Strange and lonely times

It’s been a strange couple of weeks. I’ve been living on the moon; at least that’s what it felt like. Silent, moving imperceptibly through deep space, with planet earth a distant shrouded globe. (OK, so I’m exaggerating a little.)

We’ve both been facing physical issues, Hal recovering from hernia surgery and putting cold packs on his rebellious neck. Me spinning through our two-room apartment while standing still. We were quite a pair.

With little desire to chat with other people, we kept to our apartment. Isolation is the word. You’d think without the distraction of people or meetings I’d have lots of time to pray or write, which are supposed to be my priorities. And I did—have the time. But I failed at using it in any kind of creative endeavor. I read some good books (and some not-so-good ones), watched some entertaining movies, took naps, and tried to reason myself out of feeling guilty for all of the above.

We broke our people-fast yesterday. It was necessary as I had a face-to-face doctor's appointment in Portland that I really wanted to keep. I needed Hal to drive as one of my irrational phobias is a sense of panic at the thought of driving in a big city (similar to ophidiophobia—fear of snakes; I don’t think the Greeks had a name for fear of city traffic). Thanks to God, Hal woke up feeling good and able to drive.

I really wanted to keep this appointment because I really wanted to meet my doctor.

I became Dr. Preston’s patient in 2020 at the beginning of the pandemic, and we’ve been meeting every few months ever since—all by Zoom.

Dr. Preston threw me a rope of hope back during our first Zoom meeting. It followed four years of trying to figure out what was wrong with me, taking a battery of high-powered tests, meeting with six specialists, and finally having my primary care physician tell me, “Sorry. We don’t know what’s wrong with you. There’s nothing more we can do.”

A recommendation led me to Dr. Juliette Preston, a neurologist at a research hospital and head of their Headache Clinic. In that first meeting, having read the results of all the tests and hearing me talk about it, she diagnosed my condition as vestibular migraines. Just having a name for the Thing was huge. Having a doctor who believed me was even more huge. We’ve been meeting since, experimenting with vitamin therapy and medications, both of which are giving scant results so far, but hope is strong.

I was not disappointed by our face-to-face visit. This doctor is a warm, caring person, and being in the same room made it real. She is also a brilliant research physician, part of a team searching for answers. Hal and I returned home renewed in spirit and decided to eat in the communal dining room where we had a good conversation with a couple who had just moved into the retirement community.

It feels like our time of isolation might be over.

I have a meeting this morning and while I don’t particularly enjoy committee meetings, I like the people in the group, so I’m actually looking forward to it. And tomorrow a friend and I are going on a mini-vacation, a few nights in a motel facing the Columbia River. We plan to do nothing but nest, look out the window, go out to eat, and probably have some good conversation. It’s refreshing to have something to look forward to.

Reflecting back, I can see that times of solitude are sometimes necessary. And sometimes we find ourselves experiencing an isolation that’s not necessary or good. (We were edging toward that place last week.) But whatever the case, relationships are always necessary. As Barbra Streisand sang, we’re “people who need people.”

I need periods of quiet every day. That’s my personality and it’s necessary for me to be creative in prayer or writing. But if I’m not in active face-to-face relationships, isolation is sterile. Uncreative. I need the rhythm of quiet and engagement.

I think of people, many of them here in the retirement center, who are isolated through no choice of their own, people with health issues, or people who shy away from social engagements. Sometimes and in some seasons, I’m tempted to close myself in my apartment. But I have a choice.

How can I encourage my sisters and brothers without being a pest? How can I be a better friend?

I need to keep reflecting, which I’ll do in quiet. And then do something, which will be out in the neighborhood.

What to remember, what to forget

Yesterday I participated in a lovely family ritual. Hal and I drove to the small town of Monmouth, Oregon to share with our granddaughter the adventure of moving into her university dorm room as a freshman at Western Oregon University. Her parents, younger brother, and the other set of grandparents made up our group.

