♪ 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!

♪ The Tracks of My Tears

    Whilst strolling the midways and concourses of the State Fair this past week and sightseeing with the Love of my Life, Real Life went rushing along for others. In between the tears that rolled down my cheeks at the long ago familiar sight of a curly-headed, blue-eyed one rapidly advancing to me across the airport to the tears that welled up after I bravely mouthed "I love you" as he disappeared through the security gate, an e-mail sat on my server for a few days before I peeked at it. After I did, it stayed with me.
    While my reuniting with my curly-headed one brought me unsurpassed joy,  relatives of mine have been besieged with epic illness and chronic conditions without any relief, strength to undergo diagnostic tests, or ability to rest. (Yes, I have had major medical crises as well, in the past years, but not this debilitating.) We hold these two up daily, and wish, pray, yearn for relief for them. The elder statesman of their family keeps the rest of us in the loop as to joys and concerns across the family tree, and as he penned this latest update, he tenderly noted, "Hard for me to think or pray for Tim and Karalee without tears in my eyes. Guess tears are okay."  Tears are okay. They are the often unbidden sighs of the heart, whether for joy or despair. Tears show someone you love them or loathe them, cause one to appear mawkish and sentimental or unstable and skittish. Tears speak volumes at weddings, funerals, births, graduations, divorce hearings, and everywhere in between. Tears are okay.
    My generation doesn't understand stoicism. We wear our hearts on our sleeves, and most of us have to make a concerted effort to not spout off at the boss, keep our opinions to ourselves, and make a concerted effort to not make our own feelings the motivator for our lives. My parents' generation, born in the Depression and reared during WWII bore the centuries old adage of  "Save your tears."  I probably have seen or heard my mother cry less than a dozen times in my 45 years, and my dad NEVER let us cry over anything. Save your tears...heh? For what? A rainy day? What the heck?
     Does believing in a merciful God mean we must be Pollyanna, or more contemporarily, Kathie Lee; every single second? Does crying for joy or sorrow somehow suggest our faith lacks substance, or worse yet, our God? No. Mary washed the feet of her Lord with her tears; Rachel ' weeping for her chidren' for an end to persecution is a theme in the Old Testament and interestingly enough,  her life is also noted in the Quran; Jesus wept when He knew Lazarus had died.   
    Yet we Christians seem to be programmed with joy as the only acceptable emotion. Don't cry in church, don't complain to your friends of hurts, don't grieve too long or people will think you have no faith, etc, etc, etc.  Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice!! is the mantra of the modern church. Rejoice does not mean smile when your heart is in ten million pieces, any more than you should bear a stone cold face when holding a tiny baby. To coin a phrase, FOR CRYIN' OUT LOUD!!! People singing with beatific expressions can be found on every Christian media channel and in every worship service, as though they had already gone to heaven and skipped along the streets of gold. Are we supposed to appear Prozacked in our faith at all times?? Not so...
   The Psalms refer to God keeping all of our tears in a bottle... verse 8 of  Chapter 56, in fact. The great Charles Spurgeon wrote upon this very thought,"Put thou my tears into thy bottle. His sorrows were so many that there would need a great wineskin to hold them all. There is no allusion to the little complimentary lachrymators [tear bottles for remembrance] for fashionable and fanciful Romans, it is a more robust metaphor by far; such floods of tears had David wept that a leathern bottle would scarce hold them. He trusts that the Lord will be so considerate of his tears as to store them up as men do the juice of the vine, and he hopes that the place of storage will be a special one -- thy bottle, not a bottle."
    Linda Ronstadt covered Smokey Robinson and the Miracles when I was in junior high, the years when nary a day went by without some gianormous dramatic tearstained event. Oye. But I digress... the opening lyrics could be applied to us crying out to God and letting others see the tracks of our tears, not a frozen smile during grief, or stoicism when we want to do a cartwheel.   Just as couples recite in wedding vows, we can be authentic in joy and in sorrow, sickness or in health, in plenty or in want. 


People say I'm the life of the party
Because I tell a joke or two
Although I might be laughing loud and hearty
Deep inside I'm blue
So take a good look at my face
You'll see my smile looks out of place
If you look closer, it's easy to trace
The tracks of my tears..
I need you, need you




Tears are okay. God keeps track of every single one.