OF STORMS AND STORIES: AN ANNIVERSARY TRIBUTE

It rained June 28, 1969, the day of our wedding! Not just a little rain! A lot of rain! Furious black skies unloaded their early afternoon ire. Drainage systems, quite competent in normal rains, lost their battle in this unexpected siege. Street lights attempted to lighten the gloom until they surrendered to the dictates of the power grid gone dark. 

I smile now as I remember the panicked calls alerting me the electricity was out in the church. “What will you do if the lights are not back on by 4 pm?” someone asked. 

 

“We have lots of candles! Not just on the platform but down the aisle. We will be fine.”

 

“But the organ,” worriers replied. “It won’t work without electricity.”

 

“There is a piano and a vocal quartet,” I responded. “The pastor lives close to the church, so I’m sure he can make it. A mere storm won’t keep George and me from showing up, and that’s all that matters.”

 

Encouragers, influenced by the earthy Iowa lore of my native state, assured me that a storm on the day of your wedding was the portent of a happy and prosperous life—or that it meant we would have a lot of children. No one agreed on which was the more accurate prediction. In retrospect, both were probably right.

 

Just in time, the sun came out, the lights came on, and the streets were passible an hour before the wedding started. Guest arrived, the organ played, vows were made, cake was cut and eaten, pictures were taken, the bride and groom left for their honeymoon, and the rest is history.

 

George and I liked the story of the storm on our wedding day. It added drama to what should have otherwise been a carefully scripted event. It gave us a reason to forgive the florist who failed to produce the flowers we ordered and who claimed he couldn’t go back and make it right due to the weather. It partially explained my less than festive coiffure and the stringy hair that hung limply under my veil. The storm hit us hard but didn’t keep us from getting married.

 

The wedding day storm served as an instructive metaphor for the life George and I began together that day. Over countless cups of coffee during the dating years, we had shared our dreams and made plans for our future. We had crafted such grand and glorious plans for the life we would build, the places we would live, the children we would have, the trips we would take, the service we would offer to make the world a better place, and the golden years we would savor hand in hand. Not once during all those hours did we spin tales of illness or injury, job loss, economic downturns, war in a far off place, or death. Yet those unbidden storms came, forcing us to adjust our plans, but never keeping us from what really mattered, which was loving each other, loving our family, serving our community, and loving and serving our God.

 

From our wedding day experience we garnered two patterns for how to meet other storms of life. The first—and I’m sure this would have been the influence of George, always the more level headed—was to keep focus on what really matters. (In his less-patient moments, he sometimes asked, “What’s the bottom line?” but that’s a different story.) In the midst of loss or delay, or when the bells and whistles or flowers and frills were falling away, we were anchored by keeping the true end in sight. The second lesson—and this might have been my contribution—was that in every situation, no matter how grim, it helped to remind ourselves, “This will be a great story some day!”

 

BROKEN THINGS

My favorite pitcher is in shards. Never again will it hold lemonade or water. Never again will it be filled with flowers or add its beauty to my collection of blue and white. 

More than its utility was its sentimentality. This pitcher once belonged to my mother-in-law. It serves as a bookmark in the album of memories that is often turned to the page marked Elva’s Kitchen. I can almost see it now, sitting atop a cabinet near the kitchen table. Its Staffordshire, made in England, blue and white featured Longfellow’s Wayside Inn and was for her, I think, a memento of a trip to Sudbury, Massachusetts. I once told her I would really like that pitcher should she ever decide to part with it. (She never did; I just took it once she was gone.)

This morning the sound of porcelain on hardwood brought me running to where the shattered pieces lay strewn like petals from the dying flowers it often held. The grief I felt over this irreplaceable loss and the anger I had with the four-footed miscreant were momentarily muted by my fear that one of the tiny shards would work its way into a canine paw. I dealt with my triad of emotions in reverse order. I swept up the remains, tied up the puppy, and then shed a tear.

My self-pity was interrupted by the reminder that Elva didn’t actually love blue and white porcelain as much as I did. Given a choice, she picked green, or pink, or brown. Perhaps this pitcher wasn’t the most accurate memorial of her. On the bright side, its loss reduced by one the number of items my children won’t have to deal with when I am gone (an issue that seems to trouble them some). 

