bright-minded, resolute, passionate.

  My heart is full of the wonder of God, for allowing grace and time to put together the pieces of broken lives and make something new out of them.

   Like my brother eloquently stated this morning, Dad is Home for Christmas. My heart is full.

  

   

♪ Daddy's Little Girl...yeah...♪

When you are three, this is how your daddy sees you, and you feel like a princess...


"You’re the end of the rainbow, my pot of gold.
You're daddy's little girl, to have and hold.
A precious gem is what you are;
You're mommy's bright and shining star.

You’re the spirit of Christmas, the star on our tree.
You’re the Easter Bunny to Mommy and me.
You’re sugar, you're spice, and you're everything nice
And You’re Daddy’s Little Girl

You’re a treasure I cherish, all sparkling and bright.
You were touched by Holy and beautiful light;
Like the angels who sing, a heavenly thing;
And you’re Daddy’s Little Girl"


...and sometimes as a bride you danced to this in your daddy's arms. Some girls feel this way their whole lives. Lucky lucky lucky ducks... Sometimes Life doesn't let the fairy tale turn out just like that... and we carry on. Just like my dad always told us to. Hmmmph.


My big strong daddy could speak and read seven languages, play basketball and football, got tenure at a college at a  young age, and was the toast of the town. When I was three. 


Alcohol literally consumed him during my childhood. We didn't dance at my wedding...


I talked to my sister, Daniella, today, for the first time in our lives. She has a beautiful, soft, Israeli-accented voice which matches her beautiful face, and we both wept and sniffled the whole time we were on the phone, and I got to tell her thank you for being there for Daddy, and that I loved her.


See, after my parent's divorce when my sisters and I ranged in age from senior in high school to second grader, my dad went on to have six more kids, a total of three sons and seven daughters in all. ( My mom was pretty funny after she found out that he'd had a passel more children " Boy am I glad he left!", as she jolly well should,  but deep in her heart she still mourns his leaving.)


Through a Series of Unfortunate Events that would make a Lifetime movie instead of a comical jaunt with Jim Carrey and Meryl Streep, we were disowned and estranged from my dad for ten long years. During that time I had my three sons; my brother and sister-in-law their fourth child, my dad as well. Both girls, one named Danielle, and one named Daniella. Through a Second Series of Unfortunate Events my dad's second marriage ended, and he spent a lot of years living a sad lonely life -- except for Daniella. She would visit, and she had pictures of us, her American family, up in the room she stayed in. She would write me notes and I wrote back, glad to know that my alcoholic father had something to focus on besides his past turbulent vodka consumption.

He got sober finally, but not until every one of his kids except for three -- me, Daniella, and my big brother  -- wanted to have anything to do with him.  The last fifteen years have been an exercise in perseverance, as my dad has  slowly declined into an advanced elderly state and into dementia. The once brilliant athlete-scholar wore himself out with his self-destruction.

I think he felt his dementia coming on, and five years ago he called and said he wanted to come home for Christmas. He spent time with my brother and family up north, and then my mother offered to have him stay with her so we could all be home together. It is the only time we have been  with my parents,both together, since 1978, and the only time I have seen my dad in person since 1986, and the one and only time my sons, nieces and nephews will ever know their grandpa.

Daniella wrote today and said that Daddy had surgery, and that the outcome wasn't clear.  He's 79 years old, with a 40 year alcohol abuse history. We cried together when we later spoke on the phone. See, she hasn't had the extra thirty years to distance herself from being 'Daddy's little girl'... and even though I have, I still cried.

None of us sister-siblings has felt much like Daddy's little girl... but the memory of those long-ago princess moments with him might carry us through what comes next, and allow some grace to soften the not-so-princess ones.

Peace and comfort to you, Dad. Peace and comfort.

♪ Easy to Be Hard ♪

From the musical, "Hair":


How can people be so heartless
How can people be so cruel
Easy to be hard
Easy to be cold


How can people have no feelings
How can they ignore their friends
Easy to be proud
Easy to say no


And especially people
Who care about strangers
Who care about evil
And social injustice
Do you only
Care about the bleeding crowd?

I wandered around this morning, getting ready to simply get out of the house after a looong Monday of Adventures in Dogsitting..but taking Zeus to the vet for personal issues will not be the basis for this blog. Oye no. He's better... and at home with my oldest son today.

