My friend Madeline, who, among many other things, is an NP (Nurse Practitioner) married to an M.D., came out to "spell me" at the bedside. I am guessing that this old Southern expression refers to "sitting a spell" beside the bed of a loved one challenged with a health crisis. Madeline, however, did a lot more than sit when she and her daughter Greer came out to LA. The following is her account of their visit.
Kim has been away from her desk this past week helping husband Brooks and daughter Grace pack up the car for their epic "sea to shining sea" road trip. College is right around the corner for the baby girl and her possessions from this point forward travel with her. Thus the voyage.
As friends of the Athens branch of this family, my daughter, Greer, and I were in L.A. this past long weekend, regrettably in Kim's absence, to visit with Katherine en famille. It progressed into so much more. Thus my most humble request to Kim of katherineawolf.blogspot.com that I have the privilege of writing in her journal.
One of my favorite things about of one of my favorite things is the titles that Kim gives her blogs. Therefore instead of the traditional storyline and to maximize my use of the headline format, I would like to speak in chaptered vignettes.
Inner Sanctum Guest Membership
As those of us who remember the marriage of Katherine Arnold, the Flower of Athens, to Jay Wolf, clearly a catch but NOT A NATIVE, a seat at First Presbyterian Church that day to witness the nuptials exchange vows was the hottest ticket in town. That would be my first and last glimpse of the bride's betrothed until last Wednesday. From then to my departure four days later, Jay would convert me from talking to texting on the phone, introduce me to some of what is clearly an extraordinary collection of family and friends, and give me ample reason to forgive him for whisking our rose off so many years earlier.
My First UCLA Medical Center Sleepover EVER
Jay adores Katherine. Every day more so than the day before. That is as evident as the sun's rise. Less clear, but as true, is that Jay runs a "tight castle". Katherine is never alone. The obviously capable UCLA Rehab staff knows about Mrs. Wolf's" Companion Program" and they are most accommodating. I had the good fortune to cover the night shift Thursday and Friday. What an absolute luxury for the likes of me. As a nurse I draw great pleasure from my station at the bedside of strangers but private duty service for a friend is a rare opportunity.
The Wink of an Eye and The Blow of a Kiss
I don't know Grace nearly as well as I do her "big sisters", Katherine and Amie. My last children were more in chronological alignment with them. But I'd have to say that between first and second born, though they both share gorgeous looks, fiery spirits, and hearts of gold, Katherine has a stage presence that is unique in the world. I remember how absolutely smitten we all were during Mrs. Wolf's high school years when she added to her considerable dramatic repertoire, comedy. With the wink of an eye or the blow of a kiss she ruled her audience. That was still the case this weekend.
Mother and Son Race Each Other to Take First Steps On Earth
If Kim and Brooks thought teaching Katherine to walk the first time was challenging, they now know that that was a practice round. Jay's wife may have three months MAX before their Sweet Baby James will be scooting around on his own. But let me tell you with the utmost confidence that I am putting my money down on MAMA to win that race. Let the world know that Katherine Arnold Wolf has no intention of being sidelined in this competition. I watched her walk the length of her parallel bars and the distance of her home corridor with the resolve of a woman with a husband to adore, children to raise, worlds to conquer, and God to worship.
Crooked Smile Power
My husband of thirty plus years has a sixth nerve palsy. That means that in the middle of a smile the right side of his face does not light up in perfect symmetry with the left side. One of our sons has inherited this trait, a fact I find strangely endearing. Anyway, when Phil and I were courting and I was in that coquettish phase of romancing, he asked me out for a cup of coffee. I suggested he read my lips, NO, at which point he asked me if it was because of his crooked smile. Little did he know that that would be the official start of the rest of my life. How to tell Katherine that her crooked smile (though likely fleeting) did the same magic.
Romeo and Juliet
Weekends are for families. That's true in and out of hospitals. So it's only natural and fair that the Recreation Therapist ON DUTY Saturday would suggest that, hours shy of Katherine's first hundred days post-op, she deserved, well, a weekend pass. In the interest of surprise, Greer, my daughter, Ray, the UCLA chauffeur extraordinaire, and I took off with Kat toward the Wolf's future home, an apartment the family has secured only blocks from the medical center. With a brand new coiffure, her favorite pair of shades, and some Pacific Ocean Breeze off her port, Katherine and her entourage arrived at Jay's door around noon. Though we had a wonderful welcoming committee when we knocked, Jay was not one of the greeters. It turned out that Barrister Wolf and his dear grandfather, Peeps, were at the hospital curious about the damsel's whereabouts. But all's well that ends well. As it turned out this glitch gave us just enough time to escort Mrs. Wolf to her brand new balcony where she was able to stand and wave to her Romeo in true Juliet fashion. At the sight of all this flurry, Mary Ruth Wolf, Jay's Mother, was struck by this new reality and said to her daughter in law, "Katherine, you are the best guest we have ever had here!" And that's saying something because I know for a fact that some remarkable souls have walked through the doors of that sacred home.
Greer's reflections on their time here may be found at: http://movingwestmovingon.blogspot.com, "A Baby Boy With 15 Mothers."
Our deepest gratitude goes out to Madeline, Greer, and all the other "spellers" who have sacrificed their time and energy to help us "make it through the night..."
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Waking Up
There are problems involved in waking up.
Some of us live in a dream. Some of us sleepwalk through life, afraid of what we'll experience if the meds wear off. Some of us exist in a nightmare that doesn't seem to end.
But there is a call for all of us to wake up.
"Wake up, o sleeper,
Rise from the dead,
And Christ will shine on you." (Eph. 5:1)
Katherine is in the process of waking up now. For the past two weeks, it’s been as if the anesthesia is finally wearing off...Narnia is thawing. She really had us fooled before. She seemed so alert and ‘with it’ at times in the ICU that we thought she was more aware of what had happened than she actually was. We explained that she had been through brain surgery, that her life had been in grave danger, but that God was answering our prayers for her healing. She would nod and give us a thumbs up, or point up to heaven and then make a fist, which meant “I am strong in the Lord.” We learned to communicate fairly well through hand signals, and thought we were all on the same page.
And then it turned into Groundhog Day, where we had to live through everything all over again. And again...and again...the effects of short-term memory loss. That has given us the gift of repetitive loss. For instance, things which we thought had been understood, processed, and accepted are felt as fresh wounds. As our efforts at communication have become increasingly successful, our knowledge of this has deepened.
One morning I walked into the room and heard a croaky but insistent “Mom!” while I was still washing my hands. When I came around the curtain, Katherine was frantically beckoning me to her side. “My eye,” she mouthed/croaked, “My eye!” I looked at the eye in question through the fake glasses patched on one side. “Yes, it looks so much better,” I told her. It took me a few seconds to untangle her next comment: “I had no idea!” “What?” I asked. “That it turns in!!!”she said while pointing to her nose.
She had just seen herself in a mirror for the first time...that she remembered.
Another day, she was lying on her side, holding onto the rail in an attempt to alleviate the pain in her hip. With sad eyes, she looked up at me and said, “Wus.” “What??” I kept asking her to repeat. I eventually deciphered, “Worst. This is the worst thing there is. THE worst thing that could happen.” Believing it is important to let her grieve, I agreed. “Yeah, this is about as bad as it gets.” She nodded. “But we still have you,” I added in a moment or two. “And James still has his mommy. Would you rather be here like this or be in heaven now?” (Trust me, I wouldn’t be asking that kind of question if I didn’t already know how this particular person would answer.) Her response was to give me the chunky baby thighs sign, accompanied by a lop-sided grin.
On a third occasion, when she was having a particularly bad day, she communicated words even more heartbreaking. By this point, her speech had begun improving to the point where we were understanding about 75% . That day she felt that something had been misunderstood and miscommunicated by a staff member, and for some reason it was absolutely vital that we get it. She was talking to me and her nurse Phil. “I just want you to believe me! Inside, inside (she pounded her chest for emphasis) I’m normal! I’m normal inside!” Of course, she didn’t sound “normal” as she said this. Right now she sounds kind of like a fifth-grader’s imitation of a “retarded” person coming through a robot's voicebox. (A temporary condition, I hope and pray.) Phil and I were both grabbing for the tissue box. “I just want to go home! I just want to hold my baby!” She rocked her empty arms. Phil and I mostly just listened as she got it all out. She wiped her eyes, pulled herself together, and held my hand. In a barely audible tone, she mouthed, “It’s a nightmare, Mom. A nightmare that doesn’t end.”
An endless nightmare...well, maybe a prolonged, drawn-out one. We know that all dreams, even bad ones, come to an end.
Personally, I hate waking up. It’s unpleasant on multiple levels. I usually wake up tired, grumpy, and aching. I cringe at leaving the soft haven of my squeaky old canopy bed for the harsh realities of morning. Many times I put the pillow back over my head and tell whichever family member is bugging me that I “just need to finish this dream to see how it ends.” But we all know that can’t be done. (Unless maybe you’re still in college.)
Waking up to the cruel reality of her broken condition is hard for Katherine. It is even harder for those of us who love her dearly. But it also indicates that healing is taking place. She is returning to life, with all of its pain and challenges, joys and delights. She has felt some tingling in her face, which is similar to when your foot or your arm’s been asleep and then the feeling starts coming back like pins and needles. It’s not pleasant when that happens, but it’s better than complete numbness.
Sometimes even pain is better than feeling nothing at all.
Katherine’s crisis has forced me to wake up as well. Something like this has the effect of instantly clearing the cobwebs, dissipating the fog. I’m guilty of sleepwalking through a lot of life, of living in fantasyland much of the time. This has jolted me back hard to the reality of the frailty and brevity of life..."la condition humaine." I carry an awareness that every day could be my last. I am not the captain of my own ship. None of us are here for very long, anyway. I’m on a trip that’s well beyond halfway over. (Unless, God forbid, He makes me stay here ‘til I’m 110 for being such a slow learner.) I remind myself that I could lose the ones I love most at any minute. I am trying to prioritize more than ever before. What REALLY matters today, at this hour, in this present moment? WHY AM I HERE?
