A Poem for Monday

Otherwise
I got out of bed
on two strong legs.
It might have been
otherwise, I ate
cereal, sweet
milk, ripe, flawless
peach. It might
have been otherwise.
I took the dog uphill
to the birch wood.
All morning I did
the work I love.

At noon I lay down
with my mate. It might
have been otherwise.
We ate dinner together
at a table with silver
candlesticks. It might
have been otherwise.
I slept in a bed
in a room with paintings
on the walls, and
planned another day
just like this day.
But one day, I know,
it will be otherwise.

-Jane Kenyon-

___________________________________

Savor the gifts of each hour and each day of this week.

Even the most mundane experiences become significant

when they are properly noted and appreciated.

Live in love.

Festive Friday

Friday! It’s the most festive day of the week at our house. Work is DONE for the week and HOORAY! Saturday and Sunday are just ahead. Friday evening is our doorway to relaxation. I like to make it a mini-celebration if I can because I know my husband is tired and ready to put his cares behind him by the time he gets home.

When we had a houseful of young children, Friday was the night I had a fun meal for them. I would fix their dinner early so that by the time Dad got home they were contented and on their way to bed.

We called this “snacky supper” and it was a small smorgasbord of things they liked from popcorn to pancakes. I put out bowls of carrot sticks, apple slices, cheese sticks, raisins and something with a little protein like peanut butter crackers or pizza. Sometimes we had a pancake supper with a variety of toppings. They snacked away while we chatted or watched a video, then I gave them something for dessert and off they went to bed.

It isn’t hard to make a special evening for my husband on Friday nights. When he arrives home from work he is looking forward to some peace and quiet, a good meal and my companionship. He really doesn’t care if the house is perfect, but he also doesn’t want to hear any bad news from the home front. He looks forward to one evening of the week where things are light and relaxed. Any topic that causes concern or anxiety for either of us will keep until some other day of the week. Fridays are for fun.

Here is how I set the stage for a Festive Friday:

1. I tidy up the path from the front door to the bedroom and bathroom and back to the kitchen. At the very least, I get rid of the clutter. Vacuuming and dusting is a bonus. I also turn on lights so that people who are coming home don’t feel like they are entering a cave.

2. I get something going in the kitchen that will create an appealing aroma in the air. This could be a nice candle or some cinnamon sticks on the stove, or it might be dinner cooking. Along with aroma I may create a visible welcome with a plate of grapes and cheese that is ready for nibbling. The idea is to generate anticipation for the good things that are to come.

3. I plan a SIMPLE meal for Friday evenings. This is not the evening I want to make a five part recipe that uses all of my pots and pans.
* I get a steak to broil with some salt and pepper on top.
* I cook salmon fillets or bake seasoned chicken breasts.
* I use store-bought sauces or seasonings to dress things up and I steam a colorful collection of fresh vegetables to put on the plate.
* If I want something starchy, I roast some small red potatoes coated with olive oil and sprinkled with minced garlic at high heat in the oven.
* I open a bag of good salad and add some good fresh bread and butter or olive oil for dipping and I have a beautiful meal.
* If we want dessert, I put out some strawberries, a bar of dark chocolate and shortbread cookies.
* Sometimes I cheat all the way and buy dinner at a deli or supermarket. That works just as well.

4. Nothing beats candle-power for a festive evening. A candle at the dinner table makes even soup and crackers seem special. Sometimes I take dinner to the coffee table and we sit on cushions and eat by candlelight there. Candles in safe containers in various other places around the room also add to the calm and special mood of the evening.

5. Before my husband gets home I try take stock of whatever is irritating or upsetting me and make a plan to address it at another time. I dwell upon the joy of having such a good man in my life and I give thanks that he loves me and comes home to me on Friday nights. I get ready to greet him with enthusiasm.

I also remember that he will need at least fifteen minutes to transition at home before the festivities begin. I don’t expect him to comment upon how nice everything is. In fact, if it all goes so smoothly that he hardly notices my efforts, I pat myself on the back for doing a good job. This little weekly celebration is a gift for him and his appreciation in return is a bonus for me, not the reason I do what I do.

