In the Bleak ~

I was feeling the bleak-midwinter on Wednesday. A tough day at work, too much on my mind, too many dishes in the sink, too many nights in a row with something penciled in on the calendar. I longed for a bit of quiet, a bit of sanctuary.

It would seem that a single girl who lives alone would have all kinds of quiet and sanctuary, but things are not always what they seem.

I got home, threw something for dinner in the microwave, tended to what I could around the house, and then ran to the car to get to St. Luke’s on time. I was meeting a dear couple, Jim and Georgie, to prepare some music for Christmas Eve. Playing the piano, playing with other musicians always does my heart good. But it had been a crummy day. On the way to the church, I whimpered out a little prayer, a little plea. I told Jesus I felt like I missed Him. I told Him I needed some quiet for my heart and my mind, some light in some places that had been feeling dark. I told Him I hoped that there'd be some time and quiet for Him and me soon.

Georgie and I played through our Christmas hymns and got our songbooks in order for the 24th. While we did that, Jim fiddled around with some lights in the cold, dim sanctuary.

As we finished rehearsing and began to pack up our things, Jim walked over to the piano and said “hey, Kathy, would you do me a favor? Would you play hymn 112?” I reached for the hymnal and flipped the pages, and on page 112 I found “In The Bleak Midwinter”, the poem written by Christina Rossetti. Jim stood in front of the altar, and as I quietly played, he sang the first verse:

In the bleak midwinter, frosty winds made moan
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone
Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow
In the bleak midwinter long ago

He closed his hymnal. I wasn’t ready for the song to be over. I didn’t mean to sound selfish, but I asked, “Jim, would you please sing the rest of the song for me?” He walked back up to the altar, and sang the rest of the song… sweetly, tenderly, worshipfully. As he sang, my heart, my mind was covered with a blanket of calm. I felt my concerns, “hard as iron”, softening.

Our God, heaven cannot hold him, nor earth sustain
Heaven and earth shall flee away when he comes to reign
In the bleak midwinter, a stable place sufficed
The Lord God incarnate, Jesus Christ

Angels and archangels may have gathered there
Cherubim and seraphim, thronged the air
But his mother only, in her maiden bliss
Worshipped the Beloved, with a kiss

What can I give him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd I would bring a lamb
If I were a wiseman I would do my part,
Yet what I can I give Him, give my heart

As he sang, in the quiet, in the still, in the bleak, I felt Jesus say to me, "I'm right here, I’m right here.”

I left the sanctuary with Jim and Georgie, knowing my whimpered prayer had been heard, and that Jesus had sung me a song in reply.

Advent Calendar ~

Come, Thou long expected Jesus, born to set Thy people free
From our fears and sins release us, let us find our rest in Thee

Her name is Mary Elizabeth. She’s 96 years old. She’s my grandma.

She lives in the valley in a simple room at a comfortable place, the kind of place where people approaching the end of their lives, who cannot live without help, settle in for as long as they have. Here, her most basic, human needs are tended to by underpaid young women with lavish tattoos and loving hearts. They care for her so tenderly, washing, changing, turning. With gentle voices, they call her “sweetie”, they call her “dear”.

By her bed on the wall is a calendar. A black felt pen rests within reach on the nightstand by her bed, somewhere between the tissues, the emergency call button and the bowl of butterscotch candies she has kept nearby for as long as I can remember. Each morning, as she wakes to a new day, she crosses “yesterday” off the calendar.

She can’t clothe or wash herself, she can’t walk or throw an extra blanket across her bony feet. She can’t open the mail or tend to her African violets. But she can raise that pen to the wall each morning and cross off another day.

Grandma isn’t waiting to die. No, she’s just waiting. “Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus” has leapt off the pages of the hymnal for her.

Jesus has come to her over and again in her 96 years. He came to her in the tin-shack laden industrial town in Pennsylvania where she was born. He came to her in the lonely days of growing up with a daddy who was on the road, playing pro baseball, and whose image on a trading card could never make up for his absence. Jesus came to her as a young woman, as she gave her life to a man who dreamed of giving his life to the ministry. He came to her in the loss of a longed-for baby girl. He came to her in the suffocating silence that crept in after that loss, as she determined to never speak of such deep wounds. Jesus came to her in the small towns and churches filled with people who needed more than a young preacher and his wife could sometimes spare. He came to her as she found a way to spare what she could.

He came to her in the loss of her son, my dad, a loss that crushed her not so much because of the cancer that killed him, but the spirit of rebellion that plunged him into confusion and brokenness a few years before the diagnosis. She never dreamed her grown son would take a prodigal turn, and when she finally spotted him heading for home, he was taken.

Jesus came to her as she spent her later life tending to the lonely and forgotten. And He was there on that morning a few years ago, when grandpa touched his fingers to his lips, waved her a tiny kiss, and took one last breath.

Jesus has made himself at home with grandma ever since she invited Him to. As a fair companion on her journey, He’s held her through these sorrows and losses, but also kept sweet company with her through every joy, every delight, every surprise. And even in the mundane moments that make up a life, ninety-six years worth, He has been her ever-present Friend.

On a recent visit, I pulled a chair close to her bed, held her withered hand in my fleshy one, kissed her and stroked her face. I quietly told her a few stories; I asked her the simple questions I ask every time I visit. I asked if I could take her picture. She said I could, as long as her hair looked alright. I told her she was lovely. As we sat together in the stillness, I looked at the calendar. December. The fourth, the fifth, the sixth, all crossed off. I imagined her waking up in this room in the morning, reaching for her black pen, and crossing off the seventh. And in that moment, I realized, this is her Advent Calendar. This is her way of watching and waiting in the dark, in this time between Now… and Not Yet.

For years, grandma and grandpa kept a tiny ceramic plaque on the wall in their home. It followed them to a dozen humble parsonages; it kept them company through 70 years of marriage. It’s nailed today to the wall by the door in her room, positioned in such a way that she can see it from her bed. The inscription simply reads, “Perhaps Today”. I understood, even as a little girl, what that meant. Someday, Jesus will come back. Someday. “Perhaps today”. I never questioned it, but I did wonder. And sometimes I wanted to ask them both: ”I know you want Jesus to come back, but, um, grandpa, grandma, don’t you wanna live?”

Yes, yes she does. She wants to live. So she marks off her calendar, her calendar of Advent. About death, C.S. Lewis said that “one day we will turn the corner, and all our dreams will come true.” She wants to live in that place of dreams come true. “No more crying, no more separation, no more dying.” The place where “these former things are passed away”.

Her body is dying, and yet she is alive with the spirit of anticipation, the spirit of Advent. Her longing heart is filled with joy. She believes that Jesus will come to her still, again, and finally.

She’s 96 years old. She’s long-expected Him.

Young and Old ~

I work in the city, and on any given day, there’s plenty to see on a sneak-out-of-the-building-for-a-few-minutes-break:

eggplant and peppers at the Farmer’s Market
outdoor chess matches at Pioneer Square
strong young men hauling their food carts to their corner
tiny lights adding a twinkle to the grand old trees on 5th Avenue
jewelry vendors displaying their hand-crafted wares
new sculptures unveiled along the transit mall
the harried, the oblivious, the wandering

A sight I especially enjoy is “kids on a rope”. A few times a day, a nearby daycare center gathers up the kiddos and ropes them together for the day’s fresh-air stroll. It makes me smile every time. Toddlers holding on to their assigned knot in the fat red rope, enjoying their own space, but sharing the walk.

