The speed of life

Well, a lot has happened in the past few months. We're expecting our second little one in the Spring, and I'm now elbows deep in mothering a toddler and helping with other mothering support groups. I'm a postpartum doula. I'm a volunteer babywearing educator. I'm about to be leading a support group for moms recovering from or otherwise dealing with cesarean birth. There's a lot on my plate. It's Christmas time, and I don't have a tree up yet.

Still, all these things are very good things. I'm just having to recruit my stamina and endurance in order to not shortchange anyone (and I admit I'm probably shortchanging someone anyway). I'm finding myself constantly frustrated because I feel like I can either clean my house, take care of my son, or work on my projects, and then I look back at the end of the day and realize just how much time I wasted on inconsequential things. It's not easy, but it is very exciting.

Anyway, that's my update. I'll try to get back to writing more here.

In defense of normal

As I write about leadership I feel like that perhaps I should explain that I'm coming from a very pro normal perspective. In an age where it feels like we need to be extreme and sold out and special and amazing I really do believe in normal. I'm certainly not the only one who feels this way either, and it's possible that I'm writing more about how things worked when I was high school than what people are experiencing today. It's also possible that I'm mainly reacting to mega church dogma as filtered through literature and social media. Either way, I want to make plain that when I talk about leadership and the mundane realities and duties of life that I'm really talking about the normal life that most of us pretty normal people lead.

When I say that a woman's primary job is to love her husband and her kids I'm saying that normally this is how a woman experiences life and that, precisely because it is normal, it should be a woman's goal. Ditto for men. It's normal and good for men to get job training (college or vocational), find a wife, and settle down to raising a family and working for the man. Now, as various authors have pointed out, this mundane life actually does involve radical (read: continued and faithful) obedience in dealing with snotty bosses, snotty noses, and snotty t-shirts that never quite make it to the laundry basket. But even this obedience is pretty mundane and typical. Start a load of laundry. Wake up and go to work even though it's a beautiful day. Read that book to your kid for the tenth time today even though you'd really rather read your new novel. Refuse the temptation to snap at your child, spouse, or friend. There's not a lot of heroics involved. People don't call you to write interviews about the mom who hasn't said a cross word to her kids for three days. No one gets his name in the paper for getting to work on time and with a good attitude for six months. It's just stuff that people do because we're human beings with jobs and manners and social/familial obligations.

Leadership, though, sounds kind of glamorous and exciting. We get to be important and have influence and perhaps display extreme competence. I'd be lying if I said I didn't have tiny daydreams about being a rock awesome babywearing momma on tv or having an interview with someone where, with graceful wit and authority, I sparked a more general resolve to improve postpartum care in the US. My slightly grander daydreams involve me babywearing while I speak on a panel about mother care at a health professions conference :D I'm completely serious. When I'm folding laundry I sometimes run away in my head to a place where people respect my opinions and look up to me and don't know about the dust bunnies in my closet or the expired food in the back of my fridge. If human nature is as universal as they say it is I'm guessing that you've had those daydreams as well where you get to be spectacularly competent in front of an attentive if not adoring audience. The main problem I have with these daydreams isn't that they inspire us to do something but that they can distract us from what we actually need to do. Too many times when I'm caught up in some head trip that involves me being generally awesome I'm not particularly attuned to what Jacob and Allen need. I'm over there building air castles and folding laundry (or poking at facebook) while Jacob is pulling at my leg and fussing for my attention. The air castle is much less demanding and therefore often more attractive.

My second problem with these sorts of dreams and aspirations is that we can easily become a wee bit puffed up over our supposed abilities. When you see yourself as the natural leader of a church wide or national movement it can be hard coming down to planning next week's menu. Conversely you could plume yourself that such an important person does take time to plan menus and cook homemade meals. Instead of approaching our tasks humbly we start elevating ourselves in our minds and rejecting the normal life right in front of us.

I also want to point out that when I talk about normal life I'm talking about the middle of the bell curve. I'm not talking about the people who really are called to do strange and wonderful things. Instead I'm trying to reaffirm that most of us really aren't called to do those things and need to be content with the glorious mundane. I feel like that's a bit cliche, but that really does describe my life. I'll be trotting along through my week planning meals (or road trips!) and changing diapers and meeting with some mom's group and not feeling that life is anything to special and then find myself cooing over some funny gesture Jacob made or reveling in the absolute rightness of listening to Sunday's sermon with Allen. I don't really need a whole lot of bibble babble about managing people and gaining influence because my life is small enough to not really need much of that. The main thing I need to work on is remembering names and getting into conversation with people. It's a thing leaders do, but it's also a thing that gracious and mannered people do. At any rate, if you're living outside the normal, all I want to say is "more power to you." Be a dedicated missionary or doctor or teacher. Live a rambling and unusual life. I don't want to guilt people whose feet God has set on different paths. That's the catch though - until God indicates that you should be doing something unusual you should assume that your life is going to be normal and that this a good thing which in no way insults your talents or intelligence. You should plan on having babies and washing dishes and hanging out with your family on holidays and those sorts of normal things.

The point I'm trying to make is that normal isn't particularly special or exciting, but it's also not beneath our abilities or dignity. Whereas I feel special leader culture encourages us to overestimate our importance I believe that normal life humbles us while simultaneously giving us the skills we need to help those closest to us. Normal gives us a quiet place to practice the more unpretentious virtues like patience and diligence. Normal gives us a way to quite literally be faithful in the small things. It's the way we refine who we are and grow as humans. And, for some people, it's a staging area for moving on to bigger things. All I'm asking though is that you start with normal and that you start small. If it's tweet worthy question it. Do a gut check - "Am I doing this/dreaming about this because it really does fulfill and enrich my life (art classes, jogging, writing a blog, etc) or because it makes me feel all puffed up and righteous or competent?" Don't put yourself on a pedestal. Do put yourself in community with people you love and who love you and with whom you can live a normal life of service and fellowship, and just maybe God will take that and turn you into a leader. You don't start there though. That's all.

...............................