I am so blessed to have a home of my own. I am blessed to have a kitchen to cook in, a living room to sit in and a bedroom to sleep in. I love the fact that I have someone special to share my life with. It really doesn’t take very much thought to find a reason to celebrate every Friday night, and it really doesn’t take much effort either. Happy Festive Friday! I hope yours is wonderful.

Too Hard

Rule of Benedict, Chapter 68, Assignment of Impossible Tasks

“Monastics may be assigned a burdensome task or something they cannot do. If so, they should with complete gentleness and obedience, accept the order given them. Should they see, however, that the weight of the burden is altogether too much for their strength, then they should choose the appropriate moment and explain patiently to the prioress or abbot the reasons why they cannot perform the task. This they ought to do without pride, obstinacy, or refusal. If after the explanation the abbot or prioress is still determined to hold to their original order, then the junior must recognize that this is best. Trusting in God’s help, they must in love obey.”

I am closely related to eight wonderful young people, my children and their spouses, and I also know a lot of other young folks who are raising families. They are trying to make ends meet in a rough economy, pressed for time and worried about the future. My heart goes out to them.

I remember the early days of family life when my husband and I felt so overwhelmed and exhausted that we thought we couldn’t go one step further. We lived with chronic sleepless nights, too little money and too little strength for the needs of four little ones. Often, just when we felt we had reached the end of our rope, an illness would sweep through the family or an unexpected expense would arise. We were sure that at some point we would run completely out of resources.

Sometimes we wanted to run away, but we knew that wouldn’t help. We knew the only alternative for us was to turn to the foundations of our faith and cry out to God for help. We always hoped that he would answer with an abundance of resources to give us relief, but usually he sent only enough to get us through the current moment. He gave us enough strength for one more day and enough money for one more bill. We wanted security, but he wanted us to learn how to depend upon him.

The truth is that only the Lord knows how much we can take. We may bargain or plead with him, explaining that we really can’t go on any further. We may even ask him how it looks to the rest of the world to see his children experience so much stress and worry. Is this how we are supposed live as children of the King? He is unmoved by all of that. He is not worried about his reputation as a provider, he concerned about shaping the character of his people.

Yesterday I talked with one of the precious young women in my life. She has faced great stresses in the past year including becoming a first-time mother, losing cherished loved ones to death, tight finances and unrelenting demands of the ministry she and her husband are in. They have often come to end of their resources and we have often prayed together for God’s provision. He has never failed, but usually he has not given them more than just what they needed for the moment.

She told me that these circumstances have grown her up. Things that would have upset her in the past now roll right off her shoulders. She doesn’t complain and she doesn’t fret as she might have in the past. She has more peace about the future, knowing how God has shown himself to be faithful in the past.

Our friend Benedict of Nursia understood how hard a life of obedience could be. In his Rule for a Christian community he assumed that every member would be asked to do the impossible sometimes. He allowed members to appeal to the authorities who assigned such difficult tasks. He also knew that none of us really knows ourselves and what we are capable of doing so he encourages us to trust the wisdom of the community when our appeal is denied. His rule states that after we have made our case, if the task still remains, we should give up our complaints and turn our hearts to loving what is before us.

This rule is laced with the language of humility and Christ-like character:

Patience, gentleness, obedience, love.

That is what God is working to create in us and He isn’t bothered by our fussing and fuming in the process.

It does not come naturally to face impossible tasks with these qualities of patience, gentleness, obedience and love, but we are not limited to what comes naturally. We have the power of God to transform us into people who are able to do the impossible. Nothing is too hard for him...nothing is too hard for us.

Shabby Chic in the Garden

Rainy day in February

In my imagination my garden is always a little earthly paradise where I can sit and talk with friends and family, enjoy good food, read good books and listen to good music. I love it any time of day, but especially in the early morning and early evening when sun sends dappled shadows skittering through the trees and across the faces of the flowers. The air is cool and fresh and everything is quiet.

It is always on my mind. In the summer it's a cool, serene retreat. In the fall it's bright, cheerful and picturesque. When the winter weather arrives and the rains begin, I gaze meditatively upon the dormant flower beds and dream of spring. We don’t have a front window in our house, so the back garden is my window on the world. It’s my special place of dreams. Often I go there to pray and think things through.