It’s their own little bit of journey. The rope reminds them to hold on tight, because it is safer out there when you are holding on. The rope reminds them that they are not alone. Just a bit of rope in front of them and behind, there’s a friendly face, a buddy who is holding on too. And leading them along is someone who is older and taller and wiser. Someone who is familiar with the path because they’ve been following it a long time.

I am observing the blessing it is to be part of an intergenerational community at St. Luke's. It is part of what draws me: the welcome and tenderness that’s generously offered to the little ones, the silver-haired ones, and the somewhere-in-between ones.

My own spiritual roots were nurtured in churches where the older and the younger met together to worship, to pray, to work, to eat, to cry, to celebrate, to walk. I still remember so many of them: Mr. Throckmorton, the McBees. Mrs. Plant and Selma. Mr. Moothart and Alma Beckley. Mrs. Crawford and Mrs. Fast. I remember a gal named Sandy. When I was about 7 years old and she was, oh, maybe 15, she took a special interest in me. I got to go exploring with her at the store where her father was a grocer, I got to play the piano at her house. A few times she took me out for ice cream for no particular reason. I felt like the only 7 year old girl in the world. I could hardly believe that someone like her was paying any attention to someone like me.

My roots thrived in that deep, rich soil of Christ-followers who were older and taller and wiser. I was starting out on my journey, and they were familiar with the path because they’d been following it a long time. I needed their wisdom, their perspective. I needed to be present to their compassion and grace, their faith. The kind of faith that comes from what is suffered and borne, from what is hoped for and not yet seen. I needed to be present to the gentleness that comes with years of living as forgiven, as beloved.

When Rev. Jennifer included me a few months ago in an email message meant for young adults, I was glad she didn’t ask to see my ID. Just a few winters from now, I expect to find an AARP membership packet in my mailbox. But I do my best to hang onto some child-like traits, or at least dust them off when I’ve let them sit for too long because I am busy being oh, so very serious. The little ones remind me of these things: to laugh with your whole belly, to cry with all your tears. To ask questions without checking to see how it sounds before I speak. To be present because there’s just nowhere else to be. Last year I was wandering around the children’s section of a used bookstore in Seattle and came across a poster spoofing Elizabeth Gilbert’s best-seller, “Eat, Pray, Love”. The brightly-colored poster showed the contented faces of children surrounding these words: “Snack, Play, Nap.” Now that’s some child-like behavior I can get behind. I need the little ones in my community. I need their sense of wonder, their openness, their spirit.

Rev. Jennifer shared at the Quiet Day a few weeks back that while our paths may diverge, our destination is the same. I don’t know what happened to Sandy. Our paths diverged a long time ago. But I believe that the connection we had all those years ago will be found intact one day, when the destination we share is reached.

When we value who we are, our stories, and what we have to offer, the young can teach the old, the old can teach the young.

A friend asked me a few weeks ago: “Kath, are we growing old together?” I was delighted to say, “Yes, yes we are.” We’re kids on the rope, holding on tight, because it’s safer out there when we’re holding on. We’re seeing just ahead of us, and just behind, the compassionate, spirited faces of companions, both young and old, who are sharing the walk with us. And we’re being led by Someone who knows the way.

Small Boat, Wide Sea ~

I’ve been worshipping at St. Luke the Physician, a small Episcopal church, for about six months now. I’m slowly finding my way through the liturgy, the Book of Common Prayer, the hymnal, the caring and gentle faces that make this a place of genuine sanctuary.

A cherished moment in the service comes for me when Rev. Jennifer leads us in this prayer after the Gospel: “Dear Lord, be good to us. The sea is so wide, and our boat is so small.” I had not heard this prayer before coming to St. Luke’s. I am moved by the simplicity, desperation and trust it speaks all at once.

My great-grandpa Sam Morris was a lighthouse-keeper on the coasts of Oregon and Washington in the early 1900s. Up until a year ago, we had our family history details scrambled, thinking he was keeper in Bandon. A bit of research and a dear old woman at a tiny maritime museum pointed us in the right direction. He was keeper at Cape Meares near Tillamook in 1903. As a child, my family camped nearby, but never visited the lighthouse. We didn’t realize that we were gathering seashells, wading in the tide, and sleeping in the shadow of the great spruce trees that Grandpa Sam lived among.

My mom and I traveled to Cape Meares last month. We left the car in the lot where Grandpa Sam’s house once stood, and walked the tranquil, fern-lined path toward the water. Just a few steps down the walkway, the lantern room appears. It colored in a few plain spots in our stories to see it, to press our hands against the tower, to take in the sea-air he breathed, the lush ground he walked, the brilliant light he kept. I’ve wondered what it was like for him, keeping that light, tending to it, so that its beam could warn of dangers and provide safe passage through both gentle and howling waters to the small boats on that wide sea. Providing light in the dark to those trying to journey home.

Grandpa Sam is not the first keeper I have known.

“God is light. In Him there is no darkness at all.” ~ 1 John 1:5

There is danger on that wide sea. Darkness and deeps, shadows and shades that leave us feeling isolated, afraid, overwhelmed, drowning. And yet, there is a Keeper, a Light. God himself, offering Passage through, and Presence in, that wide sea.

The boat is small. But there is room enough for two… my Keeper and I.

This is why we can whisper our simple, desperate, trusting prayer.

Oh the deep, deep love of Jesus,
Vast, unmeasured, boundless, free
Rolling as a mighty ocean, in its fullness over me!
Underneath me, all around me, is the current of His love
Leading onward, leading homeward, to His glorious rest above
(Lyric by Samuel Francis)

The sea is wide.
The boat is small.
The Lord is good. Amen ~

Come and Dine ~

A long mesh sock filled with thistle seed hangs from a low branch on my lilac tree. My friend gave it to me a few months ago with a gentle warning that I’d need to be patient and wait awhile until the promised finches would discover it and call their finch-friends with their finch-song to come and dine.

It’s been 54 days. Not that I’m counting. No finches yet. They haven’t noticed the feast I’ve set out for them.

I know. I’m supposed to be patient. Instead, I’ve been acting like a frantic Ward Cleaver, chain-smoking and loosening his tie, pacing the maternity ward til the ‘Beav shows up. Perhaps I exaggerate, but still. Where are my finches?

I haven’t been a life-long bird lover. Buying the little yellow house with the lilac tree in the front yard changed all that. I signed the papers a handful of spring-times ago when the lilacs were in deep, rich, purple bloom. The tree was showing off and she got my full attention. I didn’t realize at the time that she already belonged to several wing-ed others.

I tried to study a “know-your-birds” book once to learn the names of my housemates, but I possess very little left-brain, and the scientific descriptions and names left me flustered. I was hoping for descriptions I could easily interpret: little gray face, light brown speckles, soft orange beak, sweet happy song. I know my robins and my blue-jays, of course, and I had a run-in with a pheasant once while trimming back the laurel hedge (she was as scared of me as I was of her), but other than these, I don’t know who my little birds are.

What I do know is that watching them through the lacy curtain at the dining room window, or from the comfy chair on the front porch offers me an almost daily dose of gladness. And their songs, well, they provide a lovely hymn to their Maker that I get to enjoy. My favorites are “Good Morning in C”, “Welcome Home in D”, and “Goodnight in G#”.

