Granny Panties

The other night Chris and I watched the movie Stranger Than Fiction.  The main character Harold Crick, played brilliantly by Will Ferrell, is a man who plays life by the book.  A lonely IRS agent living a life that consists of the same mundane routine of “infinite numbers, endless calculations, and remarkably few words.”  His life is completely void of any sort of color or adventure.  It’s safe, and he feels safe in it.  Love would be too risky and relationships too messy.  Then one day, his routine is interrupted when the wristwatch that he times his life by as if it were his own beating heart, suddenly stops.  The changing of Harold Crick begins when he is jolted out of his boring life by a sudden voice in his head.  The nameless, faceless voice cheerfully narrates his every move and eventually tells him that the stopped wristwatch is a sign of his imminent death.  He’s sent to the IRS shrink, a retired hippie, who asks him if he’s feeling “wibbly wobbly” and then to another professional who tells him he has schizophrenia.  “No, no, it’s not schizophrenia,” he insists.  “I mean, the voice isn’t telling me to do anything.  It’s telling me what I’ve already done…accurately, and with a better vocabulary.”  With the threat of “imminent death” hanging over him, scrambling for answers to save the life he’s just found, Harold Crick finally wakes up for the first time and starts living.

I thought about the movie long after we turned off the t.v. struggling to figure out why it stuck with me so much.  It occurred to me that I’m actually a lot like Harold Crick.  I play it safe.  I like being comfortable.  For months now I’ve felt like God is asking me to let go of what I call safety.  To let go and trust him, to take risks, and most of all to embrace a life of adventure.  I got ready for bed that night still thinking about the movie.  As I sorted through my dresser, pulling out pajamas in preparation for a shower, I yanked out a large white pair of ‘granny underwear’. “Perfect,” I thought.  “These will be comfortable.”  There was that word again.  Comfortable.  And then it dawned on me.  Maybe my life is like that.  Maybe I’m like a big pair of granny panties.  Safe.  Comfortable.  Old before its time.  Definitely not up for an adventure.  And the more I thought about it the more I realized I stopped taking risks a long time ago.

I certainly don’t regret my life, but when I tried to think of the last time I did something that felt even remotely risky it was hard to remember anything.  What did come to mind was when I was pregnant with my son Jack.  The fear of not knowing absolutely terrified and unhinged me.  The great unknown of motherhood during those last few months of pregnancy loomed over me like an executioner’s axe waiting to drop.  It was nothing I’d ever experienced, and well, obviously I had to give birth.  I couldn’t carry the baby around in me forever.  There was no prolonging it until I felt ready.  I’d waited so long, prayed, begged God to be a mother, and when the time finally came I felt completely emotionally unprepared.  How can you prepare yourself for a headfirst dive off a cliff?  At least that’s what it felt like to me.

I thought long into the night as I lay in bed.  Because to be honest, God feels like a risk to me.  He’s unpredictable.  He doesn’t do things the way I expect.  And when I let go of control or at least the illusion of it, it scares me to death.  I like it safe.  Comfortable.  And if I’m being completely honest with myself, God doesn’t feel safe.  Like Aslan in the Chronicles of Narnia – who is “not a tame lion.”  Mr. Beaver puts it this way .  “Safe!  Who said anything about safe!  Of course he isn’t safe.  But he’s good.”  I’ve always thought I believed God was good, but maybe I think he’s distant and withholding.  Or maybe I think he’s a cruel puppet master.  Sometimes my thoughts of God are small and dark.  My expectations of myself are massive and my expectations of God are nonexistent.

So in embracing a life of adventure I’m realizing I’m going to have to trust God.  Because adventure means you don’t know what’s going to happen next, it means you let go of things that make you feel comfortable or safe.  Wearing the red bikini underwear instead of the tighty whiteys.  It means you live your story. The one God created you for even if that means you have to feel pain or get hurt or lost a few times or jump headfirst into the unknown realms of life.  And he’s asking me to live.  To take a chance on him.  To live in his story for me.  To jump over that great chasm between fear and faith even if it means falling.  And most of all to believe that he loves me, and to believe that he’s good.  To believe that he’s worth the risk.  And I do believe that.  And I think I can do that.  I want to do that.  I am doing it.

