Tangible

Every morning, blurry eyed and just shy of surly, one or the other of my boys climbs up on Grandpa's old swivel bar stool for breakfast at the kitchen island.

Various green and growing things sprout contentedly from an assortment of used-to-be-Grandma-and-Grandpa's metal bowls.

A bejeweled in blue broach that Grandma used to wear is propped up against a plant pot on a corner shelf.

On Monday I made green bean soup in her old stock pot.

Grief sneaks up on us. It comes at awkward moments; it's drawn to the surface of our well mastered emotions by an unexpected kindness, a lingering hand, an injustice, a deferred hope. The cold, hard weight of a cooking pot becomes a connection to something long-ago, something eternal.

A reminder of what was, what can be.

An invitation to learn from ones who've gone before ~ to employ their strengths and learn from their been-there example.

So, first we mourn. Then we grow. We learn. We do them proud in our determination to live well, justly, humbly, and full of Faith.

Grandma's hand dipped a spoon deep into some savory soup or other.

In that pot.

One hand gripping a side handle, the other firmly coaxing a meal into existence.

She lived well. She loved better. She prayed most.

She will be missed.

I don't need advice -- I need people to give a damn.

~Jason ~

I have no fear of drowning
It's the breathing that's taking all this work

~ Jars of Clay ~

Kevin

His opening statement is, "I'm not gonna' lie to ya'..." Right there you know there are some fish tales on the way. Kevin does not disappoint. Stories trip from thirsty lips, one chasing another, as he coolly appraises his mark. He thrusts a soiled and sticky hand toward me. I take it in my own. We exchange names.

There is murder in his eyes (I'm not big on eyes being the "window to the soul." I never get anything from looking people in the eye. But his are scary different.). I'm sure that if he hasn't already done it, he will.

But we aren't talking about murder. We are talking about need. Because Kevin needs. He needs to be dealt with honestly in his jobs. He needs to be left alone. He needs to stop drinking and he needs to stop doing drugs (It's been two months since he last smoked pot and two years since he last used Crack. My "two-weeks-sober" theory blown all to pieces in one conversation!).

Kevin's not getting off the street. He knows that. He doesn't even pretend to want to. He battles the urge, well articulated and more than a touch menacing, to just break in and steal what he needs, when he needs it. But, he assures me, pale, dull, almost-lime green eyes never wavering from mine, he's just not that sort of guy. He'd rather ask me straight up for my money than stick a knife in my back and force me to hand it over at some ATM. I wonder.

I wonder.

Street-filthy finger jabbing the sky, he talks about "that Guy up there" repeatedly. "I spend an hour a night tellin' God how sorry I am 'bout what I had to do that day." Just to make it by.

He tells more stories. He turns to my eleven year old son who's silently observing our exchange. Not much taller than I am, Kevin is almost eye-level with my boy. He points aggressively at Jamy, his voice revealing the only emotional intensity we've seen so far, "You. I'll say this to you: Don't hang out with people who tell you that stealin' and beatin' people up is the only way ta' be their friend. Hang out with the people that are half like that and half geeks. 'Cuz the geeks'll be able to get ya' a job later on."

Dubious advice, I think, as I rest my glance on my very uncomfortable boy who has taken a half-step toward the protection of his patiently observant daddy.

"Kevin," I interject, "we've got to be on our way. When I talk with God about you today, what can I ask Him about for you? What do you need right now?"

Courage. Strength. For the first time in our conversation there is the tiniest crack in his bravado. It's hard sleepin' in my tent all 'the time, he says. It's hard to resist the temptation to do stuff. The temptation to drink so much more than he is right now, to live like a thief, to use his knife as more than just a stay-away-from-me warning.

Courage and strength.

I offer him my hand in farewell; his grip is strong. I'm embarrassed, ashamed, by the repulsion I feel at its grime (I ache to wash my own ~ scrub it, sterilize it clean, but hours later I can still feel the solidity of his muddied fingers wrapped around my own life-is-easy palm).

Kevin's sleeping outside tonight. He'll sleep in the same filthy skin he walked around in all day. His knife will be his best and safest companion, and he'll be yearning for daylight and a thirst-slaking drop. His moral code will tell him that it's okay to pimp if that's what it takes to make a dollar. It will tell him that it's only okay to beat a guy if he steals from you ~ If he beats you first, or defames your character, you turn the other cheek. It'll tell him that God is real and that God can only be God if we keep messing up so that He can help us.

