Roots Growin' Deep

4 Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. 15 See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no “root of bitterness” springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled. Hebrews 12

Peace with everyone. What an interesting and novel concept. The Scripture doesn't say that we will always have peace with everyone, but that we should endeavor (strive) to have it. In this over-sensitive world that we are living in, it doesn't take much to offend someone. It's a sure bet that I'm offending somebody, just by breathing or taking up space on the planet. I've thought about this a good bit recently -- maybe it's because I'm getting older, but I figured out at some point that I can't please everyone. That bothers me, but now I'm getting too tired to care. I love ya. See ya, bye.

But that root of bitterness. It is a vacuum that sucks the world dry. We all have it, to some degree. Some people have it more than others. I've known people who have had the most terrible things happen to them, but they are walking, talking pictures of grace. Then others, who have no apparent reason to be angry, are smoldering, seething wraiths, poisoning the very air in the room. They are leeches, draining the blood from the people they influence. Bitterness defiles many. It takes a kind, innocent person and reminds them of all they should be angry about. Things that they never noticed or cared to take offense at get put under a microscope of human injury. Suddenly they become large and ruinous. No wonder the Bible tells us not to go with an angry man....because we become like him, in time.

I've written before about my Mama and how God freed her from her torture chamber of bitterness that she had towards her own mother. I saw that up close and personal, with God giving her the grace to forgive her mother. It transformed our family from the inside out. I saw the power of forgiveness, not just in her relationship with her mother, but in her newfound ability to ask us to forgive her when she had done something wrong. There is nothing as beautiful as a person admitting that they were at fault, and then humbly asking forgiveness. This is the heart of the gospel, too. The point where a person recognizes that they cannot save themselves, that they are beyond rescuing...and then admitting their sinfulness and their inability to be perfect. Then asking God for forgiveness and throwing themselves at His feet. It's opposite world, where what we naturally would do, we don't do. The arm of God scoops us up in His redeeming grace and gives us a heart of flesh rather than a heart of stone.

I know now that there are some people that I cannot make peace with, no matter how hard I try. There's not enough energy in the world to fill some vacuums and I am not strong enough to force someone to love or accept this gal. But this I can do...I remember long ago, a teacher told me to make a list of things that had been done to me that were wrong or evil. Then make a list of what I had done to hurt other people. I was admonished to forgive those that hurt me, to lay them at the cross, and then to go to the people I had hurt and ask forgiveness. It took a while for me to remember myself. As I began to make difficult calls and visits to those I had offended, a joy and peace came over me that I had never experienced before. That's the Holy Spirit and the grace of God right there, and not of this world. 

It is easy to let time and busyness steamroll over me (and us), easy to quit noticing the deeper things that really matter. I think it's time to make a new list and catch up with my devil self again. Pull away from things that don't matter. Add back stuff that does. Ask forgiveness. Grant forgiveness. Throw myself on the Savior. Yep....

Trophies for the Victor

We all remember where we were when the Twin Towers fell. My family was at our annual beach vacation in Panama City, surrounded with friends and more family. As we sat in mute shock, then ambled around the campground for days, we had no idea how much the world was about to change. We were numb, frightened, unbelieving.

It seemed to be the start of many other things crumbling in the world as well. Within a year, the company my husband worked for (he had been there 23 years) lost their footing. Their stock was reduced to pennies and he lost his considerable stock options. Twenty years of a 401K was reduced to rubble, his retirement was gone and in the end he lost his job, something we never imagined was possible. We had always enjoyed wonderful insurance and benefits, plenty of vacation time, and enough money not to worry much. All of a sudden, it seemed like something had exploded and we were deaf with the concussion of it. I remember feeling like I was underneath the water, not moving, not breathing, not feeling. 

Our family went through one disaster after another, real trials of all sorts. Ken went into construction and home building, with 7 jobs in 6 years as that industry started to unravel. He almost died from a freakish liver abscess. We lost a 14-week pregnancy, then lost two more early pregnancies. We had always presumed upon the future, assuming things would stay the same. But of course, they didn't. As the economy crumbled, so did our options. We put our beautiful dream home on the market, with no lookers. We surfed from month to month, trying to figure a way out of the paper bag we found ourselves in. I had been a muralist/faux finisher, doing artwork in beautiful homes. When the downturn happened, rich people quit paying for murals and started remodeling their homes, since they couldn't sell them. I joined my sons and their boss, doing residential painting and picking up work from all over Atlanta. 

