March 28, 2012 The Unspeakable Thing About God

When times are good, be happy; 

but when times are bad, 

consider: 

God has made the one 

as well as the other. 

Ecclesiastes 7:14

Nothing so captures the heart of a community as the death of a child. Just two days ago, the death of a nine-year-old boy in Fort Pierce, Florida has done just that. A memorial service was held today for Aaron Beauchamp, the only student to die aboard the France K. Sweet Elementary School bus that crashed.  

Aaron

At this time, five other children remain in critical condition. The bus driver, a man whose driving record has been impeccable throughout his driving career, will never forget that tragic day, or the tragic decision to turn in front of a semi. An accident. Certainly the family and friends of all who were involved will never forget the day either. March 26 will live forever in their minds. It will haunt them. Perhaps even the number 26 will do this, or the number of the bus. Details, details.

I would venture a guess that somewhere tonight, even as I type this, someone is asking why God allowed such a thing to happen. Going so far as to say that God must not exist, because if a loving God existed, this kind of thing could not happen.

It's a point well taken. A loving God would want his children to prosper, succeed, do well, be happy, be healed. Right? 

Many years ago, just months after my own son died following a car accident, I sat in a Sunday school room listening to a testimony. I was visiting the church for the first time -- our former church home, the one we had helped start, had become less than nurturing, less than friendly due to judgmentalism and legalism and all the other isms that man-made religions (or man's interpretation of Christianity) historically inflict -- and was hopeful of finding a welcoming place. 

I was still raw from the loss of our son, so it was unfair, really, to expect a new church to meet my needs, but one testimony in a Sunday school sent me packing.

The woman sharing so enthusiastically had almost had an accident, you see, but God had intervened. God is so good! He is so loving! He protected her! This near-miss proved that God is sovereignly watching over his beloved, that all is as it should be.

Bullshit. And no, I'm not going to ask you to pardon my French. That's an honest, heartfelt assessment of that particular brand of God-gushing, and it's in plain English. God is God. He does whatever the hell he wants (she said ironically) and for whatever reasons he deems best. Sometimes he protects and delivers and heals. Sometimes he lets people die. He's still God. We're still not.

See, we can't have it both ways. We can't rave about God's love and care when things go right, and then say, well, God didn't have anything to do with a tragedy. Of course he did. He either is God or he isn't. 

Could God have prevented my son's death? Aaron Beauchamp's death? Abso-freakin'-lutely. He also could prevent the death of innumerable children and others slightly less likely to pull on our heartstrings...every minute or every hour of every day of every week of every month of every year of every decade of every century of every millennium.

Why doesn't he? I have no idea. I've been fed the same tired stories of his not interfering with human will that you have. I've heard the "It's God's will." I've heard the "God's permissive vs. perfect will." I've heard the cries of "unfair God" or "no-God-at-all" when things go bad, oddly unaccompanied by the "fair God" and "praise God" when things go well.

Every day that we live, we owe allegiance to the Creator of the universe. He created us. He breathed life into us. There is no blessing we receive that has not come from his hand. If we worked for it, he gave us the ability to work, the talent to perform. Grace. Unmerited favor. We're born in our father Adam's sinful likeness, yet he lets us live because he loves us and wants us to get to know him, wants us to find the way back to him.

And sometimes...always. Always. ALWAYS, there are tragic times. The woman in the Sunday school class had apparently not had hers yet or she wouldn't have babbled on about proof of God's love in her life when she escaped injury in a freaking car accident. Her time is coming. "In this world you will have trouble," Jesus said in John 16:33, and he was talking to the guys he loved best.

Did you catch that? YOU WILL HAVE TROUBLE. Maybe it will be a physical problem. Mental illness. Financial woes. Marital difficulty. The death of a loved one. Career setbacks. Crimes against you. Crimes perpetrated by you. You will have trouble. It doesn't mean there isn't a God, any more than a (temporary) lack of trouble means that you are blessed.

