Opportunity for Women

Ruth Tucker has greatly influenced me with her thoughtful writing.

Ruth is going to be at the seminary over lunch on March 23, Monday - topic: "Mrs. Packard and Me: Mining the Past for Mentors and Role Models."

Women friends - this will be good. Go through the cafeteria line and get lunch at their own expense ($5.00) or bring a lunch, and then join us in reserved seating where Ruth will speak around 12:30. If anyone wants to join me just show up or send me a message that you are coming and I will watch for you.

Ruth A. Tucker (PhD, Northern Illinois University) is a teacher, author, and lecturer. She has taught on alternative religions and missiology at both the graduate and undergraduate levels at many schools, including Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California, and Moffat College of Bible in Kenya. Ruth was the first female faculty member at Calvin Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Currently, she is a visiting professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois. Ruth is the author of more than a dozen books, including Women in the Maze: Questions and Answers about Biblical Equality, Daughters of the Church, Guardians of the Great Comission, and the Gold Medallion Award-winning From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya.

my idiot son

When my boys were teens and doing things like jumping off trestle bridges into glacier fed lakes and driving four wheels on iced over lakes Steve always told me, "Do NOT think about it!" He said if they died I would hear from someone.

This advice saved me from much angst. And they did survive their teen years.

The question is - will they survive adulthood? This is Jordan, photo taken by his brother. A conspiracy of sons able to make a mother crazy.

to lament and to dance

I found the whole thing appalling. How can we attend a young child's funeral in the morning and a wedding at 2 pm, reception to follow? This is a bad bad idea. Impossible to navigate with any level of sanity or grace.

But the day comes and I get up, brush my hair, put on something dark-ish and get into the car headed for the funeral home. The casket is small and white. The flowers lavished over it fall like a blanket over the sides, a photo of a dark eyed, tow headed little girl is lovingly placed on top.

The group of mourners is small. This is family, not fame. We share a lot of tears. Just a look at each other starts the crying again. We hold onto one another. Tears and touching, over and over. The words are brief. A gentle lullaby is sung by an aunt. The windy graveside and dirt in our palms. More hugs and tears and holding hands with anyone standing close.

Then we go to lunch at Wendy's.

And home to change. Bright clothes this time. Perfume and hairspray and earrings that sparkle. Into the car and to the church. And laughing and beauty and promises and beginnings. Flowers with ribbons and lace covered tables loaded with little sausages snuggled in crispy wrap and thin slices of prime rib beef alongside garnished salads and bowls of sculpted butter balls. Then music and dancing. Kisses.

My heart is completely full and deeply satisfied. I expected chaos tonight, emotional devastation, soul confusion. But I find myself in a peaceable place that feels like belonging or love - sad and also very much alive. Restful. Amazed at life.

This is how I learned that sorrows and joy are not enemies, but that they sit at the same table and eat from the same bowl. Sorrows makes joy possible and joy makes our sorrows tolerable. And that when shared, both can be love.

A friend wrote, "The answer to suffering is not the absence of suffering. It is love." And the two travel hand in hand when we are awake to life.

hope - or not

My hopes have been raised and dashed in a matter of moments. I have hopelash.

My kid Vincent gave me this quote today as I left for work - from his TV watching last night. I didn't ask, but it was probably from the Simpsons or King of the Hill or some such intelligentsia program.

Emily Dickenson said it more eloquently, although not really more poignantly.

A great hope fell, you heard no noise -

the ruin was within;

O cunning wreck that told no tale

and let no witness in.

Lent is the season of honest lament, but it is not the season of hopelessness. I have been considering lament of late. What we don't lament, we are forced to live.

Every life has more than enough causes for sorrow. Dreams fall like branches in an ice storm. (Have you ever been in an ice storm? The eerie crackling sound is what is most un-earthly, portending a whole world crashing down.)

We lose. We hurt. We age. We are alone when we need people and with people when we need to be alone. The joy of today cannot be stored for tomorrow.

I was a girl when I first thought this about my grandma: I saw that she had basically lived outside of war and poverty and as she aged and got closer to the end of her life I thought it shouldn't bother her to grow old, since her past had been relatively painless. Fool! The thoughts of youth are so wrong sometimes. All the good days do not make the bad days less real.

So lament. Lament is an episode, not a lifestyle. It is communal, even when practiced alone. When we lament we join the weeping of every other soul on the planet. Lament is not self pity, or self sorrow, or self enrichment. It is communal at best, and is about finding joy, really. Lament is psalmnody - it is a part of the song of human life sung in honesty. Lament is about moving back to hope.

me 'n Big Steve

So... we have our 35th wedding anniversary this fall, and I am glad we have weathered together so long. Can't say every moment is bliss, but as men go, BS is pretty fabulous, and I, of course, and simply a joy to live with. ahem

A few things I want to do this year.
1. Build a little addition onto our back deck.
2. Start exercising again.
2.5 To sit in the rocker on the front porch when I am done exercising.
3. Wash all the windows in the whole house.
3.5 To sit in the rocker on the back porch when I am done washing windows.
4. Take a driving holiday to the north east.
5. Find a book worth reading.
5.5 To sit on the front porch and read the book.
6. See the ocean again.
7. Have The Girls to our place for a month or so.
7.5 To sit with The Girls in rockers on the back porch and talk silly.
8. To sit in the rocker on the front porch and do nothing.

That's all. My dreams are getting smaller but more beautiful.

you tell me

My colleague received an interesting package yesterday. It was from an internet source, and was a baggie with elephant dung (scat) in it. I can verify that it was dung ... dried and crusted in straw, and I imagine it could well be elephant.

My colleague was indignant. He felt insulted and offended. He tossed the baggie into the garbage. When I found out what had happened I dug it out of the garbage. I phoned my kid Vincent and he was ecstatic. What a great thing to have! What a gift!

Clearly, what is one man's treasure is another man's tragedy. But here is the question. Was it an insult? Or a joke? Or a gift of strange measure.

travel prayers

Our son the young professor and his family are en route to Indonesia to begin life there in a new world. Our farewell over the phone was warm and loving, and I realize how much of a gift it is to be in relationship with my kids, all of them.

Ben and Kari - you are in our prayers today with the little ones, traveling with your tons of luggage. I am not the least worried that you won't have the stuff for this adventure. Let us know when you arrive. I pray fifteen angels to watch over you. That is not a waste of angels.