My husband, who was born in England and was raised in New Zealand, recently told me that my garden has a real English cottage feel. I thanked him! What higher praise could there be? He went on to say, “Yes, it has that familiar, slightly shabby, overgrown aspect to it.”

My spirits flagged a little, but I understood what he meant. He feels at home in my garden. It isn’t a showplace that inspires awe, it’s a cozy little work in progress. There is always something that needs trimming or transplanting, but that is part of its charm.

The saddest part of my garden has always been the little strip of Bermuda grass that bends around our brick patio. This past spring I seeded in new grass and covered it with topsoil, then I watered it faithfully and in two or three weeks was rewarded with clumps of tender green shoots coming up everywhere. Hooray! I was so happy the first time I mowed it and created an even swath of green grass all around the patio.

I waited a couple of months and then fertilized the new lawn with good stuff that would also kill any weeds that were growing. Within days all of my new grass died. I had burned my tender, baby grass with too much fertilizer. Since the end of May I have been watering a desolate patch of dirt laced with stringy Bermuda grass that apparently even too much fertilizer could not kill.

This fall I am going to try again. I am thinking of killing off the rest of the Bermuda grass with Roundup, tilling the ground and putting out new seed and topsoil. This time I am going to ask my husband to help me. I think that a missing ingredient in my gardening has been enlisting his good mind and skills to help me do it right.

By the way, here is a free gardening tip: One of the secrets of developing good soil is to find and employ the resources of a pet rabbit. My goddaughter has a bunny named Apricot that produces lovely droppings, full of nitrogen. Once a week or so, we dump a pail full of that stuff into my compost bin where it turns into magic fertilizer that my plants just love. It also attracts earthworms for some reason and they contribute their castings to the richness of the soil.

A garden is mostly dirt, green stuff and water, but it is also a canvas for the imagination. Some days it is perfect; everything is blooming and the herbs are fragrant in the warm sunshine. A week later it needs weeding and I have to cut away the finished blooms. But it’s those moments of perfection that keep me going...that, and knowing that I will get to start over in the next season.

E. B. White once wrote a posthumous introduction to a collection of articles written by his wife Katharine White for the New Yorker magazine. She was an editor and writer at the New Yorker, but also an avid gardener. He delighted in her passion for growing things and she constantly amazed him with the myriad ways she had for displaying her flowers. Here is what he said about her, looking back upon their life together:

“Armed with a diagram and a clipboard, Katharine would get into a shabby old Brooks raincoat much too long for her, put on a little round wool hat, pull on a pair of overshoes, and proceed to the director’s chair—a folding canvas thing—that had been placed for her at the edge of the plot. There she would sit, hour after hour, in the wind and the weather, while Henry Allen [their gardener] produced dozens of brown paper packages of new bulbs and a basketful of old ones, ready for the intricate interment. As the years went by and age overtook her, there was something comical yet touching in her bedraggled appearance on this awesome occasion—the small, hunched-over figure, her studied absorption in the implausible notion that there would be yet another spring, oblivious to the ending of her own days, which she knew perfectly well was near at hand, sitting there with her detailed chart under those dark skies in the dying October, calmly plotting the resurrection.” ( From Onward and Upward in the Garden by Katharine S. White.)

“Plotting the resurrection.” Maybe that is why working in the garden is such a joy to me. It may become shabby and things may die off, but it is awesome to start over each season and watch the garden grow into paradise once again. For me it's a little bit of heaven on earth.

Baby Love!

Creek walking with my little Grand Girl

This is Susannah, my sweet, first granddaughter. She lives in another state so I don't get to see her nearly enough, but she just spent five days with her Granddad and me. So did her mommy and daddy, but somehow we didn't get as many pictures of them as we did of her.

Their visit was a busy time with lots of friends and family coming by to say hello. I was in the kitchen for hours, making meals, fixing coffee and baking treats while people came and went. It was satisfying to hear the sound of laughter ringing through the house as people visited with each other. When I finally sat down in the living room at the end of the day, I found the conversation taking a quieter and more serious turn. It was wonderful to hear my kids talking about their lives and sharing their hearts with us.