It is time.
As Paul warned the believers in Rome:
“ This is all the more urgent, for you know how late it is; time is running out. Wake up, for our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed.” (Rom. 13:11)
...Arise, shine, for our light has come...
Some of us live in a dream. Some of us sleepwalk through life, afraid of what we'll experience if the meds wear off. Some of us exist in a nightmare that doesn't seem to end.
But there is a call for all of us to wake up.
"Wake up, o sleeper,
Rise from the dead,
And Christ will shine on you." (Eph. 5:1)
Katherine is in the process of waking up now. For the past two weeks, it’s been as if the anesthesia is finally wearing off...Narnia is thawing. She really had us fooled before. She seemed so alert and ‘with it’ at times in the ICU that we thought she was more aware of what had happened than she actually was. We explained that she had been through brain surgery, that her life had been in grave danger, but that God was answering our prayers for her healing. She would nod and give us a thumbs up, or point up to heaven and then make a fist, which meant “I am strong in the Lord.” We learned to communicate fairly well through hand signals, and thought we were all on the same page.
And then it turned into Groundhog Day, where we had to live through everything all over again. And again...and again...the effects of short-term memory loss. That has given us the gift of repetitive loss. For instance, things which we thought had been understood, processed, and accepted are felt as fresh wounds. As our efforts at communication have become increasingly successful, our knowledge of this has deepened.
One morning I walked into the room and heard a croaky but insistent “Mom!” while I was still washing my hands. When I came around the curtain, Katherine was frantically beckoning me to her side. “My eye,” she mouthed/croaked, “My eye!” I looked at the eye in question through the fake glasses patched on one side. “Yes, it looks so much better,” I told her. It took me a few seconds to untangle her next comment: “I had no idea!” “What?” I asked. “That it turns in!!!”she said while pointing to her nose.
She had just seen herself in a mirror for the first time...that she remembered.
Another day, she was lying on her side, holding onto the rail in an attempt to alleviate the pain in her hip. With sad eyes, she looked up at me and said, “Wus.” “What??” I kept asking her to repeat. I eventually deciphered, “Worst. This is the worst thing there is. THE worst thing that could happen.” Believing it is important to let her grieve, I agreed. “Yeah, this is about as bad as it gets.” She nodded. “But we still have you,” I added in a moment or two. “And James still has his mommy. Would you rather be here like this or be in heaven now?” (Trust me, I wouldn’t be asking that kind of question if I didn’t already know how this particular person would answer.) Her response was to give me the chunky baby thighs sign, accompanied by a lop-sided grin.
On a third occasion, when she was having a particularly bad day, she communicated words even more heartbreaking. By this point, her speech had begun improving to the point where we were understanding about 75% . That day she felt that something had been misunderstood and miscommunicated by a staff member, and for some reason it was absolutely vital that we get it. She was talking to me and her nurse Phil. “I just want you to believe me! Inside, inside (she pounded her chest for emphasis) I’m normal! I’m normal inside!” Of course, she didn’t sound “normal” as she said this. Right now she sounds kind of like a fifth-grader’s imitation of a “retarded” person coming through a robot's voicebox. (A temporary condition, I hope and pray.) Phil and I were both grabbing for the tissue box. “I just want to go home! I just want to hold my baby!” She rocked her empty arms. Phil and I mostly just listened as she got it all out. She wiped her eyes, pulled herself together, and held my hand. In a barely audible tone, she mouthed, “It’s a nightmare, Mom. A nightmare that doesn’t end.”
An endless nightmare...well, maybe a prolonged, drawn-out one. We know that all dreams, even bad ones, come to an end.
Personally, I hate waking up. It’s unpleasant on multiple levels. I usually wake up tired, grumpy, and aching. I cringe at leaving the soft haven of my squeaky old canopy bed for the harsh realities of morning. Many times I put the pillow back over my head and tell whichever family member is bugging me that I “just need to finish this dream to see how it ends.” But we all know that can’t be done. (Unless maybe you’re still in college.)
Waking up to the cruel reality of her broken condition is hard for Katherine. It is even harder for those of us who love her dearly. But it also indicates that healing is taking place. She is returning to life, with all of its pain and challenges, joys and delights. She has felt some tingling in her face, which is similar to when your foot or your arm’s been asleep and then the feeling starts coming back like pins and needles. It’s not pleasant when that happens, but it’s better than complete numbness.
Sometimes even pain is better than feeling nothing at all.
Katherine’s crisis has forced me to wake up as well. Something like this has the effect of instantly clearing the cobwebs, dissipating the fog. I’m guilty of sleepwalking through a lot of life, of living in fantasyland much of the time. This has jolted me back hard to the reality of the frailty and brevity of life..."la condition humaine." I carry an awareness that every day could be my last. I am not the captain of my own ship. None of us are here for very long, anyway. I’m on a trip that’s well beyond halfway over. (Unless, God forbid, He makes me stay here ‘til I’m 110 for being such a slow learner.) I remind myself that I could lose the ones I love most at any minute. I am trying to prioritize more than ever before. What REALLY matters today, at this hour, in this present moment? WHY AM I HERE?
It is time.
As Paul warned the believers in Rome:
“ This is all the more urgent, for you know how late it is; time is running out. Wake up, for our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed.” (Rom. 13:11)
...Arise, shine, for our light has come...
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Jesus Wept
(Begun on Sunday, July 13)
Katherine asked me today why this happened. Taken off guard, I scrolled through my index of theologically sound explanations. I stopped at the end where a Forest Gump one appeared: S*** happens.
She was enduring the indignity of having her diaper changed at the time. (At least she doesn’t try to flip over the way James does.) Atypical tears started flowing as she lip-synced, “I can’t talk! I can’t walk! Why?? Why, Mom??? ”
By this point, my own were raining down on her freshly made-up face, which is a new Sunday tradition meant to mimic Church Best. (There are usually a lot of visitors on Sunday, and we want to put our best foot forward.) I tried to wipe them off without disturbing the recently applied blush.
I said, “I don’t know why. But I do know that God didn’t cause it to happen. He is not the author of suffering like this. God only allows those things which he can ultimately use for good in the lives of his children.” Although I do happen to choose to believe that statement, it sounded hollow and pre-fab as it came out.
A few minutes later, she said, “I’m mad.”
“Good,” I replied, “ I’m mad as hell.”
“Yes! I am, too,” she mouthed.
“But Katherine, you don’t cuss.”
“I know!” in the new Wisconsin accent, “You shouldn’t either.”
Unfortunately, some habits die hard.
One day a while back, I walked out of that ugly old hospital into another delicious California afternoon. But instead of rejoicing in it, I said (silently) to no one in particular: “THIS SUCKS.” Now even though I threw in the towel ages ago and finally gave up asking people if they knew the direct object of that verb, it still sounds rather rough to me. (I didn’t give up until I heard it used on a newscast, a weather report, and from a pulpit. Then I figured it had pretty much joined the vernacular.) Just as I was getting all geared up to feel like a bad person for losing my perspective, surprising words entered my head. “I know. Jesus wept.” Instead of condemnation, I felt embraced by a rush of hot love.
Jesus wept: a perennial favorite of kids challenged to memorize a Bible verse. It may be the shortest sentence in the Bible, but it is also one of the most profound and transformational. God cried. The Lord of Heaven’s Armies, voluntarily bearing the frailties of flesh intrinsic to the skin he was in, groaned in anguish. The NLT version (which I love) says, “When Jesus saw her weeping and saw the other people wailing with her, a deep anger welled up within him, and he was deeply troubled.” In verse 38, it says he was “still angry.” (John 11:33-38)
God is not unmoved by his children’s sorrows. He is torn with grief at our suffering. He is angrier when I hurt than I am when one of my babies hurts. And that’s pretty damn (I mean darn) angry.
He hates it when children die of cancer, when beautiful, brilliant college girls like Eve Carson are senselessly murdered, when young soldiers like Evan Marshall are killed in Iraq. He grieves about our broken hearts, broken relationships, broken bodies. He despises the suffering inherent in sin, the unnecessary agonies we bring upon ourselves; He agonizes over our self-destructive tendencies, sympathizes with us in our weakness and failures.
I believe there will come a day in the fullness of time when He’s gonna do something about it. In the meantime, I must cling to the bedrock of belief in the goodness of His deeply compassionate nature. I steel myself to hold onto the Rock even when those violent waves keep trying to knock me off of it. Anything else is unthinkable.
And, yes, in spite of my fickleness and double-heartedness, I do believe that He would not have allowed something that angers Him as much as Katherine’s broken wings must do unless it would be used for good.
GREAT good.
(Will somebody please remind me of that the next time I start cussing and grumbling?)
Katherine asked me today why this happened. Taken off guard, I scrolled through my index of theologically sound explanations. I stopped at the end where a Forest Gump one appeared: S*** happens.
She was enduring the indignity of having her diaper changed at the time. (At least she doesn’t try to flip over the way James does.) Atypical tears started flowing as she lip-synced, “I can’t talk! I can’t walk! Why?? Why, Mom??? ”
By this point, my own were raining down on her freshly made-up face, which is a new Sunday tradition meant to mimic Church Best. (There are usually a lot of visitors on Sunday, and we want to put our best foot forward.) I tried to wipe them off without disturbing the recently applied blush.
I said, “I don’t know why. But I do know that God didn’t cause it to happen. He is not the author of suffering like this. God only allows those things which he can ultimately use for good in the lives of his children.” Although I do happen to choose to believe that statement, it sounded hollow and pre-fab as it came out.
A few minutes later, she said, “I’m mad.”
“Good,” I replied, “ I’m mad as hell.”
“Yes! I am, too,” she mouthed.
“But Katherine, you don’t cuss.”
“I know!” in the new Wisconsin accent, “You shouldn’t either.”
Unfortunately, some habits die hard.