We parked outside the large dorm and all of us helped transport boxes up to the fifth floor. Hal and I were allowed to only carry pillows, while the rest of the stuff was heaped onto a cart. Paige began putting stuff away and decorating her room and we sort of helped, mostly cheered her on. We all met her roommate, then went out for a special meal together, and said our goodbyes. She was glowing with excitement and I know having us all there for this rite of passage made her feel loved.

It all got me remembering my own rite of passage. My father had just gotten a new job and my mother was disabled, so they couldn’t accompany me from central California up to Newberg, Oregon. They put me and my two suitcases on a Greyhound bus and waved goodbye. I remember nervously changing buses in Portland, then sitting in the front seat of the local bus to Newberg, worried about finding the place to get off. I remember walking with my two suitcases the two blocks to the campus. I was frightened and alone, but some friendly upper-classmen welcomed me, and somehow it all worked out. Memories.

At this stage of life memories become important and we tend to spend time bringing them up. Remembering. And forgetting. The two go together. There are memories we cherish, and there are memories we wish we could forget. And, of course, there are countless things we forget that we wish we could remember—names, appointments, and where we put those dumb glasses.

Isaiah the prophet wrote some fascinating words on this subject. Well, his words might be more confusing than fascinating, but I’ve been working my way through the apparent contradictions. The subject is “the former things.” The past and our memories of it.

Isaiah writes to the Israelite people at a traumatic time in their history, telling them to “Remember the former things, those of long ago; I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please’” (Isaiah 46:9-10).

Isaiah was calling people to a collective memory of all the ways God had worked among them in their past. He was admonishing them to remember the promises, reconnect with what they understood, through the prophets, of God’s purposes in history, of the glorious future he was preparing for them.

The spiritual discipline of remembering had long been a practice of the people of God. God had them build altars at places of military victories or where various miracles had taken place, such as the crossing of the Jordan River. Even their religious festivals were exercises in remembrance: the Passover Feast that celebrated deliverance from slavery in Egypt or the raucous feast of Purim, remembering God’s deliverance from genocide as recounted in the book of Esther. Remember, says the Lord.

But around the same time Isaiah intoned his Remember! speech, he gave another prophetic order, telling the people to “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland” (Isaiah 43:18-19).

It seems the prophet was encouraging the people to look beyond their past failures in following God and the consequent years of conquest, punishment, and captivity. In the wasted wilderness of their sufferings, God in his mercy would provide springs of living water and a way through to a better future. Something new. Something unimagined.

We’re not the ancient Israelites and we aren’t facing imminent conquest and deportation to Assyria or Babylonia (although one could draw parallels—but I won’t do that here). We’re God’s children living in the 21^st Century in a land of privilege. More specifically, the “we” this blog addresses are people living in the final stages of life. As elders with a life-time of experiences behind us, a present life that frequently challenges us, and a future that’s coming sooner than we want, remembering and forgetting are major mental activities. Appropriately so.

So, what’s it to be, Isaiah? Are we to remember the former things? Or are we to forget the former things? Is this a one-or-the-other proposition? An either/or choice?

Or is it both/and? I suspect so. Like so many biblical “contradictions,” this might be called a paradox, an integration of two unlike or opposite things. Things like remembering and forgetting. Apparently, we’re to do both.

If so, the questions become What do we remember? and What do we forget? The answer is probably more complex than “remember the good stuff and forget the bad.” Add that to the fact that our memories are not as reliable as we usually think they are. (Just ask a brother or sister what they remember about a certain childhood incident, and note how different their memory is from yours.)

What should be remember? God’s faithfulness, even before we knew his name. I remember being in the hospital at three years old to have my tonsils out. Parents couldn’t stay the night back then. I woke up in the night alone in a strange place. Maybe I cried; I don’t remember that part. What I do remember is this woman with kind eyes who came into the room, said soft things to me, then picked me up and took me all around the hospital, showing me stuff. She stopped in front of the nursery window and we looked at all the babies. Then she carried me back to my room and I fell asleep. The next morning my mother was sitting by my bed. And I got to eat ice cream and Jello and no vegetables at all. That’s a good memory.

