Two celebrations plus a sea otter

 Celebrations restore the spirit, no matter how young or old we are. My spirit has been restored twice since my last blogpost. The celebrations span the generations. My grandson and his new wife are beginning their life of adventure in North Africa, and many of their supporters and friends gathered to pray for them as they prepare to leave us soon. And, on the other end of the age spectrum, the family gathered to celebrate my 80^th birthday. Can you imagine? Grandson and Grandma, whooping it up.

Aren and Anna were married in June and now they’re preparing for what might be a long-term adventure in a North African country, helping set up local businesses. They’re planning to travel light, and purchase locally all they need to live on which will probably be minimal. They’re very idealistic and totally committed.

Last week they invited a group of their supporters and prayer partners to a barbecue, with dishes they prepared from their new adopted country. These kids could set up a restaurant business if they wanted! Delicious food. It was a time for them to express their appreciation for all the support people have shown them. And it was a time for us to celebrate their dedication and commitment and to pray for them.

Like a typical Grandma, I couldn’t help but remember when Aren was a baby, very cute and often very serious, a determined but totally funny toddler. As he grew up, we didn’t understand what ADHD was, but when he finally received the diagnosis, all his restlessness and hyper-activity as a young boy made sense. Not that he was always restless. He showed great powers of concentration when building things, first with blocks, then graduating to Tinkertoys, Lincoln Logs, and finally to elaboration Lego constructions. Now armed with a degree in mechanical engineering (a natural!) he’s off to change the world. We couldn’t be prouder.

Then on Sunday, it was my turn.  In the middle of a sea of sunny days, this was predicted to be the one day it rained. As it turned out, the sun did his usual beautiful thing. The celebration was in a covered pavilion in a public park and four generations converged, with Hal and me being the oldies, and our two and one/half great-grand-babies bringing up the tail (and hogging most of the attention by being their adorable selves).

The day before, I mentioned to Hal at breakfast that I feared our son David was going to ask me to say some words of wisdom to the group. So I asked Hal to help me think up some wise words beforehand. We thought a while, but both of us came up blank. Then I remembered the three words. Earlier, in a time of quiet meditation, I had asked God for three words that I could live out in my 80^th year of life, something to encourage and inspire. The words that popped into my brain (or were placed there) were courage, humor, and beauty. My spirit said YES. So these are my words for 2025-2026. I’m not sure just how I will live out these words; I’ll have to let you know later. But I decided that if asked for some wise words at my party, I could toss these into the air.

It was all such a happy time and I was given the gift of a family glad to celebrate the life of this 80-year-old lady. We ate well, got caught-up on news, laughed, celebrated, and had birthday-cobbler (my not being a fan of cake). I did not have to blow out 80 candles. But I warmed my heart to more than 80 words of memories, gratitude, and celebration, all gifts from them to me. I shared my three words and my daughter added two more for me to take into the year: grace and joy. I think it will be a good year. Maybe not always easy, but good.

I encourage you to take any chance you get to celebrate life and the ones you love. Maybe even let God give you some new words to live by. It certainly makes growing old easier. Joyful even.

 

Note: I promised in the title I would say something about sea otters. By the way, this has nothing to do with the rest of the blog on celebrations. It’s just that I thought you should know that this is National Sea Otter Awareness Week. In order to become more aware of sea otters, I did some Internet research. Among other facts, I learned that Alaskan sea otters often float out to sea on thin ice rafts. If two otters float out, each on a separate raft, they hold hands (paws) to stay together. That’s inspiring. Aren’t you glad you know?

Worn out, but waiting

St. Paul has some interesting metaphors for old age and old bodies in 2 Corinthians 5:1-9. He describes an old body as an old tent that is gradually being destroyed. I understand that metaphor. We have a two-person camping tent that is well used and very hospitable; it freely invites the rain to come in. I understand it also in terms of a body whose cloth is wrinkling, actually threadbare in parts. The patches don’t really disguise it.

In contrast to this old fragile tent, Paul tells us we will someday be clothed in a heavenly building. That’s a bit harder to imagine. How does one wear a house, no matter how beautiful? I guess it’s symbolic for comfortable and just right for us. Paul goes on to say that our groaning aching mortal bodies will be swallowed up by Life. That’s another metaphor than stretches the imagination. And finally, Paul says that dying means “being away from the body and at home with the Lord.”

I deal with metaphor through poetry. So here are some poems that play with these different images and somehow stoke my hope that, whatever happens, all will be well.

Mixed Metaphor
…we groan, longing to be clothed … with our heavenly building…. (2 Corinthians 5:2)

How can one be clothed with a building?
How can a tent or a mansion drape our bodies
like wool or linen? Does homeless mean naked?
A canvas tent tearing at the seams, breaking apart
with time. An eternal house in heaven,
built of sterner stuff. How do these fit our bodies?
Expose or adorn us?
How does one wear a house?