While I blow-dried my hair, I thought of texting a friend to go have coffee, and my thoughts wandered to  how I used to go have tea of a Saturday. I started to get wistful, and then remembered that every Saturday was a whine fest about life, church, and church. We rationalized it as venting until one day I said to the person I happened to be with," we've been having this conversation for  a year." 


It took me another year to distance myself from all of those relationships that were based on 'faith'. They weren't based on 'faith'...okay maybe a few. But most of that fellowship was bi-polar in nature.We were either at a party -- or -- helping someone in a crisis. Nothing in between...and it's not just that church, or those people. 

Bad news makes for good gossip. Just think of any news broadcast...we read the ticker across the bottom of CNN and make a judgement on the story, out loud, before the end of it makes it across the big screen. It's easy to be hard, easy to be cold, easy to write a check for tsunami relief and pack shoeboxes for needy children at Christmas, easy to show up at a grieving widow's home with a casserole. It makes us feel good about ourselves. We are helping the less fortunate, the needy the hurting, sometimes in the name of God.

So many churches have this country club mentality, this birthday party/funeral attention deficit dysfunction. If you go twice a week and give of your time and money, you are a member in good standing and get a gold star on your membership card. 

So many people have turned away from organized religion for just this reason -- that little song "the church is not a building, the church is not a steeple, the church is the people". 

The Church is not a people... it's not decorating for Christmas and Easter and vacation Bible school and Sunday School. It's about worship, reverence, homage and service to a Creator God, who chose to live as a human being.  

Friendship, true friendship, is not based in crisis or celebration either. Authentic friendship is not bi-polar. It grows and curls around your life and heart like a vine, sometimes dormant in 'winter', but the roots are always there. Kind of like faith... true faith in a Higher Power. Waxing and waning with the seasons, sometimes, but the root never dies,and the tendrils reach out to everyone, not just eligible 'country club' members or poverty-stricken afflicted folks in need.

♪ Silent Night ... by Taylor Swift?

In my weekly missive to my Jonathan's family, I mused on celebrating Advent.  As an adult it seems a little passé, sometimes, since baby Jesus was born all those years ago and hasn't decided to come back as He promised, thus so far...and yet...

...within the mystery of why He chose to become incarnate is the reason for the annual liturgical observances.

No other god, no other deity, no other supreme being walked among mortals. Why would they need to? They were SUPREME beings. No need for mortal sustenance, mortal relationships, mortal interactions. Why demote yourself to this planet if you are a Greek or Roman deity, an female goddess, a  Creator God? No need, no interest. 

I listened to a new version of Silent Night this morning with a little Appalachian influence, more plaintive, quietly reflective. Funny that it would be from a teen-idol pop star, the flaxen-spiral-curled Taylor Swift, who is this generation's crossover Olivia Newton-John. ;-)

Yes she's a pop star...and a musician who writes her own music in response to what is around her..Silent Night. When the organ pipes failed and Franz Gruber wrote a song that Father Mohr played "unplugged". He wrote in response to what was happening. God did the same thing, in deciding to show up here, incarnate.

That particular story of the manger sums up God to me. A Creator of galaxies, the universe, and this silly planet with all of its wonders decided to go through what we do.

 Glory in spite of mortal failure.

Birth, childhood, adolescence, single adulthood -- living with his mothah until he was 30 ( in Jewish cultchah,  when he should have been mahrried at 20, oye, the shame ) -- in a primitive barbaric oppressed nation, and then choosing an agonizing death. 

Glory in spite of mortal failure.

God cares about us silly stupid stubborn people, who live in poverty like He did, or comfort like King Herod did just up the hill from the manger. He cares, far beyond enough, about us to literally go through this life.

I got to watch Brett and the other Youth hang banners proclaiming joy this morning, in spite of my crazy life and achy off-balance existence without my grey-haired blue-eyed boy. A group of families came to lay garlands on the altar rails, and another couple placed huge poinsettias on the chancel altar. Little kids hung gold and white Chrismons on a sparkly tree. Not just tradition, although some take comfort in that, but a big vivid Thank You because He, Jesus, chose to live this mortal life.

You've seen the adage 'only two individuals give their lives for you, the American soldier and Jesus Christ". True enough...but the American soldier didn't choose to be born. Only one person ever did, and His birthday is celebrated at the end of this month.

♪ Twinkle Twinkle Little Star ♪

I wrote this on the plane today, instead of sleeping. :-) 

Waiting. 