There are so many more, all through my life. Big stuff and small kindnesses. People who loved me and strangers who smiled. Hard stuff too. Failures I learned from, mistakes I was forgiven for, the candy I stole from the grocery store for which I later confessed and made restitution. And harder things from which I thought at the time I’d never recover. But I did. Remembering all that is helpful in figuring out why I am who I am today. And how God has always been with me.

What should I forget? “Forgive and forget” I’ve found to be impossible. At least literally. But maybe when we think about past hurts and wounds, forget really means an emotional forgetting, remembering but without pain, bitterness, or tears. In Christian spirituality it’s called “the healing of memories.” Is that how we’re supposed to forget?

Maybe at times we’re called on to forget “the way we’ve always done it.” Maybe churches and denominations need to forget some traditions in order to communicate to people today. Maybe some old doctrinal interpretations need to be let go (forgotten) in the light of continuing revelation. Maybe.

This subject is worth coming back to and reflecting on.

In the meantime, just remember to remember the former things. It's important.

And remember to forget them. God wants to do something new. I like the sound of that.

Giving our grandkids back to God

 Saturday morning we got an alarming message from our grandson Aren. “A large earthquake has just struck. I’m out in the streets with crowds of people. I’m OK.” Aren lives in Marrakech, Morocco.

This earthquake has been in the headlines the last three days, with news of the devastation. The 6.8 quake struck without warning late Friday, the epi-center being south of Marrakech. While the city was minimally affected, many small villages to the south in the Atlas Mountains have been decimated. The 2700 people reported dead (and the number is climbing) are mostly in these villages.

We proudly watched Aren graduate in 2019 from George Fox University with a degree in engineering. He soon found a job with a large business in the greater Portland area, but his heart has always been in overseas service. He spent several years searching for the right organization and situation to go out with in some kind of short-term service, thinking that two years might be enough to get direction for the rest of his life. He wanted to be involved in helping people start small businesses in poverty-stricken areas. 

We always knew that someday he would leave family and be off somewhere on the other side of the world. We knew this would probably be a good thing. We knew we would miss him.

A few years ago he discovered an opportunity with an NGO in Morocco. They were working in setting up a unique business in the city of Marrakech—a climbing gym. Aren is athletic and loves climbing walls and cliffs. It seemed a good fit (and has proved to be so), and so a year of applications, interviews, a visit to the field, and raising support followed.

Finally, in November of 2022, less than a year ago, Aren boarded the plane in Portland for his big adventure. Although we had walked with him through the difficulties and triumphs of the process, praying often and participating in the excitement, it was hard for his family and friends to see him leave.

It’s been a good experience so far and Aren has been faithful in communicating. (Thank God for modern technology that allows for actual conversations and instant messages.) He has focused on language and culture learning, forming relationships and, of course, learning the business. Although missing home at times and experiencing the natural ups-and-downs of this kind of cross-cultural experience, he seems to be thriving.

Friday night, Aren was sitting in his living room with a Moroccan friend when the floor started dancing. They ran out into the streets where people were in panic, the pavement still bouncing around. Buildings in his immediate neighborhood were still standing, although everything seemed precarious. Aren told us that his ADHD helped him and he immediately assessed the situation and began thinking through possible actions. After the ground stopped moving, he and his friend headed on foot for the home of a team member where he was able to borrow a four-wheel-drive vehicle. Aren and a few of his friends loaded the car with as much water as they could buy. They drove through the city, seeing it was only minimally damaged, and headed out to a village where one of his friends lived.

Half the buildings in the village had been destroyed and many people killed. Survivors were dazed, walking around, grieving. The guys spent the rest of the night there, searching for survivors, digging through rubble, comforting people as best they could. By morning they saw trucks of Moroccans entering the village with enough supplies and workers to begin meeting the need. They went home to sleep for a few hours before heading out to another village the next day.