Well, perhaps not quite all. I want to really, really affirm that there are people who are given different directions in life. This is all well and good. There was a time when I thought God was giving me a different direction in life - namely infertility. I know that these "normal" expectations can feel painful and confining. I know that they can make you feel as though your purpose and goals in life must always be second rate. That's not God's Word though. I think we should seek God's will for us first in the obvious places - marriage, jobs, familial relationships, etc. I wish to make plain that by "seek God's will" I don't mean that you need to do an inordinate amount of soul searching and second guessing. Has God given you a job, a supportive family, and a girlfriend? Yes? Hurray - you might be having a typical Christian life! If the answer to one of those of those is no then start looking around for where else God might be leading you. Explore your passions and your opportunities. Don't ever assume that you should just wait for your life to start because it doesn't look like what your mom or uncle or grandmother or best friend thinks it should look like. Ideally we can all of us on our different paths help and support each other. The family with 2.5 kids should be inspired by the lessons God is teaching their older, single cousin, and their cousin should appreciate the fidelity his cousins display in raising their kids. I hope that they would both hold tight on their ends of the Gospel and see how each of them carries the will of God forward in the world.

Life and Death

This is more of an in between post than a regular blog. My last surviving grandparent died last Thursday due to age and pneumonia. She would have been 91 this coming Thursday. So basically as soon as I started feeling better and thinking about tackling the great Christmas undecorating of 2013 we got the call that my grandmother was failing. By the time I'd called my aunt and talked to my dad and started hustling out of Target it was too late to do anything. Even though I wasn't particularly close to my grandmother (she was a very reserved and undemonstrative woman) just the whole process of attending the funeral and dealing with my family was very draining. She lived about two and a half hour's drive from the cemetery where her husband is buried, so even though the funeral proper is over we still have to gather again for the burial. Not exactly what I wanted to do this week.

Losing someone you love is hard. I got very attached to Allen's grandparents in a pretty short period of time. His grandfather, for instance, was quite a man. Apparently, when Allen told him that he was interested in a girl named Natalie, Granddad said "Oh, I like Natalie." I think he'd met me once or twice at church when he came to visit his family. And then, after Allen and I got engaged, I asked his grandparents what they'd like me to call them. Grandmom sort of hemmed for a moment while she thought about it, but her husband turned around and said "Call me GRANDDAD!" And he was my granddad until the day he died. These were people I didn't have to know very well in order to love them and learn from them and feel that part of my life disappeared when they died. Granny, on the other hand, I don't know. I always loved her, but there were times I didn't know what to make of her of what she made of me. She'd try to shake hands with Allen at Christmas time, but he'd just give her a hug anyway. Christmas is probably when I remember her the best. For years she gave all the grandkids an ornament engraved with our name and the date. Some years we got a beanie baby too. We all loved those ornaments. I probably have a dozen or close to it, and they're some of my favorites every year when we decorate the tree. Beyond that though - I'm not sure. It makes me sad that someone so closely related to me can die and not leave a bigger whole in my life. It's not that I want to be big sobby mess for the next six weeks.  It's just - she's my grandmother. In a sense our mourning is a tribute to the other person's ability to come into our lives and be part of our story. Some people can do that in ten minutes. Other people struggle to do that in twenty-nine years. I know which person I'd rather be.



On an unrelated note I am jotting down ideas for future blog posts, so hopefully I'll be more consistent on this in the future. At any rate, I've got one that should go up by the end of the week.

James and Paul or what my sister-in-law is teaching me about grace

You know how sometimes we just have knee-jerk reactions? It's kind of like hitting your funny bone - no real harm done but a lot of hopping around while holding your elbow and muttering about partially open doors. Keep that image in your head.

Having grown up in a rather rules and success oriented home I'm kind of allergic to competence. Ok, that isn't exactly true. I love successfully hosting a family gathering or taking a particularly nice photograph. I get a nice little glow when my in-laws compliment me on my cooking or something I've done in the house. What drives me nuts are the people who have their budgets organized for the next five years and have neat little charts of their pantry stores and lost 2.3 pounds a week after keeping a food diary. It's just all so.....precise. So very box ticky. So very antithetical to how I think. And it drives me crazy when I see other people doing it. I can't really explain why except to say that after years of living with parentally mandated competence I'm enjoying not pretending to have everything together. I'm a bit of a mess actually, and there are people whose competence really has gotten on my nerves. They're just so good at things that I can barely do at all. My sister-in-law (M. for short) has been one of those people. She's a delightful young woman, but my stars is she competent! She's got letters after her name, and she enjoys doing spreadsheets! Us mere mortals aren't in the running with such as her. In some ways people like her remind me of the Law - showing up all the ways in which I fall short and providing the rubric which people like my parents use to judge others. You must understand that I don't believe she's judgmental herself. She's just good at lots of obviously good things that people like my parents equate with success and maturity. If I'd been more like her maybe I'd have a better relationship with my mom. Who knows?

As for myself, people have been telling me for the past year or so that I'm creative in both thought processes and actions. I've never really bought into it much because I was, in some ways, raised to be like M. I needed a career and letters after my name and precise budgeting and a workout plan. I needed to be grown-up. What I've turned into a housewife/daydreamer/congregant clinging to the idea of "faithful in small things" and building a home full of color, warmth, good food, and lots of cheer. I am more creative than I thought. I'd rather catch some inspiration and organize my sewing room than sit down and figure out last month's expenditures. When I went over to M's house a while back I noticed that she has, as expected, a very tidy, well organized home, and her party was well organized and laid out with plenty of delicious food. What struck me was how well it illustrated our different temperaments. Her home - organized, calm, well-run, but lacking in artwork or color. My home - somewhat chaotic and in a perpetual state of being organized, but full of color and art. Neither approach is better than the other and both excellently portray our personalities. Having seen this it struck me that perhaps this is what people have been trying to show me about myself. I've been living life half-ashamed of not being more like M. when really my weaknesses are the flipside to some rather nice strengths. My home is colorful and warm and full of meaningful and interesting art. My food is creative and inventive. I'd much rather work from an impulse than from a list or a recipe, and that's ok.

Here's where James and Paul are relevant. So long as I felt myself judged by other people's competence it threatened me. Their achievements were as law to me, and I felt condemned. Now, though, it's easier to see the grace of my own achievements. Even though I still may make faces when people post their lists on facebook or mention doing something super mature and organized I'm less threatened by it because I can see the worth of my own, possibly more creative, gifts and impulses. This frees me to learn from competent people without feeling judged by them and to offer my own gifts in return. It's James and Paul - works and grace. When all I thought I had was Law I felt stifled and broken. Now that I know about Grace I feel like maybe taking another stab at the Law. The point is simply that old saw of valuing each other's gifts and understanding what we ourselves offer. Sometimes the list maker could use a few tips on being more laid back and spontaneous, and sometimes the mural painter could use a little organization. The idea is to not let ourselves be condemned by the other persons skills but to offer everything up with faith and thanksgiving to God who has delighted to give talents around is such a haphazard fashion that very few of us are self sufficient even in our own eyes. But that's another post in and of itself.