One day a while back, I walked out of that ugly old hospital into another delicious California afternoon. But instead of rejoicing in it, I said (silently) to no one in particular: “THIS SUCKS.” Now even though I threw in the towel ages ago and finally gave up asking people if they knew the direct object of that verb, it still sounds rather rough to me. (I didn’t give up until I heard it used on a newscast, a weather report, and from a pulpit. Then I figured it had pretty much joined the vernacular.) Just as I was getting all geared up to feel like a bad person for losing my perspective, surprising words entered my head. “I know. Jesus wept.” Instead of condemnation, I felt embraced by a rush of hot love.
Jesus wept: a perennial favorite of kids challenged to memorize a Bible verse. It may be the shortest sentence in the Bible, but it is also one of the most profound and transformational. God cried. The Lord of Heaven’s Armies, voluntarily bearing the frailties of flesh intrinsic to the skin he was in, groaned in anguish. The NLT version (which I love) says, “When Jesus saw her weeping and saw the other people wailing with her, a deep anger welled up within him, and he was deeply troubled.” In verse 38, it says he was “still angry.” (John 11:33-38)
God is not unmoved by his children’s sorrows. He is torn with grief at our suffering. He is angrier when I hurt than I am when one of my babies hurts. And that’s pretty damn (I mean darn) angry.
He hates it when children die of cancer, when beautiful, brilliant college girls like Eve Carson are senselessly murdered, when young soldiers like Evan Marshall are killed in Iraq. He grieves about our broken hearts, broken relationships, broken bodies. He despises the suffering inherent in sin, the unnecessary agonies we bring upon ourselves; He agonizes over our self-destructive tendencies, sympathizes with us in our weakness and failures.
I believe there will come a day in the fullness of time when He’s gonna do something about it. In the meantime, I must cling to the bedrock of belief in the goodness of His deeply compassionate nature. I steel myself to hold onto the Rock even when those violent waves keep trying to knock me off of it. Anything else is unthinkable.
And, yes, in spite of my fickleness and double-heartedness, I do believe that He would not have allowed something that angers Him as much as Katherine’s broken wings must do unless it would be used for good.
GREAT good.
(Will somebody please remind me of that the next time I start cussing and grumbling?)
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Another first for grandma....I figured out how to do a link!
I've made an album on Kodakgallery for family and friends called "Laughing in the Wind," documenting some celebrations we've had in the midst of the storm. The first picture is the book cover mentioned in "Learning to Float." Sometimes a picture's worth a thousand...
If you are interested, feel free to click on:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?Uc=hkw1ty5.s4cd7e5&Uy=-48r180&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=0&UV=778485871959_67857675713&mode=fromshare&conn_speed=1
I've made an album on Kodakgallery for family and friends called "Laughing in the Wind," documenting some celebrations we've had in the midst of the storm. The first picture is the book cover mentioned in "Learning to Float." Sometimes a picture's worth a thousand...
If you are interested, feel free to click on:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?Uc=hkw1ty5.s4cd7e5&Uy=-48r180&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=0&UV=778485871959_67857675713&mode=fromshare&conn_speed=1
Sunday, July 13, 2008
I Know
Currently, Katherine’s favorite expression is “I know.” We’re not sure why this is. It could be because it doesn’t contain any hard consonants, which are killing her right now. ‘P’ comes out as an ‘M’ for instance. Mama and Papa sound exactly the same. But the “I know” just glides off her tongue like olive oil over a tomato.
We’ll be rattling on, trying to fill the room with funny, cheerful words, when that forceful “I know” beats us to the punch line. The emphasis is on the second syllable. Coming out of the mouth of that Georgia girl, it’s delivered in a vaguely Wisconsin or Minnesota accent. Although it sounds almost parrot-like at times, it also reminds you of a wise old medicine woman who’s seen it all, done it all, and could write a book about it if she could still hold a pen. The wisdom of the ages is contained within that confident, emphatic “I know.”
Perhaps it is that Katherine is trying to let us know that it’s all still in there. She may not be able to speak it yet, she may have suffered some short-term memory loss, but it’s still there. Everything that makes her Katherine. Twenty six years of loving, learning, leaping, losing, leaning on God...a young life’s cumulative experiences....have not been wiped out by this devastation.
Maybe one day she’ll tell us of the “treasures in the darkness” she’s received during her time in the cave. I am praying that God will restore her true voice and that eventually she’ll be shouting out to the mountaintops the revelatory wisdom she’s received in the crucible of suffering.
In the meantime, the reiterated “I know’s” challenge me to define what I truly know. When I was on a study abroad program in Russia during the Cold War, our group was smuggled into a (relatively) luxurious ‘writer’s colony’ close to where Pasternak wrote Dr. Zhivago. We were the guests of Yuri Nagibin, a writer who is as equally esteemed in Russia, although he has not been as widely translated in the West. It was a great honor to be in his home. After a lavish meal, we gathered for an intense discussion conducted in slaughtered Russian and awkward English. He posed a question to the group of young, spoiled Americans: “What do you know?” Think about it for a moment. There was a pregnant pause as each of us tried to figure out the right answer. “What do you really know?”
Nagibin’s questioning helped us to see the dangers inherent in our self-indulgent, affluent society of becoming a nation of dilettantes. Our culture has created an environment where it is easy to have a surface knowledge of a lot of things, but an in-depth knowledge of few. “Don’t know much about history...”as the song boasts. This discussion has haunted me for 28 years.
It challenges me now.
I search through the barrage of thoughts, feelings, inclinations, emotions, and habitual patterns for what I really know. What causes a swelling chorus of “YES!” to resonate through my entire being?
There are many things I don’t know. There are many things I think I know that I don’t. There are many feelings which I erroneously accept as facts.
But.....
I know that God is good, even when circumstances are not.
I know that He loves me beyond comprehension.
I know that he will never leave me or forsake me.
I know that He is for me, not against me.
I know that he loves my children even more than I do.
And I know that there’s a happy ending, when He will wipe away every single tear.
Yet I’ve also come to know that it is only in the crucible of suffering that Sunday school platitudes are transformed into certainties.
Jesus loves me, this I know...
Be still and KNOW
...beyond a shadow of a doubt.
We’ll be rattling on, trying to fill the room with funny, cheerful words, when that forceful “I know” beats us to the punch line. The emphasis is on the second syllable. Coming out of the mouth of that Georgia girl, it’s delivered in a vaguely Wisconsin or Minnesota accent. Although it sounds almost parrot-like at times, it also reminds you of a wise old medicine woman who’s seen it all, done it all, and could write a book about it if she could still hold a pen. The wisdom of the ages is contained within that confident, emphatic “I know.”
Perhaps it is that Katherine is trying to let us know that it’s all still in there. She may not be able to speak it yet, she may have suffered some short-term memory loss, but it’s still there. Everything that makes her Katherine. Twenty six years of loving, learning, leaping, losing, leaning on God...a young life’s cumulative experiences....have not been wiped out by this devastation.
Maybe one day she’ll tell us of the “treasures in the darkness” she’s received during her time in the cave. I am praying that God will restore her true voice and that eventually she’ll be shouting out to the mountaintops the revelatory wisdom she’s received in the crucible of suffering.
In the meantime, the reiterated “I know’s” challenge me to define what I truly know. When I was on a study abroad program in Russia during the Cold War, our group was smuggled into a (relatively) luxurious ‘writer’s colony’ close to where Pasternak wrote Dr. Zhivago. We were the guests of Yuri Nagibin, a writer who is as equally esteemed in Russia, although he has not been as widely translated in the West. It was a great honor to be in his home. After a lavish meal, we gathered for an intense discussion conducted in slaughtered Russian and awkward English. He posed a question to the group of young, spoiled Americans: “What do you know?” Think about it for a moment. There was a pregnant pause as each of us tried to figure out the right answer. “What do you really know?”
Nagibin’s questioning helped us to see the dangers inherent in our self-indulgent, affluent society of becoming a nation of dilettantes. Our culture has created an environment where it is easy to have a surface knowledge of a lot of things, but an in-depth knowledge of few. “Don’t know much about history...”as the song boasts. This discussion has haunted me for 28 years.
It challenges me now.
I search through the barrage of thoughts, feelings, inclinations, emotions, and habitual patterns for what I really know. What causes a swelling chorus of “YES!” to resonate through my entire being?
There are many things I don’t know. There are many things I think I know that I don’t. There are many feelings which I erroneously accept as facts.
But.....
I know that God is good, even when circumstances are not.
I know that He loves me beyond comprehension.
I know that he will never leave me or forsake me.
I know that He is for me, not against me.
I know that he loves my children even more than I do.
And I know that there’s a happy ending, when He will wipe away every single tear.
Yet I’ve also come to know that it is only in the crucible of suffering that Sunday school platitudes are transformed into certainties.
Jesus loves me, this I know...
Be still and KNOW
...beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Learning to Float
Sometimes there is a little ball of fear hiding deep down inside my chest. Those wily “what-ifs” come sneaking around like jackals sniffing a foul feast. I have to will myself to turn away, stop my ears up, and run in the opposite direction. “Resist and FLEE.”
Projections into the future are forbidden territory. There are times when the only thing you can do is the right thing. Living in the moment...one day at a time...just floating. That is how it must be now. Attempting to live any other way produces unbearable stress. There is a peace that comes from the freedom of fewer choices. Too many choices have always done me in. The grocery store is a nightmare; Walmart is the 6th circle of Hell. But now simplicity is not a choice, it is the only possible condition of existence. A rhythmic pattern must be established within the chaos of uncertainties.
Projections into the future are forbidden territory. There are times when the only thing you can do is the right thing. Living in the moment...one day at a time...just floating. That is how it must be now. Attempting to live any other way produces unbearable stress. There is a peace that comes from the freedom of fewer choices. Too many choices have always done me in. The grocery store is a nightmare; Walmart is the 6th circle of Hell. But now simplicity is not a choice, it is the only possible condition of existence. A rhythmic pattern must be established within the chaos of uncertainties.
And so I try to establish my little rituals of comfort and familiarity, attempting to redefine ‘home.’ But I am reminded that “the Son of Man had no place to lay his head.”