Ken had been saddled with a big truck and insurance payment from his work vehicle that was left over when a company folded that he was working for. Then the thing croaked. A beautiful monster truck in the driveway, that we couldn't pay to get fixed. Monthly payments still came. Monthly insurance bills still came. Friends at church helped him work slowly on it, but the monster wasn't budging. Meanwhile, my little Ford Explorer was creeping up in miles. It had 217,000 on it when a non-insured driver wrecked and totaled it. It took us seven months before we got the payout on that car. 

Limping in our work, a bum truck in the driveway with no money to fix it, 6 doctors trying to sue us for that old hospital stay, a mortgage, kids to feed, no car, no retirement, no future. We were at the bleakest place, with the fewest options. I begged God for relief, for answers... the skies seemed leaden. This had now stretched out for years. Amazing that you can drown for that long. It was the grace of God that kept us from succumbing or killing each other. I learned a lot, particularly that what happens to men in these situations is that they cope by going into caves and women cope by becoming shrieking worrywarts. Where Mama is running around, pulling her hair out and repeating the phrase, "This is a perfect time to panic!" -- Papa is submerged somewhere with an occasional platitude of "It's gonna be okay." I now know scads of couples who didn't make it through. When the world turns inside out, the cracks in your marriage get bigger and it's a miracle if you don't get swamped.

There came a time when the Lord started turning over the boat, though it came slowly. The truck got fixed and sold (leaving us $400 for groceries), Ken got steady work at a ministry, our elder gave us his son's small car that he didn't need anymore, insurance paid out for my wrecked car, our house sold so we paid off the doctors and had enough to buy our beautiful old Victorian in Villa Rica with the cash we had left. Many, many things conspired to get us to a better place. We still have to work until we die, but maybe that's for the best anyways. I see a lot of people wasting their days. I still worry and fret. Ken still likes to pretend there's never a reason to panic. 

We're busy with work, children, grandbabies, church, life. Too busy. Sometimes in the wee hours of the morning, when the hormones are putting another log on the fire, I'll stop and remember the hardest of those days. It's God's grace that got us through, and it's God's grace that still holds us. I have to remind myself that we're in America and we've never even missed a meal (we could've probably benefited from a little fasting). Suffering is all relative, and compared to the rest of the world we are filthy rich. This ain't all there is. Our little trinkets and houses and treasures, it's just stuff that's going to rust or get transferred to somebody else. We're going to die. Maybe in our sleep, maybe in a hospital bed, maybe in a burning tower. 

God has taken us through deep waters. There will be more to come, for sure. Meanwhile, I'm chained to His chariot.

Bob Gnarly and the Windy Trumpets

I've often heard it said that education is wasted on the young. Of course that's not true, but there is something to be said for some adult stretching and learning. My intelligent Mama skipped out of high school to get married and then have me. She waited a few decades and decided to get her GED. Without hardly trying, she practically aced the SAT then proceeded to get almost perfect grades as she pursued a nursing degree. She has never worked as a nurse, except to give sage advice and put doctors to the drill when they examine Daddy or her. 

When I was in sixth grade, my parents sacrificially gave me piano lessons. I took to it easily and loved dreamily playing when it suited my fancy. Scales and arpeggios, not so much. Then in high school I began playing the flute, practicing a lot more because I felt the challenge and I loved the voice of it floating in the air. But if I could go back in time, how I wish I had really worked on it and practiced like I should have. I was too busy playing basketball and being social to put my shoulder to it. When you are young, there are so many things pulling and distracting you, and I've always had a penchant for having too many interests to narrow it down to just a few. 

