Rip Van Winkle and the Sneaker Waves

No, that's not a new pop band on my kids' iPods, although I kinda wish it was...

As of last Sunday 1/13/13, we passed the six-month marker since Andre's death.  We're halfway through this first trip through the calendar, with all the ambush-filled dates of holidays, birthdays, and "firsts" of all kinds.  And right among the predictable grief waves connected to these significant dates, there's a "sneaker wave" of grief that hits when I least expect it, when the sun is shining and there's only a slight breeze, just like the actual sneaker waves that the weather folks warn us Northern Californians about:  you're playing on the beach, in a tidepool, sitting on a rock, and WHOOSH, one of these waves washes up and knocks everybody over, sometimes sweeping people away and drowning them.  The grief that has been washing up lately, unpredicted in many cases, has mixed with the everyday frustrations of life, until it's hard to tell what's grief and what's just the growing pains of life as I continue to move through the calendar.

In my most recent round of "consolidation" (doesn't that sound nicer than "shovelling-out"?), I re-discovered, in a specially-designed space in the console of my minivan, a forgotten stash of cassette-tapes.  (For those of you born after 1980, cassettes were an ancient, pre-MP3, pre-CD format for music...ask your parents.) .   It was mostly stuff from my life before I was Andre's wife, before I was the mom to the four Hedrick kids.  It was tapes of a Celtic folksinger named Ed Miller, The Austin Lounge Lizards, Tish Hinojosa, and the Paul Simon "Graceland" and "Rhythm of the Saints" albums, along with an obscure skiffle band that played the campus quad at UT Austin back in the late 80's, Twang Twang Shock-a-Boom .  I think I must have stashed those tapes in the only place in my life that still had a cassette player, once it became clear that my days as a minivan-driving homeschooling mom had begun in earnest.  They hadn't been played in the car in a long time, although a few songs found their way, via iTunes, to my iPod running mix last year, in preparation for the half-marathon.

When I unearthed those music tapes, and started playing them on my rounds of errands,  it felt like I had opened a "time-capsule" of who I was before I began altering myself to fit my chosen role.  Playing those tapes, (and singing along, drumming on the steering wheel and "seat-dancing",  much to the chagrin of a certain teen and pre-teen), I was re-introduced to that person who ALWAYS sang in the car, a person who knew that Saturday mornings were made for morning shopping, and coffee out with a friend.  That person was an unabashed liberal, a cat-lover, a Shiner-Bock drinker, a fan of ethnic music of all kinds, an avid Spanish learner, a wearer of cute undies, a connaisseur of the art of harmless flirting, and an expert flash-mob dinner-party hostess. ( I once even turned an ironing board and a red bed-sheet into a Christmas buffet table in my tiny studio apartment, and felt no need to apologize... can you imagine?

It feels like an odd, RipVanWinkle awakening after 18 years of silencing and shrinking myself  into a kind of hyper-vigilant coma.  In that state, I was acutely aware of needing to keep things stable, of needing to buffer my husband from the world and the world from my husband, of needing to keep the kids out of my husband's cross-hairs... and to do that, I had to mostly anesthetize the silly, sensual, passionate, spontaneous side of myself for the soul-surgery required, that would make me capable of living within the confines of my role as Andre's keeper, and then later, my kids'safety buffer. I decided that it was pretty hazardous, and mostly futile to stick up for myself.  I learned to deaden and silence, to quickly accept blame, apologize, and work on the "fix".

In my non-expert opinion, the homeschooling mom-gig, even in ideal circumstances, calls for a certain necessary buttoning-down of the self.  There just wouldn't be hours in the day, and energy left in the body to lobby on behalf of a few causes, work on those samba knee/hip movements, phone a few friends for a potluck dinner party, try-on something cute from the clearance rack AND have the meatloaf on the table for 6 at 6, and get all the lesson planning done for the next day, while taking the kids through their various assignments at home while the kids are home all day.

