Tag Archives: mylife

Living in the Shadow of Death

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Yesterday, I held my neighbor, shaking and sobbing, two hours after her beloved Tom breathed his last breath.  His story is too familiar: cancer, treatment, remission, cancer return, gone.  They were prepared for him to go in the fall, but not now. 

This morning as my husband sat up in bed, I pulled him back.  Just a little while longer.  I dread the day that we say our final good-byes, this man whom I have loved for 34 years.   My neighbor’s loss seems a vicarious dress rehearsal, a needed reminder of what is ahead. 

How do I live in the shadow of death? 

Trusting.  My hope and confidence are in the Lord.  I don’t want to be fearful, skittish, anxious, neurotic.  No man knows his time.  All I know is that when deep waters come, the strength will be provided. 

Savoring.  Each day, each conversation, each moment is a gift. 

Expressing.  The older we get, the more we affirm our love for one another.  In the middle of random moments he will say, Love you, babe.   I Love You is a good way to send a child out the door, end a phone conversation, say good night.  Even better is the conversation starter: You know what I love about you?

Confessing  Both confessing our sins and confessing our faith.  Why wait?

Forgiving  Leave no room for pettiness.  Funny thing, we see it in others but are blind to it in ourselves.  Put the best possible construction on actions or attitudes you don’t understand. 

Enjoying   There is truth, beauty and goodness surrounding us.  This is my Father’s world.  

Obeying   For me, it always comes to trust and obey.  There is no other way.

Easter Monday

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From the view of the sunrise outside our front door
to the pitter-patter of raindrops on the roof as we fell asleep,
Easter was a magnificent, glorious, rich celebration.

Today, Easter Monday, is a day of hugs and good-byes
with family returning to their homes,
a day for the washing machine to exert itself,
a day of putting away,
a day of happy, contented sighs.

I read somewhere that in Greek villages,
they celebrate Easter Monday with practical jokes,
reflecting the cosmic “joke” of Christ’s resurrection.
It is a holiday in many countries, a designation I fully support.
I think I’ll take a walk.

 

Horrific Accident

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We are waiting for news on the status of passengers in a vehicle that rolled over a steep ravine yesterday.  A local youth pastor took a group of boys on a trip in a remote wilderness area.  He was killed in the crash.  Most of the passengers sustained serious, some critical, injuries. 

A young man from our church, Isaiah, was life-flighted to another hospital.  One single mom has two sons in different hospitals (3 hours apart).  Agony. 

This is a tragedy for the small community of Enterprise, Oregon.  The loss of the youth pastor is huge.  He was a rebel when he was in our high school Sunday School class.  But God grabbed him and gave him a servant’s heart and he has impacted many lives. 

Waiting.  Praying.  Lord, have mercy. 

I waited patiently for the Lord;
he inclined to me and heard my cry.
He drew me up from the pit of destruction,
out of the miry bog,
and set me feet upon a rock,
making my steps secure.
~ from Psalm 40

Trust in him at all times, O people;
pour out your heart before him;
God is a refuge for us.
~ from Psalm 62

 

    

Inventory and Evaluate

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As we approach the twenty-first century,
popular culture is taking the lead
in establishing a sensibility,
not of intense involvement,
but of cool detachment.

~  Kenneth A. Myers, AGCaBSS

sen•si•bil•i•ty   The quality of being affected by changes in the environment
                  Acute perception or responsiveness toward something.

I can’t forget the frustration I felt whenever I talked to a certain childhood friend.  She never really focused on my eyes, but looked hither and yon.  Dialog was always staccato as she interrupted me and interrupted herself – on the slightest pretext.  I never felt like she was actually listening to me.  For me, my friend is the prototype of the detached style of communicating which, today, is the norm.  Face to face conversations are punctured by incoming text and incoming calls, our own personal version of “breaking news.” 

Sensibility is the key word in Myers’ final chapter, Where Do We Go From Here?  We are urged to not be dominated by the sensibility of popular culture (self-centered, obsessed with the new, immediate, sensuous, spectacular) but to build a culture of transcendence (truth, goodness, beauty, permanence, long-term rewards). 

Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

But what does that look like?  Because these are wisdom issues there isn’t a clear-cut method of evaluation.  Wouldn’t it be nice if we could have a weekly pop culture weigh-in that would indicate our over-consumption? Even that wouldn’t measure how we are being affected by the technology or if we were deliberate or thoughtless in our engagement.   

Like so many areas in life, we need reminders.  It was a wake-up call for my husband and me on our last family backpack that 85% of the conversation revolved around quoting movies and television shows.  Where we used to sit around the table and talk (!) we often stand around the screen and show each other the latest You-Tube wonder.  We voice our concerns to our grown children; they make their own choices.  