Creamy Chicken Autumn Soup

We had the good fortune to have our pastor and his wife join Allen's folks over here for dinner, and since I'm a huge fan of keeping things simple for company I decided to have soup and cornbread with chocolate pudding for dessert. It's a basic menu, but when you combine a flavorful autumnal soup with an absolutely flawless cornbread recipe you really don't need anything else.

Cornbread:

I use the link above with a few minor changes. When using buttermilk you can get good results changing the baking powder to baking soda. I didn't realize this, but when my mother-in-law mixed offered to mix up the cornbread for me she said that's what her mother used when mixing up cornbread with buttermilk.  It must work because we ended up with a pan of moist, perfectly brown cornbread with a delightfully dense, spongy texture. A cast iron pan is crucial for this. Also, I cook with lard. You should too if you possibly can.

The second change I made is that I soaked my cornmeal overnight in the buttermilk. Trina, along with others, recommends soaking grains, and I really think you get the best cornbread this way. Sacrilege I know, but I've been known to add a pinch of sugar to my cornbread batter just to counteract the slightly bitter corn taste. When you soak your cornmeal though you lose that bitterness and end up with a lighter, just barely sweet cornbread without adding any sugar or wheat flour. I have to think it's more digestible too. Just put your cornmeal in a bowl with the recommended amount of buttermilk and let it sit until you're ready to bake. Mix in the rest of the ingredients as normal and enjoy some excellent cornbread.

Creamy Chicken Autumn Soup:

Ingredients

1 large onion
4 cloves garlic
4 large carrots
2 med sweet potatoes
3 med parsnips
4 stalks celery
1 celery root (or 1-2lbs potatoes)
portabella mushrooms
frozen corn
frozen spinach
milk or almond milk
rosemary
parsley
salt
pepper
chipotle
chicken stock
2lb chicken thighs
cheddar cheese
bacon bits

I made this soup potato and dairy free since Allen and my mother-in-law feel best on that diet, and that's why I used celery root and almond milk. If you eat potatoes you can just sub the potatoes back in for the celery root.

Ok, basic soup recipe here. Dice your onions and add them to a pot with a little oil and the minced garlic and let them cook down a bit while you chop the other veggies. Add everything to your pot (except the potatoes or celery root) along with salt, pepper, and chicken stock. Top off with water and bring everything to a boil. While that's cooking boil up your diced celery root with a little salt and pepper until very tender. Add some milk and some of the soup liquid to the celery root and puree until very smooth. I had a large pot of soup, so I added some cornstarch and white rice flour for extra thickeners. About 2 tablespoons each I think. Pour your puree into the soup and let simmer.

While your soup is simmering brown some bacon in a pan until very crispy. Drain the bacon and immediately add your chicken thighs to the pan and cook them in the bacon grease until just barely cooked through. While the chicken is cooking crumble the bacon and set aside and grate the cheese to set aside. Cut the chicken into bite sided pieces and add to your soup pot along with the frozen spinach and frozen corn (if you haven't added them already).

Season the soup with salt, pepper, chipotle powder, a handful of chopped fresh parsley, and roughly a tablespoon of minced fresh rosemary and simmer 10-15 minutes to let the flavors combine. Serve with grated cheddar cheese and bacon crumbles on the side.

This is one of those recipes that sounds so simple - chicken soup with root vegetables - but the flavors are delightfully interesting. The parsley is bright and fresh; the rosemary is pungent; and the bacon and chipotle add a delightfully smoky warmth and depth to a soup under-girded by juicy chicken and a cozy blend of fall vegetables. If you're looking for a new fall soup I recommend you give it a try :)

The trouble with telling stories

In the past year I've had several people point out that they way I think about things is both my blessing and my curse. On one hand I spend a lot of time mulling things over. I want to know how things work and how they fit into my life and how I should respond to them. Mine is not the unexamined life. I might not be living every day as I wish, but I'm certainly thinking about it. Practically this means I rarely stop wrestling with an idea once I get a hold of it. This is great when I'm thinking about last Sunday's sermon and not so great when I'm frustrated over some interaction I had on the internet. I struggle with "moving on."

One of my most persistent mental frameworks involves narrative.Whether we're talking about a character in a novel or a political idea I tend to spend a fair bit of time thinking about where it came from and how it got there and where does it think it's going. That's also describes much of how I think about my life. I want to know what story is being told and whether or not I'm running in the right directions with the plot lines I've been given. Sometimes I get frustrated or even angry that so little of my own story is under my own control. For instance, I've become convinced that stress contributes a great deal to our physical health. While not even 30 I was diagnosed with an (mild, easily treatable) autoimmune disorder. There's also a few other potentially annoying/non-lethal health issues in the offing. It's so easy to be mad that I was born into a pretty stressful family and seem to have had the cards stacked against me. But then I think, "Who am I to have the cards stacked in my favor?" And I get upset at myself for being mad and not moving on with my life and keeping these extra stressful emotions around. I'm honest enough with myself to realize that there's no real reason why I deserve to have better circumstances and to realize that for all the frustrating bits I do have quite a bit for which to be grateful. I'm not writing this to whine about my life. That wouldn't be square or accurate.

My problem is that I keep trying to understand my story in ways that aren't particularly helpful. For instance, there are those prophets in the Old Testament whom God called to burn their lives out in ministry for him. Sounds pretty awesome and noble. Except that for some of them they maybe got one convert. Whole life in ministry, and it bombed. For one in particular, (Jeremiah?) God told him upfront it was going to bomb. Of course nowadays people aren't allowed to have stories like that. They tell him to pray circles or chant Jabez or cast vision or whatever. It's can't be that God called him to be an absolute failure in front of his congregation. Not a story I like either, but it's there in the Bible and can't be ignored when you're studying for plot cues no matter what the Christian "self help" section tries to tell you. Come to think of it, there aren't many people in the Bible who had very nice or successful lives. Most of them had a mountain of trouble at some point or another. Anyway, the point is that I keep trying to read ahead. Only it's my life, and in that case reading ahead is called worrying. It's just super easy to think "well if I was writing this story this right here is where I'd put the life changing tragedy" or "just to reinforce the parallels between her life and her mother's life lets drop this event in now." You know those people who say, "If this was a musical people would be singing and dancing down the street right now?" I'm sort of like that except with me it's more like "and this would be perfect spot to put something bad/scary/challenging and therefore turn this into a bittersweet, nostalgic moment." Then I'll turn around and decide that narrative logic demands something awesome happen right now. It's just too cheesy not to work. And most of the time it doesn't.