He called us this morning (his Monday evening) and we mainly listened. He says he is not yet ready to emotionally process what is happening to the country and to him personally. There is still too much to be done. He’s especially concerned for the many remote villages without easy access. He wants to take his motorcycle up into the hills to discover communities that need help.

That sounds really dangerous. But we held back on counseling him not to do it. It would be our fear speaking, not whatever wisdom we might have. We have to leave him to his own discernment of what God is asking of him.

But I do fear, even as I am proud of him. Hal and I both have the sense that God placed him in this situation “for such a time as this.”

I’m remembering this morning the message from Kahlil Gibran about children (and grandchildren). I read it and marked it up years ago, before I was even married or had children of my own. It touches me today.

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you.

And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you….

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;

For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

From toddler to totterer

One of the joys of being older is that many of us can identify life-long friends, people we knew in our youth and who we still consider close friends. Whether physically together or apart, we’ve experienced the different seasons of life together and shared our struggles, as well as our hopes and dreams for the future.

I’m not talking about acquaintances or cousins. Real friends. Soul mates. Kindred spirits, as Anne of Green Gables would put it. I’m blessed with a handful of these, and most of them are still living.

I met Darlene over 50 years ago when we were both young wives, attending, with our husbands, the same small congregation in Arcadia, California. Our first-born babies knew each other, as much as babies can actually know someone other than mother. We’ve kept touch through the years, sometime living on separate continents, sometime living in the same town. We live in different states now, but we keep up on the phone and even with occasional in-person visits. We still regularly pray for each other.

Last week Darlene was the featured writer for the Fruit of the Vine devotional booklet. In the introduction to her week of meditations, she writes, “How did the decades fly by like blurry scenery outside a high speed train? Suddenly we rounded a corner, slowed down a bit, and I stepped off in a different country! Whoa, I’m transported to ‘elder land.’… This week, I’ll share personal experiences from my new platform.”

Darlene’s a thoughtful person and a good writer, and the week’s readings were rich. She gave me permission to share here the meditation from Friday, September 1. It’s called “Everlasting Arms.”

When our great-grandson took his first triumphant steps, everyone cheered, acknowledging this amazing accomplishment! It takes a constellation of brain-to-muscle internal steps precluding that final coordination to success. But there’s still a long perfection process afterwards, called the toddler stage. Lots of wobbling, insecurity, falling, grabbing ahold of something solid, trying to gain better footing—then, confidence.

There are lots of toddler steps throughout life’s journey. We experience them personally in new environments, jobs, and relationships. It all takes time, and we don’t always get encouraging cheers. We learn to walk and then to run, then finally how to slow down.

Eventually, we re-enter another period of insecurity and join the tottering stage! Post-operative hips and knees, weakening muscles, and unsure eyesight make what was once easy traveling now more precarious and mindful. We’re more apt to use the railing, walk closer to the wall, and unashamedly accept an offered arm on unstable landscape.

At any age throughout our journey, we feel insecure when hitting rocky roads like death, disease, or divorce. We may need help getting back up after an emotional loss or physical fall. From toddler to tottering (and all stages between) we need grace. Our Lord promises to walk us through the valleys, over mountains, and through pastures—to guide us with rod and staff, and his loving arms to lean on. Because we are the body of Christ, we need our hands to lift and help others.

Prayer: Lord, please help me to be sensitive to the needs of others who may need lifting up. (By Darlene Graves with references to Proverbs 3:5-6; Psalm 91:9-12; and Psalm 121:3-4.)

I love Darlene’s description of life’s developmental stages: “We learn to walk and then to run, then finally how to slow down.” The journey from toddler to totterer makes me smile. Two things we all need for facing old age are courage and humor. Thank you, Darlene, for encouraging me and for making me laugh.