Our rule with television has always been that people are more important than programs.  If someone stopped by for a visit, the TV went off and we focused on people.  What message does it send when you visit someone, they look over and say hello and then turn back to the tube?  I think we need to train our children in the etiquette of cell phones.  Do you take a call anytime?  How can we use technology in a way that doesn’t separate real life relationships?

Here is my own pop culture checkup:

•  Blogging  I started blogging in 2005 to stay in touch with my son at college.  Blogging in 2009 has nothing much to do with communicating with my family (I think my brother is the only family who might read it); but I enjoy the connections across the country.  Has my family benefited or suffered with my blogging time?  I am guilty of neglect.
•  Facebook  I joined Facebook because that is the medium my kids prefer to communicate the stuff of their lives. Face it: I like Facebook!  It can be trite, it can be banal.  But I do like the way I can check in my friends overseas, see pictures of my grandson, eavesdrop on clever repartee and see small segments of friends’ lives.  It eats time like Godzilla eats women.  (does Godzilla eat women?  I really don’t know!)
•  Movies and DVDs  I love Netflix.  It allows me to be more deliberate in my viewing (I detest roaming the aisles of Blockbuster wondering what to watch) and gives me access to films which are out of the mainstream, particularly indies and foreign films.  I find it really helps to dovetail our movies with our studies.  In the winter we get one-at-a-time unlimited; in the summer we switch to the $4.99 plan. 
•  Telephone  We have Caller ID but still take blocked calls.  Getting on the National Do Not Call list was the best phone decision we’ve had.  We also have Call Waiting, but it serves to tell us someone else tried to call.  I call back after the current phone call is completed.  We decide to take or not take a call during dinner on a case-by-case basis. 
•  Magazines  I’ve become more suspicious of general magazines.  We take World and Cooking Light.  There are several I would enjoy but their ephemeral nature and my to-be-read pile push me toward books.
•  Newspaper  If I lived in a metropolitan area, I could very easily see myself immersed in the daily reading of the paper.  The ephemeral nature applies here, too. Our local paper lets me know who died and what’s on sale and can be read in ten minutes. 
•  Television  If I wasn’t married to my husband this would be a problem.  If it didn’t take up so much time, I could lose myself in the baseball season.  I really hate being in homes where the TV is on during every waking hour.  I cringe at the thought of TV being the default noise in the home. 
•  Radio  I enjoy streaming classical stations on the internet.  I could devote hours to Pandora or magnatune.com.  When we take car trips we usually listen to a bit of talk radio. 
•  Cell Phone  It’s become a badge of honor, a matter of pride to see how long we can go without getting one.  The great thing about this medium, unlike Facebook, is that I can connect with people with cell phones without needing one myself.  I can think of a dozen great applications for cell phones, they just don’t apply to our family.  If we had a daughter driving, she would have a cell phone faster than you can say Verizon Wireless. 

I don’t expect your list to remotely resemble mine.  But I do believe it is a good thing to think over the reasons why you do or don’t use the technology available to us.  Inventory and evaluate.  One thing is clear to me.  If I don’t want to be distracted, I need to turn the computer off.  We use the computer for school, but there is much we can do before we turn it on.  I lose/loose my focus too easily with it. 

There are many spin-offs of this discussion.  How important is it to have a pulse on popular culture?  Is it necessary to read best-sellers and watch top shows in order to have “talking points” with our neighbors?  Where is the balance?

Food on Vacation

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My new friend Lois and I have been holding meetings of our two person button club.  I truly enjoy our time together and come away rewarded with a new story, more information on buttons (you can tell a lot about a button by biting it…no joke!), and a deeper friendship with a woman right around the age my mom would be if she were alive.

This week Lois had this framed piece up.  Three menus from three different motels around Yellowstone Park in July, 1949.  Memories from a vacation she enjoyed with her family.