Sure, the care and feeding of the birds-I-can’t-name adds a few extra tasks to the chore list: hosing off the paving stones that encircle the lilac tree (maybe I should reconsider the paving stone placement), tending to the houses and baths and feeders, sweeping up the piles of birdseed that always travel from the feeders to the walkway, mowing down patches of grass that sprout up in unintended (and entirely impractical) places after the birds get hold of the grass seed I’ve planted in the bald spots, picking up the bits of string and foam and wire and straw that they collect and store in a corner of the backyard, their birdie-version of Home Depot. I found a size 11 running shoe in the stockpile once, I don’t even want to think about the bird that hauled that back there.

And yet, where are my finches? When will they notice, when will they come?

I suppose I understand. The desire to be fed and sheltered, to find water and care is universal, all “kingdoms” included. And yet the path between need felt and need met is not always a clear one. There are lots of lilac trees out there. We don’t always notice the feast that waits for us.

"Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters;
and you who have no money, come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.
Why spend your money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to Me and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.”
Isaiah 55:1-2

God’s invitation through the prophet to the hungry, the thirsty, is both strong and gentle at the same time. He provides, there’s plenty, and what He offers is just what we are hungry and thirsty for - the “richest of fare”. He has been inviting us to come and dine since before we took our first bit of breath. The invitation is so clear, we simply need to notice, to respond. To come and dine.

I want to fix my eyes on You
But Lord, I know sometimes the hardest thing for me to see
Is standing right in front of me
I’m blinded and I’m broken
But your great love can clear the haze so strong
And show me You’ve been there all along

He knows my hunger, my thirst, my need for protection and care. He knows my name. The invitation is open. He watches, He waits. And once I notice and respond, He welcomes me.

I believe that one of these days the finches will notice the feast waiting for them in the lilac tree… the seed, the water, the shelter, the shade. They’ll add their ‘alleluias’ to the front-yard hymns. I’ll be filled with gladness. One of these days, they will come and dine.

It’s been 54 days. Not that I’m counting.

Stay ~

I went to a reading a few weeks back. It was filling up by the time I arrived. I wound my way through uneven rows of dented metal chairs, set in crooked lines on the hardwood floor between European Architecture and Science Fiction at Powell’s Books on Hawthorne in Portland.

I’d been intrigued by a blurb in the local paper about the young writer who’d be the guest. I sat with the appreciative group of readers, writers, seekers, on-their-way-to-somewhere-elsers who’d stumbled in with a cup of coffee and a bit of spare time.

I love being read to. Living on my own makes that tricky, so I attend readings when I can.

The young writer, she was delightful. Honest, nervous, funny. A little amazed that anyone would come out on a school night to listen to the words she’d had the courage to write. She read to us from her newest collection of narrative pieces. They were genuine, heartbreaking, tender. She received the polite applause with an embarrassed grin, and then patiently answered the questions that invariably get asked at these gatherings: “How much time do you spend writing every day?” “How do you disguise your characters so your family won’t recognize themselves?” “How can I get my own book published?” Her answers were gracious and thoughtful, as if she were hearing these questions for the first time. She took the cap off a new Sharpie pen, grabbed a book off the stack fresh from the publisher, and signed her name over and again on the flyleaf that still smelled of bookbinding glue.

I was glad I’d gone. I was glad to spend a slice of evening with other grown-ups who like being read to. I’d gone intrigued and left intrigued.

But it isn’t this young writer’s work or her particular story that has stayed with me since that evening. It was what someone else said along the way. Truth has a habit of doing that, showing up unannounced, making its presence known when we’re not looking or listening for it. She mentioned, as she spoke to us, of a writing workshop she’d attended some time ago where she had been under the instruction of one of her favorite writers: Katherine Dunn, an award-winning novelist and poet. Katherine, during her own Q and A at this workshop, had said the following to the writers leaning in to capture her every word: “I don’t write so I can escape. I write so I can stay.”

“I don’t write so I can escape. I write so I can stay.”

The young writer told us of the deep impact this bit of truth had on her. I left Powell’s that night knowing just how she felt. These are the words that resonated with me that evening, these are the words that resonate with me still.

“I write so I can stay.” So I can stay. Stay.

I picture that award-winning writer, staying, choosing to be present. Staying with a character til his or her voice finds itself. Staying with a plot idea until it unfolds and sets out on its own winding path. Staying with the doubt that she can ever write another story until the doubt passes. Staying with the noise of everything that’s calling her away from what she truly loves to do… write, to be… a writer. Staying with the noise until she can stare it down, until quiet takes its place and she can pick up where she left off. Not writing so she can escape. Writing so she can stay. Allowing space and time and stillness so truth can weave itself into the narrative.

We struggle sometimes to allow for space and time and stillness. There are so many escape routes, so many getaway cars. They screech toward us, we hop in and disappear. We grab hold of any distraction, and the very things that need stillness are avoided: an unspoken concern, an unuttered doubt, a bit of wound unattended, the weight of what overwhelms. Even a bit of hope or joy unexpressed.

The noises, loud and large, drown out the voice that is still and small. The voice that says “Come to Me. Be with Me. Stay with Me.”

My friend Elliott told me that he doesn’t possess the “fight or flight” instinct that’s inherent in most of us. He admits he’s all “flight or flight”. When confronted, escape is his only option. It’s all “get me outta here”. I smiled at that, just because it sounded a tiny bit familiar.

“The Lord your God is with you, He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you… He will rejoice over you with singing… He will quiet you with His love.” (Zephaniah 3:17)

What if, increasingly, instead of escaping, we could “stay”. What if, tiny breath by tiny breath, we could allow ourselves to be quieted.

What if we could stay with our own story as it unfolds. Find our voices. See the path come into view a step at a time, and trust that we are not alone in the staying.

My heart is not proud and my eyes are not haughty,
I am not concerned with lofty things
I have stilled my soul like a babe with its mother
And my hope rests in God, both now and forever
I have stilled, stilled my soul, oh my soul, be still
Be still my soul
I have stilled, stilled my soul, oh my soul, be still
Be still my soul
(Lyric from Psalm 131)

Set aside, for a moment, the instinct to fight, to flee, to escape.
Take a tiny breath.
Allow for the stillness.
And stay.

Triptych ~

\‘trip-(,)tik\ – noun – from the Greek
A picture or carving in three panels, side by side

A few years ago I began to gather old black and white photos of my family.

My little house has no fireplace, so my piano is my mantle, and I’ve gathered quite a collection.

My Scottish great-grandmother, the preacher from Oklahoma, my mom, my dad as chubby-cheeked toddlers. The great-grandfathers, the one who played catcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates, the one who went to sea to rescue the shipwrecked. The grandmother who taught me to play piano, the grandpa who was a proud Northwest logger, who I know only from a scratchy piece of 8mm film where he is tossing me in his arms. My nana and pa, strolling down an avenue in the 40s like a couple ‘a swells.

My own family, my parents, my siblings, we’re a small bunch, we’re a bit scattered. My parents each had only one sibling. I’ve got an aunt in Florida somewhere, I think, and a few random cousins who are essentially strangers to me. Family reunions when I was young were, well, not so much reunions as the occasional afternoon picnic where we’d play lousy croquet and I’d do my best to dodge grandma’s three-bean salad. She was a little heavy-handed with the vinegar.

Every once in awhile when I feel envious of big families with extensions that still reach far and wide, I glance at this gallery on my piano for a booster shot of belonging. Connection. Where I come from. My people.

Scattered around my house I’ve placed a few other black and whites I have come to treasure. Photographs of my two older sisters and myself. My parents were in full-Kodak mode for several years, and they did a terrific job of getting the three of us to pose together, side by side.