I'm not going to lie to you, I think that's some kind of crazy. My well-fed, addiction-free suburban existence doesn't require a lot of courage, so it's easy for me to sanctimoniously dismiss his code. Not so easy to dismiss Kevin, though. Kevin and his stories, his veiled threats and his advice, and his street-filthy hands. Not so easy to dismiss Kevin.

You Are Not Dismissed

As the two women at the table next to mine readied themselves to leave the coffee shop, their unsatisfying conversation was coming to a stilted close. Certainly both had done a lot of talking ~ the weights and lengths of their children, their on-hold careers (or not), their frustration with their husbands, and their annoyance with "Megan" had all been duly aired. They'd all but tripped over one another in their efforts to tell all. But they left me with the feeling that neither of them had been heard at all.

Why do we only listen with half of our hearts and a fraction of our attention? Why do we so quickly interject our own opinions and superimpose our own experience on the story of another, instead of enlarging our perspective on our shared experience?

We're so much alike, right? Our struggles, fears, hopes, and joys ~ the same. Some of us have grown too focused on ourselves and have become convinced that our suffering and trouble, our talent and purpose are more critical or more at risk than those of our friends. We've been so long gazing in the mirror that we've neglected to glance out the window at the shared journey we're walking alongside our remarkable sisters.

Each of us

• is conscious of our beauty ~ and our lack of it. We are hard on ourselves to the point of cruelty and resist assurance that we are lovely enough.
• is maternal. Those of us with children agonize over countless dark and hopeful things regarding our babes. Those of us without wonder if we should have them; wonder if we're incomplete without them; wonder if we could manage them if we did have them.
• is professional. We are skilled and intelligent. We resist the thought of appearing (or actually being) purposeless and realize, on some level, that we can be more than we are.
• is worried about losing our memory, our bone density, our skin tone, our hair, our mind. We fear cancer and hate cellulite.
• carry grief. Some public. Some secret. Women are in pain and manage it in various ways with varying degrees of success.
• dream.
• hate.
• need to rage against the injustice we have personally experienced and personally witnessed.
• want to count for something to someone.
• wrestle with the juggling act that our lives have become. We want to juggle well, but worry that we might be dropping more balls all of the time; certain that we're dropping more balls than the friend next door who has it all together.
• want to be seen.
• want to be understood. Truly. Deeply.
• want to be made to laugh.
• want to be heard. Our words. Beyond our words. To the bits of the story we don't know how to tell but quite necessarily need to voice. We want to be heard.

Today has been a day of selfish listening on my part. I admit that I was half-hearted in my efforts to hear and wanted, more than anything, to impose my own telling on the stories of my sharing friends. I dismissed their crises as histrionic or temporary. I clamored for the safety of my kitchen and a warm patch of sunlight.

That's not okay. We need to hear each other. Fully. Generously. Consistently. We must not dismiss the stories of our friends. In listening, with whole attention, we become a point of safety, release, and reassurance for a worthy other. By allowing ourselves to become immersed, completely drawn in by their story we are presented with the opportunity to expand our own lives just a little.

Dad Taught Me...

• "Everything is going to be okay. But when it's time to worry, I'll let you know." That sounds a lot like God.
• "Rights" aren't all they're cracked up to be. People will tell us that life is all about getting what is rightfully ours, about defending our own rights, about being right. Consider a life of absolute surrender to God instead ~ consider laying down rights in exchange for relationship with Jesus; consider trusting that the Way of Jesus might be safer, wilder, more rewarding, less arrogant than living for self alone.
• Listening takes time. Listening requires that the hearer be silent, slow to speak.
• Sometimes physical health (or it's absence) is a choice. Choose wellness.
• Compassion is sweet and powerful...and sometimes hidden.
• Crying with another in their grief is right. Do it. But don't make it about you.
• It's okay to mumble the odd expletive, especially if, while patiently teaching your daughter to drive, she nearly spins everybody into a ditch.
• "Integrity" is about what goes on in secret; about who we are when no one's watching.
• Diplomacy and wisdom invite peace. Sometimes they even make peace.
• Forgiveness is what we live, no matter how angry we are or how much we're hurting.
• It is never okay to disprespect our elders. It is never okay to disprespect anybody.
• Change is possible. Teachability is imperitive.
• It's probably better to err on the side of generosity, even if the service is bad and the meal is cold. Who knows what sort of day your server is having?
• Silent laughter, the kind that sees tears coursing down a cheek, heals.