And in my case, the to-do list also included  keeping the kids from triggering their Dad's rages, keeping them quiet while Andre' wandered around the house with a conference call phone on his head, cleaning up after his various snack-food-making sessions, and grabbing the remote to turn down the volume on Fox News when he'd left the room.  A few parts of me had to be chopped-off, or at least folded-away in order to fit in the box I had chosen to live in when I married Andre. ( Make no mistake: I chose the box, and I did my self-alteration to fit it.  I am not a victim.  I'm a person who made a series of mistakes, and I'm an unbelievably blessed person to be given now, under outrageously ugly circumstances, a second chance at life, both for me, and for my kids. )

With Andre's death has come a kind of un-planned-for, un-guided, un-buttoning of my boxed-in state.  The kids and I are actively in the process of calling-out non-functional (Ok, we do call it "crazy"..sorry. ) thinking when we spot it in our patterns of interacting.   Andre's pictures are gone from the walls, except in the kids' rooms where they have each chosen to keep a picture of their dad.  I've rearranged, and continue to re-arrange the furniture and decor.  I'm selling-off whatever I can of his money-pit hobbies.  And I'm beginning to let my heart out to play a little in the world of adult relationships, pitfalls and all.

And so, the sneaker waves of grief continue to roll in, and I'm doing my best not to let anybody get swept out and drowned in them.  Lately, I'm finding myself clinging to the rocks of my close friends, and trying to remember the other piece of advice we hear on the Northern coast--don't turn your back on the sea.  For me that means knowing and accepting that I can't predict when the waves will hit, but trying not to deaden this process of exploration and growth by living in fear of pain.

"For God did not give us a spirit of fear, but a spirit of love and of power, and of self-discipline"
 2 Timothy1:7

Not even sneaker waves can wash that away.



 

Breaking trails through this year's snow

Maybe it's because I grew up in New England, playing on the neighbors' sledding hills in the winter, but I LOVE the snow.  

Given where I live now, it's easy to forget how much I love the snow, until I'm taken by surprise all over again by it.  It's a "do-I-laugh-or-cry?", breath-catching moment, like what happens when someone surprises me with a gift.  (That part is not very New England, I guess... I'm not nearly stoic enough to live there anymore.)   I got that feeling on Sunday morning, driving up Highway 50 toward Echo Summit, when my aging minivan rounded a bend just past Kyburz and we were suddenly in the midst of tall, snow-marshmallowed pines, with the morning sun showering sparkles on the breeze between them.  

This year's snow-play-day was another step in our journey through the calendar for the kids and me, a round of "first"s without Andre.  I've been warned that each "first" will be difficult.  But this one seemed surprisingly easy, mostly.  And we even had enough snowgear for my nearly-six-foot-tall son, who is, at age 14, now as tall as his father was.  Over the years, I had bought a stockpile of the good stuff: alpaca socks, insulated, waterproof gloves, polypropylene thermal underwear, a good down-filled coat, LLBean winter boots, for Andre, hoping to keep him comfortable on our adventures.  He usually rejected wearing them, for one reason or another, and was usually uncomfortable on our adventures.  This year, it was easy to divide up that stockpile between my older kids and me, and keep everybody warm. 

 It sounds awful somehow, to talk about things being "easier" for the kids and me, when we are not even 6 months past Andre's death, but that is the unvarnished truth.  It's the telling of that truth that's been problematic lately.  I catch myself wondering if it's really ok to be honest and say that I am doing rather well.  Is that a betrayal of Andre's memory?  Do people think I'm being disrespectful of the dead?  In the moments when I'm feeling defensive and judged, I  suppose I could go on chugging the "whine" of "people just don't understand", but that seems unproductive at best, and certainly unloving in many different directions. Whether or not people are judging me negatively as I emerge into my new life, is really not my concern, I guess.  Most likely, it's just my own defensive sense of wanting to do it all "right", that's sneaking up behind me and bopping me on the head (another chorus of "Little Rabbit Foo-Foo, anyone?  )  What's becoming clear to me, at a level deeper than intellectual assent, is that there is no clear template, no plowed trail through the snow, for how this process of simultaneous grief and healing is supposed to proceed.

On Sunday, after the kids and I got to our sledding hill, put on our warm gear, and took the first couple of runs down the groomed sledding runs, I decided to rent some snowshoes and take off into the woods (leaving the kids on the sledding hill, using the buddy-system that they are quite good at) for a walk through the quiet.    

As I walked along, my heart felt incredibly light, not like the heart of a mother of four fatherless kids, not like a middle-aged widow.  I felt playfully alive.  I texted a friend (yes, I know... leave the technology behind, silly woman!), and chuckled to myself about what a perfect day it was turning out to be.

