For flexible fingers and white chocolate—thanks!

 Several years ago, as a spiritual exercise, I chose seven values that I wanted to describe my character. All these traits are faith statements, something to grow toward. The first value on my list is gratitude. Some days I find it easy to be grateful. Other days I don’t. Gratitude when times are hard or I’m feeling especially tired is something good to aim for.

Today I’m both dizzy and grateful. It’s thanksgiving week. It seems ironic that we give only one day of the 365 to officially designate as a day of thanksgiving, but at least our culture does that much. I’m aiming for 365 unofficial thankful days, although without the turkey and cranberry sauce.

I made a short list this morning of some specific things I’m grateful for at this time.

I’m grateful….

--for a grandson who wants to include his grandparents in his life. Friday night we gathered with some of his friends at his house to begin our annual Lord of the Rings marathon. Last night he invited us to come with other friends to see the movie Bonhoeffer. All these young adults seemed to enjoy including us grandparents. He comes to the retirement home to eat lunch with us every week. I don’t take any of that for granted.

--for a husband with flexible fingers. Hal suffers from trigger finger (and he doesn’t even own a gun). It’s a strange and painful condition where his fingers curl in toward the palm and he has to force them to unbend. He is currently recovering from an operation in his left hand that is already correcting the condition. We believe in prayer for healing. We’re also thankful for advances in modern medicine that bring about this type of miraculous healing.

--for white chocolate and SWP coffee. I have a chronic condition called vestibular migraine and two of the food triggers that intensify the dizziness are chocolate and coffee. Can you imagine? Two of my favorite foods! But, and this is the thankful part, I’ve discovered the exceptions to the rule: white chocolate and SWP coffee! I’ve found a German white chocolate that is just as good as the real stuff. And, better yet, SWP (Swiss Water Processed) decaf coffee also tastes like the real thing, because it is real coffee. My early morning comfort drink.

--for a quirky orchid plant that won’t give up. My son gave it to me for some occasion earlier this year, a tall plant with lovely purple orchids. It bloomed for several months, then the flowers dried up and fell off. But I continued to water it once a week and kept it in the bedroom, out of sight because it looked so strange: broad leaves low in the pot, and three long stems (12-18 inches) fastened to sticks. No blooms. But a week ago I noticed eight buds at the end of the long stems. Today two flowers bloom and six buds are about to open. I’ve put it back in the living room. Beautiful. I’m sure there’s a good moral lesson in this. Maybe I’ll think of it tomorrow.

--for the expectation of a wonderful thanksgiving dinner with eleven family members. I’m hosting it, but I don’t have to cook, and I can’t adequately express how grateful I am for that. Our retirement community puts on a marvelous thanksgiving spread and encourages us to invite family. One of the many perks of living here.

--for God’s sovereignty over history—world history, national events, and my own small story. I’m stirring up my faith to rest in the fact that God knows what’s happening in our nation at this time, and that no matter how disappointed or nervous I feel, I can trust that the Spirit of God is on the move and will watch over all his people.

In our Sunday school class this week, the convener told of an exercise that I’m going to try this year. At the end of each day, I’m to write in my journal one specific thing I’m grateful for in the last 24 hours. I will try to do this for a year (or at least until the end of this year). But the thing is, I can’t repeat anything. It has to be something new each day. That sounds challenging, which is what an exercise is supposed to be. I anticipate it will cause me to dig and find more things to be grateful for, things or experiences or people I wouldn’t normally consider as blessings. I plan to read back over my list at the end of every month. (The plan is to read the list after a year—but each month sounds like more fun.)

I’ll let you know how it turns out.

What are you grateful for? Be specific!