I always figured that once my kids were grown, I'd go back to college, maybe get an interior design degree or something. As it turns out, I've got too much else going on to stop and do that. And I don't want to stop. I have painted, toiled and cleaned about a universe's worth of projects; my hands are gnarly, knotty and leaning out from their origins. Good, working hands that God blessed me with. It's a whole lot more difficult to do intricate passages on the flute now, with all that cartilage and beef in the way. I have to work harder, longer, and in a more focused fashion than when I was youngish. It's frustrating. Now that I actually practice and experience angst when I can't, everything's wanting to rust. So I bump it off and muster through. The music in our wind ensemble is way out there, harder than anything I've ever played. Go figure. 

I am covered up with work and projects right now, which leads to a lot of whining to my husband about what my priorities should be. He had the gall to actually say, "Why don't you get out of the wind ensemble?" After I threatened to dock him his supper, he laughed about his little joke. Because he knows how special that music and group have become to me. I get to meet up with a bunch of musicians and have a jam session at least once a week. We complain about how hard the music is and gripe about how difficult it is to find time to practice and still have a day job. But when the music starts and you find that sweet spot, even if it's a very small sweet spot, there is nothing in the world like the combination of people and beautiful sound to make time stand still. 

On Saturday, April 9, Villa Rica has its annual Art Fest. It's from 10:00-5:00 that day at the Mill Amphitheatre. The Carroll Community Wind Ensemble will be playing a full concert at 1:00. That gives you time to peruse and buy art, eat your lunch, then sit down on the grass and hear gorgeous music. I've never played with such wonderful musicians and am privileged to just hang out, much less play with them.

I'll try not to play too loudly...

Fishin' for Memories

I really hate to eat fish. I hate the smell of them, the pain of cleaning them, the way it stinks up the whole house when you cook it. Unless they're deep fried, with lots of batter and a side of hush puppies. So that's probably not really fish, just a lot of fried stuff. And I always love that, no matter what it is. Oh dear...

But fishing. That is a whole other, wonderful subject. Fishing touches that deep place inside my inner child, where time stands still and things old and young and innocent all come together. It's where nature, water, Daddy and yesterday seem to converge. 

My Daddy used to take my sister and I fishing. At first, we only had cane poles that we used, with red and white bobbers and a hook on the end. We never really caught anything with them. We thought it was because of our antiquated poles. I remember being jealous of a boy that had a fancy Zebco rod when we were fishing at a lake one time. He was hauling in one trout after another with it, fishing with pieces of corn. We'd fish at the lake behind our house, little creeks on the side of the road, state parks where our family camped, and overnight hauls to strange dark lakes, where we'd ride for hours in our musty, old fishing car. There was always something wonderful about the hiss of that Coleman lantern and the mystery of fishing at night, whispering and baiting the hooks, hearing the plop as the worm hit the surface of the water. We would quietly wait, sitting on soggy shores under old blankets, hoping for a furtive tug on the line. When we got hungry, Daddy would dig out cans of Vienna sausages and boxes of Little Debbies. There's nothing like rooting that first sausage out of the can, that mealy mystery meat....but actually delicious when you're hungry enough to eat a bear. 

We graduated to little Zebco fishing poles. I believe Daddy bought them at Sears. They were black and white and had a little button you'd push and then release when you threw out the line. We thought we were in high cotton. But it didn't help our fishing skills. We were way too excited to be fooling the fish. Except finally, one long night, on a really long bridge in Pensacola, Florida.... we had gone on a rare family vacation, just for a couple of days. Daddy, Melanie and I went in the middle of the night with our rods and a big half-frozen container of squid, the nastiest thing I'd ever smelled or touched. Our brother was still little, so he stayed back with Mama at the hotel. For some reason, we struck gold that night. We started pulling up one fish after another. The old fisherman began sauntering up, asking what we were fishing with. We filled up a cooler. Then another one. The night was fresh and sparkling, full of promise. Finally we packed it in and lugged all those fish into our hotel room. Did I say hotel? I meant motel. I remember Mama taking Daddy's pocket knife and gutting those fish in the bathroom, stinking up everything. By the time we left the next morning, she had applied her magic and it was all clean and there were two coolers full of fish.