In the film Twilight, the vampire Edward takes his love interest, Bella, to the top of a tall tree on the side of a mountain where he shows her the most beautiful view she’s ever seen.  A gorgeous river surrounded by deep green mountains and drifting fog, and evergreen trees as far as the eye can see.  “This kind of stuff doesn’t exist,” she gasps as she begins to accept his supernatural nature.  “It does in my world,” he says.  Adventure, surprise, shock, awe, desire, inspiration, transformation.  I think when we open our eyes to the supernatural nature of God, anything is possible.  And we get to see and experience the most beautiful things that we’ve never dreamed of in our limited imaginations.  And most of all we get to see him.  And the view is breathtaking.

The Simple Truth…Is It Logical?

While listening to my Ipod on shuffle today as I cleaned the house I heard Supertramp’s The Logical Song.  (Yes, I am a closet Supertramp fan!  Don’t judge.)  As I focused on the small beige tiles while scrubbing the bathroom floor, the lyrics resonated with me.

When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful,
a miracle, oh it was beautiful, magical.
And all the birds in the trees, well they’d be singing so happily,
joyfully, playfully watching me.
But then they send me away to teach me how to be sensible,
logical, responsible, practical.
And they showed me a world where I could be so dependable,
clinical, intellectual, cynical.

There are times when all the world’s asleep,
the questions run too deep
for such a simple man.
Won’t you please, please tell me what we’ve learned
I know it sounds absurd
but please tell me who I am.

Heartbreaking isn’t it?  It made me genuinely sad.  Pretty deep stuff for the guys who sang Bloody Well Right.  In light of some recent conversations I’ve had with friends about the importance of perspective I started to think about the song lyrics.  In the darkest of times one person’s perspective can bring joy and another person’s perspective can bring total despair.  When we’re children and before our hearts become weighed down by life things do look very different.  When we’re children (until we learn differently) the picture that we look at is drawn with brilliant colors, but something happens between childhood and adulthood that causes us to lose that wonder and makes that picture look a lot more drab.  Sadly, our view of the world can become like the thorny soil Jesus spoke of, and it can choke the life out of us.

Watching my two-year-old son has given me a whole new perspective.  I see that he notices the smallest details.  He’ll stand for a long time to watch a spider and will kneel down in the grass to pick the tiniest flower.  He is thrilled by the sight of ants or lizards and desperately wants to hug squirrels.  He will stop to listen to a bird’s song or pick up a tiny rock or seashell.  He finds joy in the faces of strangers and can make even the most cranky old man smile.  The world is new to him, and he can see that it’s a beautiful place.  Looking at things through his eyes reminds me of those small delights that I’m quick to pass over.  He takes the time because he has it, and he revels in the pure and innocent joy of simply admiring what’s around him.

It seems that as we age and “mature” we are in danger of becoming afflicted with some form of tunnel vision.  I know for me it has been true, and many times my eyes have become fixed on my worries until I can no longer see anything else.  I lose perspective.  A few months back I read George Eliot’s Silas Marner. It’s a story about a man who’s been hurt and wrongfully accused by those he loves best.  He moves to a far away place that is purposely nothing like his home and begins a new life.   A kind and tenderhearted man by nature, he becomes the hermit “Old Master Marner” to the townsfolk and stops making any attempt to gain the friendship or fellowship he once considered sacred.  He is a weaver and becomes content to only work at his loom and store up wealth.  The eyes that were once worshipers of beauty are now satisfied to only see the cloth in front of him.  “He seemed to weave, like the spider, from pure impulse, without reflection…Silas’s hand satisfied itself with throwing the shuttle, and his eye with seeing the little squares in the cloth complete themselves under his effort…to reduce his life to the unquestioning activity of a spinning insect.”  It’s not until his wealth is stolen that he is jarred into opening his eyes to the beauty of the world once again.  And he is given something much more precious than gold – life, purpose, and most of all love.

Like Silas Marner’s weaving, at times I tend to fixate on whatever my current “thing” is.  Whether it’s health issues, job issues, relationships, or finances it can become my own private universe and my eyes (once filled with dreams and visions) become content to only see the square piece of cloth and hear the whirring of my loom.  I forget about listening to the birds in the trees singing beautifully.

Christ asks us to be like children and to remember our native language- the one we spoke when we were children.  It is the language he put in us from the beginning.  When we’re children we’re dependent on him.  We see things in their simplest and purest form.  When we’re children we can see him in the beauty around us and we take the time to acknowledge him.  We need him and we delight in him.  When we’re children, we’re connected with his nature that is in every detail around us.  The longing to see those things and finding joy in them is at the core of who we are.  Is it logical?  I think so, but it’s much more than that…it’s magical.