My father lives his faith. Every day. His largely silent example (italisized with the occasional, well-timed German cuss word) shapes me. It shapes my family. It works itself more deeply into who I am with every year that passes.His journey has been as real-life, human, painful, successful, uncertain as any. But his steps are sure and he's carved a path worth following.

Under My Skin

The two year anniversary of my seventy pound weight loss has just passed.

The food madness that has plagued me since puberty continues to be my undoing. I drink staggering quantities of soda. I eat chocolate every day. And, whatever any health guru would have you believe, my control over the amount of food I ingest is as tenuous today as it ever was.

But the pounds have stayed away. So I celebrated! How else? With a trip to the doc for an annual physical. Good. Times.

"Dr. Z," I said, preparing to ask the question I've been too-scared to ask in the past 24 months, "I'm stuck. I got rid of 70 of the excess pounds I was carting around, but I can't seem to shake the last 8."

She gave me her less-than-comforting-bedside-manner up-and-down look. There was a pinch test. There was another look -- rueful. Humoring? Annoyed? "Well. This could be the problem: You're trying to lose your skin."

Twenty years of overweight, obesity, and pregnancy have left me wobbling. And wobbly I shall remain without the aid of vanity-enhancing, pocket book-shrinking cosmetic surgeries because there's no more weight to lose. Just skin.

It's time to come to terms with the numbers as they are; on the scale, on the measuring tape. It's time to acknowledge that I won't be getting that nose piercing I've wanted re-done (it was the reward for a seventy-six pound loss).

A surprising sort of calm has come with this new understanding. I've done the work (and will continue to do the work, of course). Now it's time to focus on other things (We heard a preacher suggest that our souls are very fat: we spend too much time thinking about ourselves, our weakness, our strength, our this, our that. We've become obese in our self-awareness. I wonder what a seventy pound loss looks like there?). It's time to be. To rest more. To strive less in this respect.

I'm guessing this will be easier said than done! But it's a good time of year for new goals and hopeful objectives. I'm excited to turn my focus outward again ~ away from me and onto others. Broader, more productive, more generous pursuits ahead.

Wobbly bits and all!

Jesus says there's nothing more important than Love.

Religion says there's nothing more important than being right.

It's possible to be very religious without knowing God at all.

The Desert

So what is the desert?

The desert is a state of being -- a place where you find yourself alone, even in the midst of many. In this place, a place that has now begun to occupy your regular world, you encounter a disease (a dis-ease): a dryness, a barrenness, and an aloneness -- alone because no one can bloom the desert for you...

No one can help you with the question the desert poses -- and no one can help you realize the answer...

In the desert, God can sneak up on you. In the cities and towns, people are so armored, so fearful of one another -- even those they love -- that God doesn't have a chance...Or we stand waiting for God to do something different, something new.

God doesn't have anything new to show us. He's shown us everything. It's staring us in the face. That's what "We were made in God's image" means. We were shown...it in the very way we're made! (And) I've got news for you. It isn't about what you see -- it's about who is doing the seeing...The world doesn't need to be changed by God or born again; it's our way of seeing that needs to be born again, and, more specifically, the seer needs to be born again.

~ William Elliot, Falling Into The Face of God, Forty Days and Nights in the Judean Desert ~

Endless Winter

...summer passed, winter returned... In winter there is no heat, no light, no noon, evening touches morning, there is fog and mist, the window is frosted, and you can't see clearly. The sky is a dungeon window. The whole day is a cellar. The sun has the look of a beggar. Horrible season! Winter changes into stone the water of heaven and the heart of man.

~ Victor Hugo, Les Miserables ~

Table Manners

Tonight, over a "dinner" of KD and hot dogs the conversation was inconsequential, silly, cabinfever-induced nothingness.

Suddenly, without any clear provocation, our thirteen year old, with a grin on his face, leaped from his seat, lunged across the table, and pounded his big brother in the arm. *WHAM* None of the males in the house seemed to think there was anything amiss as they righted wobbling condiments and steadied drinking glasses.

Absentmindedly re-centering the table, I gave my son a look of shock and questioning rebuke.

"Oh," he said offhandedly

'Oh'?! I silently reprimanded, You just pounded your bro at the dinner table! For no apparent reason?!" My look was meant to convey some form of motherly direction.

"Oh. Uhh. Excuse my reach."