I don't remember eating any of them when we eventually got home, but I do remember Daddy burying some of them in the garden. He said that they would help fertilize it. I do believe that that was the last time Melanie and I went fishing with Daddy. Maybe we were just looking for that pot of gold and finally found it. We grew up, got married, but Daddy continued his rounds of taking kids fishing. My brother, 8 years younger than my sister, had his crazy turn of middle-of-the-night trips and sleeping in cars. When grandkids starting arriving, Daddy took them in clusters, starting with the five boys that came first, and then adding in the girls as they appeared. At last count, my parents have 21 grandchildren and 9 great-grandchildren (with 2 more on the way). They live their days out, traveling to their grandkids' games, speeches, scouting ceremonies, showers, weddings, dinners, recitals, and whatever else they're doing. They're truly amazing.

In retrospect, it never really was about catching fish.

Here in the Twilight Zone

I often wonder if other people have strange things happen to them like our family does. It doesn't take me long to conjure up images from the past, where some epic story lurks in my brain. This really happened....and oh yeah, spoiler alert, this is kind-of gross.

Several years ago, our four children and I were diligently slogging away at our fancy school, set up right there at the kitchen table. Typical, mundane day. It started with our four dogs, raising a ruckus like there was no tomorrow. As I looked up through our bay window, I saw a massive German-shepherd-like dog, running like something possessed from the back of our property. In a moment or two, two more dogs and about five policemen came following behind. Mind you, we didn't live in a neighborhood. We lived on a private chunk of land, way off the road. People didn't just "run through." If someone came through our yard, we were likely to pull out the shotgun. I stepped out the door and one of the cops yelled at me to get our dogs inside and to lock all our doors. They were chasing a murder suspect who was on the lam. 

Wasn't expecting that tidbit of information.

We ran around, locking doors and posting guns at each portal. Called Papa Bear at work and insisted he come home, but the devil he worked for wouldn't let him leave. He had a hard time believing that a murderer was loose in our neighborhood. I guess it was a pretty unlikely story. Within minutes, we heard the thump of helicopter blades, dozens of police sirens and maybe a few firetrucks. The excitement seemed to be heading west, away from our house. But you never know. We started getting calls from family and friends, saying that our property was on TV. We turned it on, and sure enough, there was a news man talking out in our front field, helicopters buzzing overhead. I looked and saw a couple of police cars in our driveway. I ventured outside and got the scoop. They had chased the guy for a few miles. He apparently ran right beside our house, across the street and kept going. 

We made brownies for the cops camped on the driveway. They were there all day. And all night. When my husband pulled on our road near midnight, they waved him over to question who he was. He questioned who they were, too. We stayed up very late, watching the news and waiting to hear. The cops hovered all night. Next morning, they still had not captured him. We figured he was long gone, so Papa went on to work and we started back up at our schooling. Again, we hunkered up at the kitchen table when I noticed our dogs in the backyard. Three of them were in submissive repose in a circle, about 10 feet away from the alpha dog, Bonnie. Bonnie was very busy gnawing away at a large object. Occasionally, she snarled and barked at one of the other dogs as they got too close. She was too far away for us to tell what she was chewing on, but it looked to be about the size of a human head. My boys wanted to go check it out, but I insisted we get out the binoculars first. We still couldn't see any details, so Mama Chicken allowed her boys to run out in front of her. We are hollering, squirming and horrified. John dashes ahead, stops, wheels around, guffawing. Thank God, it's not human. It was the head of a dead deer. 

Sure, dogs who live in the woods have been known to drag dead deer parts out, a time or two. The occasional squirrel or rabbit cadaver made its way to our back deck. Even weird, mutant gerbils appeared a few times. But a deer head, the very morning after it has been reported that a murderer ran through our yard? What are the odds? 

The universe is a strange, strange place.

The Seven Deadly Sins and Me

I had an old friend (he's not old, I've just known him a long time)....that would mean that I am old. And I'm not. He put a post on Facebook, asking his friends to comment about the seven deadly sins referenced by Dante... In a nutshell, he asked how the sins of our youth corresponded to the sins in our older years. Here is a list of them (which in reality is the short list):

- Lust
- Gluttony
- Greed
- Laziness
- Wrath
- Envy
- Pride

Uggggh. When I read his post, it began a turmoil in my brain that I could not turn off. I tossed and turned that night, pondering where I have been and where I am going. I wanted to answer him, but I was indisposed, busy, and had only my little I-phone to write with (which is just horrid). So I only said something about being chicken, which I was, being honest. It is not fun to air our sin list and to admit that we are weak.

