A Scarlett Kind of Christmas

There's got to be a name for it... that blissful, bittersweet space of time in between all the presents being opened and getting back to work. Everyone lays about like so many stuffed sausages, deliriously happy, exhausted, glad it's over but then sad. The Moms get a bit forlorn when they think about all the mess that's got to be cleaned up, with no motivated helpers to be found. 

There's this tension that begins to awaken by the time Halloween rolls around. I know that I should have already done a lot of things -- bought gifts, planned my decor, written things down. But instead, I have just rolled through the days, putting out fires as they pop up, hoping that I can still pull out a Christmas miracle. When my kids were young, I'd always warn them that Christmas was going to be really small this season. Somehow I don't remember that ever happening, even in the leanest of years. But the best one ever was when we were living in an old, beat-up camper on our land. We were completely immersed in working on our new house, and since apparently I don't multi-task well, I had not bought a thing and had no decorations up anywhere, except a 12-inch tiny tree that my Mama had given us. It was now Christmas Eve day and the Grinch was looming. I swung into a local gas station, where they had live (read: dead) trees still for sale. I negotiated the guy down to $5 for a decent-looking one. He strapped it to my roof and I headed off to Kmart, where I found paintball guns for the boys and a beautiful doll for our daughter. I scrounged around and found presents for immediate family and then hauled it all home. Ken and the boys dragged the tree into the house (which was dried-in, with a roof and not much else) and nailed it to the floor. We strung lights and a few ornaments on it and had the best Christmas ever. It's good for me to remember that year, when I'm already getting stressed in October. 

Meanwhile, back to the stuffed sausages laying all over the living room. This year, we ate and ate, rushing to and fro to get it all in. This was not a good thing, because we promptly got a stomach virus, starting on Christmas day. I'm sitting here now, wrung out with joints aching and cracking all over. That brief twilight moment after all the gifts were still fresh in our minds was overtaken with devilment and Montezuma's Revenge. The torn paper and ribbon, crumbs of every kind, and a basic dusting of sugar is covering all the important parts of the house. I guess I'll have to default to that old adage, "I'll think about it tomorra..."

My Haunted House

The question that many people ask, within a few minutes of stepping inside our house, is: "Is it haunted?!" It's a 116-year old Folk Victorian with a gothic wrought-iron fence around the front yard. The ceilings are 12-feet tall, with plaster walls about a foot thick, windows leaded and wavy. There's five coal fireplaces and every area seems to have ten doorways.  A warren of rooms lead you from one to the next. It's got porches all around and ancient plants deeply rooted in the yard. There's nothing new about it, except where tasteful and careful kitchen and bathroom necessities have been updated. The old floors don't creak. They were finely joined, with many details, by some insanely skilled craftsmen. The mantels are each a work of art and have been preserved by past, loving owners. We were lucky to buy it, right at the bottoming-out of the downturn. We had to trade in our much-loved homeplace on acreage to get it, but it left us without debt and in a place that makes a dandy Papa and Yaya house. The question still looms: is it haunted?

Our society seems to think there are ghosts everywhere. There's all sorts of reality shows and people chasing poltergeists. Thousands of movies feature gore and havoc stirred up by displeased, floating souls. In my realtor treks, I am often asked by clients if I believe a house is haunted. Sometimes there are freakout sessions because of a strange doll or hole in the wall or a spooky feeling in some of the houses I show. This happens a lot. But I have my own story that I'd like to share...

Ken and I bought a huge fixer-upper home from an estate. A dead guy's estate. A man who had, unfortunately, killed himself. Thankfully, he didn't do it on the property. That might have been too difficult to deal with. There was a profound somberness as we talked with the family and entered into this huge project. The house was only half built and standing roof-high in weeds. Our goal was to bring joy to it, even as a testament to God's life-giving spirit. At the time, we had two toddlers and were pregnant with a third. Ken worked nights and we were living in a friend's basement apartment. I would leave out after breakfast to work on the house so he could get some sleep and quiet for a few hours. 
The first day that the children and I walked into the empty house, I heard heavy footsteps upstairs, directly above us. I yelled "Hello!" and carefully proceeded into the hall. Creeping across the downstairs, I kept hailing the ghost, with no response. Curiosity got the better of me as I slowly climbed the stairs. I even hollered out things like, "Hey Ken, honey, somebody's here." (Remember, Ken was back at the apartment in deep snooze by now). Great security tactic when you don't have a weapon on you. Eventually I realized there was nobody else in the house. At least no Body. I got busy and shook off the spookiness, but we didn't stay long. Ken had to work several days of overtime, so he didn't go to the house until a week later. I told him about the phantom that had made his presence known every day we were there. He thought I might be leaning towards the dramatic and brushed it off. 

Bright and early the next Monday, we pulled into the yard. I wondered what Ken was going to think about our little (well, he sounded big) friend. I didn't say a word when he opened the door and walked in. Within a few minutes, Mr. Casper began his heavy trod across the ceiling. Ken jumped, then grabbed a large metal tool. He went into Ninja mode, crouching around corners and anticipating a blood-thirsty mercenary. After an exhausting search with no visible results, he turned to me: "I'm sorry, Rose! I didn't believe you." He then made a call to my Daddy, who made haste to come over to the house. We stood around, hands linked, and prayed over that abode, over the other family, over us. With the most sincere of hearts, we asked the Lord to bind Satan in the name and through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. We had a good laugh and went about our business. It took us six months to finish that house, and then lived there quite merrily for the next eight years. The "ghost" was never heard from again. Not a peep, creak or even one chilly draft.

