For some odd reason, as a child I wanted to be a hobo.
The Union Pacific train track wound lazily around Pachappa Hill, and down the street at the Riverside Avenue crossing, I'd often see hobos hitching rides on open train cars while my mother waited for the train to pass.
Back in those days we didn't call them homeless people. They were just drifters, going from place to place looking for work. They WERE homeless, but by choice. I personally think they were the last of the pioneer line, always restless, not fitting in with mainstream society, needing to see what else was out there instead of staking a claim.
One of my favorite make-believes was pretending I was a hobo. I'd get the yardstick from the laundry room, snag a bandanna from an older sibling, put my little treasures in it, and tie it to the end of the yardstick. After an adventurous hike, twenty-five feet across the patio past the calla lilies, LOL, I forayed out to the playhouse we had in a private part of the backyard.The windowless living room wall, a short section of front-yard fence, and the retaining wall to the neighbors' allowed for total freedom in play. A Catalina cherry tree grew next to the two-story playhouse. I would 'build' a fire with twigs in the middle of the floor, lie on my back, watching the leaves rustle in that tree, and listen for the train whistle. Where were those hobos going? I wondered. Did they have mothers who wondered where they were? Where did they take a bath or go to the toilet? My mind raced from imaginative to practical and back again.
More often, lately, I'd like to tie up my belongings, tie them to a stick, and disappear on a boxcar, just to avoid confrontation anytime I have a conversation with anyone about the state of the Union. Unfortunately, I like showering daily, having a refrigerator, and sitting on the patio with a cup of coffee. Also I do not have a concealed weapon permit, so I might wanna hold out for that. In the meantime, I'll pray about how to slightly withdraw from society and yet still be a help to those in need, a friend to those who want one, and a loving wife and mother to my own little tribe.
It could happen. I'll need more coffee.
Are you fed up with the rancor in everyday exchanges? How can we reverse this awful trend???
The Listening Post is open...
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
listening on the Mt. Rubidoux road...
Jonathan and I grew up in Riverside, California, he at the foot of Mt. Rubidoux, and me at the foot of Pachappa Hill. (I've often wondered how hilarious it would have been if we had been together in our youth and sent Morse code love notes to each other from 'an undisclosed location' on our respective hillsides. Nerd daydreams.)
Mt. Rubidoux is a public park/landmark, with two roads encircling the hillsides for a total of 3.5 miles. The Up Road, and the Down Road, where back in the day dignitaries were driven to the summit to see the mammoth concrete cross at the peak. ( Historical note: the longest continuous Easter Sunrise service is held each year at the summit.) BTW That road happened to be designed by a distant relative of mine on my mother's side. Small world...
...ANYWAY - when Brett was four I decided to go backpacking with a group of friends in the coming summer. At 32, in much better shape than the present, I needed to endurance-train for the week. Teaching HeadStart half-days in the afternoons gave little Brett and me time to head to the base of the hill in the morning after the brothers got off to school. Brett would get on my back, like a monkey boy, :-) and we would hike to the top, play on the stone steps by the cross, and head back down to go off to school. What wonderful mornings to remember as the curly-haired one gets ready to go to college.
This summer has been difficult for me on a lot of levels. After sharing a fraction of my tribulations yesterday, my dear friend asked me to outstretch my arm and hold a paperback book. I told him I couldn't maintain that very long, and he said no one could. "Are you gonna hang onto your troubles?"
I said, "No"... but was uncertain how I could simply set them down. They are quite real, and some need pain pills -- but I got his point. Don't dwell on them. And yet...
...I think a different analogy for someone struggling with internal and external issues might be something akin to hiking Mt. Rubidoux with a curly-haired four-year-old on your back. You can't set him down and walk away -- he has to go with you. You can't leave him by the side of the road for a while and then come back! Who knows what will happen while you are away?! Troubles and trials are not as sweet and wonderful as a loving four year-old monkey-boy -- but they are just as real, and demand just as much attention so you can get to those precious moments of freedom, like hiking in the morning and reveling in the beauty around you. Jesus walked a lot of dusty roads in His time on earth, and faced a lot of troubles...
I think I choose to put them in a "backpack", and use their weight to help me regain my lost strength and endurance. They will work themselves out, with God's grace, while I press with my journey on the Up and Down Roads.
How do you handle crises? What works for you? Do you need to get a backpack and start walking?? If you feel like •need to • want to share, leave a comment. All replies are anonymous and private.
The Listening Post is open...