Pomp, circumstance, and soggy scrapbooks

 This past weekend has been jubilant and celebratory. Our granddaughter Alandra graduated from George Fox University as a mechanical engineer. That is, indeed, an accomplishment. The whole class of 2024 is to be congratulated for their courage and persistence. These young people entered their college experience in the fall of 2020 at the height of the COVID pandemic. What was to have been a long-awaited experience of collegial life—new friendships, classes, all the challenges involved in this phase of life—turned into a marathon of masking, six-feet apart fellowship, hand-sanitizing, and Zoom classes. Not at all what was expected. Rather than collegiality, isolation.

But they persisted and formed bonds that only those passing together through a hard time can experience. And the weekend celebrations were, indeed, jubilant, at time raucous.

We celebrated Alandra. For four days we celebrated: Thursday, Honors Convocation; Friday, Baccalaureate; Saturday, Graduation followed by a family meal; Sunday, reception with family, friends, food, and the sharing of memories. Our dear granddaughter beamed all weekend long. She has passed through one door and entered another, the door to the rest of her life.

Graduation day was drizzly, this being Oregon, but the skies held back during the ceremonies, not actually raining until afterward when people gathered in the Quad to congratulate the new grads. One special moment during the actual ceremony happened as Alandra came forward to accept her degree. The moderator paused to tell the crowd that she was a fifth-generation graduate of George Fox University. (He didn’t supply the details, that her parents graduated from GFU, as did her grandparents (us), her great-grandparents, and her great-great-grandmother. Quite a legacy.)

Alandra doesn’t know what’s ahead. She hasn’t yet applied for a job, and for the summer she is moving back home to live with her parents, a temporary situation she insists. She senses the need for a break, for a time to reflect on where she’s been and to wait on God for an indication of where she’s to go. That seems wise.

For me, last week didn’t begin on such a high note. On Monday morning the director of Resident Services phoned to let me know I needed to get right down to the basement storage units. Each resident has their own cubicle and ours was stuffed. She informed me that a pipe in the ceiling had sprung a leak that had affected a few of the many cubicles. Ours happened to be the most affected. She gave me a number to call in case any of our stuff was ruined and needed to be replaced. That was not a reassuring piece of information. So I hurried down.

Sure enough, wetness reigned. A tarp covered the top of the affected cubicles, funneling the water from the still leaking pipe into a large garbage container. It didn’t pour, but the steady drip drip was not music to my ears.

All our stuff was wet. Fortunately, we had stored most of it in plastic containers and the contents of these stayed dry—winter clothes, Christmas stuff, some documents and memorabilia, etc.) Our suitcases, camping gear, and bicycle pump were wet but not damaged. But I had stored some items in cardboard boxes, never thinking something like this would happen. These items were damaged. They included my high school and college scrapbooks, something I’m sentimental about. Also a shoebox of love letters from Hal from before we were married. Mushy stuff, now literally mushy.

The staff loaned us an empty cubicle where we could store our stuff until the situation was resolved. And I brought the scrapbooks upstairs, pried the pages apart and spread them on the floor, table, and chairs to dry. My soggy memories. I’ll be able to salvage some of it. It will now have an antique, wrinkly look, quite artistic (at least that’s what I’m telling myself).

In the college memories book, I found my graduation program (“The George Fox College Year of Jubilee Graduating Class of 1967”), some photos (sticky), and a newspaper article with me in my regalia looking quite pleased with myself.

I love the coincidence (a coming together—a co-happening—of two separate incidents) of the two graduations—my granddaughter’s and mine. There are differences—for one, 50 graduates at my ceremony and just under 500 at Alandra’s. But the goofy smiles and the sense of accomplishment and celebration—these are universal.

Hurrah for the celebration of landmarks!

Hurrah for the links between the generations!

Hurrah for good memories!

Hurrah for new beginnings!

God is good. Hurrah!

Reflections on the day after Christmas

 It’s the morning after Christmas. We’re at our daughter’s house and so far I’m the only one up. Outside the day is slowly dawning. It looks like clear skies today. Tomorrow we’ll head back home.