Little girls in Easter dresses with bonnets. I enlarged this photo some time back only to discover that it wasn’t my petticoat peeking out from beneath my pale dress, no, that was a loaded diaper. Later on we pose again, a little more grown up, bonnets exchanged for white gloves and patent-leather purses. Mom was our seamstress, letting us pick out a favorite color of matching-patterned fabric. Greens, pinks, lavenders. Another shows the three of us sitting stagger-staired on the front porch of a grand old house, bare arms and sunsuits, another with my sisters on tricycles, me walking just ahead of them with shoulders and head held high, as if I had appointed myself grand marshal of our sister parade. We show up again, all tom-boyed out in shorts and sweatshirts, holding our fishing poles and showing off fresh-caught lake trout (reeled in, no doubt, by daddy).

The flashbulb stopped popping after a handful of years, at least these triptych poses came to an end, which is a good thing, since, you know, the seventies were not a photogenic time.

We shared a bedroom growing up. I look at that 10x12 room now and can’t imagine how we survived such close quarters. My amazement is tempered by the fact that I was the slob, so my sisters had to bear the most in terms of their unfortunate roommate situation. (Now is a good time to mention that I also have a baby brother. He didn’t make the girls-only photo-shoots, but he got his own room for 20-some years, so that seems like a decent trade-off). Anyway, we shared that space, the three of us, until a cracker-box college dorm room or an available apartment offered the first little taste of privacy.

And private we all became, for years. Each pursuing our own bit of dream, or simply walking the path that unfolded in front of us when dreams seemed elusive or still in-the-making. I don’t know what other sisters do, what they talk about, I just know that we were never the kind to shop or giggle or whisper secrets, we didn’t talk about shoes or boys or clothes. We met up here and there, stayed in touch a bit, came together now and again for children and the bigger holidays, but for the most part, our paths diverged.

We stayed in that place of divergence until just a handful of years ago, when, I don’t know what, or who, or even how, really, I just know that we each saw to it, in our own small way, to draw our paths together again.

There have been no “Timmy and Lassie” moments, no racing into one another’s embrace after years of separation. Our reconnecting has been slow, stumbling, stammering, and yet, marked by intentionality. It’s not so difficult. A phone call made. A phone call returned. An email sent and replied to. An old-fashioned note-card and a postage stamp. The remembering, the acknowledgement of a birthday, an appointment, a previous conversation. An ear to listen to a bit of worry, a bit of gladness, a bit of the quirky or mundane that makes up a day. A touch of teasing, laughter. A cup of coffee. A little something picked up here or there to say, “I was here, or there, and I thought of you”.

Along the way, we are learning who one another are. And we’re forgiving one another for living too many years holding tight to who we thought we were when we shared that small room. The bossy one, the flake, the crybaby. The images of one another’s best and worst still run in our memories, but the images are softened and mellowed by time, grace and understanding. We’re allowing for one another’s “becoming”.

It’s not all “Hallmark”. We have the capacity to annoy one another, to frustrate, we know where the bright red “PUSH” buttons are for each other. There are days one sister reminds me that I was the one who pushed her off a ledge onto the cement patio when she was 5 years old. It was an accident, I swear. Years of living our private lives left each of us with a streak of independence and will that could be described as, oh, maybe, ferocious. So, this coming together, it takes awhile.

I’m not trying to make up for time that feels lost; I just don’t want to lose any more of the time that I get.

I’ve discovered at this place where our paths are coming together again, that I am so grateful to have my sisters with me. I’ve missed them. Now, when there is an ache that needs some balm, a story that needs to be heard outside my own head, it occurs to me to seek out a sister. A hand on an arm, a look in the eye. A familiar voice from miles away. And its because of our history that it bears such sweet weight to have their companionship as we navigate this road through whatever lies ahead… the needs of our mother, the needs of our own lives.

I look at these photos, those little girls in Easter bonnets, sitting on the sunny porch, riding in a tricycle parade; I look through the black and white into their hazel, brown and blue eyes. I don’t know what they saw all those years ago, but looking back at them today, I believe I know what they are coming to see.

“Behold how good it is for brothers, for sisters, to dwell together in unity.” (Psalm 133:1)

How good it is indeed. My “picture, my carving in three panels, side by side”. My sisters. My triptych.

Found Out ~

I ate some raw Tollhouse cookie dough a few weekends ago.

I'd been craving something doughy, something chocolaty, something not listed on my weight-loss food-plan, so as I was picking up my groceries, I tossed a packet of cookie dough in the basket. I ate a few squares of the good stuff while I baked the rest. A few days later, the ecoli-related recall was announced, and, after checking my belly for gurgling, said to myself: “Kathryn Douglass. Be sure your sins will find you out." (Numbers 32:23)

That's was the voice of my Grandpa Owen in my head.

He was a Conservative Baptist minister for 70 years. He was one of the most loving and tender men I have ever known, generous with hugs and kisses, nicknames and compliments. And yet, he could thump the Bible with the best of them, and I was on the receiving end of some of that thumping for a good part of my childhood. I was warned not to smoke or dance or chew or go with boys who do, warned not to do any of those things that those that were doing them, were, well, doing. I was never sure who these people were or what, exactly, they were all doing, but I listened wide-eyed to grandpa’s warnings.

The first time I remember him quoting that verse from Numbers to me, my younger brother and I had been out riding our bikes. Well, we were riding one bike. I had the seat and the steering; he sat behind me with his fanny perched on the thin metal fender. We bounced along our pot-holed street, scraping along in the gravel and grass that passed for a sidewalk. Shirts, shorts, no shoes. C’mon, nobody wears shoes to ride a bike in the summertime. We’d been warned against this, but paid no attention. What could possibly happen? So, that particular afternoon, when I heard the thud, the crunch, the scream, I knew we were in trouble. I knew what could happen. Turns out bare toes and metal spokes were not meant to meet.

My brother limped his mangled feet home, I followed sheepishly with the bike, rehearsing my lines (“it was his idea.”) Grandpa and grandma happened to be visiting that summer afternoon and met us, along with mom, at the door. Apparently our cries alerted them to somebody doing something they shouldn’t have been. Grandpa helped mom wash my brother’s toes, and get him bandaged up. A little medicine, a little comfort, a little kiss to make it better. And a little thumping. He sat us down, and having been advised that we were told not to ride our bikes without shoes, said, in his firmest preacher voice: “children, be sure your sins will find you out.”

When my youngest niece was in the 2nd grade, she insisted on wearing her AWANA Club Sparky vest to school on picture day. All bright red with yellow piping. She simply could not be talked out of it. Her mom struck a deal, she could wear the vest to school, but when it was picture-taking time, she just had to slip off the vest so her pretty pink sweater would be captured for 2nd grade posterity. She promised, pinky-swore, that she would do it. When she raced in the door after school, the first question her mom asked was “did you remember to take off your vest?” “Yes, mama, I took it off for my picture.” Six weeks later, when the 8x10s arrived in the mail, there was Kaity, missing a couple of teeth, bangs askew, and bright red Sparky vest front and center. Nothing like being “found out” by Kodak.

My sins have “found me out”, to be sure. The lies, the deception, the rebellion. Kid-stuff. Grown-up stuff. Bits of brokenness acting out, showing up in ways that remind me that I am still becoming the girl God has in mind. Sometimes that “becoming” arrives in gentle waves of surrender and growth. Other times, its more like a tantrum, all clenched fists and stubborn pouts.

And yet, what I have experienced more often in my life, is that I have been “found out”, over and again, by grace.