Mt. Rubidoux is a public park/landmark, with two roads encircling the hillsides for a total of 3.5 miles. The Up Road, and the Down Road, where back in the day dignitaries were driven to the summit to see the mammoth concrete cross at the peak. ( Historical note: the longest continuous Easter Sunrise service is held each year at the summit.) BTW That road happened to be designed by a distant relative of mine on my mother's side. Small world...
This summer has been difficult for me on a lot of levels. After sharing a fraction of my tribulations yesterday, my dear friend asked me to outstretch my arm and hold a paperback book. I told him I couldn't maintain that very long, and he said no one could. "Are you gonna hang onto your troubles?"
I said, "No"... but was uncertain how I could simply set them down. They are quite real, and some need pain pills -- but I got his point. Don't dwell on them. And yet...
...I think a different analogy for someone struggling with internal and external issues might be something akin to hiking Mt. Rubidoux with a curly-haired four-year-old on your back. You can't set him down and walk away -- he has to go with you. You can't leave him by the side of the road for a while and then come back! Who knows what will happen while you are away?! Troubles and trials are not as sweet and wonderful as a loving four year-old monkey-boy -- but they are just as real, and demand just as much attention so you can get to those precious moments of freedom, like hiking in the morning and reveling in the beauty around you. Jesus walked a lot of dusty roads in His time on earth, and faced a lot of troubles...
I think I choose to put them in a "backpack", and use their weight to help me regain my lost strength and endurance. They will work themselves out, with God's grace, while I press with my journey on the Up and Down Roads.
How do you handle crises? What works for you? Do you need to get a backpack and start walking?? If you feel like •need to • want to share, leave a comment. All replies are anonymous and private.
The Listening Post is open...
Saturday, July 21, 2012
back to the listening post
This set of chimes swings on my patio. Corinthian chimes. Glorious to behold and healing and soothing and in perfect harmony with the flock of doves who are, at this moment, cooing their way through the hot Texas afternoon.
The same Person who suddenly declared me Satan's Minion last week gave them to me in April, after Randall had recovered from his Hospital Adventures, and they have brought me much joy.
I'm ashamed to say that a series of junior-high responses to the naming as Minion, and Root of All Evil, flitted through my lonely brain last week in the wake of the Rejection, including giving back the chimes in a self-righteous manner with the disclaimer, "Give them to someone who matters to you this time."
I'm relieved to say that I am keeping them, because they did give them to someone that matters. Me. Flawed, headstrong, loving, wonderful Me.
Whether or not I remain in that Person's estimation has no bearing on the wonder that has always been Me. (I'm still bewildered and dismayed at the rejection, and wish I could fix it. I always will, I suppose.) Nonetheless, at one time our paths crossed, we shared joys, and those are the memories I'm keeping. In my heart -- and in my ears, out on the patio.
I have survived the calamities in my life with a steadfast resolve to keep Listening, to God, to my inner self where the Truth is. Those chimes, forged and perfectly tuned in the key of A, will forever remind me of the perfection of Real Love. Not social connections and tenuous inter-personal relationships, but Real Love, forged at once in adversity and joy, and sounding forth peals of harmony. Shaped and trimmed and tuned.
What do you hear? What are you listening to in your heart? Hope and happiness, even in daunting times? Do you replay the negative tapes that others try to indoctrinate you with -- if only you had.., if only you could..., if only you were...? I've lost a lot of sleep trying to reach unattainable standards over my lifetime... as I'm sure others have, as well. Click on the link below if you want to vent share muse.
The Listening Post is always open, and the chimes are gently clanging, in perfect pitch, in the breeze.
The same Person who suddenly declared me Satan's Minion last week gave them to me in April, after Randall had recovered from his Hospital Adventures, and they have brought me much joy.
I'm ashamed to say that a series of junior-high responses to the naming as Minion, and Root of All Evil, flitted through my lonely brain last week in the wake of the Rejection, including giving back the chimes in a self-righteous manner with the disclaimer, "Give them to someone who matters to you this time."
I'm relieved to say that I am keeping them, because they did give them to someone that matters. Me. Flawed, headstrong, loving, wonderful Me.Whether or not I remain in that Person's estimation has no bearing on the wonder that has always been Me. (I'm still bewildered and dismayed at the rejection, and wish I could fix it. I always will, I suppose.) Nonetheless, at one time our paths crossed, we shared joys, and those are the memories I'm keeping. In my heart -- and in my ears, out on the patio.
I have survived the calamities in my life with a steadfast resolve to keep Listening, to God, to my inner self where the Truth is. Those chimes, forged and perfectly tuned in the key of A, will forever remind me of the perfection of Real Love. Not social connections and tenuous inter-personal relationships, but Real Love, forged at once in adversity and joy, and sounding forth peals of harmony. Shaped and trimmed and tuned.