I stomped along a little farther into the woods, experimenting with what it was like to follow the paths that other snowshoers had made, and comparing that to what it felt like to break my own trail through the snow, guessing at what might be under my feet in the deep snow:  was I walking close to solid ground or floating over the bent forms of smaller, buried trees?  Was that a boulder I just stepped over?  Would I continue to be able to walk along, with my feet only barely sinking, thanks to my snowshoes, or would I suddenly find myself buried up to my armpits? What might it feel like to lose my balance and topple over?  Would I be able to get up?  A couple of times, I passed other snowshoeing parties.  One man called out to me from the packed trail, "you know, it's easier over here".  Maybe it was, I don't know. 

Eventually, I found myself in a clearing, with the sounds of Hwy 50 and the muffled sounds of the sled-riders just a murmur.  In that peaceful cathedral of tall pines on that Sunday afternoon, I found myself thanking God for all the incredible blessings in my life: for my kids, for the beauty around me, for the quiet, for my health, for the many, many people I love; people who have shown their love for me in so many ways over the past months, for my plans to return to school, for God's provision for every single one of our needs over the past months of uncertainty... I was rejoicing.  

And then... BANG !!

It was just a tree-branch popping under the weight of snow, but there is a part of my brain that, given the right trigger, still can't be stopped from kidnapping me right back to that awful moment, that single gunshot, that ended Andre's life in front of me.  (By the way, did you know that mascara that says "waterproof" isn't actually waterproof when you're standing in the middle of the woods, alone, sobbing into your mittened hands?  I guess that kind of disclaimer doesn't fit on the tube...oh well. )  As the loops of horror-film replay ended, I heard a voice inside me realizing, "He left all this behind in that one awful moment!  How could he do that?"  and I felt buried under an avalanche of pity for my sad, angry, frightened, lost husband, a man so unable to receive the beauty of life, the love of a wife and kids, the devotion of friends, the mercy of God, that he chose to leave it all behind in a single, horrible moment.  And then came the guilt: how dare I stand in this beautiful place, thinking about how easy the season had been, compared to what I was told to expect, feeling joyful, warmed by the distant laughter of kids (including his kids) on the sledding hill, his alpaca socks on my feet, wearing a warm scarf given to me by a friend I would never have met while Andre was alive?  How dare I? What kind of widow am I? 

Again, thanks to technology, I was able to phone one of my many wonderful, "call anytime" friends for a  long-distance intervention, still standing out there in the snow among the pine trees, and I was finally able to pull myself together and trek back to the sled hill, my kids and my life at present.  

What that moment, and the conversation that followed, brought into focus for me is that I am mostly breaking trail through this season of my life and I can never be sure when I will trip over a hidden obstacle, or lose my balance and topple over.  True, there are others who have walked similar paths, walking their own way among the hidden obstacles out here in the woods of widowhood.  But their path is not my path.  

I am not completely alone, thank God.  I can reach out and share my small triumphs, and I can cry out for help when I'm lost.  For that, I am unshakeably grateful.  But I am finding that I can't really walk well along the paths that other people have travelled, at least not in this part of the journey.  I just have to keep walking the path where I am, accepting that I will likely run into sinkholes and boulders where I least expect them.  But snowshoes help keep me walking above most of it.  

In the writings of one of the Old Testament's minor prophets, Habakkuk, there is a verse that says:

 The Lord God is my strength, and he will make my feet like hinds' feet, and he will make me to walk upon mine high places.  Habakkuk 3:19  

I had to look up what "hind's feet" were.  They are the feet of a female deer, a hind.  The deer was known for being sure-footed, even in the high, unstable places. 

 Snowshoes, hinds' feet...different forms, same result.  

Time to get back on the path and keep walking, I guess.  It's a new year, you know.  
*************************************************************************************************************

Just in case you need a bit more snow imagery to carry around (especially my reader-friends in South Africa and Australia), here's a poem that truly LIVES in me... again, blame my New England roots. 

Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
<sup>And miles to go before I sleep,
and miles to go before I sleep. 

-Robert Frost</sup> 

Feels like rain

Rain, rain, go away... is what we sing, right?

Yes... mostly... especially when I have a houseful of restless kids that I wish I could send outside to do whatever it is kids are supposed to do outside.  But in the last week or so, I've been thinking about the rain a little differently.


It's winter in the Bay Area.  Christmas Day, to be exact.  And it's raining.  Buckets.  Torrents.  Gutter-flooding, mud-shifting, hours of pouring rain.  That's what it does around here, usually from about late November or early December, until sometime in late March or early April.

However, we live in a climate where we get NO rain after the rainy season has ended in the Spring.  We have gorgeous, sunny, movie-perfect weather for weeks upon weeks upon weeks.  The sprinklers kick on every so often, the lawns stay green, and  life proceeds in the way that makes the whole world want to pick up and move to Northern California.