So now I'm bumping up against an issue that could possibly be something and most likely is nothing, but I won't know until I check. Despite knowing this my brain is scrambling for reassurances. I'm peering at my story looking for clues that everything works out great and we end up with four children, a dog, and summer vacations on the coast of Georgia. I end up sitting here tensely trying to anticipate and deal with every single possible outcome when I know that God really just wants me to trust Him. That's the burden my incessant thinking puts on me. I know too much and have experienced too little of it. I know that God loves me, and I know that God loved the martyrs of Rome. So why am I worried about a little unpleasantness when I'm not facing the lions tomorrow. And yet God who loved them sent them to the lions. It's utterly terrifying. It might make more sense to adults who grew up in a more consistently loving home, but for me it means that God just throws the dice. I once had someone tell me, no matter who, that I deserved a short, miserable life. This person had also claimed at various times to love me. That's what I mean by throwing the dice. The Bible says that from the same mouth you can't get blessing and cursing. I've no intention of calling God a liar, but I do wish He could explain what I heard.

In the past I've been encouraged to try and formulate what I want - to give voice to my desires so that I can identify and deal with them. In this case, I think I just want to know that the good stuff in my life really was on purpose to bless and encourage and help me. I want to know that God, like the good father, delights in giving me good things and that He does it on purpose. I'm pretty resilient. At the end of the day I can more or less handle things in a somewhat faithful manner. I've taken enough kicks in my life that one more probably isn't going to finish me. What rattles me are the moments when I'm convinced that God loves me and desires my well being even if things are hard. Those moments are rather less often than I wish. I crave that sort of experiential certainty that God is good to me and will walk with me through everything and doesn't just send experiences my way willy-nilly like a vacationer throwing darts at an atlas. I don't think it would make me stop thinking, but it would give me more peace in contemplation.

This is why I haven't been posting this past week - well that and I was sick for a couple days. My cousin is having twins, and I ended up scrambling to finish these blankets before her shower this last Saturday. I ended up using this pattern from Stitch Nation and just tweaking the color repeats slightly when I went from one blanket to the next. As beautifully as the rows knit up it's one of the easiest patterns I've used. There are just four stitches in the whole blanket: knit, purl, yarn-over, and knit-three-together. Easy peasy and super cute. It was really the colors that caught my eye though. Pastels can be adorable for babies, but the vibrant stripes are so fun and eye catching. They also work well when you don't know if you're knitting for a girl or a boy. In my case I found out most of the way through the first blanket. Considering that I punctuated my knitting with rounds of bookcase building, curtain hanging, and lots of cooking for guests it's probably a good thing I didn't put my knitting off any later! Domestic scatterbrain. That's me.

This next week I'll hopefully get back to blogging more. I need to tackle our crazy town assemblage of partially opened boxes in the spare bedroom, and I'm hoping to finally sew up my kitchen curtains. Still, all deadlines are off for a few days. More blogging, more piano playing. Less staying up until 4am trying to weave the last of the ends into a baby blanket.

Words matter - most of the time

If you've read my blog for any length of time you know that words matter to me. That's one of the reasons why I keep a blog. I don't do journals very well, but I really like having a place to think things through and respond to what's going on around me. When I can't wrap words around something I'm experiencing I tend to get unsettled and frustrated. For those same reasons I get annoyed when people use words in a way I feel is sloppy or inaccurate. Too often I end up fuming internally over the (probably unintended) consequences of using language that describes something I don't the author ever intended to say.

But there are limits. For example B allow me to present my father-in-law. In some ways he's a simple man, and when I say simple I probably mean something closer to concrete. He's a farmer and a general contractor who spends a lot of time outdoors working with his hands. Although he's far from illiterate, he's also not going to pick apart a book the same way I am. Just the other night we were discussing a Bible study we (Allen's folks and myself) have been doing together. During the course of our discussion I raised an objection to the "in love with Jesus" language the author used. In my opinion such language is problematic. There's the "Jesus is my boyfriend" phenomenon. Men being asked to pursue "intimacy" with Jesus and walk with Him in a "personal, loving relationship." Women being told to "surrender to their first love." You get the point. We talk about Jesus in language that, outside of religious contexts, is primarily used to describe romantic relationships. There are plenty of straight men who are uncomfortable with "falling in love with Christ" and are suspicious of authors and pastors who recommend their wives do the same. Such language also completely bypasses the more heroic, camaraderie based lexicon that Christians have used in centuries past. We've lost Jesus the friend, brother, king, captain, priest, and replaced Him with an ardent lover who longs to surround our hurt feelings and cradle our lonely hearts. At least that's where I think a lot of the flowery "intimacy" based language tends to go.

My father-in-law, on the other hand, doesn't see any problems with it. When were discussing it he defined the primary attribute of love as commitment. He's committed to his wife, and he's committed to his Lord. The romantic connotations were less intrinsic to his idea "in love" than were the daily realities of living in a committed relationship with someone you daily chose to love and honor. I suppose that's why I say my father-in-law is more concrete or simple in his perception of word choice. I put "in love" up against the various ways it's typically used, how that typical usage could/does inform how it could be misused in a new context, and decide that "in love" is a poor phrase to describe our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Yet my father-in-law can take that same phrase and view it based on the practical outworkings in his closest relationship - his marriage - and deduce that being "in love" denotes a state of covenantal commitment which appropriately describes both how we should love God and our spouses.

Two people, two very different views of language. Naturally I'm biased towards my own perceptions. I still think that using romantic language to describe a religious experience can lead to other people having misguided ideas of how they should relate to God. But, that's not necessarily so. I think it's good to remember that sometimes other people can see something that's essentially very true, such as that commitment being the heart of love,  in a phrase that the more philosophically inclined might dismiss out of hand. In short, a wordy person who loves and thinks about words and wrestles with them on a daily basis can still miss something obvious. It's reason to be a little more humble and to listen a little more closely to those people "who just don't get it." Do you know they don't get? How? Did you ask them? In my case, my father-in-law didn't change my perception of the phrase, but he did get me thinking about how people could use it with the best intentions and a pretty decent interpretation of it's meaning. Sometimes it's the language that's obfuscating and not the mind behind it. Hard to believe for those of us who spend so much energy trying to accurately wrap words around ideas, but believe it all the same.

Six things you should never say to hurting people

Caveat: I grew up in a tightly knit dysfunctional home that did NOT include neglect or physical abuse. I'm writing from that perspective and no other.  