We have finite minds. We can't understand. We don't fathom the mysteries of God. But I am convinced that God exists, and that his plan for us is good. The best, actually:

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen (Ephesians 3:20-21, New International Version).

He is able to do more than we ask or imagine. That he doesn't always DO  what we ask or imagine is his business...and by extension, his problem. We don't have to like it. We don't have to approve of his methods. He's still God. I believe that we can trust him to work, as Paul wrote, all things together for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purposes (Romans 8:28).

All things. All. Things. Even the really horrible ones.

The friends and family of Aaron Beauchamp are going to have some questions for God. I would be surprised if he answers them. Lord knows, I'm still waiting for answers to MY questions. 

But one thing I know: God loves us. We are created for eternity. My son, and little Aaron, are there right now. 

March 10, 2012 Spamming Heaven's Throne Room

Spam, as you must know, is unwanted e-mail. Junk e-mail. E-mail sent to bulk lists from people who do not know you, about things you probably want no part of. Today I saw that I had accumulated over 200 entries in my spam folder since the last time I emptied it; a quick look reveals the usual satellite tv promotions, large amounts of money waiting for me in the Central Bank of Ghana, loans, sweepstakes, various helps for erectile dysfunction, assorted coupons, and invitations from hot local singles who want to meet me.

Spam is named for a comedy routine, oddly enough. Says Wikipedia:

According to the Internet Society and other sources, the term spam is derived from the 1970 Spam sketch of the BBC television comedy series Monty Python's Flying Circus. The sketch is set in a cafe where nearly every item on the menu includes Spam canned luncheon meat. As the waiter recites the Spam-filled menu, a chorus of Viking patrons drowns out all conversations with a song repeating "Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam... lovely Spam! wonderful Spam!", hence "Spamming" the dialogue.The excessive amount of Spam mentioned in the sketch is a reference to the preponderance of imported canned meat products in the United Kingdom, particularly a brand of tinned ham (Shoulder Pork hAM = SPAM) from the USA, in the years after World War II, as the country struggled to rebuild its agricultural base. Spam captured a large slice of the British market within lower economic classes and became a byword among British children of the 1960s for low-grade fodder due to its commonality, monotonous taste and cheap price — hence the humour of the Python sketch.

Whatever. But today it dawned on me that a lot of what we call "prayer" may be perceived, in heaven, as the spiritual equivalent to spam. Jesus instructed us how to pray in the gospel of Matthew, chapter six:

  Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.

God is appropriated addressed and reminded of his holiness. The desire to see his will accomplished is stated. A request is made for provision (surely it didn't sound so much like a demand in the original language!), forgiveness, guidance, and protection, followed by another reminder to the Almighty of how awesome he is. Amen...so be it, in other words...and that's it. Very concise, as are most of the prayers that show up in scripture. Either that's what he prefers, or some editor has a lot to answer for someday.

Jesus also instructed us that less is more, prayer-wise. His introduction to the "Our Father" tells us that we aren't to think that public praying or lofty-sounding words hold any merit:  ⁵ “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. ⁶ But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. ⁷ And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. ⁸ Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him "(Matthew 6:5-8 NIV).

I've changed the way I pray over the years. After our son Adam's death in 2000, it struck me that God is God. He does whatever he wants without regard to our timetables or preferences. He does things for his own reasons. His plans are top priority, and regardless of OUR plans, his are the ones that eventually unfold. His reasons are superior to ours, don't get me wrong! But we don't always see it at the time. We don't always understand what he is doing or why. Still, he is God, and we are not. So I stopped praying for things the same way and started reminding him of this fact.

"You are going to do what you want to, anyway," I will say. "And I trust that what you want is the Best...but I do ask you to be merciful here. Show yourself to be strong and loving in this situation." I'm convinced that affirmation is the Lord's love language, so I tell him how wonderful he is. A lot. It's true, and I'm convinced he enjoys hearing it.