But we are.  At least I am.

It's interesting how the Lord takes you down a path. In the next few days I heard a youtube video by, of all people, a Christian comedian.... Mark Lowery. I always found him odd and a little disconcerting, but most of what he said in this video I found to be true. (I said most). To sum up, he said that we need to be followers of Christ....and to quit saying, "Love the sinner, hate their sin." His alternative was: "Love the sinner. Hate MY sin." Wow. Now that's kind-of novel. Kind-of like the things that Christ said about the Pharisees (the most "religious" people of His time). Christ warned about the danger of being a white-washed tomb, all pretty and white on the outside, but full of dead men's bones. He talked about how we do all manner of cleaning the outside of the cup but ignore the inside of it. 

Again, uggggh.

Because if I have to quit pointing fingers and examine the inside of my nasty heart, I don't have a whole lot to say. Or complain about. If I am honest, I realize how much I have been forgiven, how much I am constantly being forgiven, and it puts a muffler on my big, fat mouth. It is soooo easy to note other peoples' glaring sins and to plop my queenly hindparts up on my crusty high-horse. Lord, forgive me.

Sin is sin. And we all have the disease. When I look at that list of seven deadlies.....lust, gluttony, greed, laziness, wrath, envy, pride.... I can say, hey wow, I'm not greedy (well, not that much), I'm not mad, I'm not jealous of anybody. I'm doing pretty good. Lust, well, that's private. Gluttony....I'm not fat, I'm just fluffy with bad genes. Laziness....I am, but only between extreme bursts of activity. Pride....I don't even know what that means. 

I can excuse every single sin. I can look back to my youth and think, wow, I've conquered that one. Or like the sin of envy, wow, I've never been jealous of (hardly) anybody. The truth is, where I might have had a sin problem in my youth, and seemingly conquered, I've pretty much exchanged it for another one. Maybe prettied it up, concealed it for the sake of society.

I have spent many, many days in nursing homes, where all the things we doll ourselves up with are slowly stripped away. Where the basic necessities of survival become the only thing that we cling to. Breathing in and out. Eating. Sleeping. Eliminating. Like a baby, but not cute. The truth and the uglies are all that is left. And boy, it can get ugly. Stinky. Undignified. Is this all there is?

Ken's Grandma, Ethel, Babe, of former quilt fame....ended her days in a nursing home. She was there for five long, horrible years. We were in oversight of her care there. Ken's birth mother, her only child, died when he was 2 years old and his baby brother was 5 months old. She had Alzheimer's in the worst kind of way. A demon that turned this smiling, busy, servant-hearted woman into a raving lunatic. 

Babe was a very good woman. She was a Christian with a high moral code and a penchant for taking care of anybody and everything within her radar screen. She had energy and a bustling motivation to do things the right way. When her only daughter died (at 24 years of age), she quickly took upon the responsibility of taking care of those two babies, until Ken's Dad remarried a few years later. She was a model of Christian goodness. 

Then the ravages of disease hit her, gradually for awhile, and then eventually the walls came down. Disease, stress, old age, tiredness, all those inevitabilities, tend to strip away any veneers we have put up to be able to fit into society. Babe told me one time that she was very, very bitter because she had been required to live all those many years under her mother-in-law's roof, a mean and harsh woman. She worked hard but had never received any love or kindness from this woman.

When everything was stripped away, that bitterness revealed itself. Babe was angry and even violent, once the Alzheimers took over her brain. She hit me several times and once tried to poke me with a well-poised needle. It would make me laugh (sometimes!) because here was this little woman trying to beat me up. But it was tragic and sad, as this was not "her" as we remembered her. These kinds of diseases bring out the ugliest things, and people will behave in ways that seem to have nothing to do with the person we knew. The nurses that cared for her in the Alzheimers ward would tell me that if you have suppressed anger or other things stored up, they will come spilling out when the inhibitions are gone. 

This makes me nervous.