Just days after the AVM rupture, Sherry, one of Katherine’s agents, send me a copy of the print from one of her modeling jobs. The shoot was for a book cover. A confident-looking blonde with cool shades is at the wheel of a shiny convertible, hair blowing in the wind, a big black lab hanging over her shoulder. The slight grin on her face indicates that she is a woman who knows exactly where she’s going as she cruises out into a world of beautiful blue skies. The name of the book is Learning to Float (a woman, a dog, and just enough men.) Boy did we get a laugh out of that one...Katherine is not a dog person, and has always thought one man was plenty. Although it might seem a little strange to have received something funny like that at the time I did, I thought it was perfect on many levels. Katherine will be that confident, smiling woman again one day. She is on a journey. Blue skies will return. And we will all learn to float.
A year and a half ago, I had a unique experience which I am only now beginning to understand. It was a time of intense pain. I was praying with my former pastor’s wife, when we both began having the same visualization. It had started with me. In my mind, I saw an old ship floundering in a storm, being ripped apart as it crashed on the rocks. The words “Abandon the ship” came to me. That scared me. I didn’t want to jump into the dark, cold waters. These words were impressed upon my spirit: “Jump in. I will not let you go under. Just float. I am the living water. Immerse yourself in me.” By this time, Sandy said “Kim, I feel as if I’m floating in an ocean.” We began describing what we were sensing in prayer to each other, entering into the experience together. We both felt ourselves relinquishing control as we ceased our struggling in the sea. We just floated there in the gentle waves of God’s presence. At the same moment, we sensed the sun coming out, warm and bright, sparkling on the dancing water. Words floated down to us: “Do not be afraid. Storms and floods may come. Don’t fight and flail. Let go. Float with your face turned up towards the Sun of righteousness. There is healing in my wings. Waters that seem as if they will drown you are for your healing. Come into the healing waters.” Waves of love flowed over us and kept us safely buoyed on the surface. We were being held. We rested.
Then we both seemed to be moving. We were lovingly carried along by a strong but gentle current. A vague questioning entered my mind. These words came to my friend and me: “The waves are carrying you to far-away places, places you’ve never been before. But don’t be afraid. It is at my direction.”
God, help me really learn to float.
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Another Non-Blog
I just have one thing to say to whoever prayed about the internet situation:
WOW!!!!! That was quick.
Will the guilty party or parties please be BLESSED!
More later....
love, kim
WOW!!!!! That was quick.
Will the guilty party or parties please be BLESSED!
More later....
love, kim
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Fragility
We’ve been moving into an apartment this week, with all that entails. (More thoughts on that later.) Among other ‘welcome-to-the-real-world’ adjustments, we have no internet access. So, if anyone out there’s still interested in reading random ramblings from this trip we’re on, please pray that I will find an easy way to handle that challenge. For a noise addict like me, no TV’s gonna be one too...lots of quiet time for reflection. But I do have a lovely fountain splashing outside my window.
During this time of transition, I’ve thought a lot about the inherent fragility of things. ..especially life. This was scribbled during one of those musings:
fragility
earthen pot
or porcelain bowl
holding sinew
thought and soul
lightly balance
on rough shelf
(quiver with
essential self)
until the rumbling
of the earth
dislodges from
precarious berth
and shaken to
extreme-most edge
the vessel
tumbles off the ledge
broken, shattered
contents scattered
all that mattered
spilled and splattered
onto the filthy floor
rough hands with glue
cannot undo
the damage done
the maker is the one
who must restore
(I promise not to inflict much more of this type of thing on you....there’s just been no time to write.)
Thank you for your faithfulness.
During this time of transition, I’ve thought a lot about the inherent fragility of things. ..especially life. This was scribbled during one of those musings:
fragility
earthen pot
or porcelain bowl
holding sinew
thought and soul
lightly balance
on rough shelf
(quiver with
essential self)
until the rumbling
of the earth
dislodges from
precarious berth
and shaken to
extreme-most edge
the vessel
tumbles off the ledge
broken, shattered
contents scattered
all that mattered
spilled and splattered
onto the filthy floor
rough hands with glue
cannot undo
the damage done
the maker is the one
who must restore
(I promise not to inflict much more of this type of thing on you....there’s just been no time to write.)
Thank you for your faithfulness.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Laughing in the Wind
When Brooks and I were at Monet’s house in France, I bought a little rug embellished by a French saying which now graces our lake house. It depicts a gust of wind scuttling a small sailboat across a lake. I wish my memory were better so that I could quote the saying exactly. It starts, “Le vent souvent souffle ton bateau...” Anyway, the gist of it is something about laughing in the wind...like making lemonade when life gives you lemons.
In the midst of many tears of sorrow, many dull aching heart wounds, many moments of outright despair, we’ve still been laughing in the wind. People around here probably think we’re lunatics. Our family has always had a problem with Church Laughs. Actually, it began with my husband’s family. He and his little sister would find something wildly hysterical at an extremely inappropriate moment, such as when the fat lady sang or at a funeral. The laughter would build up inside of them until tears would be running down their cheeks from the effort of trying to hold it in. It would usually erupt as a really embarrassingly loud snort laugh, which would result in the dreaded Church Pinch. This trait has rubbed off on me (or maybe intensified...I already had the predisposition) and been passed down to our children. Particularly one of them. She laughed so hard and so long when a poor gentleman let one slip out at the movie theater that I had to leave. That was after three Church Pinches had been ineffective.
So even here, even now, we will sometimes find ourselves laughing so loudly that we fear eviction. Especially if that middle child is around regaling us with stories from her crazy life. Or when Kat’s Samford friend Ann Bradford makes me do the Russian dance in the hospital room. Or when James sees the enlarged picture of himself on the wall of Katherine’s room and starts whole-body shaking with excitement. It’s especially wonderful when Katherine makes us laugh. Even with a half-paralyzed face, she can still manage to make such a funny one that we just die laughing. Sometimes through the tears.
We still celebrate, too. If you wait until life is perfect to do so, you’ll never get around to it. There’s always something to be stressed or sad about. But there’s usually something to celebrate as well. Since this trip began, we’ve celebrated several graduations and pregnancies, a first Mother's Day, first Father’s Day, and a birthday. Sometimes we’ve just celebrated life, in all of its crazy mixed-up manifestations. I celebrate the California weather almost daily, even if I only get to experience it for a couple of minutes. I celebrate the fact that every time my grandson sees me, he laughs.
It is a vail of sorrows down here for sure. But there are enough hints and glimpses of how it was and how it will be that we can start the party now, in between and in the midst of the crises. We’ll still find something to laugh about, even in these gale-force winds.
...the Son of Man came enjoying life...
In the midst of many tears of sorrow, many dull aching heart wounds, many moments of outright despair, we’ve still been laughing in the wind. People around here probably think we’re lunatics. Our family has always had a problem with Church Laughs. Actually, it began with my husband’s family. He and his little sister would find something wildly hysterical at an extremely inappropriate moment, such as when the fat lady sang or at a funeral. The laughter would build up inside of them until tears would be running down their cheeks from the effort of trying to hold it in. It would usually erupt as a really embarrassingly loud snort laugh, which would result in the dreaded Church Pinch. This trait has rubbed off on me (or maybe intensified...I already had the predisposition) and been passed down to our children. Particularly one of them. She laughed so hard and so long when a poor gentleman let one slip out at the movie theater that I had to leave. That was after three Church Pinches had been ineffective.
So even here, even now, we will sometimes find ourselves laughing so loudly that we fear eviction. Especially if that middle child is around regaling us with stories from her crazy life. Or when Kat’s Samford friend Ann Bradford makes me do the Russian dance in the hospital room. Or when James sees the enlarged picture of himself on the wall of Katherine’s room and starts whole-body shaking with excitement. It’s especially wonderful when Katherine makes us laugh. Even with a half-paralyzed face, she can still manage to make such a funny one that we just die laughing. Sometimes through the tears.
We still celebrate, too. If you wait until life is perfect to do so, you’ll never get around to it. There’s always something to be stressed or sad about. But there’s usually something to celebrate as well. Since this trip began, we’ve celebrated several graduations and pregnancies, a first Mother's Day, first Father’s Day, and a birthday. Sometimes we’ve just celebrated life, in all of its crazy mixed-up manifestations. I celebrate the California weather almost daily, even if I only get to experience it for a couple of minutes. I celebrate the fact that every time my grandson sees me, he laughs.
It is a vail of sorrows down here for sure. But there are enough hints and glimpses of how it was and how it will be that we can start the party now, in between and in the midst of the crises. We’ll still find something to laugh about, even in these gale-force winds.
...the Son of Man came enjoying life...
***************
“...And the beggars and saints
Will embrace and dive into
Sweet communion
And the Father will laugh
Laugh till he cries
Home at last
Goodbye false notions
Of independence
Welcome me security...”
from “All Fall Down,” Sarah Masen
“...And the beggars and saints
Will embrace and dive into
Sweet communion
And the Father will laugh
Laugh till he cries
Home at last
Goodbye false notions
Of independence
Welcome me security...”
from “All Fall Down,” Sarah Masen
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Hospital Tired
There is no tired like hospital tired.
It’s as if they pipe poppy juice in through the air conditioning vents.
There’s not a comfortable chair or bench in the place. But you don’t have much time to sit on them anyway, as you are constantly bending over the bed of your loved one at awkward angles. Your whole body aches in a hospital. Aches and aches and aches. At the end of the day, you feel beaten to a pulp. Time stands still, or progresses at a strangely warped pace.
And who the heck decorates these places??? Edvard Munch??? Endless halls of nihilistic nothingness, sordid sameness.
Against such bland backgrounds, violent vignettes of family drama play out. The unexpected crisis makes everything rise to the surface...unresolved anger, dysfunctional power plays, unreasonable expectations become sad factors in life-or-death decision-making. Those of us who’ve lived here for a while politely avert our eyes and pretend we don’t hear the screaming in various languages. But cell phones have made privacy nonexistent. A lady in the stall next to you berates a relative in graphic detail. I don’t want to know. The ugliness wears off on you. The fear is transferable.