I also tell him what I hope he does in a situation, the answer that seems to  me, in my very limited capacity and understanding, to be ideal. As if I had a clue, but I remind him of that also. Not trying to tell you your job, obviously, but if I were you... He's my Father, after all. What dad doesn't appreciate honest communication from his kids, even if it is childish and foolish?

A man recently shared with me that over the last year, he has adopted the practice of praying the Serenity Prayer each day, and that it has transformed his life so much so that he puts it right up there with the Lord's Prayer in terms of personal significance. Originally written by theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, it has been adopted by Alcoholics Anonymous and various other 12-step groups:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

Courage to change the things I can,

And wisdom to know the difference.

Since then, I've found myself reflecting on these simple words more often. Maybe it's because there are so many, many things around me that I've finally realized I have absolutely no chance of changing! What a freeing revelation this is! It's not up to me! Yay! There are things about others, my life, circumstances, my own heart...that I am powerless to control or change.

OK, so I don't take xanax.
It's still funny.

Granted, there are other things, especially within myself, that I need to address, correct, develop. But most of the things that overwhelm me are things I can't do anything about anyway. I need to recognize this on a daily, sometimes an hourly, basis. And I need God's help even here. I am powerless even to recognize what I am powerless to change.

Simple pleasures are often the best, and it seems from scripture that simple prayers are most pleasing to God. I need you, I love you, I want your truth to grow in my life. You're the greatest. If not for you, I'd be dead. Thank you for your mercy, without which I couldn't hope to approach your throne to thank you for it.

I have a feeling that if we go much beyond this, if we beg and plead and show up with our wish lists as if to approach the great  bearded Santa in the sky, it's regarded as so much spam. 

Which isn't, after all, even kosher.

February 8, 2012 Identity Theft of the Worst Kind

If you are a victim of identity theft, what is your gut reaction? You get angry, right? You may be angry at yourself for being gullible or forgetful -- answering a phishing e-mail and supplying confidential information, or leaving a credit card on top of the gas pump -- but likely you are angry at the person who infiltrated your life for his or her own gain.

It would be reasonable to be angry in such a case. That kind of anger makes sense.

I'm angry this morning about a different kind of identity theft. The word "Christian" has been stolen out from under the Church and it pisses me off. And yes! Christians get pissed off, or they should. We are created in God's image, and God expresses emotions. He feels compassion. He is love, 1 John 4:8 tells us. And he gets angry. 

If you look at scripture, God gets angrier at those who know him and disobey anyway than he does at those who are far away from him. Assuming you are a Christian reading this, that means that the God of the universe gets mad at YOU more often than he does at, say, a random evildoer getting his kicks.

This is not a comfortable thought.

But he is also angry when people masquerade as his people for the purpose of manipulating truth and spreading terror. One of the scariest passages in the Bible, to me anyway, is this:

John 7:15“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. 16By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. 19Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.21“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ 23Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’

Powerful, effective people. Capable of persuading crowds, drawing followers. Performing miracles! I don't know about you, but I've never performed one. These folks apparently do it routinely. And Jesus says he's going to tell them that he never knew them. Sorry. No can do. Get out. Go to hell. Literally. I mean it....go. Now!

Jesus was speaking to Jews at the time, but certainly he could be speaking to Christians. "Among you," he might say, "among those who bear the label 'Christian,' are people who are working against me and my principles. I'm not talking about the ones who don't know any better, who are sincerely trying to please me and just happen to have their heads up their asses at the the moment (my paraphrase, obviously, of a hypothetical sermon). I'm talking about the ones who were recruited by Satan himself for nothing more than to do his own business: to steal, kill, and destroy."

People like Joseph Kony in Africa, leader of the Lord's Resistance Army. Well, hold on there, Ellen! We've always known that the Christian army is the only one in the world that shoots its wounded. Are you attacking a brother?

John Ocholo, a victim of the LRA's
practice of mutilating enemies.