But outside the range of sprinklers, something different takes place.  The ground on the grassy hills gets hard and packed-down, the drought-hardy native plants grow and then wither through their appointed season, with the grasses and wildflowers drying up and ending their life-cycles in a blaze of sunlit gold while the ever-dark-green valley oaks look on.  By October, the hills are achingly beautiful in their sheen of gold against the blue sky that seems to both borrow and reflect the brightness of the sun-baked hills. That's when we enter another season here in paradise: wildfire season.  All those beautiful months of nothing but sunshine have left the landscape gasping for the relief of rain and threatening to burst into flame at the slightest ignition.

Boy, have I felt that way at times...

If I'm perfectly honest, looking back over so many "sunny" pieces I wrote before Andre's death, I have to say that I was living in that artificially-sprinkled dry season, sustained by whatever moisture I could find, working hard at staying "green" on the outside.  If there were people in my inner circle who could see that the "green" in my life was closer to astroturf or green-painted concrete, I never heard about it.

And so we have arrived at the rainy season in my life, and I am having a hard time not letting the mud get all over my soul's carpets.  The rainy season here, when it comes, is at once disruptive, overwhelming, occasionally destructive... and a source of astounding, miraculous transformation.  We watch the sun set on a Cezanne / Provencal landscape and wake up in an Irish travel poster:  from sun-bleached golds, browns, and ochres, to deep, velvety emerald and evergreen, almost overnight.  The rain changes dust-scapes to lush meadows and causes houses to slide off their foundations. It awakens wildflowers and causes traffic crashes.  It ruins outdoor plans and makes me want to pause for a cup of tea in a cozy chair by the window.  

I was living in that desperately dry "lovely weather" season for quite a while, about to go up in flames, it felt like, and now the rains have come in my life. Much of that rain has been disruptive, some in a horrifying way, and some of it in a good way, but disruptive and threatening nonetheless.

So, I'm wondering today, what if, just for a while, I could acknowledge that I'm in the midst of a pouring-down-torrents-that-drench-to-the-bone rainy season in my life, acknowledge that it feels like the house of my spirit might get washed off its foundation any minute, AND look at that rain as a blessing? I am indeed, greening up again.  My life is being watered more deeply now than at any time I can remember.  I can't help but see transformation, even if the rain feels overwhelming.  I can complain about the rain, or I can focus on the transformation and choose to trust that even if my retaining walls get washed away, I'll rebuild when the rain stops.

This new friend of mine, the one who told me that my passionate side is a gift (see my previous post ), has been opening my eyes to a new appreciation of the guitar work of BB King, Buddy Guy, and John Baldry.  This song by John Hiatt (performed by Buddy Guy and Bonnie Raitt in the youtube clip below) has a title and a decidedly sensual mood that has gotten me to thinking about this concept of rain being a blessing.

(Note to friends: Point me in the direction of stuff that challenges my brain, or touches my heart and you just might end up in my blog.  Whether that's a threat or a promise is up to you, I guess. :-)

Sorry, no ethereal, angelic hymns full of air, light and Holy Infants today.  Today, we're walking on the muddy earth, drawing music from a slightly different source.

Feels Like Rain - John Hiatt (performed by Buddy Guy and Bonnie Raitt

Feels Like Rain   (lyrics - first verse)

Down here the river meets the sea
And in the sticky heat I feel you open up to me
Love comes out of nowhere baby, just like a hurricane
And it feels like rain
And it feels like rain

(and then the last verse says)

Batten down the hatches baby
Leave your heart out on your sleeve
It looks like were in for stormy weather,
That aint no cause for us to leave
Just lay here in my arms
And let it wash away the pain
Feels like rain
And it feels like rain.

******** Come on in, but take off your shoes and let me lend you some slippers, ok? ******

Gifts -- skip the wrapping paper

A new friend in my life, someone I'm just getting to know, made an observation the other day.  This friend told me that my "passionate" (I would call it "silly, heart-on-the-sleeve lack of restraint") nature is a gift.

Huh.  A gift?  Some part of me, separate from what I can do, separate from what I make, accomplish, produce, serve... is a "gift"?   As silly as it sounds, that felt like news to me, even though I could probably write an entire essay from my head on the topic.  But I'm not talking about intellectual assent these days. If you've been around Presbyterians long enough, you can give a dissertation on grace, on innate worth, complete with footnotes and bibliography, but I'm not writing a paper here.  I'm sharing from my (silly, unrestrained, "passionate") heart.