Not chased down by sin, but pursued by God, described by David in this way in Psalm 103: “He forgives all your sins, he heals all your diseases, he redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion. The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in love… He does not treat us as our sins deserve, or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.”

His relentless pursuit is not a pursuit of my behavior, but a pursuit of my heart. God is “finding me out”. Finding me to be a beloved child in need of his love, forgiveness and grace.

I know my grandpa meant well with his occasional thumping, and I appreciate what he tried to teach me. A child needs to be warned that toes and spokes don’t mix. Grown-ups need to be warned too, which seems obvious from all the tangles the grown-up world has gotten itself into.

What gladdens and relieves my heart is to discover and experience that sin is not out to “get me” after all. The greater truth is that I was “gotten” long ago. Gotten by grace.

The Deep End ~

When my mom was a little girl, she spent many of her summer days at the home of her Nana and Pa, Helen and Hugh, in British Columbia. The great old house was tucked into a protective blanket of fir trees, just up the fern-covered bank from the edge of the glassy waters of Sproat Lake.

When she was 4 years old, Grandpa Hugh decided it was high time his little girl learned to swim. There was so much activity down at the water, the little boat, the dock, the swimming, the fishing. Not too far off shore there was a little island, and other children would scamper out there to build forts, and craft all kinds of adventures until the "time for dinner" bell yelled from any of a dozen nearby sun-porches. It disheartened him to watch her taking it all in from the safety of dry ground. He wanted her to enjoy the lake, to experience it, and not just stand there tentatively on the shore, shyly tugging at the straps of her life-vest.

One summer afternoon, he helped her out of the vest, walked her to the end of the dock, picked her up gently and tossed her into the deep end. She flailed a bit, choked down gulps of water, whimpered some, but figured out pretty quickly what she needed to do to keep from letting the lake swallow her right up. Grandpa Hugh walked along the dock just above her, calling out to her, saying her name, coaching her, cheering her on, guiding her along. She heard his voice between gulps and cries, and made her way, all gangly 4-year old arms and legs, to the shore. At the end of the "lesson", she was a swimmer. She didn't speak to him for two weeks, but she was a swimmer. She's held to a life-long love of the water ever since.

My own learn-to-swim story is a bit less dramatic. I've never really taken to the water. I took the mandatory swimming lessons with my third-grade class (suited up in a turquoise and white gingham-patterned one-piece with attached pleated skirt purchased at J.C. Penney). At the end of the two-week sessions scheduled in place of recess, I was awarded the "Best Floater" certificate. I wasn't aware until years later that this particular award is not something to which one would normally aspire. Turns out, chubby girls float.

I was thrown into the deep end myself a few months back. My boss was three weeks away from the start of maternity leave, and we had sketched out a tentative plan for how things would run while she was away, since most of what fills her inbox would fill mine. I had a basic idea of what it would take to keep things running smoothly, but I wanted, well, all kinds of direction and assurance, guidance and how-to-do's. We had a lunch date set for noon on a Thursday to strategize. I had my list of questions, the list I'd been mulling over for weeks, she'd have her list of answers. I had my list of concerns; she'd have her list of solutions. But little Isaac John, well, he had other plans, as babies often do. He decided to show up three weeks early. The boss and I never got to have that lunch. I walked into work on a Monday morning, was given the birth announcement, flopped into my chair for a second to grasp the news, and then felt the splash and the chill as me and my notes were tossed into the deep.

What followed were a few months of a wild ride on the learning curve. Things thrown at me I had no idea what to do with. Things found inside myself I never knew were there.

The boss is back, Isaac John is holding his head up on his own, my inbox is back to being simply mine and manageable. Sure, there was a little flailing, a little gulping, a few whimpers. But I learned how to swim.

When my mom tells her story, she assures me that Pa wasn't mean, that his method, while, perhaps a tiny bit misguided, was never meant to scare her, never meant to hurt her. Pa just knew it was time for her to learn the lake and he figured that a toss off the dock was as good a choice as any.

This walk of faith sometimes feels like a toss into the deep end. There are moments where it seems we're not on dry ground, we realize we're running out of dock, and before we know what's happening, things feel dark, deep, overwhelming, and footing is hard to find. Like that 4-year old girl at her first swimming lesson, we feel like, gee, a little warning would have been nice. Like me and my list of questions for the boss, we want to know exactly what to do in every eventuality. But this life of faith can't be decided upon only once we're satisfied that we have all the answers to all the questions. Faith is often lived in the questions... questions like, "what do I do now?", "how am I going to make it through this?", "are You here?"

This life of faith, its more like holding on to Grandpa Hugh's hand as we walk along the dock, looking into his gentle eyes with a mix of excitement and uncertainty as he loosens the life vest, feeling the strength of his arms as he cradles us close, and hearing his voice as he calls out to us in the deep: "c'mon sweetheart, I see you, I'm right here, you can do it, don't be afraid, just come to me."

Billy Crockett, a singer-songwriter whose music has kept me good company for years, writes, "the depth of God's love, reaches down, down down, to where we are, until we're found, found, found. Through quiet words, or none at all, He pursues our hearts behind the wall, and to those who wait with darkness all around, the depth of God's love reaches down."

"I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord. "My plans are to prosper you and not to harm you, to give you a future, to give you hope." ~ Jeremiah 29:11.

You pray, you cry, you swallow a little bit of lake. You believe that the arms and the love that dropped you into the deep will gather you up again.

Reconnection ~

My past has been finding me lately. My past in the names, the faces, the stories of some people I once shared a connection with.

An old roommate, a grade-school chum, a woman I met at a community meeting, a high-school friend.

There was that sideways glance on a downtown street corner where I recognized a once-familiar face. Then, a missed bus that led to a different ride, a different route, and then a friendly voice from a few seats back, a hesitant, "hey, how... where have you been?" An email that found its way to me through the net, though I'd not given out my address, a phone call from an area code I didn't know.

Connections... they fray, they strengthen, they deepen, they unwind. I look at my life and see who is with me, who has left, who has stayed. I know the names, the faces, the stories of the people I am growing old with. I wasn't looking to tamper with that picture.

If I let myself think about it too much, I wonder if Dickens is lurking nearby, giving backstage cues to ghosts from the past.

There's a Patty Griffin lyric that resonates. She writes, "as far as I can tell, most everything means nothing, except some things, that mean everything."

It's too soon to tell if it all means nothing, or if, maybe, it means everything. I understand that there's plenty on any given day that's random, mundane, serendipitous. But when the same song plays over and again, like an old, scratched LP, I pay attention.

I welcome some of these reconnections with hope, with delight. My memory's been leafing through a scrapbook, a diary, a collage. I smile at the thought of who we were then, who we are now, and how it is, like that lost pup in the news this week that found his way home months later, to find myself feeling at home again too, at home with people who knew me so long ago, and, despite the distance that comes with time and change, want to share the journey from here.

Other possibilities at reconnection leave me wary. There's a bit of fear, regret. There are wounds there, self-inflicted, imposed, long-forgotten until I remember how I got that scar, that limp, that ache.

My friend Judy has been reminding me for years that nothing is wasted with God. I look at what seems frayed, what feels broken, and it can feel like a waste sometimes. We're not meant to be alone, we're created for connection, for community, but brokenness and misunderstanding, neglect, and life, just life can cause paths to unwind, bonds to strain. I can consider these disconnections in my own story and ask, "what was that all about?"

God looks at the same and reminds me (from Psalm 139) that He searches me and knows me... that before a word is on my tongue He hears it... that He knows when I sit and when I rise... that there is nowhere I've been, nowhere I could ever go that He would not be with me, that He is familiar, deeply, intimately familiar, with all my ways. All my staying, leaving, fraying ways.