What not to say to survivors of abuse (aka- what the title said):

1. Just put it behind you and move on with your life.

Sorry, we'd love nothing better, but we can't just do that on your schedule. For years (decades?) we've heard that voice telling us we're stupid, incompetent, ugly, unwanted, lazy, etc. That means every time we're thinking about making our bed we hear "Mom said I was lazy. I'm going to show her and make up the bed. But then why am I showing her anything when she kept lying to me? Maybe I don't want to make up the bed. That would actually show her. But then again if I "show her" that means I'm still invested in what she said and possibly bitter. But I still don't want to be lazy. I just don't want to make the bed out of guilt. Gah!" This all flashes through your brain in an instant, along with comments like the above, when all you want to do is make the bed like a normal person and not worry about whether you're doing it because you're meeting or rebelling against your mom's expectations. If you have no idea making your bed could become a mental power struggle like this then congratulations! You may have had a normal childhood!

2. Are you sure you're not bitter? Bitterness can really mess you up. I have a sermon/book/website/video you should read/listen to/watch.

Are you kidding me? I'm not sure what I'm feeling after I crawled out of that cave. Can I please have just a moment to mourn and be angry without someone adding another emotional requirement to the pile? I'm already struggling with whether or not my parents loved me, what I might have done to cause the abuse, how to let go of this anger, etc without worrying about whether or not I'm going to get cancer because I may or may not harbor bitterness against my dad. If you're a close friend you may ask this question if your friend seems unable to work through their anger over a period of time, is bent on creating vengeful fantasies, or variously indicates they are being consumed by their previous trauma. Otherwise, unless specifically solicited for advice, keep your mouth shut.

3. You should just forgive them.

It's a close race between this one and the previous. Forgiveness is a Christian necessity, but in my case, since I had never seen forgiveness modeled in a Christian home, I really had no conception of what forgiveness meant. To be honest, I'm still not entirely sure what forgiveness means in this context. "Forgive" can easily sound like stuff, excuse, forget, or gloss over. In many cases that's exactly what the abused person has been going for years at a time, and it's not always clear that forgiveness is really any different. At this point a good friend will model forgiveness and encourage that person to learn forgiveness in a way that doesn't involve sticking your emotions in a closet and pretending you never had them.

4. Are you sure you've forgiven them?

Argh! No, I'm not sure. My parents didn't model this for me, and most of the time the people around me are forgiving each other for forgetting to pick the groceries or yelling at their kids or "offending" each other. You're functional! You love your kids, and they know it. Blowing your cool after a long day and then apologizing for it hasn't grown into an immeasurable gulf. How do I forgive someone for being malicious when they should have protected me? How does forgiveness bridge that deep betrayal? Jesus did it, but that doesn't mean I've figured it out. I could use a pastor or wise friend to guide me, but I don't need that semi-judgemental tone questioning whether I'm a good Christian because I shared with a friend how I still struggle with trusting others due to broken relationships in my past. I've been trying to get off the guilt train for twenty years, and here you are punching my ticket for another station.

5. Just pray about it! (Relate story about praying and God miraculously fixing it all.)

That's what I've been doing. I don't intend to stop, but I do intend to pray over how badly I want to give you the stink eye right now. Again, this is one of those areas where unless you're a close friend or pastor you should really mind your own business. I prayed and read my Bible through the worst of my depression when I lived at home without seeing my mom become more sane or becoming relieved of my guilt and confusion. Looking back I'm sure God was leading me and giving me grace (sometimes I can even recognize it), but don't you even begin to imply that if I'd prayed better or been more surrendered then God would have rescued my family. I was as surrendered as an angry, desperate kid can get. On top of all this I'm wrestling with issues of faith and guilt as I wonder whether God was just another authority who betrayed me and left me to fend for myself. Saying "just pray about it!" marks you as yet one more person to whom I can't confide my struggle and look to for guidance.

Six really only applies to people who came from dysfunctional families. I can't imagine anyone saying this to a battered wife (ok, I can imagine Debi Pearl saying it, but I pray to God she's not a representative sample).

6. It's a shame you aren't reconciled with (in my case) your family.

Yes it is a shame. I love my sisters and brothers (and yes my parents). I have all sort of good memories of traveling and Christmases and  birthdays and visiting our cousins. But a question like that does two things: 1. It pressures the abused to do whatever it takes to maintain at least the semblance of a relationship, and 2. It reinforces that the abused left and broke the presumed fellowship or unity that existed previously. A lot of time the abused already felt like the bad one, the black sheep, the unloved and unwanted. A statement like the above just reiterates that she's the one who lost out by not being able to take it or fit in or be good enough. It's already a heavy enough burden, so don't add to it. In fact, if you want to bless that person's heart trying reversing your statement and saying "It's a shame your parents/family/significant other are missing out on such a lovely, kindhearted woman." In a sense you leave your entire identity behind when you leave an abusive situation, so affirming that person's best qualities helps rebuild her identity as a woman who deserves loving parents and is worth kindness and appreciation.


Let me finish with one giant, robust caveat. There certainly is a time and a place in which all six of these things might need to be said with various degrees of emphasis and tact. Some people need encouragement in praying faithfully (I do) and some might need guidance on how to forgive as Jesus forgave on the cross (that would be me again). People can become bitter when they dwell on the past and need someone to confront their sin and lead them to repentance and wholeness. The point of this list, though, is that these things should be done by faithful friends and pastors who know the story because they've lived beside the other person and loved them. This isn't a job for acquaintances or internet buddies or people who once felt sort of depressed for a couple weeks or someone who totally knows what you're going through because their mom completely nagged them so much about their room as a kid. In such situations a hug is much better consolation. 



And a small caveat by way of a postscript. Please don't read this post and extrapolate that my parents ate baby kittens for breakfast or locked me out in the cold or made me wear itchy polyester jumpers my whole life or didn't teach me anything or never let me get a job. In many ways we were a pretty normal close knit Christian family. Part of the time. The other times contained codependency, depression, and victimization. Even as I write about some of what I experienced I want to be clear that I did and do respect my parent's good decisions. I just wish more of those good decisions had extended to how they treated me. 