What  wakes me up in the middle of night, or early in the morning is not my list of things to BE, it's my list of things to DO, particularly in this season, when the Christmas presents that haven't been purchased, (or haven't been wrapped), the cards that haven't been written, the cookies that haven't been made, the flannel pj pants that haven't been sewed, the mittens and scarves that haven't been knit, the pile of papers on the desk that are still un-sorted,  the made-from-scratch dinner that didn't happen, the petition that I didn't sign, the homeless person that I didn't give to... are fairly howling at me.

And then there's the stuff I've done that I should not have: the thoughtless comment, the lost-temper moment, the private thought that should have been kept private, the selfish impulse that should have been checked.  In the confessional prayers in the Anglican "Book of Common Prayer", there's a line that pretty much covers it for me:  "Forgive us for what we have done and for what we have left un-done"  Yup.  I tend to think in pretty existential terms:  I am what I do (or leave un-done).

Yesterday (before I caught wind of the tragedy in Connecticut--that's a subject for another day) I was swirling in my own ridiculously petty sea of guilt and self-condemnation over my un-done stuff and my should-have-left-undone stuff.  So, I poured out my anxious heart (in writing, as has been our long custom) to an old friend, one who has known me more than 25 years.  And in his inimitable style, he took the focus off my "doing" and reminded me that he sees the value of my "being".  He wrote:

You are worthy.

You are loved.

You are perfect, as is, right now.

You need no one else to complete you; you are complete.

And,

You are human.

You are flawed.

You are angry.

You are full of sorrow.

It still amazes me how many times that Grace--un-earned favor, un-earned love--has to bop me over the head with an angel's wing before I can wrap my mind around it.  It's a good thing that I am so surrounded with people (angels) who are so willing to keep reminding me.. they might want to check those edge-feathers for over-use injuries, though...

So, this morning, when my swirling thoughts (and an antsy dog who always seems ready to "do" in the wee hours of the morning) woke me, I decided to use the extra awake time for some "being" time.  I laced up my sneakers and headed out to the ridgetop that has often been my outdoor practice room for singing over the past three years.  As I got to my solitary spot, the sun was just coming over the shoulder of Mount Diablo, setting the frost-covered ridge alight with sparkles.  I stood there, drew a good singer's breath, made a few happy sounds, and realized that I was in the presence of another gift.  I didn't do it, I didn't make it happen, I didn't earn it.  It was just there, as it is there every morning: another invitation to just BE, to breathe, to pray for those I love, to love those I meet.  It's all a gift, and I didn't have to clip the coupon from the Sunday paper, go get it, or make it, or earn it.

At Christmas time, we celebrate that ultimate gift -- The Being of the universe, willing to live for a time, reduced to our human form:  to BE with us-- "Emmanuel", which means "God with us".  Baby Jesus in the manger, the man Jesus living among us for a short time and an eternity with us in Heaven.  Being with us.

And to think that among the people who surround me with their being,  there's someone who thinks that my sappy, overly-expressive way of being is a gift, and someone else who can remind me that I'm worthy and loved, regardless of what I do or fail to do...?  My Christmas stocking is full to overflowing this year.  

And, no thanks, I don't need a gift receipt for that... I have no intention of returning or exchanging it.  I might see if I can re-gift it a few times, though.

The Oxen - some thoughts from a few years back that still seem relevant

We're in the midst of trying to "do" Christmas here at last:  setting up Andre's locally-famous front-yard trains, bringing out the ornaments, attempting to make some cookies...  and I've been ambushed by tears and the feeling of simply going limp and numb in the face of the layer-upon-layer of memories, both good and bad, of Christmases past.

I thought I'd share something I wrote for my beloved choir folks, for our mid-rehearsal break, when someone from the choir reads a scripture and shares a thought.  My choir peeps were incredibly tolerant of some of my longer pieces back in those days.  This is from 2006, when I still lived my half-asleep existence: the ever-cheerful housewife, and mother of 4 small kids...  Even so, it feels somehow relevant today, if only for Hardy's touching poem.