Kony is no brother of mine. And if he's a brother of yours, you are no relation either. Kony claims to be a messenger of God, filled with the Holy Spirit, sent to follow the Ten Commandments. His methods? Take a band of followers, rape and then kill all the women in the village, kill all the men in the village, and either kill or steal the children to train them to be killers themselves.

Kony and the LRA has created such terror in Africa that experts believe the only solution is assassination. Kony is not the type to go quietly -- attempts to kill him have not ended well for the special ops soldiers sent to do the job. He and his army live on the move, hidden by the land, protected by the silence of those who fear them.

A village in Africa after the LRA's
"evangelistic" crusade.

So I'm angry. Angry at what he is doing. Angry that he calls himself a Christian, when he is just the opposite, a true anti-Christ ruling over his own little kingdom. 

I'm also angry that instead of rallying behind whatever groups would work to end his reign of terror, noted radio commentator Rush Limbaugh committed the cardinal sin for the media. He went on the air and ran his mouth without even cursory research to support his venom, actually criticizing President Obama for sending 100 advisers to Africa to help combat the Lord's Resistance Army. He led listeners to believe that our president was trying to wipe out African Christians, thus proving his Muslim leanings. WTF? *

That's just wrong. And Rush knows it was wrong. But this was waaaay back in October, and he still hasn't retracted his statements as far as I can tell. A little two-step about being misinformed, but nothing along the lines of "I was wrong to imply that Obama is trying to kill Christians in Africa. I was wrong to use the tragic murder of women, men and children to further my own warped agenda. Please forgive me."

If he really wanted to make it right, he would apologize...publicly... to President Obama and the military personnel deployed to carry out orders against the LRA. And while he's at it, he should apologize to every Christian in the world who resents being lumped in with a rapist and murderer and kidnapper.

Being Christians, knowing that we require forgiveness ourselves on an appallingly regular basis, we'd forgive Rush.

Being smart, we'd find someone a bit more credible to listen to on the radio.

And if we are wise and good and deserving of the label Christian (literally, "Christ-like," so it's a  real stretch for all of us) we will pray that God brings an end to the LRA very, very soon. 

And that we will raise up as the kind of army of believers we are called to be: loving, compassionate, trustworthy, honorable, righteous...

Permission to reprint with acknowledgment of source.

*Wrong, This Feels! What did you think I meant? You were probably correct.

January 26, 2012 A Life Remembered

A few days ago I was substitute teaching for a music class when the middle school science teacher came in, asking if I could sub for him the next couple of days. "You're Adam's mother, aren't you?" He'd seen my last name and said he remembered Adam fondly from his time playing baseball with his own son.

As he told me how friendly Adam had been back then, what a good ball player, I was inwardly waiting for the inevitable "so sorry for your loss" but it didn't come. So I asked  how his son was doing. As a matter of fact, he'd just gotten married, was very happy.

Adam would be 27 as well, if he hadn't died following a car accident at the age of 16. Old enough to be married, raising his own little freckled and auburn-haired kids, playing catch in the front yard or throwing hoops in the driveway, spinning little girls around like airplanes just like he did his niece when she was a toddler.

Before he left, the teacher said, "He probably won't remember me, but if you think about it, tell Adam I said hello." He didn't know. So I told him, and he was, of course, sad to hear.

"Thank you, though!" I said. "It is so good to hear about Adam from other people."

Sometimes I wonder what he would be like today. Would he have fulfilled his dream of being a firefighter? I think so. As soon as he could talk, it's what he said he wanted to be when he grew up.

I so wish he had grown up, but I'm so thankful for the 16 wonderful years we had with him.

Yesterday, I stood before several science classes and promised an anecdote about their teacher. I told them about what he had said about Adam and encouraged them to be young men and women who would be remembered with such pleasant memories. Leave stories about their lives that would delight their parents one day to hear them.

To a student, the class transformed from boisterous, chatty middle schoolers to quiet, sympathetic ones. One  asked if I had a photo of Adam with me, and I promised to bring in the one that sits on the dashboard of my car always. So I can see him often.