What do you hear? What are you listening to in your heart? Hope and happiness, even in daunting times? Do you replay the negative tapes that others try to indoctrinate you with -- if only you had.., if only you could..., if only you were...? I've lost a lot of sleep trying to reach unattainable standards over my lifetime... as I'm sure others have, as well. Click on the link below if you want to vent share muse.
The Listening Post is always open, and the chimes are gently clanging, in perfect pitch, in the breeze.
Friday, July 20, 2012
7.20.12 ... in search of milkshakes.
Two years ago today I got the approval from Scripps' long-term disability to go on leave. I had started radiation, had another complication with my temporary implant, and was about ready to plot something heinous against the passive-aggressive frantic narcissist manager who made my life unbearable -- even though she was a breast cancer survivor and should have been kinder. As I left the building I had the urge to run back in and smack her upside her fat little head...but since she has no nerve endings, nor any heart, I refrained. I still dream about it. LOL
I could have been kinder, too. She's an irregular person. I could have been kinder.
A week ago today I was in recovery from a clean-up surgery for tissue that didn't survive the BigDeal.
Spent the weekend in an empty hospital, wandering around usually busy places on the 2nd floor, feeling as though Rod Serling had thrown me into a Twilight Zone, for real. Third time to go through surgery by myself. Never get used to it...
A month ago today my care team fought against all odds to get my blood pressure up, from 84/32, and get my kidneys back online after a twelve hour-renovation of the front side of my torso. I drifted in and out of a few days where I looked green, and felt it. 14 days in hospital trying to deal with pain beyond pain, and getting through it, by the grace of God.
I've spent 33 days up here at the Cancer Center this summer, getting the reconstruction procedures completed that radiation, infection, and infection have precluded all this time. Not complaining. NOT.
If you have to have cancer, CTCA is the place to do it. Limo transportation, three full meals everyday, a care team that goes above and beyond to help you heal. One shuttle driver calls it the Magic Kingdom. :-) You are Loved here, cancer, recovering from, or dealing with after-effects. Absolutely Loved.
I've spent time keeping myself from sinking into a depression, time pulling myself out, time with Jonathan via Skype with him holding the rope for me, his mom vigilantly praying for me, as my own.
Valiant efforts included taking myself out to the shores of Lake Michigan, going to a Farmers market, pushing myself on walks when I wanted to lie down and cry, lying down and crying when I needed to.
It's hard for me to be alone, hard for me to continue to keep my strength up and my chin up and my spirits up these days, even though my cancer is at bay. Like my nurse said this morning, " You've been through hell."
I remember a Spirit Day back in 1979, freshman year at Poly High school. I was a geekling-groupie to the lofty famed Seniors of the Theater Group, feeling lucky to sit near them at lunch and gaze on their glorious beings. This was Hippie Day, and true to their intellectual and artistic nature, the group of gorgeous actors came to school as The Establishment, setting up a conference table and wearing suits and ties while the rest of us ran around like rejects from an audition for "Hair". I got increasingly uncomfortable at their refusal to break character. Somewhere deep in the depths of me a panic arose that I'd lost my new tribe. I had some sort of a meltdown, and it was weeks before the Beautiful Ones made contact with me on the steps again.
My life, since high school: same pattern, with brief successful events and the ultimate victory : raising three boys on my own who turned out exceptionally well. I suppose I could have been medicated and lived a quieter life, but i love the bumper sticker that says, ' Well-behaved women seldom make history'. HA
Quiet lives don't help other people struggling with the same issues, though, and I know that the suffering has helped more than a few know they are not alone.
Being peeled and resealed has been an excruciating process. Perhaps more painful than the physical renovation was the abrupt rejection from a person I had known and respected for many years. Given a laundry list of all of my faults, a request to not communicate anymore, and a recommendation for mental health services was staggering to say the least.
It hit on all the triggers that have been just under the surface, for years, from family members doing the same thing. " You have been weighed, measured, and found wanting..." Daniel 5:27. Still I doggedly tried to keep up connections with people who really wanted nothing to do with me, in clumsy and ineffective ways... like that Spirit day back at Poly High, 33 years ago...except with a modicum of maturity. A very slight modicum, and not so much maturity as weariness.
It's time to give all that up. Who are they to measure me??? Mere mortals who haven't got anymore sense than I.
I like the approach one of my high school pals is taking. Live Life. Drink Milkshakes. Eat Crackers on Saturday. Plan to do Nothing, and Like It. To a small small group of us, he's encouraging us to Simply Live.