Jonathan and Kristin are gracefully dealing with the challenges of raising Susannah. She is a very happy toddler, but she gets restless and wakes them up many nights. She is delightful to watch and fun to play with, but she needs lots and lots of that kind of attention. There is nothing they would rather do than love on their little girl, but sometimes they wish they could do other things as well. They hope to expand their family, but they are sobered by the responsibility of bringing children into the world.

These are the paradoxes of parenthood. Bern and I faced them when we raised our own brood and we remember the exhaustion and the expense, the fears and joys of raising four children to adulthood. So how should we advise these young parents now?

Here is what we say: Go for it! Enjoy those children and trust God to provide. There will never be a better way to invest your time and your life. It is the best thing in the world to end up with a house full of family, laughter and sharing.

Climbing Empty Nest Mountain

I have been an empty-nester for almost five years now and have finally nearly made it to the top of that emotional mountain. As much as I tried to get ready for this part of my life, I was bowled over by its actual impact when it happened. The days of coming to terms with the end of child-rearing brought me a lot of unexpected feelings. Sometimes I turned into a woman I hardly recognized, I was so overwhelmed with emotion.

I thought I had done a great job of preparing for the day that all of my children left home. My husband and I kept our marriage central to our lives; we kept the romance alive and developed common interests that we could continue to share when we no longer had the kids to focus upon. We looked forward to eating whatever we wanted, going wherever we wanted and doing whatever we wanted in peace and quiet in our own home.

In the early days, all of that freedom was not as cool as I had imagined it would be. Our home was too, too quiet. We didn’t feel like going anywhere without the kids and we couldn’t remember what it was that we were going to do with all of that free time. I had to battle mild depression that made me want to hole up every weekend and not do anything.

However, the eating-whatever-we-want part was actually pretty great. In a way it became our ticket out of being stuck at home. I began to try new recipes that I had not considered while we had so many hungry mouths to feed. Bern and I went to new restaurants and dined with friends. At home I launched into picturesque adventures in good eating. You may think I am kidding, but on my husband’s Facebook page you will occasionally find pictures of food I have prepared for him. He loves a good meal.

I am pleased with my life now, but there were a lot of switch-backs on the way to get where I am today. It was a challenge, but each turn along the way brought me closer to the goal, which was empty nest contentment.

Here is one of the things I faced and what I did to get through it. I call it The Identity Crisis:

After twenty-seven years of investing everything I had in our children, I experienced a loss of identity when they became independent. I applauded their success, but where did that leave me? In a very short period of time my husband I went from being their primary support and number one counselors to being distant voices on the sidelines of their lives. We felt forgotten--or at least I did. I am now convinced that mothers feel much more deeply than fathers the effects of releasing their kids to the world.

This was the hardest switchback for me in my emotional climb, my loss of identity as a full-time mother. For a couple of years I felt hollow inside. No amount of self-talk and working on life plans could quell that emptiness. I had to get through it as if I were going through a grief experience...which I was. It was not a death, but it was the end of a huge part of my life. People assured me that I had not lost my kids, but had achieved the goal of parenting which is to see them become successful adults. I agreed, but how I missed the relationship I had with them for so many years! I felt lost without them.

After a couple of years, I finally gave myself permission to let my grief run its course. I quit trying to manage my feelings and I quit apologizing for feeling sad. I began to recognize that there were parts of me that were never going to respond to rational thought. I treated myself with gentleness and kindness and if anyone asked, I decided to tell the truth: I was having some very sad days and trying to talk me out of that wasn’t going to work.

Doing this got me unstuck emotionally. I was able to let the “mommy” in me fade gently into the past as I honored my feelings about who she had been. I sympathized with my mommy-self and once I had run the gamut of her emotions, I found there was a new woman emerging to take her place. This was the creative, restless woman who had been waiting for decades to express herself, the part of me that remained dormant while I devoted myself to child-rearing. The woman that is emerging now is a seminary student, writer and teacher. She is also a grateful woman, thankful for the wealth of life experience she has to draw upon.