For a few months following Adam's death, I could call his phone number (this was back when it was cool to have an 800 number) and hear his voice. Now, I must get out family videos to watch him and hear him with his brother and sisters. I don't do this often, but it is a treat when I do. I freely admit, it is a treat accompanied by an alcoholic beverage. 

If this bothers you, the thought of a mother sitting alone in a darkened room watching her son on the tv screen, crying and drinking a toast to his memory, please keep it to yourself. Unless of course you know what it is like to be Adam's mother for 16 years and then bury him. Otherwise, there's no frame of reference from which to comment. Even other grieving mothers know better than to say to one another, "I know what you're going through" because each loss is different, each acutely felt but each different.

The other evening I shared a girls' night out dinner with my sister-in-law and she happened to ask if it bothers me to hear the cousins talking about Adam. "Not at all!" I said. "I LOVE to hear about Adam, and to talk about him."

Painful? Of course. The only thing more painful would be if no one mentioned him. If no one remembered. His life was shorter than we would have hoped for, but we knew him. We enjoyed him. And we know that he will never be forgotten, because his was a life that is a pleasure to remember.

P.S. Another life that is a pleasure to look back at is that of my namesake niece Laura Ellen. Her birthday is today -- she's such a hard worker, such a loving mother. Although she lives several states away, I have so many happy memories of her life and wish her a very happy birthday today.

January 8, 2011 Revising One's Life

My son Caleb turned me on to a website that lets writers upload their books at no cost and sell them. A few days later a friend to whom I mentioned the site shared an article about a woman who sold an astounding number of digital copies of her first novel there after being turned down by traditional publishers (who are now scrambling to get her to sign). 

In 2006, I was toying with an idea for a novel when I came across a publisher's website that welcomed ideas for new books. CarePoint had found a niche -- group discussion workbooks. Immediately, I thought of what I would write, if I were writing such a thing. It would be for people who had been hurt by Christians. I even had a title come to mind: Baaad Sheep - When God's People Let You Down.

By the fall of 2007, Baaad Sheep was a reality. CarePoint had liked the idea and requested an outline. They'd liked the outline and sent a contract to sign. I'd holed up in my little shed/office in Lillington, North Carolina and done the research and the work. I can't begin to describe the incredible feeling of opening up a box of author's copies and seeing my name on the cover. Even if it was "just" a workbook, it was mine.

Last year, CarePoint closed its doors in order to pursue a completely different publishing venture about the same time we were preparing to move back to Florida. Then we were relocating my parents. Then I was busy with other things. I made a few anemic attempts to find another publisher for Baaad Sheep, but also heard - several times, from people I respected - that I might consider rewriting it as a "regular" book.

And then Caleb told me about smashwords.com. Currently, I'm incorporating the oral material I had recorded for introducing each of the ten weekly discussion group sessions and formatting everything so that smashwords' mysterious computer mechanisms will not say, "What the..?" when I try to upload it, spitting it back out and trying to wipe the bad taste off its mouth.

As I do this, I'm not re-reading every single word, but I'm re-reading a good bit of it. And I'm revising some of it. Have I really changed so much in five years? Apparently so. I say this not to justify any changes, but simply to say it has happened.

Have I changed any of my bottom-line convictions? No. I still believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the living God who came in the form of man to teach us, but even more importantly, to sacrifice himself once and for all time, for the sins of the world. I still believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God.

But where I once was more of black-and-white, I'm willing to blend those extreme ends of the spectrum at times and entertain more possibilities of gray. On absolutes, no. On disputable matters -- and there are so many of them, almost everything we fret about! -- yes. And probably not a minute too soon. I thought I was merciful before, but I need it more now in my old age (hey, the longer you live, the more opportunities to screw up) so I am better about dishing it out.

I'm not as church-focused as I once was. There is one verse in the whole of the Bible that cautions believers against neglecting regular corporate worship (and none that says anything about membership) and yet there are folks, lots of folks, who act as though going to church is the single most important part of their Christianity. I was right there with them for most of my life.