As a child, I remember being sad on the day after Christmas, thinking I would have to wait a whole long year for this magical time to come around again. Now that I’m on the far end of the age spectrum, I don’t feel that way. “Normal” life sounds good.

For children, and even for us adults if we’re honest, Christmas focuses on the presents around the tree. As a kid I would surreptitiously stalk out the packages, find the ones with my name attached, and try to guess what treasure might be inside. The heavier the package, the more promising the treasure.

As parents, and now grandparents, choosing the gifts and watching the kids open them on Christmas morning is more fun that getting the stuff ourselves. I admit to more than occasional qualms about materialism, thinking about kids around the world who would be overwhelmed with our abundance. But I somehow manage to stifle my qualms as we gather around the tree for the ceremonial distribution of the gifts.

I always love being at our daughter’s home. We’ve been part of the lives of our three grandchildren since they were infants and now they are all young adults. That makes for an entirely different Christmas dynamic. In addition to the pleasure of receiving and opening presents, they’ve all become generous givers, and that’s even more fun to witness.

I was a bit overwhelmed myself when we arrived last week and saw the mound of presents around the tree. I guess that’s natural when you have a family of five generous, creative, and loving people. But I did think that maybe they had outdone it this year. “Just relax, Mom,” Kristin told me, “and enjoy it.” Wise advice.

I was concerned, though, about the modesty of our own offerings. We’re in a different stage of life where most of our income goes into the retirement community fees (well worth it, I might add). Much of our creativity these days focuses on finding ways to live frugally, which is not a bad thing. That frugality affects the extravagance—or lack of it—of our giving. But, of course, it does not affect the extravagance of our loving. Or of our creativity.

I had found some bargains in the retirement community’s resale store, some vintage items I would have paid a lot for elsewhere. And I went through our store of precious stuff we need to pass on to the next generation and picked out some items for this season. And I also did some shopping down town. Nothing extravagant.

I need not have worried. As we sat around the living room on Christmas morning, read the Christmas story once again, and sang carols, we refocused on the greatest Gift of Christmas, the baby born to be King. We prayed together for the people of Gaza, Israel, Russia, and Ukraine. We asked that “Peace on earth, good will to all people” become a reality. And we took our time doing all this. A few tears were shed.

And then the opening of the gifts. Kristin’s family has a unique way of carrying out this ritual, with the intention of making the experience last as long as possible. We each had a large stocking and went around the circle, taking turns removing one item at a time. A bar of sweet-smelling soap, the inevitable Life Savers, a scarf, fuzzy socks, a practical box of hand-wipes, a candy cane, all accompanied by exclamations or, when appropriate, groans (the hand-wipes).

Then we went to the table for a traditional Christmas breakfast of coffee-cake and orange juice. Kristin imported the coffee-cake ritual from her growing-up years in our home. Similar recipe.

And then it was back to the living room for the opening of the presents, another event that proceeded slowly and in an orderly (but simultaneously chaotic) manner. The atmosphere was fun and very affectionate, with people more concerned about how the gifts they gave were received, which was usually with delight. Peter, the youngest among us at 14, chose and distributed the gifts, one at a time of course, so that everyone could concentrate on the one opening his/her present.

It was a hilarious and holy time, with lots of exclamations (“Oh Grandma! I love this!”), laughter, and affection. Hal and I were amazed at Kristin’s gift to us, a large sherpa blanket covered with photographs of us and the grandkids. I treasure it. (Each kid also got their own photographic blanket.)

So now it’s the day after Christmas. I’m hoping for some time playing games with the kids, talking with our daughter and son-in-law, maybe watching a movie together, eating of course, but everything low-key. Normal life (whatever that is). It’s been good.

I still struggle with juggling all this abundance and joy with what is happening in other parts of the world. I still need to be intentional in my focus on the Gift of Christ. I still need all the help I can get in living my life (my normal life) in light of the Gift which is for the whole world.

Let there be peace on earth, dear Lord. Show me how to be a part of what you are doing.