God weighs, measures me, and finds me wanting in substance every single second. Yet He loves me anyway. Love survives all.
Love survives all. Love causes one to laugh, to live, to giggle, in spite of excruciating pain.
Off to find a strawberry milkshake, and consume it with gusto. Cheers.
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Sounds of today 7.18.12
'Glimpses' of today...
•I'm pretty sure Santa might spend the summer up here because I saw him cross Sheridan Road ( shirtless) in shorts and sandals, electric-white hair and beard glowing in the summer sun. But I digress.
•A little girl eating ice cream with her mom. " I got a big chunk on this one" " Madison <sister> where's Cissy? At the doctor. Why. She needs a check-up. Why?" " I like to have this ice cream.." and an endless monologue of all her immediate experiences. Such joyful innocence and pure pleasure.
•When you stay up here a while, you start to see the same people in the halls and you stop, like ants touching antennae, to see how the other is doing. A few good reports: A lady started eating again after three days. I myself got out to the store, and to Culver's for frozen custard. A woman not using her walker for the first time in a month.
A few bad reports: Daughter-in-law not going to make it. Husband taking turn for the worse.
Reality, in all forms. People connecting. Lives sustaining. Lives fading. Lives recovering.
•A storm has blown in this evening, blustery and brazen, bringing much needed water to the parched earth. Howling around the hotel, slamming drops into windows and walls and windshields.
What's your inner monologue today? Was it an Ice Cream day or a Bad Report day?
Click on the link below and add a comment if you need• want• feel like sharing, . It will stay anonymous unless you identify yourself.
Someone is ready to listen to you tonight. Just listen to. you.
•I'm pretty sure Santa might spend the summer up here because I saw him cross Sheridan Road ( shirtless) in shorts and sandals, electric-white hair and beard glowing in the summer sun. But I digress.
•A little girl eating ice cream with her mom. " I got a big chunk on this one" " Madison <sister> where's Cissy? At the doctor. Why. She needs a check-up. Why?" " I like to have this ice cream.." and an endless monologue of all her immediate experiences. Such joyful innocence and pure pleasure.
•When you stay up here a while, you start to see the same people in the halls and you stop, like ants touching antennae, to see how the other is doing. A few good reports: A lady started eating again after three days. I myself got out to the store, and to Culver's for frozen custard. A woman not using her walker for the first time in a month.
A few bad reports: Daughter-in-law not going to make it. Husband taking turn for the worse.
Reality, in all forms. People connecting. Lives sustaining. Lives fading. Lives recovering.
•A storm has blown in this evening, blustery and brazen, bringing much needed water to the parched earth. Howling around the hotel, slamming drops into windows and walls and windshields.
What's your inner monologue today? Was it an Ice Cream day or a Bad Report day?
Click on the link below and add a comment if you need• want• feel like sharing, . It will stay anonymous unless you identify yourself.
Someone is ready to listen to you tonight. Just listen to. you.
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
No teach, no preach. Listening...
Sorry for the preaching series. :-P
From now on my blog is taking a turn for the better. I might be gifted or what-evah in my writing, but I want to hear from peeps. Recent events on this silly FB, over silly politics, have made me want to run away and live on an island so I don't bother anyone anymore -- but that's just as selfish as having my say, because then I can't hear you. So... I invite you to respond ... all comments go to my e-mail and are anonymous unless you identify yourselves. I think people generally feel like no one is listening to them anymore, and so the shouting escalates until all we hear is raucous chatter and then we turn away from one another. Forget politics for a minute.
Here's your chance to be heard, without comment. Just.listened to.
Tell me, if you will or if you want, how you feel about solitude, loneliness, independence, being alone.
For true: I'm listening. :-) Hope to hear from you...be blessed.
Sunday, July 8, 2012
Reality Check, with Rodgers and Hammerstein
This morning I couldn't get to church. I'd made it a personal goal, and couldn't meet it. :-P Post-surgery issue made that impossible, and I sniffled to Jonathan over the Internet about my frustration.
A few minutes later I restated my situation, ending a med-induced pity-party.
" I did StupidCancer in a 3-BR cottage with one bathroom. Whenever I had surgeries, I had to dress all my wounds in my room, share a bathroom with two or three boys, and had nowhere to really rest. The front yard had a view of the underwear of the redneck rebels next door, and the back yard had a great view of the airport -- which was cool when the Jenny was flying but no so much on quiet days. I now have a dining room where we made many birthday memories together, a backyard where doves gather and chimes soothe, and a beautiful place to rest.This might hurt, but it's not cancer and it's not permanent..." and sniffling, I mustered up resolve and a smile and courage.