This morning, for example, we woke up to a fine Florida morning and I asked my husband if he wanted to go to church. We haven't found a church home since our move. We have visited around. There are still scads of them we haven't attended. He had something else he wanted to accomplish, and wanted me along. Would it have been "better" for me to demand that we go to church, or did I better honor my husband (and God) by providing pleasant companionship?

I was at first surprised in the last year or so at how many people I went to church with, say, 10-20 years ago are not attending church at all. They listen to tapes, watch television, read their Bibles, pray - in other words, they are still pursuing their walks with God. But not in church. I have heard it so often that I rather expect it now. It is as if a whole segment of my history has come to the same conclusion: it's not just about church. And if church was in competition with what God was wanting to do, God wasn't about to be the one that got left in the dust.

Issues, too, have needed tweaking. As I was re-formatting the manuscript today, I grimaced at some of what I'd written about divorce. The Bible says that God hates it, which I still find completely believable. God is the Creator, the giver of Life, Love personified. Divorce represents, in contrast, the death of love and relationship. But I would also have to acknowledge, at 54, that for some people I know and love, it has been healthier to go ahead and have the burial than try to live with a corpse. When a marriage has lost its meaning, I better understand why people can sincerely believe divorce to be the best option. Even the godliest option. And so I had some revision to do.

Perhaps the changes are much deeper and personal. I know that since writing Baaad Sheep, I have grown less codependent. I've grown in self-awareness and the ability to take care of my emotional needs. My writing may have reflected a tendency to look outward for affirmation and support, for nurture and affection. The older I've gotten, the less this is the case. I'm growing up!

All of that to say this: one of these days, a digital version of Baaad Sheep - When God's People Let You Down will be available at a ridiculously low price for purchase by (I hope) thousands and thousands of people with Kindles and other e-books. I think it will be a better version than the original.

Five years down the road, I could write it even better. And five years after that. Because I haven't "arrived" either as a woman, a writer, or....most importantly...a Christian. I may not believe in evolution as it pertains to Mother Earth, but I definitely believe in it for myself.

Some things are written on the fabric of the universe, unchangeable, immutable. I'm just figuring out that there are fewer things than I thought.

December 27, 2011 Fruit of the Loom

My life is but a weaving between my God and me

I do not choose the colors he worketh steadily.

Oft times he chooseth sorrow and I in foolish pride

forget He sees the upper, and I the underside.

Not til the loom is silent and shuttles cease to fly

will God unroll the canvas and explain the reason why

the dark threads are as needful in the skillful weaver's hand

as the ones of gold and silver in the pattern he has planned.

I was given that poem (author unknown) in a simple black frame some years ago from a long-ago high school boyfriend. We had maintained sparse contact over the years since he and his family moved out of the area but spent several hours one evening on the telephone catching up. There had been a time in both our lives when we were sure we would get married one day. There were other family members who were just as convinced.

Nice fellow. Handsome. Smart, funny. Good, solid family. Shared values. Mutual attraction, same interests and hobbies. He taught me to water ski; we refinished furniture together. Off and on for years, we would date, he'd break up with me, we'd date, he'd break up with me. Once, he called me long distance to propose, which may have been the proverbial straw. (To guys reading this who want to get an affirmative answer from their ladies: show up and do it in person. Just saying.)

The last time we broke up, I broke up with him and called him about a year later to tell him I was engaged. To someone else, a very different man then, a little older, a lot quieter. We went to the same church but had little in common --not that we really knew that then. We hardly knew each other! But we both had a gut-level knowing that we were meant to marry.

So when High School Boyfriend and I talked for hours, there was no wistful wishing we had taken the same road, but appreciation for the fact that our lives had progressed, apart, the ways in which they had. Married with kids, he had built a business and made it a priority to be the kind of dad he'd longed for growing up. Married with kids years ahead of him, ours were grown. I was a grandmother already. My husband and I had buried a son; High School had buried both parents.