What I remember most about Elva was not her pitcher. It was her kindness and grace to me, her first daughter-in-law. As the mother of three boys, I think she was delighted to have another woman in the family, even if I was the young and, in retrospect, ‘full-of-herself’ bride of her youngest son. She never chided me for my mistakes, but put me at ease by identifying with them. When I brought to my first Sunday lunch at her house a store-bought dessert, admitting it was a shameful substitute for the hopelessly ruined two-layer, made-from-scratch cake I couldn’t bring, she showed me her own cooking disaster—unevenly baked blueberry bread, the misshapen product of an oven not yet level.

Did we have our disagreements? Oh, yes! Were there moments when she offered unsolicited advice or when she hurt my feelings? Most certainly. Were there moments when I was disrespectful and lacked understanding? To my shame, I admit there were. Yet the relationship endured and grew. 

She was my sounding board, sometimes the voice of my conscience, and always my advocate with our Heavenly Father. She was the one I turned to when life’s pieces didn’t fit or when the future appeared especially menacing. She would say quietly, “I’ll pray.” And she did! And when I called to let her know the prayer was answered, I could hear the smile in her voice when she responded, “I know,” and could give me the date and time when the issue was resolved. (She was always right.) 

Her example of unshakeable faith in a God who hears our prayers and answers in his time and in his way sustains me to this day. As I was reminded this morning, inherited crockery may fall from a shelf, but loving and God-breathed relationships last forever.

With the broken pottery in the trash and a freshly made cup of coffee in my hand, I sat down for my morning meditations, currently in the book of Ecclesiastes. It was a good morning to be reminded of the transitory nature of human life. The words mirrored my own experience—a time to tear and a time to mend. Acquisitions and accomplishments are indeed vanity. Then to my delight, I discovered this nugget that brought me full circle and encapsulated up my own broken vase conclusions,  

I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it…. Ecclesiastes 3:14

SNAKES IN MY GARDEN

There are snakes in my garden. I’ve seen two. (The snakes are real although calling my overgrown, under-tended tangle of woodland shrubs and vines a garden is an outright lie.) 

I am not overly alarmed by snakes. I won’t drape one around my neck, but as long as a snake knows its place, I am content to live in close proximity. In my previous home, we sometimes had garden snakes hiding in the flower beds, sunbathing by the pool, or hanging out near the doorway of the house. As I recall, we never killed one. None of them killed us. I would have remembered that.

 

When I first moved to North Carolina, I didn’t think about snakes at all. Then one afternoon, while attempting to weed-eat an invasive overgrowth of wisteria and English ivy into submission, I realized this heretofore unexplored corner of my yard might be a snake haven. Even ones I hadn’t yet seen. Neighbors confirmed that snakes, including venomous ones, are indeed common in this area.

 

I was torn between respect for the ecosystem—assuming snakes had been here first—and prudence—assuming an encounter with a copperhead would end badly for me. I resolved the tension by ordering rubber boots. Tall ones. To the knee. Just to be safe. I resolved future yard clean-up would include the wearing of boots. If there were snakes, we would co-exist peacefully on this small plot. 

 

That all changed this Spring when Wesley, my new sheep-a-doodle puppy, and I began to spend hours playing outside and exploring the nether reaches of should have been a lawn. 

 

We were playing a game of fetch (it is never obvious which one of us does more retrieving) when I encountered my first snake of the season. I had just reached into a pile of pine needles to pick up the frisbee when a snake slithered from under my athletic shoes in apparent rebuke for endangering his life. From his tan coloring with a quasi-argyle (or was it diamond shaped?) pattern, I, who am ignorant of herpetology, couldn’t determine whether he was of the venomous or non-venomous variety. Since Hunter doesn’t make boots for sheep-a-doodles, prudence dictated a new approach. I ordered Snake-Be-Gone.

 

Perhaps I overreacted. Even I know that snakes are good for fertilizing the soil and ridding a yard of rodents and ticks. My problem is not with what I know, but what I don’t—the extent and type of the infestation. Until I bag up the pine needles and trim back more vines, I will err on the side of caution and use a product that promises to nudge my snakes toward the neighbor’s yard. (She said she would be happy to have them.)