The Race That Knows Joseph…

One of my favorite childhood authors, L.M. Montgomery (of Anne of Green Gables fame), coined the term “the race that knows Joseph”.  One of her most colorful characters, Cornelia Bryant, says “There are two kinds of people in this world – those who know Joseph and those who don’t.”  The phrase must have been referring to the book of Exodus “Then a new king, who did not know about Joseph, came to power in Egypt”  (Exodus 1:8).  He was the one who first enslaved the Israelites.  I think about “the race that knows Joseph”all the time.  Particularly when I have a conversation with a person I really connect with or meet someone new and we fall into easy conversation.  Kindred spirits, like minds.  You know when you meet those people and you automatically connect?  They speak your language.  They get you.  It can be just a chance meeting with a stranger, a member of your family,  a long-time friend, or a new friend.  I have met many and have many in my life.  They are out there allright.  I love meeting people I feel a deep and sometimes instant kinship with and the freedom to share my innermost thoughts.  I’ve spent a lot of time in my life performing and trying to be perfect.  Now that I’ve actively retired from that lifestyle, when I really connect with people it thrills me to my core.

I met one of “the race” on a trip to Ireland a few years ago.  His name was Seamus, and he was the father of some acquaintances of ours here in Florida.  Chris and I were making our way across the United Kingdom and our final stop was Dublin, the Ring of Kerry, and the tiny out-of-the-way town, Rathkeale.  Rathkeale looked like something out of any movie I’ve seen about working-class Ireland or England (like Billy Elliot) except maybe a little more desolate.  Set in the middle of nowhere amongst more touristy towns like Limerick and Killarney, Rathkeale was the epitome of the tiny Irish town.  On its outskirts we were told live lots of gypsies (and not the kind who sing and dance, but the other kind who have your car stripped down to the bare frame and sold to their cousin in less than a minute.  You’ve seen Snatch right?  You know, “pikeys”).  We had driven past a crumbling, ancient church covered in ivy with a cemetery peering out from behind it on our way to the “main street” that consisted of several empty-looking pubs.  Seamus met us outside one of those tiny pubs with a faded wooden sign hanging over the door.

Seamus, Chris and I, and two of his sons (with nicknames I couldn’t quite understand) played some darts and had a few pints of Guiness.  We talked about Ireland and Seamus’s kids that we knew in the States.  He talked about how terrified he was of flying and how much he wanted to get over there to see them.  Feeling drowsy and a little heavy from the Guiness, we said goodnight to Seamus and the boys, and Chris and I went back to the bed and breakfast we were staying at in the next town.  We were preparing to head back to Dublin early the next day and then home to Florida.

The next morning we had our breakfast (where I mistakenly ate blood sausage thinking it was  regular sausage) and drove back to Rathkeale to say our final goodbyes. Chris realized we had misplaced our rental car key somewhere so he was busy looking for it.  Seamus and I began to talk.  I was very anxious about us getting stuck there and missing our flight the next day, and he was very kindly trying to distract me in conversation.  I knew things about Seamus from talking to his kids in Florida.  I knew his wife had died when the kids were young and that he’d worked hard all his life to provide for them.  I knew he still struggled with her death every day and got very low at times.  And I knew that he still felt guilt over her and like maybe something he could have done may have kept her from dying.  We dropped the pretenses and really started to open up.  I talked to him about God’s forgiveness and grace.  I told him that he didn’t need to carry this burden of guilt around all his life and that there was One who could take it from him.  I’ll never forget what he said to me.  With tears in his eyes he said, “I feel like you’ve come here especially for me.  That you have a message for me.  A message that you couldn’t receive yourself.”  I was stunned and speechless.  In our brief time of talking he had me pegged.  He was right.  I have been struggling for most of my life trying to understand and receive God’s grace and what I end up doing is trying to redeem myself over and over and constantly falling into a pit of self-condemnation and guilt.  I have struggled time and time again to grasp the Gospel and yet I keep trying to live by the law.  The thing is that Seamus didn’t know me.  Not really.  But I believe that day God had a message for me.  I meant what I said to Seamus and he received it but I hadn’t….and he somehow knew that.