 Just a few moments ago we were waiting on the runway, under gray skies at O’Hare, waiting for clearance to take off…and now we are cruising at 30,000 feet in the sunshine, above the clouds.

Funny how life alternates like that.

Lots of life passes waiting for wonderful moments… when you are 5 waiting to be 6, or at least tall enough to ride the good rides at Disneyland without a parent… waiting in lines AT Disneyland… yearning to be 16…18…21… anticipating high school/college/grad school graduation… counting down the days to the wedding… waddling through the days to the baby… crossing off days to Christmas/vacation/retirement…

…and conversely, waiting for moments that you wish you just skip… dozing in a crowded airport, wishing for a shorter delay…sitting in traffic when you could be home…when a marriage ends and you have to pick up the pieces… tensing up for the lab results when you just haven’t felt ‘right’… holding the hand of a loved one while they transition from this world to the next.

Life seems to rush by, but consists of many chapters in limbo, wondering what comes next.

Waiting.

I waited thirty years to see a friend again, and after that time, he fell in love with me and I with him. We’ll see each other face to face every six months for the next two years while he covers overseas assignments…and Skype and Yahoo chat in the meantime.

Waiting.

Stretch marks the size of the Grand Canyon by the time my first child decided to get here, and then took 29 hours of labor and a C-section before he felt like hanging out in the hospital instead of pressing on my bladder.

Waiting.

Twenty years’ estrangement with my academic alcoholic father, and then found myself sitting with my sisters and both of our parents in their dining room, for Christmas, with my sons.

Waiting.

Two years after a mastectomy, five surgeries and an aberrant infection in irradiated tissue… still waiting to see if marginal wholeness will ever be attained.

Waiting.

I’ve learned that waiting can be good, even if often agonizing and generally tedious. We have no control over anything so if we plan, if we don’t plan, life goes on anyway. Marriages end, babies are born, earthquakes happen, friends reunite -- the ebb and flow of the tides over the sands of time.  

While we were on the tarmac just now, a little kid in the back belted out “twinkle twinkle little star, <murmuring next line and then crescendo> up above the world so high like a diamond in the sky” cut off by his mamma before he could finish the verse. HA!

Check out the scenery while you are waiting for whatever you look forward to, and find something beautiful to focus on. Look carefully at the loved ones waiting with you, and mentally jot down what you love about them. Belt out a song that you love.

Fill the moments while you wait… and gray skies will give way to brighter times eventually.

♪ I Hope You Dance

     I dunno if you saw this, but today when I saw 'Where in The World is Matt Lauer?' and his piece about a tribe of Namibians who live the same way their ancestors did thousands of years ago, in dung huts and with little water, living on goat milk and goats' meat -- I got a little wistful.
    Wistful?? <she has definitely gone over the edge, you say>. Wistful. These people are herders.They have no phones, no computers, no electricity. The men wear western dress now, but the women still wear goatskins garments and use a mixture of ocher, ash, and grease to protect and beautify themselves. To make of for lack of water, the women cleanse themselves with smoke from burning a local herb, so they smell pretty.  
     Every evening they sing and dance in front of the holy fire, as the sun goes down, thankful for another day. The sheer joy on all faces is what made me wistful.
   There is an undercurrent of malaise among us these days. Nothing seems right, like when you are a little kid and one of your parents goes away on a business trip or an extended visit, and the house isn't the same until they come home. We have fleeting happiness, but rarely know that sheer joy.
    Most of us Westerners certainly would not  in front of a small fire -- before retiring to a dung-covered hut to sleep on the ground for the night.
    That is all they know, and ergo, all they need.
    I am looking at my laptop, a TV remote, my 3G cell phone, a flat-screen TV, XBOX 360, DVD player, and a cozy living room full of stuff that I have acquired, arranged, and adored for quite some time. Not saying that I wanna go live in a dung-covered hut anytime soon, but the pang of near envy I felt for that thankful face in a desert sunset near a fire really grabbed my consciousness.
    Similarly, yesterday morning in church, I had that same longing for simplicity and peace, and it was answered in a manner most removed from the Namibians' day-to-day existence. I sing in a church with great gleaming organ pipes above each side of the chancel where the choir sits, and we face each other instead of looking out to the pews. Every Sunday, the organist plays the prelude while people straggle in from the parking lot, the restroom, the classrooms, wherever. My section sits and chats about the events and folks listed in the bulletin, and there is a pleasant buzz of fellowship and conversation throughout the sanctuary.  I tuned out yesterday, and just listened to the music.
    The combination of the soaring rich notes of the organ emitting from those gleaming pipes, the sight of 10-foot stained glass windows arching high above warm stone walls, and the intricately carved woodwork gracing the tops of the pipes like a mahogany curtain somehow removed me from the chatter and the crowd. I didn't move, didn't consciously tune out, but the glory of what I was seeing and hearing took me to a place where sheer beauty and I existed alone for just a few moments.
   I struggle with what I don't have. I can't point to a long and lucrative career, my body has been attacked by cancer and cancer-related surgeries, I haven't had the same 'regular' life as my peers, and have yet to 'catch up' with the ones I deem successful. I struggle with the fact that I feel the same way I did in high school, present but not really part of the scene. LOL
   God has a way of yanking me out of the doldrums. The wondrous sight and sound of the prelude yesterday evenly matched the wonder of the joyful faces of those simple people this morning, and then a friend posted this from Ralph Waldo Emerson.
      "To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and to endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.
    Joy can be found in rich, sumptuous experiences -- and in sparse simplicity. Your spirit can dance beneath mahogany woodwork in a cathedral, or on a desert floor. We are all minutiae in the story of the universe, but we can dance while we are here.