• Interesting breakfast options at Mammoth Springs Hotel: 

Eggs: boiled, fried, shirred or scrambled  what are shirred eggs? * eggs placed in small buttered dishes with a dash of cream and baked until whites are set
Omelets: plain, ham or jelly  ever heard of a jelly omelet? Sweet + eggs? No appeal to me!
Toast: dry, milk or butter  I’ve only known milk toast as a metaphor! M.F.K. Fisher calls it “a warm, mild, soothing thing, full of innocent strength”

• Lunch options at Canyon Hotel

Grilled Halibut, Hungarian Goulash or Fresh Alaskan Shrimp Salad   yu-uhmmm!
Cauliflower Polonaise  boiled cauliflower, fried in butter, w/ bread crumbs and chopped boiled eggs
Brown Betty Pudding consists of apples, lemon peel, brown bread, suet (!) and spices

• Dinner menu items at Old Faithful Inn

Chilled Tomato Juice  this makes me salivate.  What a splendid beginning!
Steamed Sweet Rice and Peaches, Coude    ?????
Grilled Cube Steak, Colbert    more ??????
Boysenberry Cobbler  I’m ready to go back in time
Cheese and Saltines   I’m amused that this is in the dessert section

How much fun is that?  What a fine memory to have on your kitchen wall!  My family laughs because every description of a vacation always starts and ends with the food.   One of our rules when we travel is that we don’t eat anything we could get in our hometown.  You won’t find us at Denny’s in Alabama.  (You won’t find us at Denny’s at home either!)  We always try to avoid franchises.  If there is a local specialty (like sauerkraut on pizza in North Dakota) we’re game to try it.

Your turn!  What’s the best food you’ve had on a trip?

Wisdom in My Inbox

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I don’t know how you manage yours, but the state of my inbox often mirrors the state of my fridge.  It all revolves around your definition of fresh.  I don’t always often send fresh responses the way I’d like to.  Periodically I take time and write dozens of apologetic notes:  supplying addresses needed a month ago, the name of the book I think the writer wanted, thanking someone for a great quote, asking a question, responding to a line that I really liked…you know!

The good part of this pathetic non-system is that I get to ponder all the good stuff more than once.  Here are a few things I copied into my journal, all from normal, everyday, unpublished friends.

Staying connected to people has a price.
That price is walking beside them and helping shoulder the burdens they carry.  Loving them, laughing with them, encouraging them, carying with them, praying for them, caring about them…whatever it takes.   ~ MAS

I have to say that I am enjoying growing old.  It’s wonderful to grow old with a man you are in love with – to watch children mature, not just physically but spiritually, desiring to give Christ preeminence in their lives. I’m thankful for everyone’s health and safety and for all the numerous blessings I enjoy.    ~ MDC

The Lord kindly made up for being so far from my British blood family by giving me “friends of my right hand” as Madeleine L’Engle would say.    ~ FP

Aren’t those wise words?

Do you use folders to separate your emails by sender?  Years ago, my son took one look at my inbox and said, “Mom, you NEED folders” and proceeded to set them up for me.  I don’t put an email into a separate folder until no further action is needed. 

Occasionally, when I get just plain weird, I sort through my Sent folder, deleting trivial emails and putting other ones in folders too.  That way emails sent and received to the same person are all together.  I’ve never had zero emails in my Inbox and Sent folder, which would be the apex of organization.  For one moment.  It’s a happy thought.

What’s your email system? 

Grande Ronde Symphony Orchestra

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Last night I enjoyed a symphony concert with one of my piano students.  The program was Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A minor and Franck’s Symphony in D minor.  Our small town symphony has a tradition of bringing some of the greatest piano concertos to the stage. 

I like to describe a concerto as a duet between a solo instrument and the orchestra.  The piano (solo instrument, could be cello, violin, oboe, etc.)  will play a melody and the flutes (horns, strings, etc.) will play it back to the piano.  There are moments when the piano plays alone and the orchestra plays alone, but mostly they weave strands of melody in and out and around the varied instruments.

Last night’s concert was an unparalleled opportunity for a music lover in a small town in Oregon to see and hear a world-class artist.  Our guest artist is from Monterrey, Mexico, and has played in Moscow, Vienna, Los Angeles, and Caracas.  We had seats in the second row, with no one in front of us.  I could feel the vibrations in my bones.  There is nothing like live music.

You can see a sample of the Grand Ronde Symphony playing (not last night’s performance, but Tchaikovsky’s wonderful piano concerto) at this site.  Scroll down to GRSO and click for the full image.  The video is twelve minutes but watching the first five minutes will give you a feel for how blessed I am to live where amateur musicians play for the love of it. If you have unlimited time, the other videos are nice.  Wallowa Lake is the gold nugget of our region (and the setting for The Shack); the video for Eagle Cap Excursion Train traces our drive to church every Sunday.

If you only have a minute, watch this video and get this lovely melody in your bloodstream today.
  

Feasting on Stories

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Why does anybody tell a story?
It does indeed have something to do with faith,
faith that the universe has meaning,
that our little human lives are not irrelevant,
that what we choose or say or do
matters,
matters cosmically.

~ Madeleine L’Engle

What is better than
good food and drink
on a table,
chairs crowded round,
laughter, chatter
and
stories?

Smiling…remembering yesterday.