We're not charismatic, heck we're not even non-denominational anymore. We don't watch scary movies and we've never celebrated Halloween. And now we live in a really old house that people want to believe is haunted. So what's my take on all this? From the scriptures, we can find truth about these things. The Bible says that it is appointed once for a man to die, and then the judgement. Once. If you're dead, you're dead. You're not floating around. You're either in heaven or in hell. But the Bible also says that there are spiritual beings, both angels and demons. Good and bad. And there are entities on this planet that we cannot explain. He also tells us that we are to take dominion of this earth and to pray against principalities and powers that are evil. This spiritual warfare, in my opinion, can attach itself to all sorts of things and people. I know that I am not in a bubble, life is not ever going to be perfect, and I may have bad things happen to me at the hand of evil people and things. But I also know that, as a Christian, the Lord is working all things for my good (Romans 8). I have that confidence and do not have to be afraid. When we prayed over the weird spirit that seemed to be in our house, we knew that God had the preeminence. We never had to doubt or to be fearful of what something might do to us. God's on the throne and Satan has to flee in His name. 

When we bought our Victorian, we did as we have learned to do. We prayed and dedicated it to God and His glory. These flawed, sinful souls that live in it are firebrands that He picked out of the flames, redeemed bearers of His mercy. So when someone asks me if our house is haunted, I just tell them, "Yeah, it is. With the Holy Ghost."

A High Calling

In this most childish of seasons, I have been pondering the role of children in our society lately. Every generation tends to bemoan how the next batch is doing...or not doing. As a youngster, I recall the seasoned folks shaking their heads and wishing for the old days.  The truth is, societies do tend to rise and fall in cyclical fashion. We often point to the downturn of the Roman empire as it met its demise over decades of gradual moral slippage, slouching towards mediocrity and decadence until it imploded. 

We've raised four children to adulthood, so now I'm the one clucking and shaking my head. It's easy to raise commentary when you are no longer responsible for little humans. It's easy to forget how difficult it is and also how profoundly tired you were. But meanwhile, I still have my checklist. We used to breed and raise (responsibly, of course) lovely Golden Retrievers. Over twenty years, I saw dogs go from being treated as pets to being adopted out like children. In the same period, I've seen children go from being potential adults to being pets. Children as pets. I think there might be a book with that title. They're cute, with these big, dewy eyes. They're standard issue, for most families. Sure, they come with their package of problems, but if you can find a way to outsource a lot of stuff, maybe you can keep your hands clean. Good luck with that.

I'm just hoping that we will have enough parents in these next few generations that have the gumption to see past the immediate. Because the immediate is what is generally getting answered. Instant gratification, devices on auto-pilot, entertainment at every juncture. They say that the attention span of today's typical elementary child has shortened to a ridiculously few seconds, because of the amount of artificial stimulation that children are receiving these days. Gone are simple pleasures that drag out the minutes and hours and teach us to focus. There are some families that are defying this trend, but they have to be intentional and vigilant to make it stick. 

I made plenty of mistakes in raising our children -- neglect, germs, yelling, not noticing dirty sheets, spending too much time on the phone, being generally selfish and sometimes stupid. At the end of the day, it's only the grace of God that gave us these awesome children who are hard-working, thinking, God-fearing adults. I pray that there will be those in this generation who will look beyond surviving today's crazy bustle to the deeper, nobler, higher things that they have been entrusted with. That they'll see children as a blessing, not a curse. Not as pets, but as the framework of the future. God help us.

Goin' Nuts

We were seeing smoke, almost every day. I'd wake up, walk outside and think somebody must be burning leaves... but then we heard that there were wildfires tearing through the woods. North Georgia was a crazy place, with new flames cropping up every day. The drought did a number on our dear South. We had the hottest, longest summer on record and the skies had no mercy. Our grass went away, til all that was left was moss...my goldfish pond starting looking puny. Nobody wanted to go outside all summer. We waited, not so patiently, for fall, but it never really came. We rolled from Hades right into winter this week, when the sky finally relented and let loose the rain. Drought is a scary thing. Everybody grumbles at first, strangers talk about it to each other in elevators, the weatherman reminds us every hour. But then something wears thin and it begins to worry the earth. We can't help but start to think about what will happen if it never ends. I think about the book of Exodus, about locusts, dust bowls, dying cattle. But then again, I do tend towards the dramatic. Funny, how many things are like the rain after a dry spell. It starts pouring and in short order we forget what we were worried about. Sorta like when my husband was unemployed, then got a job. A few months ago our lips were starting to stretch real tight over our teeth. Feelin' a little parched and gettin' bug-eyed. He gets a job and next thing you know I'm buying recliners and a new mattress, when I probably ought to be tucking dollar bills under the old one. 

It's so easy to get into debt. We slap that credit card down instead of putting stuff on layaway or paying cash. The card is a deceiver. "I'll think about it tomorra." You walk away with your goodies, without paying. But the extortion is looming. Layaway makes us wait. It's not real fun. Until it is. I remember my Mama picking up all the Christmas gifts at stores where she had been paying for weeks. Then I tried it after I acquired children (it's almost unheard of now)...and what joy to retrieve something that's already paid for. There's a giant sinking feeling when your credit card bill comes in the mail, but there's no happy dance quite like paying cash for things. I'm considering just putting an orange and some pecans in everybody's stockings this year. Wouldn't that be special? I am joking, but the truth is that there's eighteen shopping days left and I've only bought one present. Don't tell my grandkids.