 

As I stood in my yard and pondered the practical implications of having snakes, the parallel between my yard and my inner life emerged.  The overgrown garden of my life resembles my unkempt, snake-infested yard! I began to recognize how often the busyness of accomplishments, the pursuit of my next great adventure, or the acquisition of ‘just what I always needed, or wanted’ has meant I took no time to tend my heart. 

 

Too many vines of meaningless pursuits have grown with abandon, spreading rapidly through fertile soil meant for a more productive harvest. Certificates of achievement, albums of photographs, and cabinets stuffed with collectibles attest to the ways I have spent my days. But the crop that was intended to sustain my soul and nourish others could have produced—should have produced—a higher yield. The verdant lushness of useless vines has camouflaged the truth that my life is out of control. 

 

In my yard, I have little knowledge of what lurks under the green, what grows and reproduces in the mulch of decaying vegetation or lies hidden in the darkness. The same is true of my heart. I am confident much that is beneficial remains concealed there, but I’ve also had haunting glimpses of a darker side. By wearing boots of civility and a veneer of self-control, I think we can coexist peaceably—as long as I watch my step. I have learned to tread cautiously through the parts of my heart that reek of pride and self-centeredness, that want to be served instead of to serve, that want a little more even if it means others have a little less, that choose retribution over mercy. Such neglect comes with peril to the soul.

 

The bride in Solomon’s Song at least had someone to blame, “My mother’s sons were angry with me and made me take care of the vineyards; my own vineyard I had to neglect” (Song of Songs 1:6).  I have only myself to blame. There is no Snake-Be-Gone for the heart. Even if there were, I wouldn’t order it. The way to reverse neglect requires time and effort. It calls for raking through the trash, pulling up the weeds, nurturing what has value, and planting new seeds with hope. A year of pandemic limitation has given me a new perspective on what I can live without. It has turned me inward in ways that promise new growth and a healthier life. Perhaps this is a passing phase, an idea that will fade as life resumes a more normal course. I hope not.

 

Above all else, guard your heart for everything you do flows from it. (Proverbs 4:23)

EMPTY ROOM, EMPTY TOMB

With steely determination, I hastened toward the guest rooms. There were beds to strip and linens to launder.

My eager feet faltered. I stopped cold, halted by the blast of emptiness that prevented me from crossing the threshold. Bedlinens, which had just hours before had been soft and warm as they cocooned the children nestled inside, now braced themselves crisp and cool in their exposure. Gone were the restful faces with dream-inspired smiles. Gone were the sweet-smelling, freshly shampooed strands of light-brown hair that had splayed with abandon across the mounds of pillows. Gone were the books and tablets, the still-folded clean clothes and the growing pile of those ready to wash. Gone were toiletry kits and rolling bags and the girls who wheeled them away.

So enormous was the sense of loss, I had to catch my breath, simultaneously fighting the catch in my throat. This was the part of the visit I had begun dreading days before it occurred. Why was it that this re-entering just-emptied rooms made the loss more tangible than the continued waving at rapidly disappearing taillights? 

I am not unfamiliar with this scene. It has happened too many times! Yet in spite of foreboding anticipation, I am never prepared. Each time it happens, I foolishly embrace the futile hope that such oft-repeated departures have buffered my heart.

Instead, each new departure scratches old scars and reopens old wounds. The doorway into a recently vacated room serves as the gateway for old memories. A pantheon of pain taunts me with recollections of every time I have been left behind, whether for a semester or a season or a lifetime. The knowledge that my loved ones enjoy vibrant and productive lives away from me is scant comfort. My only defense against this unwelcome invasion is the hope that this absence is temporary and more good visits will certainly come in time.

I know I am not the first person to feel the loss of a freshly emptied room. My mother-in-law always asked me not to strip the beds after family visits because she needed the closure of going back into our rooms and remembering our time together. But even she, the least slothful housekeeper I have ever known, admitted she had to wait a few days until the raw pain of our departure ebbed and her own courageous and practical nature again flowed. 