I know that I have things stored inside me, things that I don't reveal or things that I think don't matter. Words that are ugly, thoughts that are bad. Are those going to tumble out when my walls crumble? I've been gluttonous, apparently. I'm busy and physically bustling about. But what happens when I get too tired, too old, or I have a fall or accident and the truth of my weight hits the fan? It's kind-of like when I've gossiped and then it gets exposed. Whew, the good, the bad and the ugly comes pouring out and it don't smell sweet. My patience is not tried now in the way that it was when my children were lusty, strong-willed teenagers, but I remember boiling, exploding fits of yelling that came out of my sinful lungs. 

All these sins. Lord have mercy. Mercy, mercy. And that's why we need Jesus. Because we think we can overcome our sin, but we really can't. We can muster up immense amounts of strength, paint it all up, perfume it all up, but at the end of the day and the end of a life, we can't hold it all in. It's stinky and ugly. People want to shove it in a corner or a hole where you can't see it. To face it is hard. It requires humility, which doesn't come natural. Bending the knee to a God who isn't us must be the hardest thing in the world. And that's why it takes pretty much a miracle, where He draws and woos us, loves us, embraces us with all our mud and hopelessness. When that happens, we can't resist and at the same time can't understand it.  Probably the most mysterious part of it all is that I will never, in this life, come anywhere close to perfection or sinlessness. My righteousness isn't based on my "good works" at all. It's all of Him. God looks and sees Him, not me. Not my stench, sin or silly efforts. Woohoo! Anything good spilling out of me is His goodness. What a comfort.

My favorite hymn's verse 4 says: "Long my imprisoned spirit lay, fast bound in sin and nature's night. Thine eye diffused a quickening ray. I woke, the dungeon flamed with light. My chains fell off, my heart was free. I rose, went forth and followed thee. Amazing love, how can it be? That thou, my God, wouldst die for me?" (And Can It Be, Charles Wesley).  

Mysteries.

Calling all Mama Bears

They say that bears really don't want to hurt people....that there are only two reasons they will maul you. #1 -- don't leave your food out, any food at all, or they will tear apart your tent looking for it. #2 -- don't ever, under any circumstances, get between a Mama bear and her cub. Hell hath no fury like a Mama bear who thinks you're going to hurt her baby.

I can relate to that. I was not really aware of this protective phenomenon until our firstborn and I took a walk, not long after he made his entrance into the world. We were happily walking through the neighborhood when an inquisitive dog came up to the stroller and lightly nipped at him. I had always (and still am) an animal lover. But that day, when I thought that this canine might hurt my baby, something new came out of me. I sent the pooch flying with a swift kick to the ribs. I was shocked at this recently-acquired propensity for violence.

I never knew much fear before I had my kids either. Everything changed when they came on the scene. Where there were wolves and noises in the night before, I didn't care nearly as much as when we filled up those cradles with bunny blue eyed babies. It made me lock doors, put on my seat belt, drive more carefully, watch both ways before crossing the street, pay attention to strangers and obsess about what I was putting in my mouth (as it would now be making its way to the stomachs of my children). It opened up a portal to a different world, one that mattered a lot.

I thought homeschoolers were nuts. Didn't they realize that the bus came right to the door? Then I had a child whose brilliant but quirky view of the world might have been squelched by the homogenization of a government classroom. With the addition of several more children who were as unique and rare as snowflakes, I became compelled to home educate them, despite my impetuous and artistic nature. This proved to be the most difficult job I ever faced, though now that it's over I am really grateful we did it. Underneath it all was that Mama bear, hovering and protecting her cubs. 

Then there comes the day when Mama has to begin trusting, letting go, no matter how she schooled her kids or what she's done to protect them. Baby steps, starting with walking and on up to dating and jobs, cars and college, all those trails and roads that can lead to success or disaster. Or both. She can warp them, if she's not careful, through either over-protection or neglect. Two ditches. Once again, life is a balancing act. Most of the time, we're not sure if we are doing the right things. It seemed like our parents just threw us into the water and we learned to swim. Then I remember all the coaching, prodding and life rafts. It's just harder on this side of it, and the world's not so simple now. There's wolves and sirens at every stop. It's only God's grace that can help our children navigate, but then He seems to like using those Mama bears. Watch her roar.