When I was a child, a young woman, I dove in, all intensity and excitement to the possibility of belonging, of being known. Not a child anymore, I understand what it is to be open, and yet to guard my heart, or, to allow my heart to be guarded. I am my Beloved's and He is mine. His banner over me, over this heart, is love, protection, refuge, help.

So I will do my best to set aside fear and regret, to allow for meaning, to be open to possibility. I will trust that it's not Dickens, after all, who is allowing for this song to play over and again, but my Father, who's written all my days in his book, who knows every name, every face, every story that is part of my own.

What I trust finally, is that the connection that heals my life and redeems what feels wasted is connection with my Father.

It's not the old roommate, the grade school chum, the woman from the community meeting or the high school friend who decide if I am a person to grow old with. It's my Father, my Brother Christ, leaning in to remind me, through a glance, a call, a note, a voice, that nothing is wasted, nothing is forgotten, nothing is undone that will be left undone.

Forgiveness and grace. Hope and peace. Healing in the brokenness. Transformation. Reconnection. Some things, they mean everything.

Garden ~

I spent an hour and a half in my garden last week. The first slice of evening where there was just enough light and just enough of a break in the steady rainfall to be outside for awhile.

I'd recently been given a rosebush-pruning lesson and witnessed in just days how life and health seemed to pulse back through the branches, and my hope was to apply my lesson and my snips to a few other scraggly bushes in my garden.

"Garden" may be the tiniest overstatement. When I bought this little place a few years ago, it came with a pristine new-sod lawn and a truckload of barkdust that stretched from the edge of the lawn to the edge of the fence with not a bit of life or color in between. I've been trying to fill in all that empty space a patch at a time ever since. We're no french country garden, but we're coming along.

I don't know what I'm doing in the garden. I guess I'm a bit of a city girl. My family lived in the "country" back when I was learning to tie my shoes, but that was a lot of shoelaces ago. Very little of the country experience made the trip from the "toolies" to the "burbs". For example ~ I like to think that eggs come from the dairy case at Trader Joe's. It's tough for me to admit to myself that they "come shootin' out a chicken's ass", (line lifted from the film, "Fried Green Tomatoes", apologies and credits to Fannie Flagg). In fact, a friend handed me a couple dozen brown eggs from her own chickens last summer and I gave them all away because I was just not ready to eat them after meeting the aforementioned asses from which they shot that very afternoon.

Back to the garden ~ so I don't know what I'm doing. I planted a blueberry bush a few years ago. After a few seasons, while I was delighted with the tiny white blossoms, I was disappointed that there'd been no berries to enjoy. I mentioned my barren blueberry bush problem to a woman I work with, she's a bit of a master gardener in her after-office hours, she frequently brings me little shoots and starts, and, while I can't be sure, I believe she turned her back to me for just a second to restrain a snort. She gathered herself, turned back to me and said, with grace, "um, kid", (she calls me kid)... "you know you need two blueberry plants if you want berries, right?" Um, yea, no. No. Did not know that. City girl. Apparently, mommy blueberry bush has to love daddy blueberry bush and somehow the bees get invited into this arrangement, and, well, there you go, blueberries.

I don't know what I'm doing in the garden. But in the not-knowing, I'm discovering what I do know. I know that I love the feel of my hands in the dirt. When someone asks me what kind of flowers I like, I know I tend to say "purple". The thick gardening manuals that provide all kinds of instruction on zoning and fertilizer, while I'm sure they're worthwhile, they leave me overwhelmed and confused. But invite me to walk through a nursery and drink in all the grand colors and varieties and hopeful, life-giving possibilities, and I'm your girl. I like to buy bags of bulbs at farmer's markets, even big box stores. I left the Dollar Store a week ago with 4 bucks worth of gladiolas. Why not. I know I love taking my wicker basket out to gather cherry tomatoes and eat handfuls of them right off the vine. I know I love watering in the cool of the evening once the neighborhood is tucked in and only the moon is keeping an eye on me. I know I love stepping off my porch in the morning to discover that a tiny little companion has poked her head up through the soil, against all odds, to be part of my life. I've been known to say "hello baby" to these little blooms who make their home with me.

I know I'm not alone in my garden. I know my spirit is quieted by the companionship I experience. As I tend, I am reminded that I am tended to as well. As I water, my thirsty soul is refreshed by the Spirit that is food and drink to me. Even as I cut away what is dead so that life can bust through again, I am comforted with a gentle understanding. Oh, I see. You want me to live. You want me to grow. You want me to thrive. I know... I know.

I am going to my favorite local nursery spot tomorrow. I have a list. Some new companions to share my home with me. Some purples. And maybe some yellows, some pinks, some greens. And some blueberry bushes. Two of them.

Nana ~

My nana died last Friday evening. She was 94 years old. Her name was Helen May.

I was given her middle name ("Kathryn May" means I'm in trouble), I wear a sterling silver bracelet that is engraved with her monogram as a single woman in the 1930s, and I possess the memories of a sweet connection with her the past few years of her life.

Many of the grandparents and great-grands in my family tree have lived well into their 90s. There's a running gag among us now ~ we're not photogenic, we have lousy metabolism, but, geez, we live forever. Well, not forever, I guess.

As grandparents go, at least the ones I was most accustomed to in my childhood, nana was, well, a tiny bit scandalous. She had a liquor cabinet in her house that I was fascinated by as a child. We'd visit her on Saturday afternoons and she would offer us "hi-balls". She'd pour cold Pepsi into gin glasses and I'd sip my drink as she sipped hers, and I'd feel fancy and naughty at the same time. She had a limited supply of tolerance, oh, on just about any topic. A roll of her eyes, a "sheesh", a smirk, that was her expressed opinion on countless matters. Any funky smell was "bad enough to knock a buzzard off a gut-wagon", and any child age 12 or below who was in her eyesight was "a farmer". She was, how can I put this, bossy. Its quite possible that the first "dammit" I ever heard came out of her mouth.

For most of my childhood, she lived a thousand miles away for most of the year. When the Southern California sun could not be tamed by the pool or the shade of the orange grove, she'd pack up her Cadillac and head north. This went on for years. I'd not see her for months, and then, when she'd lay eyes on me on that first visit of the summer, her first words to me would invariably be, "you need to lose weight", followed immediately by "can I make you a sandwich?"

She was tan and fit, she golfed and traveled. She met "the girls" for bridge at the club. She square danced. She bought handbags bejeweled with designs of peacocks, of flowers. She was a classically trained pianist. She buried two husbands and suffered the betrayal of a son. She kept coffee cans full of the nickels she won playing bingo, she got reprimanded once for pushing and shoving to get on the senior-center activity bus, and she kept a tissue in the pocket of every sweater she owned.

She began to fail several months ago. There was a fall, there was the confusion, and then there was the diagnosis that gave us a hint as to how her life might end.

The past few years, the past few months, have been especially poignant. Watching my mom care for this woman has been a revelation to me, truly, she has revealed to me how it is that one cares for an aging, dying parent. My nana has not been easy to love, as nanas go. She's held firmly to a reluctance toward sentiment, toward expressions of tenderness, a reservation, perhaps an inability to demonstrate, to speak what simply needs to be spoken. And yet, my mom has loved her, has tended to her with compassion and faithfulness and grace.