As my physician father used to say, “A hospital is no place for a sick person.” Since keeping well is a full time job for me, it’s literally toxic.
Right now, it’s particularly so. In an effort the Russians would refer to as “Potemkinizing,”* the halls of the rehab unit are being repainted. (*A façade meant to fool the public.) We are all sick from the fumes. Everyone else at UCLA Med Center will be moving to the new structure (Ronald Reagan)on June 29, but we few sad souls in the neurology rehab unit will remain here in this archaic structure. It will probably feel like “Planet of the Apes” after the destruction of America. We will walk down miles of deserted halls until we finally arrive at our own Neverland, where we wave our hands and the doors magically open to a strange private universe.
Please don’t forget us then. It will be when we need you most.
We are so very wickedly tired.
Thank you for loving unconditionally and not judging. Please pray for true rest and renewal...and fresh fire.
***************
(p.s. Things really aren’t that bad...I just get like this when I’m worn out. Remember the ‘venting’ comment in “About Me”...those well-accustomed to my clay feet know I just have to get it all out sometimes . Oh, and the people here are so wonderful that we don’t usually even notice the hospital setting at all...unless we're TIRED!!! We are extremely blessed to be here.)
It’s as if they pipe poppy juice in through the air conditioning vents.
There’s not a comfortable chair or bench in the place. But you don’t have much time to sit on them anyway, as you are constantly bending over the bed of your loved one at awkward angles. Your whole body aches in a hospital. Aches and aches and aches. At the end of the day, you feel beaten to a pulp. Time stands still, or progresses at a strangely warped pace.
And who the heck decorates these places??? Edvard Munch??? Endless halls of nihilistic nothingness, sordid sameness.
Against such bland backgrounds, violent vignettes of family drama play out. The unexpected crisis makes everything rise to the surface...unresolved anger, dysfunctional power plays, unreasonable expectations become sad factors in life-or-death decision-making. Those of us who’ve lived here for a while politely avert our eyes and pretend we don’t hear the screaming in various languages. But cell phones have made privacy nonexistent. A lady in the stall next to you berates a relative in graphic detail. I don’t want to know. The ugliness wears off on you. The fear is transferable.
As my physician father used to say, “A hospital is no place for a sick person.” Since keeping well is a full time job for me, it’s literally toxic.
Right now, it’s particularly so. In an effort the Russians would refer to as “Potemkinizing,”* the halls of the rehab unit are being repainted. (*A façade meant to fool the public.) We are all sick from the fumes. Everyone else at UCLA Med Center will be moving to the new structure (Ronald Reagan)on June 29, but we few sad souls in the neurology rehab unit will remain here in this archaic structure. It will probably feel like “Planet of the Apes” after the destruction of America. We will walk down miles of deserted halls until we finally arrive at our own Neverland, where we wave our hands and the doors magically open to a strange private universe.
Please don’t forget us then. It will be when we need you most.
We are so very wickedly tired.
Thank you for loving unconditionally and not judging. Please pray for true rest and renewal...and fresh fire.
***************
(p.s. Things really aren’t that bad...I just get like this when I’m worn out. Remember the ‘venting’ comment in “About Me”...those well-accustomed to my clay feet know I just have to get it all out sometimes . Oh, and the people here are so wonderful that we don’t usually even notice the hospital setting at all...unless we're TIRED!!! We are extremely blessed to be here.)
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Roller Coaster Ride
This first week back has been an absolute roller coaster ride. I never did like those things growing up. To be hurdling down towards certain destruction one minute, whiplashed hard to the left, and then to start up another arduous and dangerous climb just isn’t my idea of fun. Why the heck do people pay money for that?
In the past seven days I have cried, I have gotten mad, I have laughed hysterically, I have collapsed in deep exhaustion. I have been renewed, I have dissolved, I have prayed, I have sinned. I’ve been forgiven. Every day has seemed like a week.
But my week has been a very pale shadow of Katherine’s.
She decided it was time to pack up and leave. During a millisecond of time when no one was in the room, she tried to get out of bed. Her friend returned from the ladies’ room to find her collapsed on the hard floor.
She spent the next two days having CT scans, x-rays, and a whole body bone scan. I’m not sure whether or not it was worth it for that brief freedom flight. But she still rolls her eyes and gives us a lop-sided grin when anyone mentions it. When asked where she thought she was going, she mouthed the word “Cabo.” I interpret that as, “Anywhere but here.”
I really can’t say that I blame her. I’ve pictured Gulliver many times during this strange odyssey. One minute she was cooking casseroles; the next, she found herself bound and gagged by Lilliputian ropes. When she was having a little drippy time one day, I shared that analogy with her. She nodded vigorously. Thinking outloud, I said, “Wasn’t it little rats that chewed the ropes off for him?” (We think it was, but we could be mixing up two different stories.) Anyway, the analogy works: I told her that the rats could be things like Physical Therapy, the trach, CT scans, suctions...unpleasant things that just seem to crawl all over you and drive you crazy. But those things which seem like annoying enemies are actually allies, working in concert to set her free from the ropes that bind her to her bed. Romans 8:28 doesn’t state that ALL THINGS are good, but that God WORKS all things for good as part of His providential plan. He might even incorporate a rat or two. She nodded assent to this and agreed--with a little eye-rolling--that she would try to resist the urge to burst out of those Lilliputian ropes so violently and prematurely that she might injure herself.
But it’s really hard to be patient when you’re in pain. You might be full of faith and holding fast one minute, and then thrashing around wildly the next. You might be submitting with joy one second, and wrestling with demons the next. I believe Faith is like that for many of us. One minute we’re standing strong, the next we’re cashing in the chips and trying to run away to Cabo. Held up by the arms of our friends, we take a baby step on the parallel bars...then we fall in a heap.
It’s not fun to fall, but it’s not the end of the world either. Two of my all-time favorite Christian writers addressed this in different ways across the centuries. The 13th century mystic Dame Julian of Norwich asserts that not only is it inevitable that we should sometimes fall, but that is it actually necessary. She states, “...For it is necessary for us to fall, and it is necessary for us to see the fall. If we did not fall, we would not know how wretched and feeble we are of ourselves, nor should we know the love of our Maker....And by the test of this failure, we shall have a noble and marvelous experience of love without end in God, for that love is hardy and wonderful. It cannot and will not be broken on account of trespass.” (from the 14th showing.) The love of God is so much greater than our sin! Writing 800 years later, C.S. Lewis concurred: “No amount of falls will really undo us if we keep on picking ourselves up each time. We shall of course be very muddy and tattered children by the time we get home. But the bathrooms are all ready, the towels are put out, and the clean clothes in the airing cupboard. The only fatal thing is to lose one’s temper and give it up. It is when we notice the dirt that God is most present in us: it is the very sign of His presence.” (Letters to Malcolm)
I am reminded of the refrain of a pub song from the 90’s, which I shall take wildly out of context: “We get knocked down, but we get up again.” To me, that’s a description of the Christian walk. Not attaining a level of consistent perfection by our own efforts, but a process of learning from our inevitable falls, allowing ourselves to be picked back up by strong arms of love, and starting back up the (sometimes rocky) path again.
For some of us, it’s like a roller coaster ride....up and down, up and down. But I learned something last night. We were celebrating a college graduation with some friends at a seafood restaurant overlooking Santa Monica Pier. (The one from the movie “Big” with Tom Hanks.) Someone brought the blogs up, and I told them I had started one called “Roller Coaster Ride.” From where we were sitting, we could see the roller coaster on the Pier all lit up with yellow lights. Katherine’s college roommate’s mother, Cathleen, was sitting next to me. Cathleen is someone whom I respect greatly: she has a PhD in suffering with dignity and joy. Her face lit up when we pointed out the roller coaster, and she grabbed my wrist. “We are going to ride that thing after dinner!”
And we did. Two 50-something ladies with bad back and hip problems got in those little cars with the 20-somethings and we whooped our way up to the moon and back down again, swooping low over the star-lit waves. Then we lifted our arms to the sky and Cathleen yelled, “For Katty!!!”as we did it one more time.
I’m not afraid of roller coasters anymore.
In the past seven days I have cried, I have gotten mad, I have laughed hysterically, I have collapsed in deep exhaustion. I have been renewed, I have dissolved, I have prayed, I have sinned. I’ve been forgiven. Every day has seemed like a week.
But my week has been a very pale shadow of Katherine’s.
She decided it was time to pack up and leave. During a millisecond of time when no one was in the room, she tried to get out of bed. Her friend returned from the ladies’ room to find her collapsed on the hard floor.
She spent the next two days having CT scans, x-rays, and a whole body bone scan. I’m not sure whether or not it was worth it for that brief freedom flight. But she still rolls her eyes and gives us a lop-sided grin when anyone mentions it. When asked where she thought she was going, she mouthed the word “Cabo.” I interpret that as, “Anywhere but here.”
I really can’t say that I blame her. I’ve pictured Gulliver many times during this strange odyssey. One minute she was cooking casseroles; the next, she found herself bound and gagged by Lilliputian ropes. When she was having a little drippy time one day, I shared that analogy with her. She nodded vigorously. Thinking outloud, I said, “Wasn’t it little rats that chewed the ropes off for him?” (We think it was, but we could be mixing up two different stories.) Anyway, the analogy works: I told her that the rats could be things like Physical Therapy, the trach, CT scans, suctions...unpleasant things that just seem to crawl all over you and drive you crazy. But those things which seem like annoying enemies are actually allies, working in concert to set her free from the ropes that bind her to her bed. Romans 8:28 doesn’t state that ALL THINGS are good, but that God WORKS all things for good as part of His providential plan. He might even incorporate a rat or two. She nodded assent to this and agreed--with a little eye-rolling--that she would try to resist the urge to burst out of those Lilliputian ropes so violently and prematurely that she might injure herself.
But it’s really hard to be patient when you’re in pain. You might be full of faith and holding fast one minute, and then thrashing around wildly the next. You might be submitting with joy one second, and wrestling with demons the next. I believe Faith is like that for many of us. One minute we’re standing strong, the next we’re cashing in the chips and trying to run away to Cabo. Held up by the arms of our friends, we take a baby step on the parallel bars...then we fall in a heap.