(Devotional on "The Oxen" by Thomas Hardy) 

[1] [2] 

Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock. "Now they are all on their knees," An elder said as we sat in a flock By the embers in hearthside ease. We pictured the meek mild creatures where They dwelt in their strawy pen, Nor did it occur to one of us there To doubt they were kneeling then. So fair a fancy few would weave In these years! Yet, I feel, If someone said on Christmas Eve, "Come; see the oxen kneel "In the lonely barton by yonder coomb Our childhood used to know," I should go with him in the gloom, Hoping it might be so. -Thomas Hardy “The Oxen”

I must confess, this year's Christmas music is not giving me those lovely warm-fuzzy moments, tears springing to my eyes, that the music of other years has done.  But, like other grown-up tastes, The Hodie  ( a choral piece with orchestra, choruses and soloists, by Ralph Vaughan Williams)  is beginning to grow on me in a way that I know I will eventually find very satisfying.  Like I do every year at the choir retreat in October, I read through the texts of our concert work, looking for a lovely verse to quote in my annual Christmas letter. I eventually found one, but it took longer this year than other years.  However, Christmas cards aside, the first time I read through the poetic texts for this work, this poem, The Oxen, was intriguing to me in a non-Hallmark-card kind of way.  So, I did a little light research and found out a few things.  And as I thought about the poem, and what the literary experts tell me about it, and reflect on what I'm feeling this time of year, some things have become a little clearer, and I thought I'd share them. 

This poem, according to some background I read, appeared in The Times of London on December 24^th, 1915: a time, which, in some ways was a time similar to our own.  That Christmas, England was involved in the second year of a brutal, grinding war that was supposed to have been finished before Christmas the previous year.  The Industrial Revolution was transforming society.  The prevalence of rationalism, science and consumerism had begun its march toward overtaking faith and tradition.  I'll bet you can hear the echoes of that time here in 2006—science, rationalism, consumerism, a brutal, grinding war what was supposed to be over by now...

Hardy is writing wistfully about a time when he would have believed his elders when they told him about the magic that happens on Christmas eve—the English traditional myth that the animals whose ancestors witnessed Christ's birth would kneel at midnight on Christmas eve.  He's looking backward and longing for the good old days.  According to the author of the critical essay that I read, “the dominant feeling of “The Oxen” is one of wistful regret or poignant loss at the passing of a secure world buttressed by the allied senses of legend, tradition, faith in a presiding deity, and community.” 1

I must confess that even as I am in those “magical” years for my own kids—with their excitement over Christmas, particularly with what Santa Claus might be bringing them, I am finding the Christmas season to be a little “flat” and un-magical this year.  I have NOTHING to complain about:  I have a terrific, healthy family, a roof over my head, all my needs are met, and yet I keep wondering when I'm going to find that “zing”, that sparkling, pine-scented moment when my heart sings because it's Christmas. 

A couple of years ago, there was a commercial for... I'm not sure what, that began with a woman's voice, talking about her fond memories of all the wonderful things her own mother did that made Christmas magical... and then there was the pitch for whatever the product was—cake mixes? Bathroom cleaner?  I don't know... but the spot ended with “and this year, I get to be the mom”, somehow emphasizing that the joy of Christmas would come in being the one to provide the magic.  And while that's true, in a way... it's not the whole truth.  The truth is, once we adults become responsible for “the magic” of Christmas, it can sometimes be a little harder to find the “magic” in our own lives.  I mean, what if that “build your own solar-powered robot” kit that's on back-order right now doesn't arrive by Christmas morning, and what if I can't find time to put together the Gingerbread house whose pieces are in a box on the dining room table.  And what if my kids stage a meltdown on Christmas eve and refuse to go to bed while my husband is in charge and I'm here, singing the 10 o'clock Christmas eve service?   

AND here's where I hope to turn from whining to  rejoicing.  Paul, in 1Corinthians 13:11-13 reminds us that we, as Christians, have something more important than “the magic” to look forward to.  “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.  When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.  Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror, then we shall see face to face.  Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain, faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” 

So then, it seems I have a choice this Christmas season.  I can get caught up in the wistfulness, the longing for the “perfect” Christmas of long ago, I can wish that I saw the oxen kneeling.   I can sigh over the way the world has changed since the “old days”.  I can worry  about being the one to produce the magic for my family, OR, I can turn my mind to the real miracle of Christmas, Christ's incarnation and his promised return.   This might be the year when I, “put childish ways behind me” and look forward to a sparkling moment when I “shall know fully, even as I am fully known” (v.12).   Can there really be anything more heart-satisfying than to know God fully and be fully known?  So, for now, if there's anyone else out there like me, feeling a little tired of  trying to capture the “magic” of Christmas, perhaps this is the year when we can claim a kind of grown-up consolation in the words of a familiar scripture.  (I'll read it again, slowly, so you can let it sink in, maybe in a new way)

“Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror, then we shall see face to face.  Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.  And now these three remain, faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”  This Christmas, I pray that you will sense, above all else, God's great love, shown in his willingness to come and live among us and that THAT  miracle will be what sustains you through this season when we work so hard to find that magic that Thomas Hardy looked for, “in the lonely barton by yonder coomb our childhood used to know”.   