I hope you never lose your sense of wonder 
You get your fill to eat 
But always keep that hunger 
May you never take one single breath for granted 
God forbid love ever leave you empty handed 
I hope you still feel small 
When you stand by the ocean 
Whenever one door closes, I hope one more opens 
Promise me you'll give faith a fighting chance 

And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance 
I hope you dance 
I hope you dance 


Lee Ann Womack

♪ Let Your Love Show

My kin-dred spirit Sam attends Early Childhood Education classes in the same buildings that I did, back in the Dark Ages, at RCC. Despite the fact that she or her sisters could have BEEN one of the little darlings on our playground tucked away on the corner of the football field of the College, she now shares the same enthusiasm for the wee ones as I did at her 20-something age -- and still do. No doubt she has read and researched Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs,  Maria Montessori, Gardner's Multiple Intelligences, and a plethora of other academic  explorations in the field of ECE, all designed to help slightly older children help educate the rug rats.

      Some <cough> twenty-something years later, the name of the researcher escapes me, but the story of how crib slats evolved stayed with me from the tender years at RCC. Orphaned babies in England after WWII had a huge mortality rate -- until an astute nurse noticed that the little ones responded so mightily to the faces of the nurses peering into their cribs, but were listless for the rest of the time, and failing to thrive. When slats were cut into the sides of the cribs, allowing the compartmentalized toddlers to see and react to one another, the mortality rate dropped in half.

       Human interaction IS vital to existence. Most obviously for propagation of the species, but even more basic – we need to be loved.

        A friend of mine stated recently, “ You can’t see it, can’t taste it, can’t hear it, can touch it, can’t smell it…yet it is a sense that we require to survive.” Those little orphans needed to see their nursery-mates smiling in between the stretches when the nurses could hold them.  It’s why our eyes glisten when we get close to home after a long absence, why we bind with newborns that have just torn up our bodies, why we long for companionship and acceptance from infancy on.

      Love is mentioned in the Bible more often than any other topic… and if you don’t believe in God or Jesus, you still know love. If you are opposed to religion as a load of hogwash from ancient times, I agree.

    Religion has nothing to do with love. Religion is a set of rules based on obligations to earn spiritual favor.

     A carpenter from Nazareth lived his life opposed to religion, and preached love instead. Those in power attempted to catch him breaking their religious laws time and again. When asked what the greatest commandment was, he replied, “Love your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind”, followed by “and, love your neighbor as yourself.”  There was no offering of turtle doves or rendering a bull on an altar, no church dogma or denominational credo…simply an admonishing to love the Creator with everything you have and in so doing, love others also created – including yourself. The Amish state it more simply in an oft-printed and stitched acrostic.

Jesus first

   Others next

You…last

     Again, if you don’t ascribe to Christianity, you still know love. You still need love. 

     Mother Teresa, one of the least aesthetically attractive people ever, held a beauty that movie stars can never capture.  She loved so many children that she carried their glow within her.