It’s not fun to fall, but it’s not the end of the world either. Two of my all-time favorite Christian writers addressed this in different ways across the centuries. The 13th century mystic Dame Julian of Norwich asserts that not only is it inevitable that we should sometimes fall, but that is it actually necessary. She states, “...For it is necessary for us to fall, and it is necessary for us to see the fall. If we did not fall, we would not know how wretched and feeble we are of ourselves, nor should we know the love of our Maker....And by the test of this failure, we shall have a noble and marvelous experience of love without end in God, for that love is hardy and wonderful. It cannot and will not be broken on account of trespass.” (from the 14th showing.) The love of God is so much greater than our sin! Writing 800 years later, C.S. Lewis concurred: “No amount of falls will really undo us if we keep on picking ourselves up each time. We shall of course be very muddy and tattered children by the time we get home. But the bathrooms are all ready, the towels are put out, and the clean clothes in the airing cupboard. The only fatal thing is to lose one’s temper and give it up. It is when we notice the dirt that God is most present in us: it is the very sign of His presence.” (Letters to Malcolm)
I am reminded of the refrain of a pub song from the 90’s, which I shall take wildly out of context: “We get knocked down, but we get up again.” To me, that’s a description of the Christian walk. Not attaining a level of consistent perfection by our own efforts, but a process of learning from our inevitable falls, allowing ourselves to be picked back up by strong arms of love, and starting back up the (sometimes rocky) path again.
For some of us, it’s like a roller coaster ride....up and down, up and down. But I learned something last night. We were celebrating a college graduation with some friends at a seafood restaurant overlooking Santa Monica Pier. (The one from the movie “Big” with Tom Hanks.) Someone brought the blogs up, and I told them I had started one called “Roller Coaster Ride.” From where we were sitting, we could see the roller coaster on the Pier all lit up with yellow lights. Katherine’s college roommate’s mother, Cathleen, was sitting next to me. Cathleen is someone whom I respect greatly: she has a PhD in suffering with dignity and joy. Her face lit up when we pointed out the roller coaster, and she grabbed my wrist. “We are going to ride that thing after dinner!”
And we did. Two 50-something ladies with bad back and hip problems got in those little cars with the 20-somethings and we whooped our way up to the moon and back down again, swooping low over the star-lit waves. Then we lifted our arms to the sky and Cathleen yelled, “For Katty!!!”as we did it one more time.
I’m not afraid of roller coasters anymore.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
A Providential Meeting
Tuesday, June 10, 2008 6:30 a.m.- Wednesday, June 11 3:45
There was no supernatural help packing yesterday. Just me, up to my old travel tricks...running around scattered and hysterical trying to cram one more unnecessary, extraneous object into the seam-busted suitcase. I left out the only truly critical items, so they will have to be overnighted. Guess I shouldn’t get cocky about being so coolly bi-coastal.
My dear friend Betty had gamely volunteered to attempt the airport run. Off we sped, 30 or 40 minutes past alleged departure time, my husband urging haste and concentration as we laughed and started gabbing away to make up for lost time. When we hit Loganville, Betty asked if Conyers was on down the road a bit. We had blabbed our way right past the turn-off to 1-20. Thelma and Louise had a blast following “Mrs. Garmin’s” directions through rural Georgia...“Turn left in 0.6 miles at Hog Wallow Road onto Skunk Creek Trail.” We commented about how charming the scenery was, and noted that we’d have missed it if we hadn’t detoured. I was thinking about how I’d wile the time away at the airport waiting for the evening flight, when it finally looked like God was doing one of his time-warp things and we’d make it. But, Hartsfield within tantalizing sight, we were stopped in our tracks by a farm tractor slowly moving construction debris out of the lane to the North Terminal. Betty and I looked at each other. She doesn’t get as hysterical as I do. I remembered some of our Three Stooges road trips to Mississippi. Suddenly, I didn’t care if I missed the flight or not....we’ve had first-hand experience that everything always works out in the end. It is true that God takes care of drunks and fools.
Against all (human) odds, I made it to the gate a little before departure time. Although there was a long line waiting to confer with the airline representatives, I decided to take my husband’s advice and try to upgrade. Seconds before boarding time, I made it almost to the front of the line, just to hear the rep tell the man in front of me that there was one upgrade left on the plane. When she told him the price, he hesitated. I prayed. He said, “Never mind” and stomped off. I flashed that Visa out in about 2 seconds flat.
Now I need to tell you that I love to change locations, but I despise the process. Traveling stinks. I hate airports, airplanes, 2 oz. fluids in Ziplocs, strip searches, crowds, and germs. I get nauseated taking off and landing. My ears pop, my head hurts, my neck hurts, my back hurts. I am not a fun traveling companion. And I really don’t like to talk to whatever unlucky soul happens to get the seat next to me.
In the days prior to leaving for California, I had been fighting off all thoughts about what it would be like when I got here. I’m better than Katie Scarlett in thinking about unpleasant realities ‘tomorrow’.... I can sometimes postpone it indefinitely. I had made a date with myself to think about it on the trip, since I’d probably be miserable anyway. I was relieved to find a serious-looking Asian man working on his laptop in the seat next to mine. Probably working on a presentation for some million-dollar meeting, I thought. This was confirmed in my mind when we later exchanged initial pleasantries and he told me he was flying to LA from Raleigh for a two-hour meeting, and then flying back again. Then he started asking about me. When I gave him an abbreviated version of why I was flying to LA, he looked deeply concerned. “Do you mind if I pray for you?” he asked. (Do I mind???) Then we finally introduced ourselves, and he handed me his card. It said: GRACE MISSION MINISTRIES, Rev. Joshua Moon. I think it must have shocked him a little when I started laughing. (I’m sorry, but anyone who doesn’t think God has a sense of humor must not know him that well.)
Josh asked me many questions about Katherine’s situation. He asked me about how the other family members were being affected. He wanted details about the AVM rupture. He wrote down her caringbridge site. He took notes. He explained that praying is his gift. He told me that it is not uncommon for Korean churches to have prayer groups that meet at 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning. They take it that seriously. He would get the word out to pray immediately. You see, the meeting he was going to was not a powerhouse of slick business executives, but a convergence of 15 Asian pastors from all over the country who are board members of a mission in Mongolia. He told me they would begin their meeting with intercessory prayers for Katherine, and then these pastors would fly home to their own congregations and pass it on...and on and on. All around the world! I believe him. This man’s got credentials when it comes to persevering in prayer: He and his wife prayed for children for fourteen years....and God gave them triplets at age forty! Their pictures were adorable.
He asked if I had a picture of Katherine. I rarely carry pictures in my purse, but I’d thrown a stack in that morning in an effort to clean off the mantel. I gave him one, which he clipped to his notes. Something came up about the blogs. He said he would like to read them. The first time I have ever printed any out was that morning. (I wanted to read one to Katherine without taking the whole laptop in.) I gave him those as well. He read them then and there and asked if he could keep them to share with others. Then my new brother and I held hands in that First Class cabin and prayed. We kept right on praying as the flight attendant delivered my Cape Cod. We prayed over the loudspeaker and the loud passengers, oblivious to the looks that must have been shooting our way. When we finished, Rev. Moon told me that he wasn’t even supposed to be sitting in that seat. He had upgraded just before I did because of a disk problem, too.
Obviously, I am finishing this the day after I started it. When I went into Katherine’s room yesterday afternoon, she was very sad. I told her this story to cheer her up, and then showed her Rev. Moon’s card. I read the scriptures printed on the back. The second one was 2 Timothy 4:7: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” I told her that was what she was going to do.
She lifted her arm up into the air and made a strong fist.
There was no supernatural help packing yesterday. Just me, up to my old travel tricks...running around scattered and hysterical trying to cram one more unnecessary, extraneous object into the seam-busted suitcase. I left out the only truly critical items, so they will have to be overnighted. Guess I shouldn’t get cocky about being so coolly bi-coastal.
My dear friend Betty had gamely volunteered to attempt the airport run. Off we sped, 30 or 40 minutes past alleged departure time, my husband urging haste and concentration as we laughed and started gabbing away to make up for lost time. When we hit Loganville, Betty asked if Conyers was on down the road a bit. We had blabbed our way right past the turn-off to 1-20. Thelma and Louise had a blast following “Mrs. Garmin’s” directions through rural Georgia...“Turn left in 0.6 miles at Hog Wallow Road onto Skunk Creek Trail.” We commented about how charming the scenery was, and noted that we’d have missed it if we hadn’t detoured. I was thinking about how I’d wile the time away at the airport waiting for the evening flight, when it finally looked like God was doing one of his time-warp things and we’d make it. But, Hartsfield within tantalizing sight, we were stopped in our tracks by a farm tractor slowly moving construction debris out of the lane to the North Terminal. Betty and I looked at each other. She doesn’t get as hysterical as I do. I remembered some of our Three Stooges road trips to Mississippi. Suddenly, I didn’t care if I missed the flight or not....we’ve had first-hand experience that everything always works out in the end. It is true that God takes care of drunks and fools.
Against all (human) odds, I made it to the gate a little before departure time. Although there was a long line waiting to confer with the airline representatives, I decided to take my husband’s advice and try to upgrade. Seconds before boarding time, I made it almost to the front of the line, just to hear the rep tell the man in front of me that there was one upgrade left on the plane. When she told him the price, he hesitated. I prayed. He said, “Never mind” and stomped off. I flashed that Visa out in about 2 seconds flat.
Now I need to tell you that I love to change locations, but I despise the process. Traveling stinks. I hate airports, airplanes, 2 oz. fluids in Ziplocs, strip searches, crowds, and germs. I get nauseated taking off and landing. My ears pop, my head hurts, my neck hurts, my back hurts. I am not a fun traveling companion. And I really don’t like to talk to whatever unlucky soul happens to get the seat next to me.