Worn-out
While we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed. (2 Corinthians 5:4)

Groans and burdens aptly describe old age.
My tent has become threadbare with time and trauma.
Soon nurses will expose me, wipe me, wash me
as I silently lament my nakedness.
No one wishes to be unclothed.
So I groan and long for home.
For my new body.
For my new clothes.


Perfect Fit
… to be clothed … with our heavenly dwelling. (2 Corinthians 5:4)

I look forward
to putting on my new house.
The outside walls, of some strong flexible fabric,
fold my body in heavenly comfort.
I don’t worry about curbside appeal
for the beauty is obvious.
The door is sturdy redwood
and always open.
A wall of windows lets in light
and more colors than I knew existed.
No need of artificial electricity,
and the plumbing works
though the pipes are invisible.
Living water is instantly and eternally available.
My house clothes me well, blesses my body.
A perfect fit.

Swallowed
… what is mortal [will] be swallowed up by life…. (2 Corinthians 5:4)

I can hardly imagine.
These skinny legs, wrinkled hands,
broken promises and disappointments
will one day face the wide open
mouth of Life.
One huge slurp and mortality dissolves.
Swallowed up.
What happens next?
Like I said, I can hardly imagine.

The Reason?
… as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. (2 Corinthians 5:6)

Is old age God’s way of preparing us for heaven?
As digestion becomes complicated
and we labor to take each breath,
as we go from cane to walker to wheelchair,
saying we’re not at home in our body
is understatement. Our bodies become strangers
and no prayer delivers from this dis-ease.
We’re ready to move on.


Now
Now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation. (2 Corinthians 6:2)

Good morning, world.
Here I am, ready to go,
ready to stay, ready to leap
over a wall, ready to find a shovel,
dig a while and crawl under that wall.
I’ll find a way.
I’ll be the way.
Today is the day.
With nothing on my schedule,
I know without a doubt
my time has come. 

Grandma's Tattoo

 I did it! I actually really did the audacious thing I’d dared myself to do. And I have bodily proof.

But let me back up. This month is a milestone in my life. I turn 80. I always thought 80 was really old. I’m now having to reconsider my criteria of what makes old. At any rate, it’s a special time. As I was thinking about how I could celebrate in a new way, to mark a new phase of life, the idea of getting a tattoo flew into my brain. Seemingly from nowhere. This has never been an ambition. In fact, I remember a time in my younger years when, to my mind, only Hell’s Angels and juvenile delinquents got tattoos. Scary tattoos at that.

Maybe it’s because my daughter and several of my granddaughters have recently gotten tattoos. And they are lovely—not scary at all. Works of art actually.

But at 80? That was Hal’s reaction when I passed the idea by him. He was not at all positive. Not because he thought it was wrong but because he thought it might be dangerous. Cause excessive bleeding. Bring on infection with life-changing consequences. Well—I might be exaggerating a little, but he definitely was dubious. But Hal is generous enough to respect me as I work through my own decisions.

I did a little research on tattoos and the elderly and found that it was not widely recommended, but that it depended on the older person involved. It might be fine if the person were in good health and had a fairly firm patch of skin on which to do the job. But even then, recovery might take more time. The mention of recovery gave me pause.

But I didn’t pause for long. I consulted with my granddaughter Alandra as she had several tattoos and would know how to go about it. And she would know who could do it safely and artistically. She responded with excitement, thought it was a cool 80^th birthday present, offered to find a place and then accompany me. Plus, she would get a tattoo at the same time. That really got me going.

It happened on Saturday, just a few days ago. We made a day of it. Alandra and her boyfriend Ben took Hal and me out to lunch at an Italian restaurant. Good food and great conversation, a time to get to know Ben better. Then a little later the same afternoon, Alandra picked me up and we drove to the home of a friend who is an experienced tattoo artist. She works from her living room. The atmosphere was peaceful and homey, the music soft.

We decided I should go first, to get the nervous part over quickly. The first task was to find the right place. I had already chosen the lower part of my left leg. I found a spot that was firm, with no varicose veins anywhere near. It took a while to find exactly the right position, but since it was “forever” that was important. Then came the actual tattooing. It hurt, but no more than I had imagined. Alandra got me reminiscing about how Hal and I got together and that helped pass the time.

It took about 40 minutes, and then it was Alandra’s turn. We had decided to get matching tattoos, which made the whole adventure that much more fun.

I chose a daisy and Alandra found just the right image. The daisy is one of my favorite flowers because it seems so happy. It’s beautiful in its own small way. Also, it’s rather ordinary and common. You can find wild daisies in so many places. That increases its value to me. The daisy was our wedding flower.

Long ago I named my vocation as a writer “to discover and express the grace of God hidden in the ordinariness of life.” The daisy symbolizes this.