A few months ago, with nana deep into dementia, mom sat beside her bed, held her hand, and spoke gently to her. "Mom, do you know who I am?", she asked. Nana, who for months had confused my mom with a half-dozen dead relatives, looked her right in the eye, and said "yes, you're my little baby girl." I got to witness that moment, and I will never forget it. I believe it was a cup of cold water offered to my mom's thirsty heart. Offered, not really by nana, but by God, who has watched my mom's faithfulness all her life and knew that refreshment was needed.

There were late-night calls the last week of her life, calls to tell us that it was time to say goodbye. We kissed her, we stroked her hair, we pressed our lips to her ear and told her that she was loved, by us, by God, that she was safe, that she didn't have to worry, that we'd be alright, that she could go. She spoke gibberish for most of the visit, and we cried as we listened to her painful efforts to breathe. My mom held her hand and told her stories from her own childhood, reminded her of scenes that are as vivid to her today as they were sixty-plus years ago. Nana opened her eyes at one point and said clearly, "please hold me, please hold me."

A few moments later, she was fighting with the nurses who were taking care of her in the bathroom, insisting that no one needs more than 3 squares of toilet paper. I heard that "dammit" again. Vintage nana.

Geez, my family, we live forever. Well, not forever, not now, not here. Someday, somewhere else.

Prayers were answered Friday night. Mom's prayer for nana to finally, peacefully, let go. Nana's prayer to be held. After 94 years of reluctance and reservation, I can only believe that, at last, she is letting herself love.

But don't get me wrong, nana's nana. She's bossing somebody around.

TRAIL OF TEARS ~

There have been some tears this week. The tears haven't been mine, and yet, seeing them fall on the faces of people I love, I suppose I do consider, in some simple way, that they belong to me too.

Paul, the apostle, encourages us to "rejoice with those who rejoice... to weep with those who weep."

I have been "wept with" in my life. This past handful of days, I've been "weeping with".

My mom... she put her mother in hospice a few weekends ago. The cancer, the dementia, its beyond what a woman of nana's years can bear, the fading is coming fast, and mom has no choice but to take the next step that shows itself to her on this path toward goodbye. She and I were hiking through some wetlands last weekend. I asked her a question about the "arrangements", that awkward word we reach for when we talk about a death, a body, an urn... she stopped, let herself feel the weight of it all, set her head on my shoulder just like a little girl, and cried, "I'm not ready for her to be gone."

My workmate... so smart, so diligent, so focused, so in control. She asked me if I had a minute to talk privately. We shut the door and I sat down across from her. She let me catch a glimpse of who she really is, tucked there inside the girl she lets me see. Crushed by the harsh-sounding words of another, she cried as she expressed genuine hurt, uncertainty...how can she spend so many hours in this workspace anymore if she is meant to avoid, to hide, to dread, to dodge?

My boss... a phone call, an impending loss of a friend, a fear racing through her mind. The tears pooled in her eyes as she dropped the supervisor protocol for a moment and worried out loud with me... had she said enough, had she done enough, did he know he was loved? And if he didn't, would it be too late to tell him?

My sister... sharing a cup of coffee, stealing a few minutes from a busy work week to just be sisters. She told me the words she was trying to put together in a card to mom, a card she knows is inadequate, a card she knows can't make anything better, yet a card she wants to send to say "I know I can't do a thing, but I'm here". Tears as she worked it out in my hearing that its been a long time since our family has suffered a loss, and the older we grow, the more loss will be part of our stories, part of what we talk about over these cups of coffee.

My friend... surprised to find each other at the same gathering neither of us really felt up to attending. I understood that her invitation to join her in the ladies room was an invitation to get away from the noise and enter into something else entirely. We sat on an embroidered bench away from the celebration, and she cried as she told me of a discovery, a deepening sense of loss, confusion, brokenness, distrust.

Rejoice with those who rejoice. Weep with those who weep.

David, the psalmist, writes a beautiful lyric in Psalm 56 ~ he pleads with God at a painful and fearful time in his life to "carry my tears in your bottle".

I've allowed the line between literal and symbolic to blend a bit in my own spiritual life. Does God really have a bottle where he stores my tears? I don't know. What I do believe is that He is my safe-keeper. My own heart has been exposed to enough of His heart to believe this about Him: He keeps safe for me all that escapes my own ability to protect, all that I can't possibly keep from breaking. My family, my trust, my confidence, my fragility, my heart. Every ache, every loss, every sorrow, every fear. This is where tears come from. And where they go once they've fallen? Somehow, into the loving hands of my Father, who captures and keeps them.

I can weep with my mom, my sister, my friends along this trail of tears, because I have been wept with.

And one day, what God has captured, what God has kept, He will transform, and we will be bathed and refreshed and renewed. And, oh, how we will rejoice.

STUCK

I pulled a pair of undies out of my washing machine the other night. Not so unusual, except that these had been stuck in there for oh, eight, maybe ten weeks.

If its true that things tend to be simpler than they seem, I, apparently, am not yet convinced. I tend to tackle things from the most complicated angle first, then work my way back to simple. I'm considering a swap, but hey, give me time, we'll see.

A few months back, I'd done a load of laundry and realized that the clothes weren't ringing out as they should. I had a soggy mess of towels at the bottom of the washer tub. I rung things out the best I could (not an easy task, a big tip of the hat to washer-women everywhere), tossed things in the dryer that weren't too soaked, counted to make sure I had enough undies to get me through for awhile, and walked away.

My washer and dryer are in the basement, the least inviting part of my funky little 1928 bungalow. I've always been a bit afraid of it, being a "ranch-house" girl most of my life. There are the usual suspects, shadowy corners, torn insulation, cobwebs that go unseen til they are in my mouth (arrgh), and I am in a position to know the location of a bumble bee cemetery (I was there when they were laid to rest). So yea, I make myself get down there once a week to do some laundry, but that's the extent of my basement visits. So when I discovered the washer problem, part of me felt relief. Sweet! No more trips to the basement. Well, you know, until I run out of undies or get a new washer, whichever comes first.

I set out on my somewhat complicated path to a solution. I went to Home Depot and Sears and window-shopped for a new washer. I put it on my "to-do" list to clean out the entry-way to the basement stairs and remove the handrail (its a narrow passage with a turn and no delivery man can get down there with a washer in tow.) I checked the checkbook to see if I could afford such a thing in the middle of this downturn. And I visited the pal I go to whenever I run into a household fix-it problem, my pal Google. He told me to check for leaks, check for kinks, check the fuses, and check for anything that may be clogging the pipes and hoses. You know, like a neighborhood kitty cat. I felt overwhelmed by all of those possibilities, so I bought some more undies, did my washer woman routine every other week and walked away. This went on for weeks.

The other morning, a little voice told me to quit avoiding it and just go take a look. You know, square one. I promised the voice I would, since I can't keep putting undies on the grocery list. So before I gave myself a chance to renege, I marched into my room the moment I got home and put on my "fix-something" sweats. I took a deep breath and headed downstairs. I positioned the clamp light just so, and started inspecting. I unplugged every possible connection to my possible electrocution, and tipped and tilted and pushed and pulled. Nothin'. Then I took a closer look, and there, just where the top of the tub and the drum meet, I saw a little something. My first thought was "mouse". My second thought was "grow up", and I dug in. About 5 minutes later, after a good deal of pulling with all I had in me, I freed my washer from the culprit: a pair of undies that had gotten themselves jammed into the works and prevented a good rinse and spin for the last few months. Those poor undies. A successful spin-cycle test-drive and I was back in business.