In the days prior to leaving for California, I had been fighting off all thoughts about what it would be like when I got here. I’m better than Katie Scarlett in thinking about unpleasant realities ‘tomorrow’.... I can sometimes postpone it indefinitely. I had made a date with myself to think about it on the trip, since I’d probably be miserable anyway. I was relieved to find a serious-looking Asian man working on his laptop in the seat next to mine. Probably working on a presentation for some million-dollar meeting, I thought. This was confirmed in my mind when we later exchanged initial pleasantries and he told me he was flying to LA from Raleigh for a two-hour meeting, and then flying back again. Then he started asking about me. When I gave him an abbreviated version of why I was flying to LA, he looked deeply concerned. “Do you mind if I pray for you?” he asked. (Do I mind???) Then we finally introduced ourselves, and he handed me his card. It said: GRACE MISSION MINISTRIES, Rev. Joshua Moon. I think it must have shocked him a little when I started laughing. (I’m sorry, but anyone who doesn’t think God has a sense of humor must not know him that well.)
Josh asked me many questions about Katherine’s situation. He asked me about how the other family members were being affected. He wanted details about the AVM rupture. He wrote down her caringbridge site. He took notes. He explained that praying is his gift. He told me that it is not uncommon for Korean churches to have prayer groups that meet at 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning. They take it that seriously. He would get the word out to pray immediately. You see, the meeting he was going to was not a powerhouse of slick business executives, but a convergence of 15 Asian pastors from all over the country who are board members of a mission in Mongolia. He told me they would begin their meeting with intercessory prayers for Katherine, and then these pastors would fly home to their own congregations and pass it on...and on and on. All around the world! I believe him. This man’s got credentials when it comes to persevering in prayer: He and his wife prayed for children for fourteen years....and God gave them triplets at age forty! Their pictures were adorable.
He asked if I had a picture of Katherine. I rarely carry pictures in my purse, but I’d thrown a stack in that morning in an effort to clean off the mantel. I gave him one, which he clipped to his notes. Something came up about the blogs. He said he would like to read them. The first time I have ever printed any out was that morning. (I wanted to read one to Katherine without taking the whole laptop in.) I gave him those as well. He read them then and there and asked if he could keep them to share with others. Then my new brother and I held hands in that First Class cabin and prayed. We kept right on praying as the flight attendant delivered my Cape Cod. We prayed over the loudspeaker and the loud passengers, oblivious to the looks that must have been shooting our way. When we finished, Rev. Moon told me that he wasn’t even supposed to be sitting in that seat. He had upgraded just before I did because of a disk problem, too.
Obviously, I am finishing this the day after I started it. When I went into Katherine’s room yesterday afternoon, she was very sad. I told her this story to cheer her up, and then showed her Rev. Moon’s card. I read the scriptures printed on the back. The second one was 2 Timothy 4:7: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” I told her that was what she was going to do.
She lifted her arm up into the air and made a strong fist.
***************
Providence: a:divine guidance or care b:God conceived as the power sustaining and guiding human destiny. (Webster’s)
Providence: literally foresight, but is generally used to denote God's preserving and governing all things by means of second causes. (Easton’s)
Providence: a:divine guidance or care b:God conceived as the power sustaining and guiding human destiny. (Webster’s)
Providence: literally foresight, but is generally used to denote God's preserving and governing all things by means of second causes. (Easton’s)
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Gratitude
June 6, 2008
“Joy is the simplest form of gratitude.” - Karl Barth
I am lying in (my own!) bed this morning with tears of joy trickling into the coffee. I have never been so grateful--simply, truly, humbly grateful--for anything as much as I am for the river of love that just keeps on flowing over my family and me. I’ve been out of the flow for a little bit, and it stunned me this morning to read all the emails, messages, and cards that have accumulated. In a world unfortunately full of tragedy, ugliness, anger, and self-serving, receiving such gifts of compassionate selflessness is like opening the best present on the best Christmas morning. My hope is renewed....my heart unshrivels.
The weight of our reality is already so heavy that the smallest thing added to it can plunge me 20,000 leagues under the sea. But just as I’m about to drown in the dark, ugly waters, I receive a tank full of life-restoring oxygen from letters such as the one I just opened from someone I don’t think I’ve even met. Her daughter was a sorority sister of Katherine’s at Samford. She writes, “...I have cried with you many times. The body of Christ is truly that--when the finger hurts, the whole body feels the pain. The pain we feels draws us to our knees--both day and night--lifting each of you in prayer.” Someone I don’t even know is down on her knees for me!
Friends, the world just doesn’t get this. If we’re honest, I think we’ll acknowledge that the fleshly inner reaction is more like, “Well, that’s sad, but I’m just glad it wasn’t my child.” But I have received such an outpouring of empathy that it almost feels as if Katherine has a thousand mothers instead of just measly old me. My love and concern for her are being infinitely multiplied and magnified. My prayers for her are carried straight to the Father's throne on the wings of the prayers of countless other compassionate mothers.
I am profoundly grateful for this. I am grateful for your love, your concern, your support. I am grateful for your notes, messages, books, gifts, food, and flowers. I am grateful for your faithfulness. I am grateful for your shoulders. I am grateful for your tears. But most of all, I am grateful for your prayers.
“Thank you” just doesn’t cut it. We’ll have to come up with a new word.
In the meantime..... thank you.
*************************
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee. Neither can we call this a begging of misery, or a borrowing of misery, as though we were not miserable enough of ourselves, but must fetch in more from the next house, in taking upon us the misery of our neighbours. Truly it were an excusable covetousness if we did, for affliction is a treasure, and scarce any man hath enough of it. No man hath affliction enough that is not matured and ripened by and made fit for God by that affliction. If a man carry treasure in bullion, or in a wedge of gold, and have none coined into current money, his treasure will not defray him as he travels. Tribulation is treasure in the nature of it, but it is not current money in the use of it, except we get nearer and nearer our home, heaven, by it. Another man may be sick too, and sick to death, and this affliction may lie in his bowels, as gold in a mine, and be of no use to him; but this bell, that tells me of his affliction, digs out and applies that gold to me: if by this consideration of another's danger I take mine own into contemplation, and so secure myself, by making my recourse to my God, who is our only security.
John Donne, from Meditation XVII
“Joy is the simplest form of gratitude.” - Karl Barth
I am lying in (my own!) bed this morning with tears of joy trickling into the coffee. I have never been so grateful--simply, truly, humbly grateful--for anything as much as I am for the river of love that just keeps on flowing over my family and me. I’ve been out of the flow for a little bit, and it stunned me this morning to read all the emails, messages, and cards that have accumulated. In a world unfortunately full of tragedy, ugliness, anger, and self-serving, receiving such gifts of compassionate selflessness is like opening the best present on the best Christmas morning. My hope is renewed....my heart unshrivels.
The weight of our reality is already so heavy that the smallest thing added to it can plunge me 20,000 leagues under the sea. But just as I’m about to drown in the dark, ugly waters, I receive a tank full of life-restoring oxygen from letters such as the one I just opened from someone I don’t think I’ve even met. Her daughter was a sorority sister of Katherine’s at Samford. She writes, “...I have cried with you many times. The body of Christ is truly that--when the finger hurts, the whole body feels the pain. The pain we feels draws us to our knees--both day and night--lifting each of you in prayer.” Someone I don’t even know is down on her knees for me!
Friends, the world just doesn’t get this. If we’re honest, I think we’ll acknowledge that the fleshly inner reaction is more like, “Well, that’s sad, but I’m just glad it wasn’t my child.” But I have received such an outpouring of empathy that it almost feels as if Katherine has a thousand mothers instead of just measly old me. My love and concern for her are being infinitely multiplied and magnified. My prayers for her are carried straight to the Father's throne on the wings of the prayers of countless other compassionate mothers.
I am profoundly grateful for this. I am grateful for your love, your concern, your support. I am grateful for your notes, messages, books, gifts, food, and flowers. I am grateful for your faithfulness. I am grateful for your shoulders. I am grateful for your tears. But most of all, I am grateful for your prayers.
“Thank you” just doesn’t cut it. We’ll have to come up with a new word.
In the meantime..... thank you.
*************************
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee. Neither can we call this a begging of misery, or a borrowing of misery, as though we were not miserable enough of ourselves, but must fetch in more from the next house, in taking upon us the misery of our neighbours. Truly it were an excusable covetousness if we did, for affliction is a treasure, and scarce any man hath enough of it. No man hath affliction enough that is not matured and ripened by and made fit for God by that affliction. If a man carry treasure in bullion, or in a wedge of gold, and have none coined into current money, his treasure will not defray him as he travels. Tribulation is treasure in the nature of it, but it is not current money in the use of it, except we get nearer and nearer our home, heaven, by it. Another man may be sick too, and sick to death, and this affliction may lie in his bowels, as gold in a mine, and be of no use to him; but this bell, that tells me of his affliction, digs out and applies that gold to me: if by this consideration of another's danger I take mine own into contemplation, and so secure myself, by making my recourse to my God, who is our only security.
John Donne, from Meditation XVII
Sophie's Choice
I feel a little like Meryl Streep in Sophie’s Choice.
(If you’re a mother and that doesn’t conjure up a mental heartwrench for you, read the book by Styron.)
When I was pregnant for the second time, I felt a strange compassion for that unknown child. Katherine was so exceptionally stellar in every way, how could anyone survive following in those formidable firstborn footsteps? But as soon as the brave little intruder and I connected on the delivery table, I got it. “He loves each of us as if there were only one of us...”
And so we love our children, unless we are impaired beyond repair.
But unlike the perfect parent, I cannot be in more than one place at a time. Now I am in a tropical paradise celebrating a milestone with one child, while another child faces tremendous suffering without her mother’s care. How can this be reconciled?
I have to come back to that point where I recognize, definitively, that ‘my’ children really aren’t even mine. I remind myself that I am just their temporarily appointed guardian. I have many limitations and failures in that role, but it does no one any good for me to beat myself up about it. We can do absolutely everything right and still end up with damaged kids. We can do everything wrong, and end up with well-adjusted over-achievers...because, like everything else in life, it’s not all up to us. We do the best that we can, one day at a time, operating out of our own inadequacies and the baggage that’s been handed down to us. (And we’ve all got STUFF as a pastor friend liked to remind his congregation.) Imperfect people give birth to imperfect people who give birth to imperfect people...