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1.Allingham, Philip V., “Image, Allusion, Voice, Dialect, and Irony in Thomas Hardy's 'The Oxen' and the Poem's Original Publication Context”, www.victorianweb.org/authors/hardy/poems/pva141.html

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On angels' wings

Sing, choirs of angels!  Sing in exaltation!  Sing all ye citizens of heav'n above....

It seems that no matter what else is happening for me as the calendar rolls around to December, there's a moment when my heart knows it's Christmas.

It has nothing to do with decorating trees, or seeing Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer on tv, or getting started with the cookie baking, or even a specific day or date.  It happens when my fellow church-choir sopranos and I "uncork it" (as a tenor friend used to call it)  on the third verse of "O Come All Ye Faithful" with that glorious, soaring David Willcocks descant. At that moment, when I draw that deliciously low breath I'll need to get through the phrase, I feel like I'm drawing that breath from the ground under my feet. I'm rooted and grounded in the fellowship of people I love, firmly tethered to the love of God. And because I'm that securely tethered, I am, paradoxically, free to soar above whatever else has come before and whatever else will follow.

(If you have no idea what a "descant" is, or what this particular one is, click this link, then skip to time marker 2:17 in the video. O Come All Ye Faithful - David Willcocks arr. Kings College   and listen to those little choirboy sopranos "uncork it".  It's actually more outrageously fun when it's sung by women with a bit more heft to their voices, but you get the basic idea.) 

This year, as the kids and I drove home from a place without malls, gaudy yard decorations, or a "hurry up Christmas" Thanksgiving celebration, I was unprepared for what the onslaught of "The Holiday Season" would feel like this year. (In the spirit of "do you hear what I hear?", I think I hear, floating back from you all a chorus of... "DUH !!!")  Yes, it's only been five months since my husband's suicide, and yes, the economic reality connected to that is a little daunting, but (oops! Make that "and"-- see my previous post, "getting off my 'but' ")   I'd been feeling optimistic that I'd be able to help my kids sail through this season with just a little extra effort.

And therein lies the rub: a little extra effort.  Let's be real here: if you're a Mom, Christmas is already the Feast of the Thousand-Item To-Do List in a good year: cleaning, baking, decorating, party planning, the cards (or, in my case, The Letter), shopping for the gifts, making the gifts (Ok, that usually starts by late August or mid-September for me), church events, school events (please bake 6 dozen exactly symmetrical gingerbread men)... and for each of those things, there are a million details that must be juggled.  So, this year, I was thinking that a "little extra effort" might be possible??  (Yes, everybody feel free to sing along:  "DUH" !!!)

I've been shaking my head in denial when I run through the to-do list in my head and the paralysis begins to set in. I've been feeling so guilty that I just can't seem to gather up the energy to "make the magic happen" this year, for my kids' sake, for my friends' sake.

And then on Sunday night, there I was, in my silly sparkly Christmas sweater, wearing a green felt Christmas tree on my head, in the company of probably 200 other singers, from age 4 to mid 70's, getting ready to walk in the processional to the choir loft.  John began the introduction on the organ, we began the first verse, sang the second verse, and by the time we got to "sing, choirs of angels..." I realized that's just where I was, in the company of angels, young and old who are with me every year, filling that sacred space with song.  These are some of the same angels who have been carrying me through the days and nights since July 13th, when my life turned upside down and I temporarily lost my capacity for flight.  I realized that I was taking part in one ritual of Christmas that had remained untouched by Andre's death.  Andre had never really been part of this particular Christmas tradition, preferring instead the quiet of an empty house while the kids and I sang in our respective choirs.

And so, this year, as I sat in the choir loft, or stood to sing, joy washed over me in waves as I realized that I was in a part of Christmas that was not haunted by memories.  Nor would it require my lists, my planning, my chasing after the details.  All I had to do was be present in each moment.  And there were so many moments when my heart was almost too full.  This year, watching and listening as our Cherub Choir (age 4 and 5) sang, I silently added my prayer to the verse that they sang:  (I have a "thing" for the inner verses of well-known carols... anybody else?)