    Millions of kids have carved out pumpkins for tonight’s Hallowe’en festivities. Ancient tales state that jack-o-lanterns kept the devil away from the dearly departed. Seeds and strings were scraped out of less than beautiful gourds and transformed into glowing works of art. Sam will spends countless hours in her chosen vocation creating works of art in pumpkins and other media. You can be a work of art too, even though preschool was a long long time ago.

     In my trick-or-treating days, a Bellamy Brothers song used to pour out of the transistor radio in my room. 

Just let your love flow like a mountain stream
And let your love grow with the smallest of dreams
And let your love show and you'll know what I mean- it's the season
Let your love fly like a bird on the wing
And let your love bind you to all living things
And let your love shine and you'll know what I mean- that's the reason.

     No matter if you think Jesus is a fairy tale, or not, let your love show… lighting the lives of others… and your own. 
    The carpenter from Nazareth had the same idea...

♪ Jesus Take the Wheel...

   I've spent lots and lots of time on the road lately. Haven't had a vacation for ten years...and then three in a matter of two months.
   My sister and I tooled around New Mexico in August, hitting a Rick Springfield concert with a horde of other middle-aged groupies,  a baseball game, an Indian pueblo, a drive to the Sandia mountains, and out to the Boca Negra petroglyphs -- putting more than a few miles under her wheels. The weather was good but summer traffic heavy -- yet blessedly we had no travel troubles.
    Early this month my bestest Jonathan touched down in Dallas, fresh from Gaghanistan, and the whole first day home he wanted to drive ( IN DALLAS ) where "no one was shooting at them". Living in Kabul for the past four years trained him well for the Madness of the Metroplex, and he navigated through Dallas-Grapevine-Fort Worth like a pro! We then sallied forth across the prairie and into southern Oklahoma, and back, to visit with my tribe. From the Texas State Fair to Whiskey Flats and everywhere in between, we had travel angels.
    Parnelli Jon scooped me up from the Tucson airport two weeks ago, and we headed through Yuma and on into Southern California to visit the folks. The rolling hills of Oceanside and San Diego offered no challenge...and we meandered up the valley to the Inland Empire, skittering back and forth through Riverside for a few days, on to Yucaipa and the Apple country, and then back through the desert to Arizona and Tucson where I headed for home. Only for one split-second did a skittering tractor-trailer raise our blood pressure... but that passed without incident as well. My oldest, Rand-all, made a five-hour round trip to bring me home from Dallas, where I'd so very recently spent lots of time.
    Getting back into routine saw me at play rehearsal and choir practice last night, and back to church today to try on costumes for JosephAndTheAmazingTechnicolrDreamcoat... when, in the rain, on an incline to the elevated portion of our expressway, I changed lanes to avoid a neck-and-neck oncoming car, and hydroplaned in the draining downhill streams.
   I've fishtailed before.
  This was a whaletail.
   I knew after two seconds I was in trouble.
   My front left bumper thonked hard and scraped on the median, slinging me around in my seat. I was in Big Trouble.
   Spinning out and hitting the rear left made my blood run cold. I didn't want to slam the brakes and roll, so I tried to Steer Into the Skid. Nope. Still slipping as if on ice, I careened off to the right, and the concrete barrier loomed. I thought three things simultaneously: I am going to die after I flip over the wall and down to the street below; Really? I survived cancer to go out like this? and OH JESUS!
   The neck-and-neck-driver had stopped in horror, and mercifully there was no oncoming traffic until after I had bounced a couple of times, and they had come to a stop half a mile back.
   Somehow my truck came to a gentle stop after I kept my eyes open to see what falling over an overpass would look like. I sat there for a moment on the side of the road, and it occurred to me that my vehicle was still running. I gently stepped on the gas. It rolled ahead.
   Not wanting to spend another second on the edge of a bridge-structure, I drove downhill to a gas station, where I got out unscathed and waited for a police report and a tow truck. I think my angels hung around for a while and sent one of my neighbors to give me a hug and a lift home.
    It occurred to me earlier this week what a joy it is traveling with my Jonathan, who stashed vacation funds for months for our trip, arranged all the accommodations, and did all the driving. It gave me a glimpse of what God is like. God has it all planned out for us and we just have to get in the car and drive. To be sure, NO, Jonathan is not God. Remotely saint-like in thoughtfulness and kindness, a Jedi knight maybe -- but definitely not a deity -- although he is a remarkable man.
   However, God has our lives written out in advance: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart" Jeremiah 1:4, and so being with such a careful and loving planner gave me a greater understanding of trust and faith and comfort in safe hands.