There have been many other switchbacks. One was learning how to communicate with my adult children without being annoying. That one took me about 4.75 years to traverse. I don’t think my kids thought I was particularly annoying during that time, but I was constantly watchful, learning how to ask questions, express concern or participate in their lives without stepping on their toes.

Another was Dealing with Holidays, which actually resolved itself pretty quickly. I just told all of my kids that I would never struggle with them over the holidays; I would trust them to do what was best for all concerned when they made their plans. The first Christmas that no one came home I was frantically re-thinking that, but it is still my policy and I think it is a good one.

Sometime I will share how I beat a path over the switchback of family jealousy. It was tough to traverse that one because I was carrying a huge pack of resentment at the time, but it was probably my final switchback, the one that brought me to the top of the mountain and the place of contentment where I live now.

Yes, I think there may be some more blog entries inside me on this subject of Climbing Empty Nest Mountain.

Uncomfortable...but Safe

It took 13 hours to travel home on Monday after the conference in North Carolina. That included one delay on the ground in Charlotte while we waited for a flight attendant to sprint across the terminal and join us, and another while we waited for the windshield wipers to get fixed. I was thinking Jiffy Lube could have done it faster if we had just wheeled the plane over to one of its stations.

We arrived in Chicago and I boarded my next flight, taking my seat next to the window. I love watching out the window when I fly because I always hope the clouds will part and let me see something amazing on the ground. It's a little like looking at the world from God’s point of view.

I was just getting settled in and beginning to read when there was a flutter of activity on my right and a lovely young lady with big brown eyes sat down next to me. She was as slim as a model and had a cute, 60’s-style Piccadilly cap pulled down over her hair. She buckled herself into her seat and immediately started tapping both of her feet at such a rate I thought the whole plane would soon be rocking in rhythm to it.

Without bothering to introduce herself, she looked at me with those wide eyes and said, “I just got off the worst flight! The whole plane was shaking like this...” and she waved her hands wildly from side to side. Then she made them bob up and down and I got the picture; it had been a bad one. She was not ready to fly again at that moment and was debating whether or not to bolt for the cabin door.

I told her, “You know, planes are built to handle that kind of thing.” She looked at me in disbelief and said, “Do you really think so?” I assured I knew it was true. I told her my daughter-in-law’s dad is a pilot and one of the most cautious people on the planet. He wouldn’t have flown for thousands of hours all over the world unless the equipment was safe in all kinds of weather and conditions. My seat mate relaxed a little, and although she did white-knuckle her way through take-off, once we were cruising she began to enjoy the flight a little bit.

Then we entered the airspace over Colorado and met one of those summer afternoon thunder-boomers the state is famous for. Our plane began to dance through the turbulent clouds and buck on the updrafts. We looked out the window and saw lightning strike the ground just south of us. My seat mate looked at me in terror and asked, “Are you sure planes are built to handle this?” Once again I assured her they are.

Then I said, “This is uncomfortable, but it isn’t dangerous. Your stomach is jumping and your brain is firing off alarms, but you are safe. The pilot does this everyday. The plane is built to fly right through this storm and soon we will be safe on the ground. It’s uncomfortable, but you are safe.”

She began to repeat the words “I’m uncomfortable, but I’m safe” quietly, like a mantra.

I pointed out to her that the airline made a promise to get her safely to her destination and intended to keep it. Pilots are trained to know what to do in a storm. Everyone in a position of responsibility had already done all they should to guarantee a safe trip and a safe landing, and the odds were very high that we were going to land gently and safely in a few minutes...which, of course, we did.

The narrative running in the back of my mind during this conversation had to do with larger circumstances than a rocky plane ride. I was thinking of friends, neighbors and family members who are dealing with storms of illness, financial stress and uncertainty about the future. Most of these people have faith in God, but some of them don’t.

It occurred to me that those of us who have put our faith in God have boarded a “plane” that is built to deal with the storms of life. I thought of a friend who is undergoing physical pain following surgery right now and yet who has inner peace. My friend is uncomfortable, even suffering from pain, but she believes she is safe. She believes her “pilot” knows how to get her through this and that her ultimate landing will be gentle and pain-free. That kind of peace will see a person through anything. It is peace that is connected to hope.