I'm an over-stuffer. That applies to a couple of topics, but lets keep it to the washer for now. I've never been a lights and darks sorter, my piles are "clean" and "dirty". And I figure if I can get the door shut, we're in and we're ready to go. My mama taught me different, but I'm a pretty low maintenance, casual girl when it comes to clothes, so sorting them into a couple of reasonably sized loads never really figured in to my laundry routine. Lesson learned.

When I look back at the last several weeks and how I fumbled around with this problem, I recognize the girl that's been following me around all my life, you know, me. A little afraid the problem will be too much to manage, a little afraid I won't know what to do. A little too willing to be overwhelmed and hope it will go away or be transformed by some sort of magic. But, I also recognize another side of that girl (a side that's popping up a little more often these days). A girl who is willing to respond. I've learned that every time I say "ok, I'll try", to that little voice (the voice of hope, the voice that says "I know you need some help"), that a solution finds me.

Its ok to be overwhelmed, its ok to work my way back to square one.

Its ok to get stuck. But it turns out, unstuck is better. Just ask those poor undies.

Teaching Little Fingers To Play

A page, yellowed with 40 years, sets in a silver frame on a bookcase in my living room. Its a "Certificate of Merit" with rips and taped borders and a scraggly-edged golden seal that certifies that I completed the piano course, "Teaching Little Fingers To Play", in January of 1968. I was 6 years old. My Grandma Mary signed it in blue ink-pen.

My own "little fingers" are quite a bit bigger now, and bear the wrinkles and scars and imperfections that come with 40-plus years. But I'm gaining the courage lately, at least enough courage to sort out the next steps, so that I can, hopefully, begin to teach piano to some "little fingers" myself. This is an idea I started kicking around in my own mind a few years ago. And I told just enough people that I can't really turn back now. I could, but I don't want to, and the ones I told know me well enough to remind me, gently, that I said I wanted to do this.

Just last night, I sat across a table with an old friend, sharing coffee and stories, and she told me just how we could make it work for her little daughter to be one of my first students.

I love to play the piano. I have no classical chops to speak of, there's a good chance a set of scales would put a cramp in my hands that would send me for the Ben Gay. Yea, its been a few years. The red-pencil marks in my old piano lesson books (I kept them all) tell the tale, I was no prodigy. But somewhere along the way, what was nurtured in me was a simple understanding that by playing the piano, I could express myself, allow for a little peek into my heart, a tiny glimpse of what I sometimes find hard to express when I speak. We all have this in our lives, that bit of joy or peace where we feel like "ah, this is what I love". Playing a sweet melody on the piano is mine. Another Anne Lamott quote ... "how is it you can play one chord, and then another, and then your heart just breaks wide open?". That's what playing the piano does for me. Opens my heart. Wide open.

I've had opportunities to play since that framed certificate was signed. High school, a tiny bit in college, weddings and funerals, and years in a worship band at a church for a good part of my adult life. But a turn in the road a few years ago brought a change that left me wondering if and where and how my love for playing would show itself again.

An experience last fall reminded me of my almost-forgotten "I want to teach" idea. In preparing for a wedding where I was playing with a violinist friend, the music that was chosen was a real challenge for me. I was nervous enough about it that I set aside the intentional time for a month, to practice every night, every morning. I pulled out the metronome, wrote little notes to myself on the sheet music to get me through the hardest parts. And in the middle of all that practicing, I remembered, this is what I love. This is part of who I am.

I took a few baby steps last night, committing to my friend that I would start taking some action. Her daughter has some little fingers that would like to play, and she'd like to have me teach her.

Hope is propelling me forward. I hope I can take some steps and figure out how to teach. I hope I can grow into being a good teacher. I hope I can give years of my life to pursuing this. I hope I can encourage a child to express herself when she plays. I hope, when I am in my 70s, I can be the funky old piano-teacher-lady down the street.

And I hope I can sign a "Certificate of Merit" for some little fingers someday.

SURROUNDED ~
I decided I'd contracted MS last weekend. True confessions, I've decided this a few times before in my life. My poor mom used to have to take me to the doctor in my 10s, 11s and 12s so he/she could convince me I did not have whatever disease I had stumbled upon while leafing through the giant hardback family-medical dictionary. Also, I went through a fainting phase in my early teens, I'd just be minding my own business, then I'd hear a sibling say "there she goes again". That doctor explained that the veins that feed blood to my brain are a little on the small side. Um, yea. I've heard all the punchlines for that one. Anyhow, my "I-think-I-have-MS again" tale started about six weeks ago, I kept waking up in the middle of the night with an achy, buzzing, burning left arm. I know. Left arm, heart attack, but I've been working out and eating healthy, so I let that possibility go. I'd shake it off, get back to sleep just in time for the alarm to go off. It happened a few times a week. Last weekend, I couldn't shake it off, and I buzzed and burned and pinned-and needled all weekend long. Worked myself up into a bit of a state. Pictured needing to sell my house, quit my job, move in with mom and hire someone to tend to my "activities of daily living". You know, those ones. Yikes. I've heard I can get a little anxious. An evening conversation with my sister led to a call to the doctor on Monday. Something in her tone when she said "aren't those symptoms of something serious?"... Thank God for the kindly, older, gentle doctor who pulled my card from the "in-box". He listened to my anxious story, nodded as if he'd heard the likes of me before, and proceeded to poke my extremities with the sharpest objects he could find in the drawer behind him. I felt it all, reacted just right, and even beat him in the arm wrestling contest he challenged me to. He was gracious and patient, and assured me he saw no signs of anything neurological going on. So we played detective and tried to figure out what was causing the buzz and the burn. I suppose he's heard the wildest of confessions, my big breakthrough was to admit to him that I get a pillow and blanky and fall asleep on the loveseat every night (before I wake up around midnight and go to bed). He explained to me that, what with my age (thanks doc), my diminishing hormones (thanks again), and the tiny neck vein thing I've got going on, that putting my neck in such a lousy position each night was not good for the blood flow. He told me too that the round-the-clock symptoms that weekend were likely a result of letting myself get a little too overwrought. So unlike me :) I promised him I would sleep in my big girl bed from now on. I am going to treat myself to some real (non-K-mart) pillows to entice me to follow-through. God bless K-mart, I'm just saying. I've experienced a huge sense of relief in knowing that nothing more serious was going on. There's a bit of a buzz now and then, but, you know, my age, my hormones. The sketchy blood supply to my brain. I can live with that. Could I live with something worse? What if the look on the doc's face was more grim, what if the old guy beat me in that arm-wrestling contest because my muscles wouldn't, couldn't react right? Yes, I could live with it. A writer I love (Anne Lamott) writes that when difficult things happen, the idea isn't to pray for God to take the difficult thing away, but to invite Him into it with us. And last weekend, in between some anxious moments and being on hold to Kaiser and spending way to much time at http://www.ms.com/, I was able to stammer some prayers... some "helps me's", some "I'm scared's", some "I'm probably being ridiculous but I know you get me's". Thank God, for a kindly, gentle, gracious Father. Who has heard these prayers before, but has never tired of leaning in to hear them again.

I'm reading a small volume of Celtic devotions these days, every day there is a prayer, a bit of Gaelic poetry, a Psalm. And on the day I found out I do not have MS, St. Patrick's breastplate was part of the shield my Father had offered me. It reads, in part...
"Christ, be with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me
Christ on my right, Christ on my left
Christ when I lie down, Christ where I sit, Christ where I arise"
So, no MS. Not this time. It'll be something, someday. And it'll be okay. Surrounded, as St. Patrick prays, as I am.