My stalwart soldier-contractor, who survived living in a train-car and tents and other minimal surroundings in the war zones of Afghanistan for four years, nodded in agreement, and encouraged me to persevere.
After we signed off, I watched The Sound of Music. A million memories flooded me as those opening scenes of the Alps lead to Maria twirling on a hilltop. My sisters and I tuning in every year to it on CBS; my dad getting irritated at the romanticization of Nazism; a youth telling me in recent months that her parents never let them watch the end of it because they didn't want them to be scared.
Really? Have we gotten to a point where we make things so soft for our kids that they can't handle history without a happy ending? In two generations we've gone from kids who went without butter during WWII during rationing, to kids who are coddled and cradled from Anything Bad. Oye.
Sometimes there are no happy endings on this earth. Often, there are no happy endings.
A year ago, my friend Mark did his best to look after me, getting my decrepit minivan fixed by his body-shop owning neighbor -- and also trying to fix me up with the neighbor. Having fallen in love with Jon some months earlier, I declined the fix-up with the guy HA but promised Mark I would see about getting the van to him.
Mark had routine surgery the next day, and with a huge abscess in his abdomen, succumbed to sepsis. We will always mourn his sudden departure from us. Always. We don't get over loss, just move along with it in the background.
My cousin Mitch, who rivals Mark as the Nicest Guy Ever, lost his home to flames in Colorado two weeks ago. They'll move to another home, but not without dealing with his wife's breast cancer, and without most of their worldly possessions, which are now swirling around as an ash heap where people once lived and loved.
My elder cousin, Howard, had tears in his eyes upon learning of the Colorado fire. His home burned to the ground during his freshman year of high school, and at 84 years old, it still made him remember the loss. We never forget.
Loss scares us, jolts us from our comfy lives, makes us wonder what we did to deserve this, makes us strong and weaker all at once.
At some point, we need to build a bridge over loss and GET OVER IT, the bridge, not the loss, as best we can.
Loss is part of the human experience.
Think globally about loss. In Howard's lifetime, 6 million Jews were exterminated, 1600 Catholic priests, and countless others who opposed the Third Reich; there have been three major wars, 30 years of threat of nuclear war, and now an invisible war which mostly takes the lives of women, children, and American soldiers while a terse group of ideologists press their own extreme agenda.
Over history, life has been often been brutal.
In the book of Genesis, just after the Creation murder occurs. Cain bludgeoned Abel over a matter of wheat. ( Incredibly! The first brothers ever in history, created by God through the First couple in Eden,whose parents walked with God. How could that happen???)
In the 1500's, the Catholics murdered the Calvinists by the thousands for seeking a different path. By the thousands. For thinking differently.
Black people were bought and sold as slaves not but 170 years ago, and lynched regularly down here in the South -- until just a few years ago. A neighboring community has an active chapter of the KKK. Want their website? It's full of Bible verses backing their ideology.
Women still suffer at the hands of extreme religious men, private parts mutilated to preclude any pleasure during marital relations, not to mention a host of other horrific indignities. Today. Not in history. Today.
Can we turn off that movie at that point? I bet those mutilated women wish they could, but they can't.
We are spoiled comfy children here in America, even with all the nonsense going on in our national arena.Yes, we have blessings in our lives, and good days and wonderful people are to be cherished and loved.
Awful things still happen. We cannot change that or avoid it or turn off the movie.
This life is not about us, our opinions, our feelings, our needs and wants -- and yet it is. God created this world for us because He loves us, but we are only on a temporary pass. Home is yet to come.
Jesus spelled it out.
" You will have trouble on this earth. But take heart, for I have overcome the world." John 16:33
Mortal life is going to have the balance of human experience. Bliss, sorrow, gain, loss, plenty, and need. When the time comes we will leave this place and go on to where no tears are shed. Until then, we need to know, embrace, accept suffering. It's what makes us more like Christ. maybe not Christ-like, since we have not one iota of His grace or mercy, and we hang on to our hurts wishing we could have a re-do. Suffering is a chance to offer your WHOLE life up to heaven. Not just praise songs and happy worship and fervent prayers that all will be okay, even turning off movies so our comfy lives have no prickly moments.
Jesus suffered. Suffering is part of the birth experience. Suffering is part of the death experience. Balance.
The end of "the movie about Jesus", was the Crucifixion and then the Resurrection. If we skip the Crucifixion and go straight to Easter Sunday, we reduce the Messiah to a rabbi, a teacher, an evocative poet. The Crucifixion was the ultimate Suffering. Christ took it on for us, so we could get through the sufferings of this life and onward to heaven. It's gonna hurt. No question.