Now I’m processing the whole adventure. Why did I want a tattoo in the first place? So that I could seem cool to my grandkids? No, not really, although that’s a fun consequence. To defy age, to say that turning 80 is no big deal? No, I don’t think so. I’m trying to embrace my age and the stage of life I happen to be in. I’m trying to see all the positives, although I’m not always successful. I have my bad days. My body complains more than it used to. But still, this is where I am and I am determined to make the best of it.

Part of why I did it is simply because I love beauty and art in its many expressions. And because I love daisies.

But more than that, I think it’s because I desired to do something totally new, to take a risk, to do something unlike what I’ve ever even considered doing before. “Sing a new song,” the psalmist says. In Christ, all things become new, the Apostle Paul tells us. God’s mercies are new every morning; that’s Jeremiah. New means refreshing, invigorating, creative. I’m asking the Spirit of God to do something new in my life this year, something that goes way beyond getting a tattoo.

We’re never too old for new.

Yes! to the movements of the Spirit!

Yes! to tattoos!

Thoughts on simplicity while shredding paper

As anyone who has attempted to de-clutter their life knows, simplicity can be complicated. It involves tackling not only the accumulation of stuff—those bins of college syllabi, old magazines, childhood treasures—but extra tasks we’ve taken on, organizations we’ve joined, the demands other people make on us, and all the clutter in our minds.

I remember one of the biggest decluttering jobs I ever undertook. It was over 25 years ago. After more than 75 years of service, the Friends Mission officially pulled out of Bolivia, leaving behind a national church of over 200 congregations with its own leadership, forms, and finances. It was time. Hal and I were the last missionaries on the field, so our task was deciding what to do with 75 years of accumulated mission files.

The first phase required that we decide what to keep, which basically came down to legal documents and records that had historical significance: correspondence, yearly financial reports, minutes, working agreements, and so on. Since most of this history took place before the internet and safe-keeping in the Cloud, that meant boxes of paper.

After setting aside the keeper documents, we had to deal with reams of minutia. We were overwhelmed with stuff, from multiple mimeographed copies of some class a missionary gave, to receipts for bottles of aspirin. We decided to shred the minutia, bag it, and let the municipal garbage service haul it off. That became our job description: sort, shred, bag.

As I sat on the rug shredding, many thoughts came to mind. I remembered that all these pieces of paper were related to real people and real situations. Long financial worksheets reminded me of the economic crisis of the 1980s when run-away inflation caused many of our Bolivian friends to lose their life-savings. The medical receipts brought forth images of Vicente and Arturo, Friends pastors who literally gave their lives in the service of the gospel.

I was impressed by the integrity all the receipts and reports represented. Every thing was accounted for and recorded. I also thought about all the trees that were sacrificed to maintain such integrity.

And I reflected on the values this task represented. I noted how one person’s garbage can be another person’s treasure. I observed how the bags of shredded paper we put in front of our gate almost always disappeared before the garbage truck arrived. Apparently a local industry was finding this stuff useful as packing material. It was cheaper than plastic bubbles. This made me feel a little better about the trees.

But mostly I reflected on the value of simplicity. It felt good. As the accumulation of paper lessoned, I felt relief. And today, too, whether it’s clearing out closets or the refrigerator, cleaning my desktop, simplifying my schedule, or re-ordering my priorities, the resulting sense of lightness and rightness makes it worth the effort.

I also reflected on the fact that, as mentioned above, simplicity is complicated. That’s a great oxymoron. None of this is easy or automatic. Simplicity is not simple. To let the stuff in my files or on my desk accumulate takes no effort whatsoever. Bringing order out of chaos does. It requires time, energy, organization, wisdom, and generosity, a willingness to give away what might be useful to someone else.

Recently as I was walking the labyrinth our Friends meeting has constructed in an adjacent field, I found myself repeating a simple prayer: “You are my life. You are my life.” It was as though God was reeling me in, bringing me back to the basic simplicity of soul from which all else flows. I found myself asking, with the psalmist, “Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire beside you” (Psalm 73).

I felt God reminding me that simplicity begins in the heart. It flows from a life oriented to the source of all life, from the deep knowledge that in God alone we “live and move and have our being.” That’s basic to Christianity, yet somehow I keep forgetting.

As I walked that path, I began to affirm, “Above all relationships—husband, children, grandchildren, friends—you are my life. Above all I possess or hold on to for security—my car, my books, my insurance policies, my investments—you are my life. Above all the intangibles I cling to—my health, my education, my achievements, my talents, my rights, my dreams—you are my life.” And I found myself praying, “Oh, Lord. Let it be. Change my heart. Keep reeling me in to yourself.”

I am sensing that only when I live from the simplicity of a life oriented to God can I move freely into the world as God’s agent of reconciliation and peace.

When will I start remembering this so much that I live by it? When will this attitude become a holy habit?

Prayer: “Take from our souls the strain and stress, and let our ordered lives confess the beauty of thy peace.” (John Greenlead Whittier)