Be near me, Lord Jesus, I ask Thee to stay
Close by me forever and love me, I pray.
Bless all the dear children in Thy tender care,
And fit us for Heaven, to live with Thee there.

And for that moment, and many others that followed that evening, that's just what God was doing.

(No, this isn't this year's photo or this year's tree. It will have to do, though.  )

Getting off my 'but'

My butt ended my radio career.

No, really.  I once got fired from my gig as a morning dj with an obscure (read: run your antenna through your toaster and out the window to hear it) FM Christian station, in the late '80's,

for saying the word  'butt', as in:

"It's 7:05, get your butt outta bed !"

and by lunchtime, I was no longer a morning on-air personality at KNLE-FM -- "The Light of the Hill Country" in Round Rock, Texas.

But I digress...

I've been thinking about "but", in terms of the either/or way of talking.  Consider these two statements and how they feel:

"It's a really difficult time you're going through, but God is with you."

"It's a really difficult time you're going through, and God is with you."  

Is it just me, or does the second one feel different, less trite, less "always look on the bright side of life.. dee doot dee do, de doot dee doot dee doot dee doot do..." ?  (Feel free to whistle along, if you've seen Monty Python's "Life of Brian")

Or how about these two:

"I love you, but you're driving me crazy!!!"

"I love you and you're driving me crazy!!!" 

There's a kind of negating one thing in favor of another that sneaks into those "but" statements, as if the two conditions can't exist together, as if it can't be a really difficult time AND have God present,  or as if it's not possible to love someone who is, at the same time, driving you crazy.

In a previous entry Math Homework and Brown Bag Lunch , I talked about taking a hard look at "the numbers", the cold, hard financial and chronological facts (that's money and age, to the rest of us), and deciding that it was time to live beyond the numbers, to trust that life was more complex and more hopeful than the numbers could ever show me.  And, interestingly, several people who responded to that post saw it as primarily a post about how bad my financial picture was.

I'm wondering if this response comes from a habit of choosing one side or the other of a two-part picture:  either the finances are really bad OR I'm ok.  But what I meant to emphasize in that piece was more like an "AND" statement:  The finances are challenging, particularly in the immediate short term, AND, we will be ok.  (For those folks who want to know the plan: I will be investing some of the life insurance money in myself; going back to school for 2 years to get an MA in Counseling Psychology, and that "investment" will pay off in a soul-satisfying career that will use my gifts and earn a decent living.  The rest will be invested in ways that help provide for my retirement.  No, I will never be rich, AND we won't starve, either. )

Our culture certainly has emphasized binary thinking: Liberal or Conservative, With Us or Against Us, Edward or (what's that Werewolf-character's name?) , Chunky or Smooth, Coke or Pepsi... We've gotten so polarized that we often conflate "the other side" of an argument with "the wrong side" of an argument and those who old opposing viewpoints are assumed to be evil.  After all, if your side is "good" then anything different is "bad", right?

As I look back over the past 18 years, trying to understand my late husband through the lens of his death,  I am realizing the degree to which that the win/lose, either / or way of looking at the world can be a trap, and when you're trapped by that kind of thinking, there are very few options.  For Andre, life was a battle; you either win or die.  For him, sadly, Jesus' message of "whoever loses his life will gain it" made no sense at all.  The mystery of Christ's incarnation: fully God AND fully man, Savior of the world AND helpless babe sleeping in a cow's dinner dish,  was simply impossible to even contemplate.  I wonder, if he had been able to unlock that part of his mind that was stuck in either/or thinking, would he have been able to quiet his inner demons?  Would he have been able to see the world as a less threatening place, to see his kids not as either angels nor devils, but as kids? Would he have been able to see that admitting he needed help was not defeat?

As the kids and I work on healing from Andre's death, it occurs to me that we won't heal by sitting on our 'but's. We're going to have to become conscious of and consciously change the way we think and talk about reality.

"I don't understand why God let this happen, but I trust that there is a plan."  will not be as helpful as a statement that puts an "and" in place of the "but".

I don't understand why God let this happen AND I trust that there is a plan.

(AND, sometimes I'm so mad at God,  I could spit.)

Perhaps this part of the journey will be about walking with my arms full: holding in tension the scary and the hopeful, the horrific and the cathartic, the sweet and the sad.

I hope I don't stumble and land on my butt.