I have thought about this conversation many times over the past few years.  How God met me in that tiny pub in Ireland through a very scrappy and unexpected messenger.  I am learning to receive God’s grace every day but it’s still an uphill battle for me.  I think about Seamus and wonder how he’s doing and if he’s warding off the pikeys.  And I think of how God connects us with people in life and that he’s in those conversations.  He’s in the love and comfort we let overflow to others and that we too receive, and he will meet us in the most unexpected places.

The Anchor of My Soul

The other night I took a walk down our street.  It was dusk and the light was a soft orangey-pink.   The streetlights had just come on and were flickering hypnotically.  A cool breeze was blowing westward from the ocean and stirring up that distinctly south Florida winter smell…an odd combination of the salty sea and dried leaves on the ground that is delicious in the cold air.   I was thinking about the verse in Luke where Jesus says to Martha, “You are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed…”  Lately I’ve felt like the cares of life are crushing me and I seem to forget about the one thing.  I am like a wave tossed about when I focus on the worries of my life instead sitting at his feet.  I’m always focused on the “how” of things, namely “how do I do this perfectly?  What are the rules?”  It’s much easier to give myself a rule to follow than to humble myself before God.  It’s easier to make a rule than to sacrifice my pride and say “I’m helpless, I can’t do this alone.”  As soon as I lose sight of the ‘Who’ things become very muddled.  If I have a rule than I have something concrete I can grasp.  Then I can rely on myself and I don’t need God. 

I thought of all these things as I walked along.  The night before had been spent taking care of a very sick child, our financial woes seem to bury us  often times, and sometimes I think “God where are you in the middle of all this?”  It’s only when I look to him, truly look to him and not at myself and not at all the problems that I see he’s been there all along.  Not some invisible stranger in a remote cabin somewhere like the mysterious Jacob on Lost, but he’s in everything I do.  In him I live and move and have my being.  My every breath is ordained by him.  And yet I’m constantly trying to find something to comfort me.  Some pretty, shiny thing that will take the pain of life away and make me feel better in that moment.  I always go back to the idols and they always leave me empty. 

Midway through my walk I spotted a pretty, perfectly round white stone on the sidewalk.  I’m always collecting pretty rocks and shells but this one was special.  I picked it up and put it in the pocket of my cardigan.  I kept grabbing it throughout the walk as a reminder of the anchor I have.  When all the cares of life threaten to crush me, when my sorrows and worries seem to be more than I can bear, when people I love are hurting there is the anchor.  I grabbed the smooth rock tight again and again.  A reminder that only one thing is needed.

Big Love

We’ve been watching the show ‘Big Love’ the last few seasons.  It’s an interesting look at a polygamist family in Utah that is trying to live a “normal” life.  The patriarch, Bill, grew up on a compound called Juniper Creek and was the heir to the prophetic throne.  His grandfather, the original prophet, was killed by a grasping plotter named Roman Grant who claimed he was the true prophet.  Bill was thrown off the compound at the tender age of 15 and forced to live on the streets.  He’s pulled himself up by his bootstraps (good ’ol Bootstrap Bill) and built a life for himself and his three (yes, count them three) wives and eight (and counting) children.  He now owns Home Plus, a Mormon-friendly version of Home Depot, but Bill doesn’t stop there.  Now he has opened a Mormon-friendly casino on a nearby Indian reservation (they’re all about the Mormon-friendly business model) and he’s running for Congress.  Boy, does he have his fingers in a lot of pies!  Mormon-friendly = synergy…apparently.

Meanwhile, his family is falling apart.  The sister-wives are bickering, his children are eloping, running off to Mexico, becoming biggots, and his runaway fourth wife (who is now engaged to a beefy Serbian) is pregnant with his ninth child.  He’s also dealing with his rogue mother and father (who have recently gotten in trouble in the underground rare-bird trade south of the border including a run-in with the “filthy Greens” a family of thuggish polygamists who don’t mess around – they WILL shoot you or force you to be sealed to their husband and prophet Hollis Green), his angry ex-pro footballing brother who is trying to take out every false prophet this side of Salt Lake City, bomb threats at the casino, and a double-dealing lobbyist who is threatening to expose him.  Not to mention the season finale the week before last, he decides to come out as a polygamist after he is elected to Congress in order to redeem himself and the principle of polygamy in the eyes of the Mormon church, the nation, and the world.  Whew! 