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.

Some awesomely radically random words

 That’s a strange title for one not given to exaggeration. I could have entitled this blog, “Conversations with my grandchildren.”

Teenage grandchildren talk differently than we do. Especially the boys. You all know that. They take perfectly fine English words and turn them on their heads or blow them up to more-than-life-size. Sometimes they merely trivialize them. As examples (“random samples,” I could say), I refer to the following conversations, carried on in two different dialects—theirs and mine. These have been slightly embellished for publication, but they are based on real comments made to me by my grandsons:

1.
That casserole was awesome, Grandma.
     Thank you. Are you OK?
Why wouldn’t I be?
     I just hope my casserole didn’t knock you to the ground in holy fear, what with being awesome and all.
Whatever.

2.
The concert was awesome. It totally knocked my socks off.
     I’m sorry. Actually, that’s better than losing a sock in the laundry. You hang on to the remaining sock, thinking its mate will show up. It never does. At least you lost both at once. Did your feet get cold?
No, Grandma. My feet didn’t get cold.

3.
It was so irritating, Grandma. His comments were totally random.
     Without clear intentionality?
What?
     Were his remarks completely lacking in cohesion and continuity, without reference to context?
What are you talking about?
     Nothing. Just some random questions.

4.
I like your blog, Grandma. It’s totally rad.
     Rad?
Radical. Totally.
     Interesting perception. I don’t see myself as a radical leftist. Actually, I’m more of a pacifist than a revolutionary.
I like your blog anyway

While I don’t get as many opportunities to travel in these years, I’m glad I still have the chance to learn new languages.

On being a liver

Peter, age seven, and Paige, ten, were playing Legos in my living room, while I sat on the couch pretending to read, but really listening to them build their imaginary world.

At one point Paige lifted her Lego horse and, as it leaped the castle wall, she asked Peter, “Can your guys do this?”

“No,” Peter responded. “Me and Tim don’t do stuff like that. We’re livers.”

Paige cocked her head and gave him that “you’re-crazy” look. “What?”

“Livers.” Peter insisted. “That means we’re normal guys. We don’t do stuff. We just live.”

I smiled and kept quiet. I connected their conversation with the old Martha/Mary division and the differences between people. Some people are do-ers, workers, those who accomplish great—or not-so-great—things for the world. They “work for the night is coming,” knowing that “their labors are not in vain.” Others prefer to sit at the feet of the Master, meditate, pray and just be. They focus on “abiding in the vine.”

This division is, of course, superficial. Most of us move back and forth on a continuum between doing stuff and quietly being present. While we may tend to one side, we’re both types, depending on circumstance and opportunity.

I’m a poet. The noun “poem” comes from the Greek “poema,” and its verb form means, ironically, “to do” or “to make.” The particular making of a poet results, sometimes, in a work of art. Work is on the doing stuff side, but art leans toward the livers of the world. The combination, “work of art,” brings them together in synchronicity.

This is beginning to sound as silly as my grandkids’ conversation.

It gives me something to think about now that I’m in the retirement years. I no longer have the energy to mount a steed and leap high walls. But I’m not yet ready to let go of having meaningful work and making a contribution to the society I’m a part of. I still need to feel I’ve accomplished something worthwhile at the end of the day.

Sometimes this is a problem. Like this morning. Like right now as I write this. I have a free open day ahead of me, something I used to long for. So I’m considering what to do with this gift. My options: visit a neighbor, paint some greeting cards, read my novel, edit a poetry collection, take a long walk, help Hal with filing, clean the refrigerator, take a small load of stuff to Goodwill, and so on. I miss having a big project and deadlines to meet. Correction: sometimes I miss those things. But having so many open choices to do things that won’t make much of a difference to the world makes me restless. I’m still learning how to be retired.

Whatever I decide to do today, I will take the time to remember that I’m basically just a liver.

And that’s good.