How a word healed my wedding day

There's one word I wish I'd heard at least once during my wedding preparations - "elope." I don't mean that I wish Allen and I had run away and gotten married at sunset in a tiny ceremony at Vogelsang High Sierra Camp in Yosemite because I wouldn't have missed sharing that day with his family for worlds. But his family. I think I saw my granny and aunt for about five or ten minutes before they went into the sanctuary. No pictures of my mother tenderly adjusting my veil. No sisters cracking jokes with me while we put on our make-up and jittered through the long wait between photo taking and entrance. No father to squeeze my hand and grin in pride as we walked up the aisle together. Instead of pages in a photo book I have empty spaces in my mind where these memories ought to be. I know roughly what shape and size they should be; I can see the picture frames I should have filled, but not a single memory or photo exists to fill those blanks. My family barely came to the wedding. I didn't know until a week before the wedding whether they were coming at all, and they certainly didn't sit the front row to cheer me on (or even passively approve). They sat together in a pew on the left somewhere around the middle. I saw them when I entered on the arm of an elder who generously offered, based on his spiritual authority, to give me away in place of the father who refused that honor. He wasn't a man I knew very well, but he represented both the groundswell of love and support that flowed from my church and my poverty that required such aid. He is in my photo book.

People told me to smile at my mother when I saw her and have hope that my bridal array and token of fidelity would melt her heart, and when I saw her I smiled. Allen and I dashed out the door after the recessional to greet them and thank them for coming when they tried to slip away without one word. Now I almost wish we hadn't. But you see I didn't realize that, whereas Allen was getting married, I was eloping. I fought so hard for a normal Christian wedding. At a normal Christian wedding the bride and groom speak with the bride's parents and so Allen and I rushed out to grab that little bit of normal, to reassure my parents and ourselves that we weren't rejecting them. It didn't work. It wasn't normal, and it didn't reassure them. Every minute I fought for normal meant one less minute dealing with the abnormal.

I remember vividly driving to the church after meeting Allen for breakfast and being absolutely scared spitless. I think the main reason I didn't run is that when you run from your own wedding you have to leave your best friend behind, and that scared me even more. I was scared of marriage and its newness, scared of sex, scared of how we might change, and only God knows what else. I wanted and needed a sympathetic mother to grab my shoulders and tell me to breathe and remind me, perhaps not that marriage is glorious, but that it's worth it. All I got was my own head chatter. Coming as it did from the brain of a girl who'd been pushed out of her home, verbally abused, and then nearly shunned you can imagine just how helpful and wise a companion I had as I turned into the church parking lot. Afterwards I had friends and soon-to-be-family around me helping me get dressed and bringing us lunch, but I don't remember having anyone who could look at that tangled snarl of emotions in my chest and encourage me. To be honest, they might not have known I needed it.

This is why I think it would have been so very helpful if someone had sat down with me and made it explicit that I was, emotionally at least, eloping with my fiance and not simply getting married. I needed to know this wasn't normal and that I didn't have to treat it as such. I needed emotional space and permission to wrestle with what it meant to enter a marriage ungiven and alone. More than that I needed a word to describe my situation. When I met Allen I was lost in a miasma of stuffed feelings and forbidden thoughts until, largely through our conversations, I came to realize that those feelings I didn't like and tried to ignore largely fit under two categories: "verbal abuse" and "emotional abuse." Suddenly I could begin talking about things and understanding what went wrong instead of blaming myself for feeling rebellious and unlovely. Four years later I needed another word to define and clarify my experience, but I didn't get it for almost another six.

Elope.

I eloped.

Despite my parent's objections I eloped with Allen.

When my dad refused to give me away and my mom steadfastly ignored all my softly anxious requests to look at wedding dresses with me, I decide to elope.


This isn't something I tell everyone. After all I did have a moderate sized wedding in a church downtown in a city close to where both our families reside with a reception and dancing and the throwing of flower petals. Not your standard elopement. Yet it describes the emotional reality of getting in a car by yourself and driving to a church where not a single family member is putting up decorations or marshaling the food and then waiting for the ceremony during an interval which involves no tender familiar reminisces or adrenaline fueled hilarity among people whom one has known and loved one's entire life. At such times any other substitute becomes utterly inadequate, and one is left, essentially, alone.




And so, after all, I married Allen, with nary a regret and many a thanksgiving for all the people who rallied around us to make our marriage, our elopement, a wonderful celebration of family, faith, and the ability of people we barely know to love infinitely. Your faithfulness has made me strong.

Families without roots

A while back I stumbled on a the adventures of a traveling family, and by traveling I mean a little more than two weeks in July. This is a family that lives year round on the road traveling all across Asia and who knows where. I have to admit, after years spent hitting the road, their lifestyle seemed attractive if a little impractical, but after some more consideration I've concluded that for Christians such a lifestyle is probably better avoided. While I don't believe my objections carry significant moral weight, I do believe my reasons are largely sound.

1. Who is your neighbor?

When you're traveling all over the world/country/continent it has to be hard finding church communities wherein you can grow and learn to serve your neighbor. Suppose you speak English and Spanish and are spending a month in Korea? Where is your fellowship? Too many Christians are already going to church with a shop around, consumer mentality for me to think lightly of people voluntarily entering a situation that will drastically limit their opportunities for corporate worship. If we're going to actively love and serve and encourage and challenge each other that requires an investment in time you won't get if you're constantly moving on. While I'm not at church every single Sunday, I am there most Sundays. I grew up church hopping - going to one church for a few weeks or a couple years and then one Sunday just not going. I've got a lot of memories and no friends from those years. Fast forward to shortly after Allen and I met. For ten years (on and off as we've moved away and come back) we've been part of one church and one denomination. I've got roots here. There are kids here that I met at babies (or even attended their baby showers). Even if I don't know everyone so well as I would like, there's a history here and a form of faithfulness that we all come together and put up with each other. I don't really see how you can get that when you're always moving from city to city.

2. Where is your family?

While there are a few people who may be doing this without leaving grandparents, aunts, and other extended family behind that's not the norm for more families. There are siblings and parents and cousins and others who should have a place in your life. So maybe your kids have splashed in the Tigris and the Nile. Maybe they speak a little Mandarin or a have a favorite German street food. Is that more important than having a grandfather who taught them to build a fire on their first camping trip? Is it more important than the great pillow fight of '09 between your kids and your sister's kids? What about the Christmas Uncle Joe let them light bottle rockets? Do grandmothers not color in picture books anymore? The Bible is pretty big on taking care of family, and that's hard to do when family is on a whole different continent. You might not see Argentina very well in two weeks, but at least you'll be teaching your kids that love of people and duty towards family comes before treating life like some egoistic pleasure cruise.