So we cannot love perfectly. We cannot protect our children from every harm. Sometimes, we can’t even protect them from ourselves.
But we can start learning to let go.
We can try to trust the one who made them for Himself, who knew them before we did.
I am going to start trying now.
(...He'll have to help me.)
(If you’re a mother and that doesn’t conjure up a mental heartwrench for you, read the book by Styron.)
When I was pregnant for the second time, I felt a strange compassion for that unknown child. Katherine was so exceptionally stellar in every way, how could anyone survive following in those formidable firstborn footsteps? But as soon as the brave little intruder and I connected on the delivery table, I got it. “He loves each of us as if there were only one of us...”
And so we love our children, unless we are impaired beyond repair.
But unlike the perfect parent, I cannot be in more than one place at a time. Now I am in a tropical paradise celebrating a milestone with one child, while another child faces tremendous suffering without her mother’s care. How can this be reconciled?
I have to come back to that point where I recognize, definitively, that ‘my’ children really aren’t even mine. I remind myself that I am just their temporarily appointed guardian. I have many limitations and failures in that role, but it does no one any good for me to beat myself up about it. We can do absolutely everything right and still end up with damaged kids. We can do everything wrong, and end up with well-adjusted over-achievers...because, like everything else in life, it’s not all up to us. We do the best that we can, one day at a time, operating out of our own inadequacies and the baggage that’s been handed down to us. (And we’ve all got STUFF as a pastor friend liked to remind his congregation.) Imperfect people give birth to imperfect people who give birth to imperfect people...
So we cannot love perfectly. We cannot protect our children from every harm. Sometimes, we can’t even protect them from ourselves.
But we can start learning to let go.
We can try to trust the one who made them for Himself, who knew them before we did.
I am going to start trying now.
(...He'll have to help me.)
Friday, May 23, 2008
Graduation
Tonight was such a bittersweet night. It was our third “Vespers” dinner, a night honoring the Seniors who will graduate tomorrow. I knew that it would be hard for me, but it was even harder. I was fine until the slide show. I had steeled myself beforehand, vowing that no “Sunrise, Sunset” violin-playing sentimentality would get to me after everything I’ve witnessed lately. But there I was, making a public spectacle of myself....wiping my nose on my mother’s pashmina before blowing it into the linen napkin.
I usually get teary at these kinds of things. I have inherited my father’s sensitive spirit. (He was a WWII soldier who would cry at the sound of a beautiful symphony or exquisite aria.) Even before Katherine’s brain rupture, I had expected to be uniquely challenged by this particular one. But I didn’t anticipate that such a fierce flash flood of emotion would rush over my dam of self-protection and sweep me into a stall in the ladies’ room, where a compassionate friend held the door as I sobbed outloud.
After ignominiously returning to my seat, I tried to regain my composure. I tried to think about something happy. I tried to think about something boring. I tried to recite Romans 8 in my head, but those images of innocence lost kept replaying until the tears started drizzling down again.
I think if we’re all really honest with ourselves we’ll admit that, no matter how joyful and fun our high school experiences were, there was an emotional underbelly to the beast. Any psychologist worth the price of their degree will tell you how deeply affected human beings are at this vulnerable, fragile age. Some people never get over high school.
I’ve spent a lot of time around high schoolers, and sometimes I know too much for my own good. Last night, speeches were made extolling how close and unified the class of ‘08 is....how it is such a caring, supportive one. I’m sure that in many ways it is. But flashing through the sequence of happy, funny pictures were big-screen subliminal messages referencing for me the underside of high school life. There were subtle reminders of the ubiquitous broken relationships, severed friendships, and lost loyalties of high school....the injured self-esteem, wounded egos, hurt feelings, rejections.....the pretenses, pretending, posturing..... the misunderstandings, misconceptions, missed opportunities for forgiveness. Invisible walls of separation erected by fear, envy, or anger stood in contrast to joyful pyramids of team-spirited togetherness. Although molehills often turn into mountains at this age, I don’t dismiss high school hurts as insignificant. Those of us who’ve been around a while know that life-long destructive patterns can begin in high school...patterns like addictions, eating disorders, trust issues, intimacy issues. Scars carved upon fragile young hearts sometimes take many years to heal.
I think there’s still a little “High School” in a lot of us. There’s a tiny corner somewhere deep inside that still holds on to that hope, those dreams, that nervous excitement, the exhilarating feeling of infinite possibility. But in many of us there also resides that knee-jerk high school reaction to people and events....the quickness to take offense, the eagerness to judge and label, that difficulty in forgiving and moving on. We carry with us a residual fear of failing the test, being left out of the party, not sitting at the cool table at lunch. We are sometimes guilty of possessing the passions of High School....of seeing things as black and white, of not understanding that there are two sides to every story, thinking it’s all about me. But, unlike teenagers, we can’t blame it on incomplete pre-frontal cortex development.
The weekend before Katherine collapsed in her kitchen, I was harboring a little High School myself. I was feeling hurt about being excluded from something, I was angry that someone had been mean to my child, I was worried about people and things that were out of my control.
I can’t even begin to tell you how insignificant all that seemed by Monday afternoon.
In theory, we all know that each time we see someone could be the last. But we don’t live that way.
To all of us High Schoolers, myself first of all, I say this: Let it go. Whatever it is. Lay it down. Stop being afraid of being hurt. Give everybody you know a break. Pass out “Get Out of Jail Free” cards. Just forgive. And forgive. And forgive some more. For God’s sake, for your sake, for their sake.....just let it go.
G.K. Chesterton expressed it beautifully: “We’re all in the same boat in a stormy sea, and we owe each other a terrible loyalty.”
It is my prayer that we all graduate from Life’s school of suffering more loving, compassionate, forgiving, and loyal....and less judgmental, superficial, and self-serving.
The final exam will be a pop test.
***************
(This was begun late Saturday night, but not finished until Monday morning. It was a long weekend, but I'll never have to go through another one! Here's a toast to all my friends who just made it through their last high school graduation, too: YAAAAAY...we did it!!!!! High 5's!)
I usually get teary at these kinds of things. I have inherited my father’s sensitive spirit. (He was a WWII soldier who would cry at the sound of a beautiful symphony or exquisite aria.) Even before Katherine’s brain rupture, I had expected to be uniquely challenged by this particular one. But I didn’t anticipate that such a fierce flash flood of emotion would rush over my dam of self-protection and sweep me into a stall in the ladies’ room, where a compassionate friend held the door as I sobbed outloud.
After ignominiously returning to my seat, I tried to regain my composure. I tried to think about something happy. I tried to think about something boring. I tried to recite Romans 8 in my head, but those images of innocence lost kept replaying until the tears started drizzling down again.
I think if we’re all really honest with ourselves we’ll admit that, no matter how joyful and fun our high school experiences were, there was an emotional underbelly to the beast. Any psychologist worth the price of their degree will tell you how deeply affected human beings are at this vulnerable, fragile age. Some people never get over high school.
I’ve spent a lot of time around high schoolers, and sometimes I know too much for my own good. Last night, speeches were made extolling how close and unified the class of ‘08 is....how it is such a caring, supportive one. I’m sure that in many ways it is. But flashing through the sequence of happy, funny pictures were big-screen subliminal messages referencing for me the underside of high school life. There were subtle reminders of the ubiquitous broken relationships, severed friendships, and lost loyalties of high school....the injured self-esteem, wounded egos, hurt feelings, rejections.....the pretenses, pretending, posturing..... the misunderstandings, misconceptions, missed opportunities for forgiveness. Invisible walls of separation erected by fear, envy, or anger stood in contrast to joyful pyramids of team-spirited togetherness. Although molehills often turn into mountains at this age, I don’t dismiss high school hurts as insignificant. Those of us who’ve been around a while know that life-long destructive patterns can begin in high school...patterns like addictions, eating disorders, trust issues, intimacy issues. Scars carved upon fragile young hearts sometimes take many years to heal.
I think there’s still a little “High School” in a lot of us. There’s a tiny corner somewhere deep inside that still holds on to that hope, those dreams, that nervous excitement, the exhilarating feeling of infinite possibility. But in many of us there also resides that knee-jerk high school reaction to people and events....the quickness to take offense, the eagerness to judge and label, that difficulty in forgiving and moving on. We carry with us a residual fear of failing the test, being left out of the party, not sitting at the cool table at lunch. We are sometimes guilty of possessing the passions of High School....of seeing things as black and white, of not understanding that there are two sides to every story, thinking it’s all about me. But, unlike teenagers, we can’t blame it on incomplete pre-frontal cortex development.
The weekend before Katherine collapsed in her kitchen, I was harboring a little High School myself. I was feeling hurt about being excluded from something, I was angry that someone had been mean to my child, I was worried about people and things that were out of my control.
I can’t even begin to tell you how insignificant all that seemed by Monday afternoon.
In theory, we all know that each time we see someone could be the last. But we don’t live that way.
To all of us High Schoolers, myself first of all, I say this: Let it go. Whatever it is. Lay it down. Stop being afraid of being hurt. Give everybody you know a break. Pass out “Get Out of Jail Free” cards. Just forgive. And forgive. And forgive some more. For God’s sake, for your sake, for their sake.....just let it go.
G.K. Chesterton expressed it beautifully: “We’re all in the same boat in a stormy sea, and we owe each other a terrible loyalty.”
It is my prayer that we all graduate from Life’s school of suffering more loving, compassionate, forgiving, and loyal....and less judgmental, superficial, and self-serving.
The final exam will be a pop test.
***************
(This was begun late Saturday night, but not finished until Monday morning. It was a long weekend, but I'll never have to go through another one! Here's a toast to all my friends who just made it through their last high school graduation, too: YAAAAAY...we did it!!!!! High 5's!)
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