Think you have got problems?  Try tripling that.  The reason I like watching this show (besides the fact that the writing is stellar) is that this life and culture is so far removed from anything I’ve ever known.  It’s in a completely different sphere of life that I will never know (thankfully), and I like learning about cultures and subcultures.  I am fascinated by Bill and how he’s constantly trying to redeem himself and failing miserably, weaving a web of confusion, chaos, and mistrust in the family that he’s constantly trying to “hold tight” to but is forever breaking down.  I’m always trying to redeem myself too so I can relate to Bill in that way.  What will happen to the Henrickson families, the rogue parents, the filthy Greens?  I can only guess…stay tuned but it might be awhile.  HBO is being secretive about whether or not they’re planning a season 5.

Connecting with the past…

Last week I attended a friend’s wedding. As the orchestra began to play the traditional ‘Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring’ and the family was seated, I began to feel a deep and profound sadness. In particular, as I saw the grandmothers and mothers being lead down the aisle, I came to realize what was making me so sad. It was the fact that both of those generations of women in my family are gone. I thought about my own grandmothers and mother who have been gone for so many years and how much I miss them and their influence in my life.

Since I’ve become a mother myself, I feel even more connected to these women. On a regular basis, I think about how important a woman’s role is in a family. The specifically feminine, nurturing love that God gives his daughters is crucial. This love comes from his very self. A beautiful side of his own nature. I saw that love firsthand in my family. Maybe that’s why I’ve taken on the role of family historian and have closets full of old black and white photos, yearbooks, report cards, and even dance cards from generations past. What is it in me that wants to hold on to these things? It’s not just about collecting cool stuff (although it IS cool). I guess in some small way I am trying to stay connected with the past.

At the beginning of last year, I took a pilgrimage to Clay City and Olney, Illinois where my mom’s side of the family grew up. I’ve wanted to do it for years and haven’t been back since I was in high school. I drove around looking for places that were familiar. I found the elementary school where my mother and uncles had attended and where my grandmother was a teacher. I saw the house on Elm where my great-grandparents lived and raised my grandmother. I found the house on Lafayette where my mom lived during her teenage years. As I stood there looking at it, I could perfectly recall a picture of my grandmother standing there on the porch after a big snow. I found the church my parents married in and the house my grandfather’s parents lived in until they died.

My grandmother’s tiny house with the blue shutters and door looked exactly the same. The kind woman who lived there let me look inside, and it turned out she had been my grandmother’s friend. She told me about how they always played cards together and about listening to my grandmother play the cello. I was always told she played so beautifully though I never got to hear her play. She died when I was seven, but the thing I remember most about her is her kindness and her goodness. It will stay with me the rest of my life. Even when she was dying of A.L.S. she never complained. She had a sweet and gentle spirit, and God’s love radiated through her until the end. And my mother…well I could write a book about her. Maybe I will. She was tenacious in her love for others, kind to all, strong, quirky and hilarious…wonderfully good.

As I drove home that night, I realized I had just turned a page in my life. I will probably never go back there again. I have no reason to go. No one to see. I felt that loss, and yet it is hard to explain the connection I still feel with them. I am not talking about some weird, flaky, let’s get out the tarot cards and crystals kind of connection. I mean a sense of purpose, a legacy, a faith, a love that has been handed down from generation to generation.

When I think about the kind of woman I want to be I think of them- those women who have gone before me. I want to have that kind of an impact on my family. I want to influence others as they did me, and I want to not only remember but model their kindness, their faith, and most of all their love. This isn’t found in empty houses or abandoned buildings or old pictures. The love they gave is alive in me, and it comes from the one true Source that never tires and is always overflowing. That love isn’t gone because I’m living with it every day. It is in the hugs and kind words I give my husband and child or in welcoming a hurting person into my home. It is in listening to a mom at the park who is going through a divorce or in making a meal for someone who is sick. It is always alive. These thoughts bring comfort to me as I remember those gone from me. I can truly remember them in the love I give. Do I do this perfectly? Of course not, but I’ve had lots of good examples….

Hello world!

This blog may be completely random but it’s well meant.  I may talk about Jane Austen, I may talk about a good find at a thrift store.  I may talk about my family or things just things I’ve been pondering.  I will most likely talk about God.  Who knows?  I think you’ll find sincerity and heart…and if you’re into that maybe this is your cup of tea and you’ll want to read it.  I named the blog after the James Whitcomb Riley poem ‘Knee Deep in June’ because I live in Florida in a perpetual state of summer…