Pain is part of our human experience. Pain was part of Christ's human death. He chose to go through it to save all of us after we leave this life... and if we turn off the movie to skip the Bad parts, we miss out on His purpose for us.
Know that you are Loved no matter what happens to you on this beautiful planet, because more glory awaits.
Be brave. Watch the end, and wait for the sequel.
A few minutes later I restated my situation, ending a med-induced pity-party.
" I did StupidCancer in a 3-BR cottage with one bathroom. Whenever I had surgeries, I had to dress all my wounds in my room, share a bathroom with two or three boys, and had nowhere to really rest. The front yard had a view of the underwear of the redneck rebels next door, and the back yard had a great view of the airport -- which was cool when the Jenny was flying but no so much on quiet days. I now have a dining room where we made many birthday memories together, a backyard where doves gather and chimes soothe, and a beautiful place to rest.This might hurt, but it's not cancer and it's not permanent..." and sniffling, I mustered up resolve and a smile and courage.
My stalwart soldier-contractor, who survived living in a train-car and tents and other minimal surroundings in the war zones of Afghanistan for four years, nodded in agreement, and encouraged me to persevere.
After we signed off, I watched The Sound of Music. A million memories flooded me as those opening scenes of the Alps lead to Maria twirling on a hilltop. My sisters and I tuning in every year to it on CBS; my dad getting irritated at the romanticization of Nazism; a youth telling me in recent months that her parents never let them watch the end of it because they didn't want them to be scared.
Really? Have we gotten to a point where we make things so soft for our kids that they can't handle history without a happy ending? In two generations we've gone from kids who went without butter during WWII during rationing, to kids who are coddled and cradled from Anything Bad. Oye.
Sometimes there are no happy endings on this earth. Often, there are no happy endings.
A year ago, my friend Mark did his best to look after me, getting my decrepit minivan fixed by his body-shop owning neighbor -- and also trying to fix me up with the neighbor. Having fallen in love with Jon some months earlier, I declined the fix-up with the guy HA but promised Mark I would see about getting the van to him.
Mark had routine surgery the next day, and with a huge abscess in his abdomen, succumbed to sepsis. We will always mourn his sudden departure from us. Always. We don't get over loss, just move along with it in the background.
My cousin Mitch, who rivals Mark as the Nicest Guy Ever, lost his home to flames in Colorado two weeks ago. They'll move to another home, but not without dealing with his wife's breast cancer, and without most of their worldly possessions, which are now swirling around as an ash heap where people once lived and loved.
My elder cousin, Howard, had tears in his eyes upon learning of the Colorado fire. His home burned to the ground during his freshman year of high school, and at 84 years old, it still made him remember the loss. We never forget.
Loss scares us, jolts us from our comfy lives, makes us wonder what we did to deserve this, makes us strong and weaker all at once.
At some point, we need to build a bridge over loss and GET OVER IT, the bridge, not the loss, as best we can.
Loss is part of the human experience.
Think globally about loss. In Howard's lifetime, 6 million Jews were exterminated, 1600 Catholic priests, and countless others who opposed the Third Reich; there have been three major wars, 30 years of threat of nuclear war, and now an invisible war which mostly takes the lives of women, children, and American soldiers while a terse group of ideologists press their own extreme agenda.
Over history, life has been often been brutal.
In the book of Genesis, just after the Creation murder occurs. Cain bludgeoned Abel over a matter of wheat. ( Incredibly! The first brothers ever in history, created by God through the First couple in Eden,whose parents walked with God. How could that happen???)
In the 1500's, the Catholics murdered the Calvinists by the thousands for seeking a different path. By the thousands. For thinking differently.
Black people were bought and sold as slaves not but 170 years ago, and lynched regularly down here in the South -- until just a few years ago. A neighboring community has an active chapter of the KKK. Want their website? It's full of Bible verses backing their ideology.
Women still suffer at the hands of extreme religious men, private parts mutilated to preclude any pleasure during marital relations, not to mention a host of other horrific indignities. Today. Not in history. Today.
Can we turn off that movie at that point? I bet those mutilated women wish they could, but they can't.
We are spoiled comfy children here in America, even with all the nonsense going on in our national arena.Yes, we have blessings in our lives, and good days and wonderful people are to be cherished and loved.
Awful things still happen. We cannot change that or avoid it or turn off the movie.
This life is not about us, our opinions, our feelings, our needs and wants -- and yet it is. God created this world for us because He loves us, but we are only on a temporary pass. Home is yet to come.
Jesus spelled it out.