3. What about your stuff?

This is probably going to sound like the least Christian objection. After all, if we're going to Heaven then working to earn a bunch of stuff seems kind of pointless. Except that God says it's not. Throughout the Bible God praises the wise and the diligent - the who seeks to lay up and inheritance for his children and who gives generously to the poor. When you seek a lifestyle that allows little for charity but gives you lots of "freedom" and "options" the main recipient of your generosity is yourself. We have a God who loves to give us good things, and some of the things might weight down the carefully curated selection of personal items in your L.L. Bean backpacks. That's ok! Stop spending your life focused solely on what you want to get out of it.

With all that said I love the idea of people traveling together as families. I think it's a huge blessing and a wonderful way for families to enjoy each other. I just think there are ways to travel that don't involve neglecting our duties to our families and to God. My family used to see a lot in nine days of RV travel. Some people might be able to take a month. I'm all for it. I just don't think it's wise for Christians to emulate this sort of vagabond, world traveler lifestyle. To me it smacks of egocentricity and a willful avoidance of the sort of productive community life I believe God desires for us.

Caveat: I realize that some of my objections can apply to foreign missionaries, and I don't want to sound like I believe long term life away from one's family or in an environment the necessitates few possessions is always wrong. Missionaries in many ways pay a high price for their service. The drawbacks are real, but the commission is also real.

Wayne County and old photos

Allen and I spent Memorial Day weekend visiting his great-aunt up in Indiana, and despite a rough start on Friday and Saturday (lack of sleep + lots of stress = grouchy) we really ended up having a good time. Despite her age and dodgy hearing, Aunt Kathy can really be a hoot. She and Allen joked around, and she can be pretty stubborn when she wants to be :) I was expecting to spend a whole lot of time sitting around in her room, but instead we ended up spending quite a while driving around Wayne County visiting various places she hadn't seen in a while. Saturday, after we took her southern soul to get some chicken and dumplings with okra, we ended up walking around the rose garden (well, Aunt Kathy we wheeled around) and driving around town trying to find her old church, so we'd be sure we could find it in the morning. Then we went back and looked at pictures and talked until she started falling asleep. I've never seen someone (outside of Allen's family) with that many family pictures. I've seen maybe one or two pictures of my grandfather, but Aunt Kathy has dozens and dozens of pictures of her husband. Some are snaps taken during WWII and some are from family events and trips. She's got pictures of her in-laws (taken in the 30's) and her husband's grandparents and her brothers and sisters and so many other people. It just astounds me. Allen and I ended up scanning a fair few just to make sure the family doesn't end up losing them.

The next day I was able to sleep in while Allen took Aunt Kathy to Sunday school. (Have I mentioned lately that my husband rocks?) Fortunately our lodging and her church were close enough together that Allen could slip back and pick me up before services started. It was funny. Allen told me that when he delivered Aunt Kathy to her Sunday school room all the ladies were thrilled to see her and promptly shooed him off to the young men's study. From his telling I was getting a "run along to your own fort, boy, we've got our own right here" impression :) That was the first time I'd been in a Baptist church in umpteen years, and, God love Aunt Kathy, I stood up with them and sang the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" on Memorial Day weekend. I wanted to ask if we could sing "Dixie" afterwards, but I figured that since it doesn't have "hymn" in the title they wouldn't go along with it. (For the record, it doesn't matter if you change the name - the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" is a Yankee military song and has no more place in a church than "Sweet Home Alabama" does. Which is to say, it's not a hymn or psalm or spiritual song.) As for the sermon, I shall pass over it quietly. There are places where Baptists still like their sermons loud and full of vim, but that doesn't mean that they aren't a kindly, friendly lot. Every single member of that church came down from afterwards (at the pastor's request) to hug Aunt Kathy's neck, and that was such a delight to her.

Later that day we went and drove off to find some of the places Aunt Kathy remembered from her newly wed days just after the war. I think she may have pointed out three or four different places where the school teacher lived. I don't know if there were a bunch of school teachers or just one who moved a good bit, and it really didn't matter. She did end up directing us to the cabin Uncle Haskell built for them - it was the last house they lived in together I believe. Every time I go up there I'm reminded of how fragile and short life is. Like those boxes of pictures Aunt Kathy has - those pictures mean the world to her. They mean a lot the generation after her, and they even mean a good bit to Allen and I. But what will they mean to our kids (or if not our kids then the next generation of this family)? It's not something I've gotten my head wrapped around yet, but I think Psalm 103 contains at least part of the answer:

15 As for man, his days are like grass;
he flourishes like a flower of the field;
16 for the wind passes over it, and it is gone,
and its place knows it no more.
17 But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him,
and his righteousness to children’s children,
18 to those who keep his covenant
and remember to do his commandments.
19 The Lord has established his throne in the heavens,
and his kingdom rules over all.

Perhaps, at the end, it is enough that God remembers.

Five years and counting

Just now that Allen and I are starting to feel settled my cousin popped up on facebook with some "exciting news" which is honestly a little bit challenging. In the past five years we've been through a fair number of ups and downs, but one constant remains - no kids. Just hasn't been happening for us. We've been through some rough patches with that, but really the thing I find most disconcerting at the moment is how well Allen and I fit into the "friendly people with no kids" stereotype. I go places with my friend's three kids. Their youngest daughter runs up to me church saying "Miss Natalie!"; their son tells me about his video games, and their oldest daughter goes shopping with me sometimes. Allen dangles all the little boys by their ankles after church, and we're generally "good with kids." Don't get me wrong - there are moments when I get a little queasy hearing about yet another birth/baby shower/new pregnancy. I might walk a little faster past the baby aisle at Target, but I'm generally ok with things. It's just funny how well we quickly settle down into certain roles. People with kids act one way. People who are glad not to have kids act another way. People making the best of not having kids tend to do a little more traveling and "take an interest" in the families around them. I guess I'm turning into my mom after all =) (I mean this in a good way - she didn't have me for eight years and previous to that ran the church youth group with my dad. All I need is a dog and keys to the church van, and I'm set.)

This isn't a pity party post. I don't particularly want sympathy. It's just more a reflection on coming to a point where, although I still desire a family, I no longer feel so completely left out of God's story and the life of His Church. There are a lot of broken people in the Bible - people who were incomplete and yet loved of God and who did their work anyway. I've been reading a study of Ecclesiastes which just confirms that we live in a funny old world and that the ability to laugh at it a gift from God (possibly the gift granted the Proverbs 31 woman?). Sometimes things don't work out the way we planned, and according the Ecclesiastes that seems to mean that we should pick up a bottle of red and curl up the couch with a Marx Brother's movie. The good things in life are still good, and the bad things will be evened up in Heaven. It's a sort of sanctified cynicism, a sort of holy hedonism that appeals to me. There's room here for me both be broken and to put that brokenness aside and enjoy playing Super Mario with Allen.