There were times over the years, he told me, that he had grieved the loss of our relationship, but finally came to the conclusion that God had been at work through everything. He had focused on the tangled thread on the underside of the tapestry of his life and only glimpsed at the beauty of the intricately woven scene on the other side much later. Even the sorrow of lost loved ones -- whether lost through the choice of someone else through a break-up or divorce or door closed on a friendship...or the separation of death-- added, in the final analysis, to the final pattern. He had read a poem about it and said to look for a copy in the mail.

No one loses a friend or a love without wondering, from time to time, how life might be different now, but for things that happened or did not happen in the past. In the case of our high school romance, both the young man and I came to see that while we'd thought Plan A was (at the time) an excellent prospect, Plans B and C far surpassed it. Or maybe THIS is Plan A, and we came perilously close to missing it. Whatever. None of us is living the final version of our lives at any given point, anyway. There will be still many, many changes over time. Some will be sad, others will be ecstatic. We are each "in process" until our final breath.

The point is, as someone once said, don't "should on yourself." The shouldda, wouldda, coulddas of life will eat you alive, making it impossible to enjoy what you have now. We can relax and rely on one of the greatest promises of the Bible, found in Jeremiah 29:11-14a:

"For I know the plans I have for you,” 

declares the LORD, 

“plans to prosper you and not to harm you, 

plans to give you hope and a future. 

Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, 

and I will listen to you. 

You will seek me and find me 

when you seek me with all your heart. 

 I will be found by you,” 

declares the LORD.

Please note that it is the LORD who knows his plans -- not anyone else He is almost always annoyingly reticent to share his plans ahead of time. He asks us to trust him, to trust his love and his character, his sovereignty and his abilities, his mercy and his grace. It's not a bad arrangement: we trust the Creator of the universe to have a clue about what he's doing, we seek him rather than trying to run the show, and he delivers out of his own greatness. A good return on our investment of faith, wouldn't you agree?

I know -- life rarely resembles the Hallmark quality of the poem up there There is unspeakable and unspoken pain all along the way. A wife may suffer in silence for years before finding the courage to break away from an abusive husband. A child may grow up in anguish because of the neglect displayed. Betrayals and tragedies and addictions hold nothing of the perky hopefulness that poem conjures up. 

But.

This life is just a breath. Two seconds, twenty seconds, hardly more, compared with eternity. And look at all the moments of joy and love we can cram into such a tiny slice of existence! Of course, there are hiccups and tears, no even flow of happiness. But we can trust that even then, laughter will work its way back to us again. We aren't stuck with this particular dark thread in the shuttle forever.

Randy with Randy III fishing

P.S. I am very grateful for the "thread" in my own tapestry that is my son-in-law Randall Keith Blanchard, Jr. Today is his birthday, and I don't even want to think about what our lives would be without him in ours. Happy birthday, Randy! We love you very much.

December 13, 2011 A Christmas Carol

This past Sunday, I had the privilege of participating in a Christmas show produced by RubyLynn Productions with three performances held at the Pineapple Playhouse in Fort Pierce Dec. 2-4, and two at First United Methodist in Hobe Sound. The cast sang, danced, did skits -- both venues supported local causes. "We hope we've jump-started your Christmas," director Ruby Lynn Baker told audiences.

During part of the show, cast member Don Brown told the story of Silent Night's origin. I looked up the story on the internet and found several accounts with slightly different details, but Don's story was the first I'd heard, and so I choose that version of the truth:

A priest, Joseph Mohr, was unsure what to do. The organ in his Oberndorf, Austria church -- appropriately, the Church of St. Nicholas -- was damaged, and it was Christmas Eve, 1818! He was in a meditative state as he made his way home. New snow covered the countryside, and the beauty of the night brought to mind a poem he had written years before. If only there was music, what a fitting Christmas song! He went to Franz Gruber, asking that he write accompaniment. There may not be an organ to play, but Gruber was a gifted guitarist as well. Christmas Day, the church's little congregation heard the first performance of Stille Nacht, translated now as Silent Night.