But this time, as I pulled back the covers and tugged at the sheets, it was not my mother-in-law I thought about. It was Mary and her friends, the women who came with spices to prepare the lifeless body of Jesus for burial. I imagined what they must have felt as they entered the tomb, expecting to find the body of their Lord and reeling from the stark emptiness they found there. 

They stared into a void illuminated only by the glowing presence of an angelic messenger. What they could not see—the lifeless body of the One whom they came to serve—was what held their gaze. The absence, and the burial cloth. Empty. Precisely folded. Such an unexpected courtesy would not go unnoticed by women whose role it was to tend to such menial tasks. It signaled to them an object no longer needed and ready for storage; it was a haunting visual echo of his final words, “It is finished.”

It was the final blow to hearts pummeled by the pain of watching him mocked and tortured, of witnessing his agonizing death, of experiencing the mind-numbing loss of their savior and friend. They had sobbed their good-byes while he took his last breath; they had spent three days grieving their loss. Here in the empty tomb, it felt as if they had lost him anew.

An avalanche of memories nearly buried these women who had been part of Jesus’s inner circle, caught up in the whirlwind of crowds following the teacher and healer. In the briefest of minutes three years flashed before their eyes. They remembered the sick he had healed, the lame who now walked. They recalled how he rebuked the arrogant and spoke tenderly to the humble. They remembered especially his way with children and his unaccustomed honor toward women. 

Slowly the words of the messenger penetrated their grief-stunned hearts. “He is not here, for He has risen, just as He said….He is going ahead of you into Galilee, there you will see Him [again].” They hurried away, full of grief and fear, but strangely settled by a growing hope. He would come again.

So it is with empty rooms and empty tombs.

NO VACANCY!

"Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?" (Jesus, Mark 4:40)

This needs to be painted in my wall for those random moments when fear speaks louder than faith. 

For those unguarded moments that sneak up in the night or awaken me in the morning. For the dark hours when the raucous voices of fear compete with the gentle lullaby of the One who sings over me with love. For the waking hours when the nagging song of fear drowns out the melodious music of the birds who greet the dawn with continual praise to the Father who watches over each one. 

I am reminded that faith is an active choice. It doesn’t spring full blown from the mind and heart of the widow or orphan. It doesn't come easily to the the ill-in-health or the poor in worldly goods. It doesn't magically appear to one overwhelmed with grief or drowning in despair. One must reach for faith, as if for a lifeline, and hold on, even if the grasp is ever so tenuous, until hand over hand, inch by inch, one is pulled toward safety.

Faith is based on knowledge of the One in whom we trust coupled with the will to trust. Faith looks to the future and offers not an easy ride but the hope of a destination at the end of the struggle. By contrast fear is an emotion that needs no invitation to move in or take over. It is the unwelcome guest who puts its dirty shoes on the furniture and refuses to leave. Fear offers shaky ground, an undulating and uncertain footing on which we lose ourselves in meandering circles.

I cannot always keep fear from slipping under the threshold but I can refuse to give it a place to sleep.

DIRTY WINDOWS

Sunlight streams through my dirty windows, lighting my face and warming my chilled body. It is a metaphor—these brilliant rays unhindered by the layers of dust and fingerprints on clouded panes. 

My life is so like these dirty windows, smudged and tarnished by a harsh world and my own bad choices. How often have I left the routine maintenance of my soul and spirit undone, while I wrapped myself in a never-ending cycle of busyness and lethargy. 

Yet God breaks in, refusing to be stopped by my unkempt condition. He shines brightly into my soiled being, illuminating the darkest corners and warming my sin-wearied heart. With might and power, knowledge and love, he breaks through my fear and resistance to set me gently back on the path he had already determined for me.

 

NOT WHAT I CAN’T

It started with an ordinary bunch of seasonal flowers, the kind I once picked up at the Farmer’s Market—back in the days when it was safe to venture into crowds of people bunched as closely as the fresh pickings that beckoned seductively from portable tables under pop-up tents; back when the fragrance of flowers packed tightly in Mason jars rose valiantly over the musty smells of earth and the salty whiff of glistening shoppers. 