On the other hand, I recently read the account of a famous writer’s death. She pursued every possible avenue of medical intervention to delay her death from cancer, including traveling all over the country to try experimental drugs. She consumed special diets and practiced obscure therapies. She kept her body and spirit tensed against the looming prospect of death until it was useless and then, in her final days, she turned inward and died silently and in despair. For her the pain of illness and death held no place for peace; she did not believe she was safe.

We don’t know what storms we will face in life. Some of them will be painful and others will push all of our internal panic buttons. Whatever happens, if you are a person of faith remember this: Your circumstances may get uncomfortable, but in the Lord you will always be safe.

Veni, Vidi, Humidity

This past weekend I joined 599 other women (they told us the total was 600 so, not counting me, there must have been 599) at a conference in North Carolina called She Speaks. I went with fear and trembling in my heart because the purpose of the conference was to learn how to speak and write for public consumption.

Now, I like to speak and write as much as anyone, but I tend to speak in small intimate settings like Starbucks and what I write has mostly ended up in a big box under my bed. This has been true for years. Despite writing dramatically in my journals more times than I can count "I waaannnnt to be a writer" and "I waaannnnt to teach", I have never ventured outside my home to find out how one actually becomes a good writer or teacher. I guess I thought that eventually the people of the world would look around and say to each other, "Where is that woman we have been waiting to hear from? Let's go find her!"

Then, late last year I held my breath, took a giant leap and landed in my first class at Fuller Theological Seminary. The landing wasn't too big a jolt because it was an online class, so I was still communicating and writing from home. My classmates were interesting but faceless people in other places. My professor was a kindly email presence who generously gave me my first graduate school "A". Yay!

That first class was really great, but it didn't help with my need to break on out of this house and get into the real world. So, to overcome my fear of live responses from real people to my feeble attempts at communication, I accepted my friend Barb's invitation (or dare?) and went with her to She Speaks.

Last Thursday we flew into the steamy, big-hair world of the South in Charlotte, NC. If I learned nothing else this past weekend, I did learn why southern women (and men) have big hair. It's the heat and humidity. Anyone who steps outside in that southern climate returns with hair twice the size it was when they got up that morning. They have all had to learn how to work with that. Forget any hope of silky strands of shining hair blowing in the wind---hand me that big can of hairspray!

The conference was an overwhelming experience on every level. First, there were so many women and they all looked so nice, so young and so thin--or maybe those were just the ones that stood out to me. I saw a lot of great outfits, nice jewelry and cool handbags, not to mention the latest in hairstyles and makeup. Eventually, after I had been there for a while, I also saw women who looked like me.

The speakers were AMAZING!--but after the first evening of listening to them I despaired of ever becoming a real public speaker. They were all so polished, funny and able to drive home memorable points. Of course, those great speakers are also successful authors so I began to wonder what ever made me think I could write.

The workshops were fire hoses of information and I could hardly write fast enough to get all the notes. I ordered eight CD's of workshops I missed. The workshop leaders did not waste a minute of our time--everything counted.

I was assigned to a speaker evaluation group where we presented 3 minute and 5 minute talks and critiqued each other...exactly what I dreaded most when I signed up for the conference. I survived the critiques, but as my friend Barb said, it was like bringing my baby to the group and hearing them say it was ugly. I decided to tell myself that these two little talks were not my real babies. My real babies are yet to be born and next year maybe I will go again and show the speaker group how good one or two of them can look.

So, what did I learn that I can use right away? I learned the power of a good story in communicating a message. I learned how to pace and organize a talk so it will be more memorable.

I also learned not to be so danged serious all of the time. This descendant of Puritan/Mennonite/Baptist/FrozenChosenPresbyterian stock needed to be shaken up a little with some southern attitude and southern vittles. Actually, the vittles may not have contributed much, but I hope that a little of that Southern warmth and friendly good humor stays with me from now on, 'cause, honey, I do love me some of that southern charm.