Today, it doesn't matter whether or not Father Mohr was well-liked by his congregation, or whether or not he was a gifted priest. The words he penned have kept his thoughts alive for almost 200 years. It is sung in 44 languages, has been recorded by 300 artists. Bing Crosby's version sold over 10 million copies. Neither Father Mohr nor Franz Gruber could possibly know the tremendous impact their little song would create.

Perhaps you are guessing that I will turn this into a neat little Christmas present-feel good-story. I'd originally planned to segue from the story of one Christmas carol to cleverly (!) sharing about significant Carols in my life: Carol Creech, one of the few friends I remember from Cullowhee, North Carolina; Carol Bryan, dynamic Christian wife, mother, and mentor from my teenage years and beyond; fellow flutist Carol McNees Johnson    whom I saw again this year and who invited me to Toastmasters -- what looks to be a great training organization I'm planning to become more involved with in the future.

Instead, I'm going to go another way altogether. It struck me, looking at the various accounts of Silent Night's origins, that the details do not always matter nearly as much as the outcome. "The devil is in the details," as they say (which, interestingly, was originally "God is in the details") and details are important. But as we see with Silent Night, whether the organ was damaged at all, or who sang it first, or if someone found the original and had it marketed years later...who cares, now that the entire world is familiar with the song?

How much time do we spend fretting over details that don't really matter? As we approach Christmas, is our time actually better spent stressing out over recipes and menus that will be soon digested and forgotten, or should we spend that time on activities with eternal significance...or, barring that high expectation, activities that will bring a smile to someone's face today?

Peace is a rare commodity in a household such as ours, and it saddens me that I am often one of the stumbling blocks to its presence. It is easy for women, especially, to become entrenched in the details of life, perhaps because we are so often judged by others based on those details. Numbers (age, weight, bra size, amount of time we exercise regularly, times we've failed in the past), degrees (level of education, level of housekeeping abilities, vicarious success - or not - through our kids and grandkids), emotions (perky today? PMS-ing?  nurturing or not so much?). Details.

Proverbs 31 doesn't help, you know. Details surrounding the definition of a Good Wife ramble on and on for almost the entire chapter, each verse a potential stab to the heart of many a good woman who reads it and immediately recognizes how far she falls short of the ideal. Details can wound. Kill, even, the hopes and spirits of those of us still "in process" who haven't attained the full measure of our worth. 

My Christmas wish for such women, who are striving each day to be the Perfect Wife or the Perfect Mother, or the Perfect Size, or the Perfect Christian, or the Perfect Whatever.....relax! It's not about you. It doesn't depend on you...and if it does, it shouldn't. Do your best, obviously. Develop your talents and skills and abilities, certainly, so that you are able to do what you do better. But know this: two hundred years from now, the details will not matter. You will not be around to know this then, of course, so learn it now.

The best we can be is to be the person God created us to be. He might have seen to it that I had different weaknesses, but we are all born with them. He might have arranged for my hopes and dreams to be fulfilled long ago, and yet hope is still, at 53, very much alive. Others may focus on the negative details they see all too prominently displayed in my life, but the God I trust and love, loves me just the way I am. The person I am now. The person I was yesterday. The person I will be tomorrow, and next year, and 10 years from now. That's a lot of details.

So I'm going to give that Christmas gift to myself as well. Peace is more important than plans. Relaxing in the joy of the season will matter, in the long run, much more than buying just the right gift or baking enough cookies.

All is calm, all is quiet....may that be true in our hearts this Christmas, and beyond. I am reminded of  Robert Frost's wonderful poem Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening: 

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow. 

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year. 

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake.

The only other sound's the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake. 

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

Promises, like details, are important, but take some time this season to enjoy the woods...or the beach...or laughter with someone you love. Probably no one else will notice if you're a little late, but I'll bet they'll appreciate the added peace and joy you bring when finally you arrive.