How I love the freshly cut offerings of Spring and early Summer. Their rag-tag blossoms are compelling precisely because they lack the artifice of more structured bouquets. Their random assemblage delights me because it gives more than it gets and requires almost nothing from me. No floral foam bricks, no frogs, no wires, none of the props employed by more gifted designers. My steps for arranging a bouquet read like the box of a ready-mix, no bake dessert. ‘Select one appropriately sized pitcher (a vase or a jar will do), trim stems, place flowers in container, add water, and enjoy.’ I have employed this technique so often I no longer have to read my own directions. 

Floral fortune has smiled on me especially brightly for the last few months. Neighbors on both sides have filled my life with flowers, almost as if in coordinated effort to make sure I didn’t forget that beauty still exists in a world darkened by grief and fear, and where sicknesses of body and soul compete for top billing on the nightly news. 

On one side, I have my thoughtful and generous daughter-in-law who, ingeniously intent on bolstering the local economy and my spirits simultaneously, had farm fresh flowers delivered weekly. Long-lived blossoms, their stems kept strong in water, took center stage in the dining room until their tired petals fell silently in permanent repose. Other flowers, not giving up so easily, chose to dry rather than die and live on in more permanent arrangements throughout the house.

On the other side, my talented and industrious neighbor brightened my days by posting her photographs of flowers. With a lens and an artful eye, she transforms flowers from farms and neighborhood gardens into still-life masterpieces. No vases or pitchers distract from the intense beauty of the flowers. A black backdrop removes the challenge of competing hues so that the shyest of shades feels free to show off. Often a single naked flower stands unblinking in its beauty, unembarrassed by its flaws, its stalwart dignity not letting the bruising from a harsh rain or the scars of a tormenting insect keep it from sharing what it still can offer.

I tried recently to explain to my neighbor how much her photographs moved me. The intent and intensity of my meaning must have been lost across the socially distanced span because, in response, she replied, “Do what I do. Just take pictures of the flowers in the neighborhood when you go for a walk.” 

“No, I can’t,” I laughed. And I knew I couldn’t.

As much as I would love to interpret my world through the lens of a camera, I haven’t yet mastered centering and focus, not to mention aperture or F-stop. Particularly during these trying days where real friends have been reduced to talking heads and conversations across intimate tables now take place via internet devices, a creative outlet that produces beauty or touches other people was particularly appealing. As I bemoaned my lack of photographic talent, a life motto floated through my thoughts, “Do what you can and not what you can’t.” 

Suddenly my mind was embroiled in one of its internal dialogues. “Well, if you can’t take photos, what can you do?” 

“Well, I can clean out my kitchen cabinets and sort through 50 years of pictures.”

“But what else can you do that would bring you joy and might be shared with others?”

“Hmmm. Oh. I see what you mean. I can write. I love to do it and people don’t mind reading it.”

“So, why aren’t you doing it?”

And so I did. But before I wrote, I began to think more about the opportunities at hand and less about the restrictions currently in place; I focused more at what I had and less on what I’d lost; I focused on an envelope of memorabilia I could cull and not on the boxes stacked in the closet. Then I began to write. (A recent post about savoring a deep woods experience from my front porch was a direct result.)

In recent days, I have thought a lot about what it means to ‘Do what you can and not what you can’t.’ It seems that too often we focus on the second half of the sentence and less eagerly on the first. It serves as a flippant excuse to avoid what we do not want to do—or can’t do without considerable effort. It has become the lumpy, yet familiar, place of repose, a piece of mental furniture we should replace but don’t because we have grown accustomed to its mind-numbing contours.

For me, the phrase ‘what I can’t’ has become the wake-up call to look toward what I can. When I cannot take a trip, it reminds me to enjoy the beauty of my yard. When I miss having coffee dates, it reminds me to call friends or write a note. When I can’t stop a dripping faucet, it reminds me to call the plumber. When I can’t clean the whole house, it reminds me to wash the dishes or pick up offending crumbs. 

When I want to capture the beauty of a moment, the smile of a child, the blush of fresh picked flowers, and have neither the camera or the skill, it reminds me to write—to do what I can and not what I can’t.