" You will have trouble on this earth. But take heart, for I have overcome the world." John 16:33
Mortal life is going to have the balance of human experience. Bliss, sorrow, gain, loss, plenty, and need. When the time comes we will leave this place and go on to where no tears are shed. Until then, we need to know, embrace, accept suffering. It's what makes us more like Christ. maybe not Christ-like, since we have not one iota of His grace or mercy, and we hang on to our hurts wishing we could have a re-do. Suffering is a chance to offer your WHOLE life up to heaven. Not just praise songs and happy worship and fervent prayers that all will be okay, even turning off movies so our comfy lives have no prickly moments.
Jesus suffered. Suffering is part of the birth experience. Suffering is part of the death experience. Balance.
The end of "the movie about Jesus", was the Crucifixion and then the Resurrection. If we skip the Crucifixion and go straight to Easter Sunday, we reduce the Messiah to a rabbi, a teacher, an evocative poet. The Crucifixion was the ultimate Suffering. Christ took it on for us, so we could get through the sufferings of this life and onward to heaven. It's gonna hurt. No question.
Pain is part of our human experience. Pain was part of Christ's human death. He chose to go through it to save all of us after we leave this life... and if we turn off the movie to skip the Bad parts, we miss out on His purpose for us.
Know that you are Loved no matter what happens to you on this beautiful planet, because more glory awaits.
Be brave. Watch the end, and wait for the sequel.
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
Honorable Heritage
These are shots of Jonathan in the service, one from the 80's as a young airman, and one from last year, in Afghanistan, working at Camp Phoenix.
I miss him terribly, especially today, but so proud of this humble hard-working man. He might not have heroic medals or an action-filled service record, but there are many letters of commendation and accolades among his trappings.
He's my hero. He could be working a desk job somewhere, running IT stateside, but he spends ten months out of the years away from us, the people he loves, to keep his band of brothers connected. In this age of digital and wireless technology, their communications rely on Jon and his peers. That's my boy.
He comes from a long line of patriots, as do many of us. We recently were blessed with his great-grandmother's cedar chest, and two days before he returned to Kuwait we spent an entire evening reading news clippings from WW1, draft registration cards, letters to home, and checking out button-up shoes and a year-book from 1911. G'grandmother waited for G'grandfather to come home from the Great War not long after she graduated from high school, and while she waited, she filled page after page of huge scrapbook pages with precisely-clipped articles from the local newspaper of battles and losses and war events. These pages are 2x3 and the fixative she used thinly along the top of each, still remains intact. I envision her at a kitchen table, carefully ordering each clipping chronologically. Several pages have articles side by side, instead of stacked one beneath the other to save space. These are the ones regarding the fall of the Kaiser and the end of the war. The ones she waited for.
I do the same thing G'grandmother does, wait for my boy to come home from this great global war. I don't know how they'll ever take down the enemy, but we watch and wait anyway.
My clippings are gleaned digitally and stored digitally on Facebook and in my blogs. I suppose I should download my Facebook page one of these days, but by the time our grandkids are the same age we are now, I doubt they'll be able to retrieve my stuff. It's not in a trunk. :-P But my heart carries the same sense of waiting and prayer and devotion that hers did.
Also in the trunk are three flags, two of which contain only 46 stars. What the heck? The family held on to these flags since before Arizona and New Mexico gained statehood. Whoa... talk about American history.
I also decided today since I couldn't get out, that I would steep myself in recent Gilbert family history, and so have pored over photo albums of Jonathan and his brother Jerod on a series of vacations with their grandparents in the late 70's. Replete in seriously short shorts and tight 70's t-shirts (which should have never been manufactured LOL), there's my blue-eyed boy on a horse, his sleepy-eyed brother wearing overalls; traipsing through Colorado; at Mt. Rushmore; on a train with their grandparents; exploring Montana; letters from home from a momma missing her tow-headed pair. What a treat for me to see the love their grandparents had for them to take them on long vacations, to hear their mom's words, to recognize with a great grin those rascally boys who pitched kumquats at me and my sister in our pool during those very same years.
Today I applaud my soldier, the blond-haired blue-eyed kid in the vacation shots, who has spent every year of his life ( give or take one or two) in service to his country since 1984. I am beyond grateful to be part of such a loving family who loved this country, and to join their long line of "memoirists", like me, who preserve our tender memories in word and thought and sentiment.
What a blessedly quiet, blessed Independence Day.
"Long may our land be bright with freedom's holy light, protect us by Thy might Great God our King!!"
Cacophony of Coos...
Around five-thirty each morning three planets can be seen over the Sigler's roof next door. I doubt that the Siglers know this and am acutely aware that they have nothing to do with the alignment of the planets, HA, but I digress.