Yesterday Carrie Underwood's song came to life...
She didn't even have time to cry
She was so scared
She threw her hands up in the air

Jesus take the wheel
Take it from my hands
Cause I can't do this on my own
I'm letting go
So give me one more chance
To save me from this road I'm on
Jesus take the wheel

I  called out, "I'M GONNA DIE" and then waited for that to happen... and somehow, after thudding mightily into that concrete wall, my truck mysteriously parked itself along the side of the road -- and I drove away unharmed.

It was still getting colder when she made it to the shoulder  
 And the car came to a stop

It occurred to me today what a joy it is traveling with God. Even as I went hurtling towards the edge of an overpass and knew that I would probably not live much longer, I knew He was there.

IF I had gone over, He would have been there...but since I didn't, I know I still have Stuff To Do, and just as I trust Jonathan at the wheel when we are on the road, I have a much greater comprehension of God guiding me on The Road.

Jesus, take the wheel...

♪Born to be Wild

   Having finished a two-part, nearly three-week vacation/homecoming with the Love of my Life, echoes of our road music resound in my head. We'd equipped ourselves with the soundtrack of our teenage years, the last time we were together in person -- Eagles, Seger, The Who, Clapton, and Weird Al. HA We bookended the latter leg of our vacation on the road between Arizona and California, singing at the top of our lungs as the miles to home rolled by.
    We both married other people at a pretty young age and had kids quite soon thereafter. Our friends went off to college and had their own apartments and adventures without a spouse and kids...and while we don't begrudge having our kids young, since now they are grown and we are still only mildly old, this new phase of our lives feels like a little bit a latent teenage times. :-)
     Cruising through desert, to and fro, we touched upon our mutual desire to buy a Harley and travel --once our three respective youngest have finished high school and we are no longer legally responsible for anyone but ourselves. HA! Jonathan has actually spent the last few days drooling over bikes at the Sierra Vista Harley dealer, and I am fully encouraging him. As the mother of three boys, I have first hand knowledge of the fact that while boys grow up to look and live like men, they remain boys at heart. My friend Nancy cherished that in her late husband Mark, characterizing him just yesterday, " Today I celebrated Marks's birthday. He would have been 56, going on 18, a kid wrapped up in a middle-aged body."
   I too cherish this in Jonathan. I still see the animated boy of my childhood, eagerly telling me about a new sci-fi book he'd read or cracking a silly joke, in the battle-worn, grey-haired but still just adorable  man that is now my best friend -- who still lights up after reading a fine turn of phrase or punning with hilarious accuracy. I've seen this in my brother, too, in Jonathan's dad, and other guys that I have know all my life. Just like we girls look in the mirror and wonder who the hell is that old lady staring back at the 20-year-old who still lives in our minds, they are still young men at heart under all the cares and worries that they have managed all these years. Mark retained that quality, and Jon is regaining it after a long couple of decades of suppressing himself to narcissistic people demanding way too much of him instead of enjoying his kindness and hilarity and diligence.
   Funny that I thought of Mark on my last flight home Monday after wrenching myself away from Jon at the Tucson airport. The verbose couple in the row behind me happened to be biologists for the state of Texas and quite unabashed to discuss their current concerns in the Region in which they work. LOL Yet,  Nancy and I love two different men that share many similar qualities -- kind to all they meet, love their nation and its land, able to keep their teenage boy spirit carefully housed in a responsible, sensible man while tenderly looking after those he loves.
   Next year, when Jon and I get our Harley trike (three-wheeled so these two latent teens don't fall over on sharp turns LOL ) we will keep the middle-aged-going-on-18-spirit thriving. Nancy, my sister-in-law Christi, Jonathan's mom, whom I fondly refer to as Phyllissima, the bella mamma, and my friend Eva are but a handful of women that have showed me over the years how to cherish the boy within the man and keep love alive between young-hearts-in-aging-bodies. As we roar down the road of grand-kids, high school and college graduations, echoes of Steppenwolf's "Born to be Wild" remind us to stay young beneath the mantle of accumulated years..."Yeah, darling •Gonna make it happen • Take the world in a love embrace". Amen -- and rev it up, baby!