All that said I've by no means given up on us having kids. Even with everything still in boxes or (worse) half out of boxes I'm starting to feel settled. I don't feel constantly plagued by depression. I have a house and the expectation of being in one place at the least the next few years. It's a good place to be, and it's a good time to start asking questions.

Thanksgiving

We're rapidly winding into Thanksgiving and the Christmas season. This year I'm grateful for friends with cute kids, daisies, Aunt Kathy, two and a half amazing years in California, and the chance to move back home and be with family. These past years have often been difficult - we've had three grandparents die in a 12 month period and wrestled with finding a place in Silicon Valley's intensely driven culture, but we've also grown and explored in ways I couldn't have imagined three years ago. I've moved towards reconciling with my past and understanding who God wants me to be. We're finally in a position to buy a house. Allen has a job that is stretching him in all kinds of ways but that also excites him. It's been good to be here, and now it's good to be going home where we can be with people who really believe in family. I continually that God that He has given me such lovely in-laws who have loved me every step of the way. For all that I'll miss about California, you can't buy anything to replace people like that.


Thanksgiving Menu:

Hot Spinach Dip and pita chips
Mixed Veg
Brie and crackers
Russian sausages (this and the one above are being brought by my Russian friends. I can't want to try the sausages.)

Herb Roasted Turkey with gravy (this is the recipe I make in my camp oven the past couple of years we've gone camping over Thanksgiving. Why mess with a good thing?)
Sweet Potato Casserole (without marshmallows)
Onions roasted in their skins
Cornbread sage and onion dressing
Mixed baked beans with mustard greens and bacon
Steamed Broccoli
Korean Style Carrots (another offering from my Russian friends - she says it's not actually Korean :)
Rolls (still deciding that one actually)

Pecan pie
Apple pie
Pumpkin pie
...all the above served with mountains of whipped cream :)


Aunt Nita's Apple Cider
Sparkling Cider
Pinot Noir
Riesling
Hot Chocolate/Coffee/Tea


Now I just need to get everything cooked and on the table :)

teddy bears and puppy dogs

I must admit that I have what could actually be an embarrassing number of dolls and stuffed animals. There are my American Girl dolls (Kirsten and another doll that in a fit of misguided mothering I named "Krishta); there's my "no seriously she's old enough to be a legitimate childhood keepsake" Fisher-Price doll, Cindy, who has managed to survive over 26 years of my often enthusiastic affection with only a flat spot on her nose to show her age; in addition, there's Fluffy the stuffed dog, an ancient pound puppy, and a miscellaneous assortment of other stuffed animals both small and large. Mercifully there is no 100+ collection of beanie babies packed in tissue paper. But intrinsic to the act of packing is sorting. Things go in piles, and eventually you have a pile of things that aren't worth moving. The NYC teddy bear Allen bought on a visit and later tossed into my lap after meeting me at school (the meeting where I thought "he's really glad to see - like, really glad to see me. Does this mean he likes me?!?) obviously goes with me. But what about the cute teddy bears I got on some not terribly well remembered camping trip? It was probably in the Smokies, but which trip? What about the stuffed puppy (Magi) that Julie bought me the Christmas we realized that none of us kids had bought presents for the other and, after assembling some loose change, paired up and went roaming through Walmart? So I see Magi and remember all the times us kids banded together to solve some problem regarding presents or chores. Those were good times when we pulled in harness to deal with a home life that could be chaotic and stressful. Now the band is broken though - broken so completely that I occasionally wonder whether it ever existed. Was I a good big sister? For all the hours I read books when they were little, did I charge them in surliness and unconcern later? I don't know. There's no one I can trust who can tell me either. So Magi opens quite a mixed bag of emotions for me. And don't get me started on the funny little half-circle pillow Joey gave me one Christmas. It's made from pink quilted material (left over from a place mat?) that I think he got mom to sew in half. Then he came up to me with a needle and thread and some odd bits of trimming and showed me exactly where to sew to make a mouth and nose and two eyes. It's the funniest thing you ever saw, and he couldn't have been more than 5 I don't think. When I'd finished he took it away and wrapped it up and gave it to me for Christmas. Tell me you can toss something like that no matter how silly it looks! But once again, I don't know Joey any more. He's a stunning looking young man (he and my other brother) with a lovely girlfriend and plans for Navy career. Some things once broken become as if they never were. So there are times when I want to put everything in a pile and just get rid of it and forget the bad memories, and yet I can't. Once upon a time I was Natalie M. - big sister, one of five, firstborn daughter. Now, sometimes it feels like those lines from Jane Austen's Persuasion, "Now they were as strangers; nay, worse than strangers, for they could never become acquainted." It does not seem that there will be any friendship without reconciliation, and as that presently seems impossibly remote I will continue to pack and remember and laugh that a 28 year old should have a stuffed bear half her own size. (And this I will unapologetically keep since he reminds me of my old dog who was much the same color and size.)

End of the story

We ended up flying home for another funeral last Saturday. We're pretty tired of it honestly. This is our third funeral in under twelve months. But, it's family. You have to be there. Much as I didn't want to sometimes, for this particular funeral I really had to be there. Mamaw died at age 88 while driving to the store for dog food. The details are unclear, but they involve an 18 wheeler and anecdotal evidence that she might have had a heart attack or something before the accident. Anyone's who's read my old blog knows just how much Mamaw meant to me. She treated me like close kin. There's a lot I could share about Mamaw, but for now I just wanted to share one thought that occurred to me while we were busy saying goodbye. Funerals are a chance of us to hone in on the end of the story - to read the last couple chapters and find out just what we were seeing all these years. As my professor pointed out, when you open Othello it looks like a comedy, but it ends as a tragedy. Without the end it's hard to understand the beginning. At Mamaw's funeral I saw the end of a story that more people should be writing. She loved God and loved people and poured out her life blessing everyone around her. She was a saint with crooked teeth and a garden patch and a hug you'd be happy to drive a hundred miles for who went out and mended fences and loved me more than just about anyone I've ever known. So many times we see only a small portion of someone's life, and it's hard to know where they're going. At all the funerals we've been going to these past months, we've gotten to see just how all those actions and intentions played out. They all three of them told a story of love and faithfulness, hard work, cheerful endurance and unending gratitude. Seeing how those stories unfolded and pronouncing the final "amen" over their graves gives us a nudge to evaluate how our own characters are unfolding, and for that we can be thankful. To see the end and be about to change our own beginnings is a great blessing.