Hanging like jewels against a purple sky, one just above the other on a silver strand, I am reminded of the Trinity, and I sit and pray without words.
Framed by the silvery-green branches of the big mulberry tree, they twinkle and shimmer right up unto the dawn when their sparkly ancient lights are overtaken by the tilting of the planet towards the sun.
Some sort of bubbling banter builds while the dawn comes up, as those planets fade from view.
I wish I was a better ornithologist so I'd know what species burbles animatedly, like soprano bubbles, breaking forth intermittently into streams of soprano bubbles. I observed two bubblers exiting their lofty mulberry porch, chittering as they relocated to the big oak when Shiloh and I ventured out into the soft dark.
Pitted against the bubbly-squeaks of the treetop inhabitants came a series of brayings.
Yep.
To my tea-sipping ears, it's either a bear cub in captivity down the street, a small donkey wishing he were elsewhere, or an old hound whose larynx has given up the ghost -- yet still wanting to howl at will.
I'm hoping it's the hound. HA
Four feet from the patio door, with my little taffy Shiloh on dawn patrol, I felt fairly safe from whatever brayed down the street.
Out on the prairie, while settlers crossed the land, there may have been a dog on patrol, horses who could sense danger, but no patio door. I can't imagine sleeping out in a bedroll ( that hadn't been washed since last year), hoping my children weren't eaten in the night by anything slithering through the grasses, padding by on silent feet, or lying in wait until the campfire dwindled to embers.
Mixing up a batch of muffins whilst musing on these things, I marveled at all the women, pioneers, settlers, peasants through the ages who put together breakfast after those tenuous nights, mixing biscuit dough and baking it over the revived fire, while the dawn came up.
The back door to the kitchen let in a loud burst of dove-ishness as I slid the muffin pan into the oven. Every dove in a two-mile radius burst forth into a lively cacophony of coos and chortles, building and spilling over into the new morning. They'd survived the night, and exuberantly proclaimed their joy together.
I know the settlers heard a similar birdsong every morning as they crossed this nation, bringing it forth from revolution to destiny. I know it gave them courage, as it does me, that we have survived another night, saved from phantom brayings and other imaginings. I know that when birds sing that all is well with their environment, and I take a cue from them that the day will be, has already been, blessed.
Be blessed, my fellow Americans. Be blessed.
Hanging like jewels against a purple sky, one just above the other on a silver strand, I am reminded of the Trinity, and I sit and pray without words.
Framed by the silvery-green branches of the big mulberry tree, they twinkle and shimmer right up unto the dawn when their sparkly ancient lights are overtaken by the tilting of the planet towards the sun.
Some sort of bubbling banter builds while the dawn comes up, as those planets fade from view.
I wish I was a better ornithologist so I'd know what species burbles animatedly, like soprano bubbles, breaking forth intermittently into streams of soprano bubbles. I observed two bubblers exiting their lofty mulberry porch, chittering as they relocated to the big oak when Shiloh and I ventured out into the soft dark.
Pitted against the bubbly-squeaks of the treetop inhabitants came a series of brayings.
Yep.
To my tea-sipping ears, it's either a bear cub in captivity down the street, a small donkey wishing he were elsewhere, or an old hound whose larynx has given up the ghost -- yet still wanting to howl at will.
I'm hoping it's the hound. HA
Four feet from the patio door, with my little taffy Shiloh on dawn patrol, I felt fairly safe from whatever brayed down the street.
Out on the prairie, while settlers crossed the land, there may have been a dog on patrol, horses who could sense danger, but no patio door. I can't imagine sleeping out in a bedroll ( that hadn't been washed since last year), hoping my children weren't eaten in the night by anything slithering through the grasses, padding by on silent feet, or lying in wait until the campfire dwindled to embers.
Mixing up a batch of muffins whilst musing on these things, I marveled at all the women, pioneers, settlers, peasants through the ages who put together breakfast after those tenuous nights, mixing biscuit dough and baking it over the revived fire, while the dawn came up.
The back door to the kitchen let in a loud burst of dove-ishness as I slid the muffin pan into the oven. Every dove in a two-mile radius burst forth into a lively cacophony of coos and chortles, building and spilling over into the new morning. They'd survived the night, and exuberantly proclaimed their joy together.
I know the settlers heard a similar birdsong every morning as they crossed this nation, bringing it forth from revolution to destiny. I know it gave them courage, as it does me, that we have survived another night, saved from phantom brayings and other imaginings. I know that when birds sing that all is well with their environment, and I take a cue from them that the day will be, has already been, blessed.
Be blessed, my fellow Americans. Be blessed.
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